Gifted to this year's college graduates
Author: Hu Shi
In the past two weeks, universities everywhere have graduated shifts, and many graduates have left school to start their adult careers. The life of students is a life of special preferential treatment, may be childish, may be noisy, society can tolerate them, not strictly hold them responsible for their behavior. Now they have to prop up their shoulders to carry their own burdens. In this most urgent year of national disaster, their burden is really not light! We wish them success, but we also can't bear not to give them a few words of farewell based on our own experience - although it may not be a life-saving hair, maybe it is a self-defense tip!
After you graduate, there are only a few paths to follow: a very small number of people can continue to do academic research in domestic or foreign research institutes; a small number of people can find considerable careers; in addition, there are three ways to become an official, run a party, and revolution; in addition, they are living in the family or unemployed. The first way to continue to study, we can not discuss. Those who take the other paths cannot be without the danger of depravity. There are many ways of falling, and in summary, there are about two main categories:
The first is that it is easy to abandon the desire for knowledge in the student age. When you go to the actual society, you often use what you have learned, often what you have learned is useless, and you can often not use your knowledge at all, but you can eat and mix with officials. In this environment, even those who have always had the determination to seek knowledge and learning cannot help but be discouraged and lazy, and gradually cool down the desire to seek knowledge. Moreover, learning requires considerable equipment; books, laboratories, teachers and friends, and leisure work are not easy for a person who usually has to support his family. Without an environment of learning, who can blame us for abandoning learning?
The second is the pursuit of the ideal life that is easy to abandon when students are students. When young people first come into contact with a cold society, they are prone to feel that their ideals and facts are too far apart, and they are prone to pessimism and disappointment. The ideal of life that has been embraced for many years, the enthusiasm for transformation, and the courage to struggle, at this time, it seems that it is not the same thing at all. In that intense social fire, the small individual often fails to withstand the long-term tempering and is dissolved, and a little noble ideal is soon disillusioned. Those who come with the dream of transforming society often abandon their armor and drag their soldiers, or become prisoners of the evil forces. In that captive prison, you think back to all the idealism of that youthful and heroic era, as if you have become a self-mistaken dream! From then on, you are willing to give up the pursuit of an ideal life and be willing to be a submissive citizen of ready-made society.
To defend against the fall of these two aspects, on the one hand, we must maintain our desire for knowledge, and on the other hand, we must maintain our pursuit of an ideal life. What's the best way to do it? From my personal observation and experience, there are three self-defense prescriptions that are worth trying.
The first square has only one sentence: "Always look for one or two problems worth studying!" "The problem is the ancestor of knowledge; all knowledge in ancient and modern times has been produced and accumulated because of the need to answer questions,—— to answer practical or theoretical difficulties. The so-called "seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge" is actually just a curiosity to pursue the solution of a certain problem, but because the nature of that problem does not have to be directly applied, people feel that this is a "do nothing" quest for knowledge. After we left the school, we left the environment of doing learning, and if there were no two difficult questions worth answering in our minds, it would be difficult to continue to maintain the enthusiasm for pursuing knowledge. However, if you have a really interesting problem to tease you to think about him every day, to lure you to solve him every day, to provoke and laugh at you every day, you have no choice but to ,—— at this time, you will be in love with a woman crazy, you can't sit down, you can't sleep restlessly, you have to steal work to accompany her, and you have to go on a diet to seduce her when you have no money. Without books, you will become a seller to buy books privately; without instruments, you will take clothes to buy instruments; without teachers and friends, you will travel thousands of miles to find teachers and friends. As long as you can always have difficult problems to force you to use your brain, you will naturally maintain the development of your interest in learning, even in the poorest intellectual environment, you will slowly gather a small library, or set up a small laboratory. That's why I say: The first thing to look for is to find a problem, and the day when there is no problem in your mind is when your intellectual life will come to an end! The ancients said, "Those who are prosperous for king Wen are also the people." The man of Ruofu Haojie, although there is no King Wen Yuxing. "Imagine how many books Galieo and Newton have? How many instruments are there? They just have problems. When they have a question, they build their own instruments to answer their questions. People who have no problems will not use books in the library, and they will not find anything in the laboratory.
The second formula also has only one sentence: "There is always a need to develop a little non-professional interest." "After leaving school, everyone always has to find a career to eat. But the career you have found may not be what you have learned, or it may not be what you like, or what you have learned is really not close to your disposition. In this situation, the work often becomes hard work, and there is no interest. To do a work that is not "near to sex and within the power of force" for the sake of subsistence makes it difficult to maintain an interest in knowledge and the idealism of life. The best remedy is to develop more legitimate interests and activities outside of the profession. A person should have his profession, and he should have his non-professional naughty children, which can be called amateur activities. Whatever a man does in his spare time is his leisure activity. Often his leisure activities are more important than his profession, because a person's future often depends on how he uses his leisure time. He uses his leisure to play horses, and he becomes a gambler; you use your leisure to do social service, you may become a social reformer; or you use your leisure to study history, you may become a historian. Your leisure time is often set for your life. Two English philosophers of the nineteenth century, J.S. Mill, served all his life as secretary of the East India Company, but his amateur work gave him a high place in the history of philosophy, economics, and political thought; Spencer was a surveying engineer, yet his amateur work made him an important center of world thought in the late pre-century. There was hardly a single person who had asked about gu laicheng university who did not make good use of his leisure time. Especially in this unorthodox Chinese society, occupation is not easy to suit our temperament, and if we want to live without suffering or degeneration, we can only develop amateur interests in many ways, so that our spirit can be pinned on and our remaining energy can be exerted. With this beloved die-hard, you won't feel bored doing six hours of wiping the table, because you know that after wiping the table at six o'clock, you can go home and do your chemistry research, or finish your large landscape, or write your novels and operas, or continue your historical evidence, or do your social reform cause. With this kind of satisfactory activity, life will not be dull, and the spirit will not be bored.
The third square also has only one sentence: "You always have to have a little faith." "We were born in this unfortunate era, and what we see in our eyes and hear in our ears is nothing more than pessimism and disappointment. Especially those of you who graduated at this age, seeing your own country and nation sink to this step, seeing that the world is only a world of power, looking at the sky as if you can't see a glimmer of light,—— in this year, it is already a blessing, how can you still hope to maintain a little inner calm and ideal confidence? I say to you: This is the time for us to cultivate our faith! As long as we have faith, we still have salvation. The ancients said, "Faith can move mountains." He also said, "As long as the work is deep, the pig iron is ground into an embroidery needle." "Don't you believe it? When Napoleon's army conquered Prussia and occupied Berlin, a poor professor named Fichte exhorted his people every day in the lecture hall to have faith, to believe that their people had a special mission of the world and that they were bound to be revived. At the time of Fichte's death (1814), no one could have predicted when the unified German Empire would be realized. However, within fifty years, the new unified German Empire was realized.
The strength and weakness of a country are not accidental, and neither can escape the iron law of cause and effect. The suffering and shame we suffer today are only the consequences of the evil causes of the past. If we want to reap the good fruits of the future, we must strive to plant new causes for the present. Grain by grain, there will be a full house of harvest, this is the confidence we should have today.
We must be convinced that today's failures are due to past inexperiencies.
We must be convinced that today's efforts will lead to a great harvest in the future
There is a saying in the Buddhist scriptures: "Blessings do not donate." Tang donation is lost in vain, we should also say: "Meritorious Tang donation!" "No effort is lost in vain. When we can't see the unexpected, when we can't see the unthinkable direction, you see! The seeds you have planted have already taken root and blossomed!
Don't you believe it? After France was defeated by Prussia, it cut off two provinces and lost half a million Fro. At this time, there was a hard-working scientist Pasteur who spent his days in his laboratory doing his chemical experiments and microbiological research. He was a most patriotic man, yet he was convinced that only science could save the country. He proved three scientific problems with his life's energy: (1) each fermentation effect is due to the development of a microorganism; (2) every infectious disease is due to the development of a microorganism in the organism; (3) the microbacterium of an infectious disease, under special culture, can reduce the virulence and make it change from a germ to a disease-proof seedling. On the surface, these three issues do not seem to have much to do with the great cause of national salvation. However, as evidenced by the first question, Pasteur set out a new law for making vinegar wine, which reduced the country's wine and vinegar industry from great losses every year. As evidenced by the second question, Pasteur taught the silk industry throughout the country how to choose seeds to prevent disease, to teach the livestock farmers of the country how to prevent the plague of cattle and sheep, and to teach the medical community around the world how to pay attention to disinfection to reduce the mortality rate of non-surgical procedures. Proved by the third question, Pasteur invented the cure for the spleen fever of livestock, which wiped out the great loss of twenty million Fro every year for the French peasants; and invented the treatment of mad dog bite poison, which saved countless lives. So the British scientist Huxley praised Pasteur's exploits in the Royal Society: "France has given Germany half a million Fro, and Mr. Pasteur's single achievements in science are enough to pay off this reparation." ”
Pasteur had great confidence in science, so he refused to abandon his microscope and laboratory when the country was humiliated. He never wanted to be able to repay the reparations of half a million Fro under his microscope, but when he could not see it, he had already reaped the miracle of scientific salvation.
Friends, when you are most pessimistic and disappointed, that is when you must muster up strong faith. Be convinced that there is no wasted effort in the world. Success does not have to be in me, and the skill must not be donated.
(Twenty-one, six, twenty-seven nights)