Break up suggestion

This is the 44th article of Xu 6569 Xiao Nengxiong's 365th writing plan. )

In today's writing class, I assigned a topic related to information to the students. After reading Hu Shi's messages to graduates, the students felt a lot, which are arranged as follows. )

First, Hu Shi's three messages to graduates:

Graduate: You are leaving your alma mater now. I have nothing to give you but a word.

This sentence is: "Don't give up learning." Maybe a large part of my previous homework was done for this diploma. From now on, you can study freely according to your own wishes. While in the prime of life, strive to do a specialized knowledge. Teenagers are gone forever, and when their energy fails, it is too late to learn again. Just for the sake of food, learning will never disappoint people. Eat without studying. After three to five years, you will all be eliminated by backward teenagers. I'm afraid it will be too late to do some more learning to remedy it.

Some people say: "After going out to work, life problems need to be solved urgently. How can we have time to study?" ? Even if you want to learn, how can you learn without a library and a laboratory? "

I want to say to you: those who wait until there is a library will not study.

Anyone who can't do research until there is a laboratory will stop doing research when there is a laboratory. When you make up your mind to study a problem, you will naturally go on a diet and buy books, and you will naturally try to set up instruments.

As for time, it is not a problem. Darwin has been ill all his life, so he can't do more work. He can only work at one o'clock every day. Look at his grades! Spend one o'clock every day reading ten pages of useful books, and you can read more than 3600 pages every year; 30 years of reading 1 1 ten thousand pages.

Gentlemen, 1 1 ten thousand pages of books can make you a scholar. However, you spend an hour reading three tabloids every day; Four rounds of mahjong will take you half an hour. Reading tabloids? Or playing mahjong? Or try to be a scholar? It's your choice!

Ibsen said, "Your greatest responsibility is to cast your materials into utensils."

Learning is a casting tool. To give up learning is to destroy yourself.

Farewell! Your alma mater will see what you will be like in ten years.

65438+June 25th, 2008

-farewell message to 193 1 graduates of philosophy department of Peking University.

Hu Shi

In a university, the philosophy department should be the least fashionable department with the least number of students. But there have always been many students in the philosophy department of Peking University, which is something I am often surprised by. I often wonder what so many students should do after graduation. What can you do?

Now you are all going to graduate. Naturally, you are also thinking, "What should we do? What can we do? "

In my humble opinion, the purpose of philosophy department should not ask you to read philosophy books, nor should it teach you to accept a certain school of philosophy. A Zen monk once said, "Buddhism came to the East only to seek a person who is not confused." I want to borrow this sentence: "The purpose of philosophy professor is only to cultivate a few people who are not confused."

What should you do? You should try to be a person who is not confused.

Can you be a person who is not confused? This is all by our own efforts. If you are not very confident, I have a small magic weapon for you as a self-defense tool. There are only four words in this magic weapon: "Show me the evidence!"

Here is another trick, pretending to be the use of this little magic weapon: "There is no evidence, only hanging; Insufficient evidence can only be assumed and cannot be arbitrary; It must be confirmed before it can be counted as a conclusion. "

You must be able to avoid being deceived by others before you can hope to guide others not to be tempted.

Friends, take care!

(Hu Shi was then Dean of Peking University College of Humanities)

Hu Shi sent a message to graduates: "I want to say these three words in my heart: find problems, cultivate amateur interests, and have confidence." Such a suggestion still seems very pertinent now.

1June 2, 932, that is, more than half a year after the Japanese occupation of the three northeastern provinces, Hu Shi, then president of Peking University College of Literature, delivered a speech entitled "Gifts for this year's college graduates" (originally published on1July 3, 932).

Independent Review No.7, included in the fourth volume of Hu Cun, summarizes the way out for young students.

In the past week or two, universities all over the country have graduation classes, and many graduates have left school to start their adult lives.

Student's life is a privileged life, so we might as well be naive and noisy. Society can indulge them and refuse to strictly hold them responsible for their actions. Now, they have to shoulder their own burdens. In the most critical year of this national disaster, their burden is really not light! We wish them success, but at the same time we don't have the heart to give them a few farewell words based on our own experience. Although it may not be a life-saving hair, it may be a self-defense tip!

After you graduate, there are only a few ways to go: a few people can continue to do academic research in domestic or foreign research institutes, and a few people can find a considerable career. There are three other ways: being an official, running a party and revolution. Moreover, whether to enjoy happiness at home or unemployment.

Those who walk the rest of the road can't live without the danger of falling. There are many ways to fall. To sum up, there are probably two categories: first, it is easy to abandon the desire for knowledge when you are a student. When you come to the real world, what you have learned is often useless, and what you have learned is often useless. Often you don't need to study at all, but you can muddle along and be an official. In this environment, even people who have been eager for knowledge and learning can't help but lose heart and gradually cool their desire for knowledge. Second, it is easy to abandon students' pursuit of ideal life. When teenagers come into contact with the cold society for the first time, it is easy to feel that their ideals are far from the facts, and they are easy to be pessimistic and disappointed. The ideal of life, the enthusiasm for transformation and the courage to struggle that have been cherished for many years seem completely different at this time. In that fierce social fire, a small individual often melts after a long period of tempering, and a lofty ideal is quickly disillusioned. People who come with the dream of transforming society often abandon their armor or become prisoners of evil forces. When you were in that prison, it was as if all the idealism of that youth had become a dream of self-error! From then on, you are willing to give up the pursuit of an ideal life.

To guard against these two depravities, we must keep our thirst for knowledge and the pursuit of life. What's a good prescription? According to my personal observation and experience, there are three "prescriptions" for self-defense that are worth trying.

The first prescription has only one sentence: "You always have to find one or two problems worth studying!" After leaving school, we left the learning environment. Without one or two questions worth answering hovering in our minds, it is difficult for us to keep our enthusiasm for learning and asking questions. However, if you have a really interesting problem for you to think about, seduce you to solve it every day, and urge you to do nothing about it every day, you will be as crazy as falling in love with a woman, unable to sit still and sleep, stealing time to accompany her when you have no time, and shrinking clothes and dieting to please her when you have no money.

The second prescription has only one sentence: "You must cultivate more non-professional interests." After leaving school, everyone always looks for a job to eat. However, the job you find may not be what you learned, what you like, or what you learned is not close to your temperament. In this case, work often becomes a chore and you don't feel interested.

A person should have his occupation and his non-professional things, which can be called amateur activities. Usually his spare-time activities are more important than his career, because a person's achievements often depend on how he uses his leisure time. He used his spare time to play mahjong and became a gambler. If you use your leisure time to do social service, you may become a social reformer; Or if you study history in your spare time, you may become a historian. Your leisure often determines your life.

The third prescription has only one sentence: "You should have a little confidence." The ancients said: "When you are sincere, the stone is open." He added, "As long as you work hard, pig iron will also be ground into embroidery needles." Don't you believe it? When Napoleon's army conquered Prussia and occupied Berlin, a professor named Fichte advised his people to have confidence that their nation had a special mission in the world and would surely revive. When Fichte died, no one could predict when the German unified empire would be realized. However, less than 50 years later, the newly unified German Empire was actually realized.

My friends, when you are most pessimistic and disappointed, it is the time when you must summon up strong confidence. You should believe that there is no futile effort. I don't have to succeed, but I don't have to donate my skills.

(Two years later, Hu Shi gave a speech to the graduates. Answered a student's question, supplemented the content of the previous graduation speech, and put forward the fourth prescription. )

The university will graduate again this year. Two days ago, I attended the graduation ceremonies of two universities in Beiping, and these three words are all I want to say: find problems, cultivate interest, and have confidence.

However, I remember that after the article was published two years ago, a college graduate wrote and said, "Hu!

Sir, you are wrong. After graduation, we were unemployed! How can we talk about research if we can't solve the problem of eating? How can you talk about amateurs if you can't find a job? After studying for more than ten years, I still can't paste my mouth in the end. How can I have confidence? So all three of your prescriptions are useless! "

For such a disappointed graduate, I would like to contribute the fourth prescription: "You must reflect on yourself first: don't blame others, let alone society." You have to think about it: why is the same diploma invalid for others to take the exam? Or is it just because others have access and assistance and you don't? Or is it because others have learned skills and you haven't? Why are they all called "universities"? Why is his school diploma valuable and your alma mater's diploma worthless? Or is it just because society only asks the name but not the truth? Or is it because your school is unqualified?

We understand that today's China society can no longer deceive people with a college diploma. People who have a diploma and can't find a job should reflect on themselves: what society needs is talent, skills and knowledge, and am I a talent after all? Once upon a time, at school, I chose easy classes, supported perfunctory teachers, knocked down strict teachers, skipped classes and took exams. All kinds of lazy and slippery means have lost their function here. Under this new strict employment standard, the diploma obtained by lazy cheating turned out to be just a piece of waste paper. Even if you can find a job for a while and get it for a few hours, it will be unreliable after all, and will eventually be squeezed out by outstanding talents. Breaking the "iron rice bowl" is not the strength of my father and brother, nor the recommendation of a rich principal, nor the reference of a class reunion, but the real study and exercise. Being able to do this is introspection. Only if you can reflect on yourself in this way can you hope to save yourself.

How can unemployed people save themselves after graduation? There is no other way but to redouble our efforts and learn more reliable skills by ourselves. Young people in their twenties can make progress as long as they can work hard. This society is most in need of talents. A little effort will often be rewarded ten times and a hundred times, and a little achievement will often get full voice. The social reward is far more than what we deserve, and it can't be recognized by the society without real pay. People who don't have job opportunities can only hope to get a job if they train themselves extra hard, while those who have job opportunities feel that the treatment is too poor and their status is low, and only extra efforts can improve their status by grades. Only blame yourself is the only way, because only your own efforts are the most reliable.

Message from Peking University President Jiang Menglin to Peking University Graduates in the 1920s and 1930s;

You have left school. I'm afraid it's more difficult to gain a foothold in society than to study in school. If you are not determined to struggle, your previous education will be enough to increase the misery of your life, or turn it into a tool of depravity. This is Zhu

You should pay special attention. The success of a career requires long-term efforts-the price of success, and there are many thorny roads to find the road to prosperity. Ambition is to cut thorns and axes, and struggle is labor. Never expect to achieve the greatest success with the least labor.

Jiang Menglin is an early student of President Cai Yuanpei. Later, he went to the United States to study and obtained a doctorate in education from Columbia University. His tutor is Dewey. After returning to China, he served as the general manager of Peking University for a long time and often handled administrative affairs on his behalf. He is Cai Yuanpei's right-hand man in running a school. Fu Sinian once commented: "Jiang Menglin's personality charm is not as good as Cai Yuanpei's and his knowledge is not as good as Hu Shizhi's, but he is also smarter than Mr. Cai and Mr. Hu." Jiang Menglin also added a joke: "So they are heroes of Peking University, and we are just kung fu dogs of Peking University."