The question of "why should I read" seems very simple, but there is a big thing in it. Mr. Hu Shi has been delivering this speech for nearly a hundred years, but after reading it through, he still feels kind and feels whipped into it.
Hu Shi: Why read
A great philosopher made a "Reading Music", talking about the benefits of reading, he said: "There are thousands of bells in the book, there is a golden house in the book, and there is a yan ruyu in the book." This means that after reading books, you can become a high official, get Houlu, you can not live in a thatched house, and you can marry a young and beautiful wife (laughter from the audience). When you heard this, you laughed, and it showed that you were not very satisfied with what the philosopher had said. Now I will talk about other reasons why I want to read.
Why read? There are three things to say:
First, because books are a record of intellectual knowledge and experience that have been known in the past, we read books to accept this human heritage;
Second, read for the sake of reading, and after reading books, you can read more;
Third, reading can help us solve difficulties, cope with the environment, and have access to sources of intellectual material.
As soon as I stepped through the door of the YMCA, I saw many slogans about reading. Why Read? Probably you all know it after reading these slogans, and now I will talk about the above three points in more detail.
01
Why read?
First, because the book represents the intellectual heritage passed down to us by the ancestors of mankind, we accept this heritage, and on this basis, we can continue to shine and build a higher, deeper and greater intellect on this basis. The reason why human beings are different from other animals is because they have language and writing, which can transmit wisdom to others, and then to future generations, and then with the invention of printing, many books and newspapers have been printed.
The human brain is very large, unlike the monkey, people can create language, and later go further and have words, and can carve woodcuts, so the greatest contribution of people is the wisdom and experience of the past, so that future generations can save a lot of brain power. When African barbarians met deer in the wilderness, they drew a man and a deer as a substitute for the letter, and told the people behind them not to chase. But what is the use of passing on knowledge and experience to children and grandchildren? This is useful because it is a good lesson for previous generations.
At present, all kinds of subjects in schools, such as physics, chemistry, history, etc., are compiled according to the intellectual knowledge that has progressed over thousands of years, and one subject is taught in one year, two years, or three years. From elementary school, middle school, and university graduation, the education received in these sixteen years represents the intellectual knowledge and experience of our ancestors over thousands of years. The so-called evolution is to save people labor, although the bee can build nests, can invent, but there is only this wisdom handed down, did not continue to reform and improve, to cope with the environment, did not do extra further work.
As for man, if he cannot achieve his goal, he will seek progress again, and the intellectual knowledge and experience of previous people will be used as a reference. Wouldn't it be too much trouble for an individual to learn everything from scratch without using the wisdom of the past? Therefore, with this intellectual legacy, man can start a family on his own, he can shorten his work, and he can have spare energy to do other things.
02
Reading for the sake of reading
Reading is not so easy a thing, you can't read books without reading, you have to be able to read more books. Like wearing glasses, small can be enlarged, confused can be seen clearly, far can become close. You also need to wear glasses when reading. The better the glasses, the greater the understanding of reading. Wang Anshi once said to Zeng Zigu: "Reading the Bible is not enough to know the Bible." Therefore, he read everything about the Materia Medica, the Inner Scriptures, and the novels, so that he could understand the Scriptures a little. Wang Anshi said: "To know and then read." ”
Notice to you that he did not speak of reading to know, but said, First to know and then to read. Of course, reading can expand knowledge, but the more knowledge is expanded, the greater the ability to read, which is the meaning of "reading for the sake of reading".
Let me give you an example of the Book of Verses. Former scholars regarded the Book of Poetry as a holy book of "beauty" and "thorns", and the more they talked about it, the more incomprehensible they became. Now people should prepare a few more good glasses, anthropological glasses, archaeology glasses, literary glasses, literary glasses. The more glasses the better, the more refined the better. For example, "There are dead deer in the wild, and white grass is wrapped in it." If we know that it is more folklore, we can know that it is common to beat wild beasts and send them to women's homes to propose marriage. Another example is "Bell Drum Music, Qin Se Youzhi", there is no need to say anything about King Wen Taiji, but it can only be seen as a young man playing music and singing under the woman's door or window, which is also a very common thing.
From the perspective of grammar, like the "Yu" characters of "Son of Yugui", "Yellow Bird Yu Fei", and "Phoenix Yu Fei" in the Book of Poetry, in addition, there are hundreds of "Dimensional" characters in the Book of Poetry, as well as many "auxiliary words" and "words", these are all useful and meaningless virtual words, but previous people have never paid attention to this. If these words are not understood, the Book of Verses cannot be understood. In the book "Mozi", there is a bit of optics, mechanics, and a bit of economics. But you have to understand optics in order to understand the light that Mozi says; you have to understand all kinds of knowledge in order to understand some of the most difficult sentences in Mozi.
In short, reading is to read, and reading more books can be read.
The biggest problem is that I am afraid of reading, afraid of reading difficult books. The more difficult books we have to conquer them, and use them as our slaves or guides, so that we can overthrow difficult books, which is our "reading pleasure". If we have basic scientific knowledge, then we can read books. I repeat, the purpose of reading is to read, and the more you read, the more you can read.
03
Reading can help solve difficulties,
Coping with the environment and supplying ideological materials
Knowledge is the source of intellectual material.
Thought can be divided into five steps. The origin of thought is big question. You don't have to think about eating and, but in the environment of the three forks of the road and the cross street, it is difficult. Going east or west, doing this or that, when there are difficulties, there are thoughts.
The second step is to clarify the problem and at what point the difficulty lies.
The third step is to think about how to solve it, and this step, as the saying goes, is called an idea. But there are too many ideas, all of which cannot be adopted, and must be chosen. But if there are too few ideas, or no ideas at all, then there is no way.
The fourth step is to choose a hypothetical workaround. To think about whether this method can be solved, if not, then, then, another; if so, it is enough. This is like opening a lock, this key can not be opened, just change one; if it is possible to open, then the problem is solved.
The fifth step is to confirm. All organized thought must go through these five steps, or it cannot escape these five stages. Scientists want to solve problems, detectives want to detect cases, and they go through these five steps.
Of these five steps, the third step is the most important key. The problem is current, it's all about Ideas. Where did the idea come from? From learned experience. People without intellect, when they see the problem, stare blankly, scratch their ears and scratch their cheeks, and do not have a single idea. People who are rich in learning, seeing difficult problems, have an idea in the east and an idea in the west, squeeze up, pour up, and ask you to hire. Reading is a record of past intellectual and academic experience, and intellectual learning experience is to be used at this time, the so-called raising of the army for a thousand days, used in a dynasty. Otherwise, there will be no knowledge, and when you encounter difficulties, you will be confused.
For example, Darwin studied the phenomenon of biological change for decades, but could not think of a principle to integrate his material. Later, I stumbled upon Malthus's "Theory of Population", saying that the population is doubled according to the geometric progression, and the grain is increased according to the mathematical progression, Darwin studied this principle, and suddenly touched the machine, applied this principle to biology, and created the theory of natural selection. After reading the book of economics, you can get a solution to the difficult problem of biology, which is the function of reading. The ancients said, "It is beneficial to open the book," which is exactly what it means. Reading is not just for the sake of diplomas, but only because books can provide academic knowledge, help us solve difficulties, and help us think.
For example, in the past, people thought that the earth was the center of the world, but later the astronomer Copernicus advocated that the sun was the center of the world and traveled around the earth. According to Russell, Copernicus explained this because the Greeks had already spoken it; if greece had not had it, it would have been even less likely that anyone would dare to say it. This is also the benefit of reading.
There was an old bookstore that printed an old novel called "Awakening to the Marriage" and asked me to write the preface. This book was written by Western Zhou Sheng, and it was printed and hidden in my house for six years, and I have not yet tested who Western Zhou Sheng is. This novel talks about the marriage problem, and its content is as follows: there is a good wife, somehow, and then suddenly become bad, the author does not mention the solution, nor does he think that it can be divorced, only that it is a sin in the past life, because in the past life the man abused the woman, the woman reincarnated and changed, and the oppressor became the oppressed. This kind of story of sin in a previous life, first falling in love, and then suddenly changing, I seem to have seen it somewhere. Later, I suddenly remembered that there was a note similar to this in the book "Liaozhai", which also talked about a woman, how she loved her husband at first, and then how she became a murderous wife, and I thought that this novel was probably made by Pu Liuxian or Pu Liuxian's friend. Last year I saw a miscellaneous book, which also said that Pu Liuxian had done it, but there was not much evidence. I found evidence in Beijing this year.
This can explain the second point I just said, that reading can help reading, and it can also explain the third point, that is, reading can provide a source of ideas. If you have no idea at the beginning, you will be helpless when you encounter difficulties, so reading can solve the problem, that is, military, political, financial, ideological and other problems, you can also solve, this is the use of reading.
I have a friend who once leaned over a lamp to read a novel, and the lamp was filled with oil, but it was not bright because the wick was short. So he thought of a story in "Aesop's Fables", saying that an old crow wanted to drink the water in the bottle, because the bottle was too small to get water, it was thrown into the bottle, the water came up, this friend knew chemistry, so he added water to the lamp, the oil was touched by the wick, which was to see "Aesop's Fables" to help him read the novel. Reading is like using soldiers, raising soldiers to be able to use them, otherwise even if there are 100,000 and 200,000 soldiers, it is useless, do we have to wait for them to "mutiny"?
As for "what books to read," the next time Mr. Chen Zhongfan wants to give a speech, I will also talk about it incidentally today. I went from being five to forty and reading books for thirty-five years. I can say very sincerely that old Chinese books cannot stand up to reading. China has five thousand years of culture, and four books are already full of sweat and cattle. How many books should be read, I have also thought about. Among them are well-organized and systematic works of careful structure, and I am afraid that in twenty-five hundred years there have been only half a dozen. "Set" is a grocery store, "History" and "Sub" are still grocery stores. As for the "scriptures," they are only grocery stores, and when it comes to content, it can be said that there is nothing that can help us improve our morality and enhance our knowledge.
Chinese books are not enough to read, we must open up another way of life, to open up colonies, this way of life, that is, every young person must be proficient in at least one foreign language. Reading outside the Chinese to read that there is pleasure without suffering, to be able to do this, there will be endless fun in the book. I hope that everyone will not be afraid to read, at first it is true to consult the dictionary, but if you can work hard next year and continue to do it continuously, then you will be able to open up a paradise in one or two years, and you are afraid that the desire for knowledge is too big to read. I am finally a big brother, and today I will give you this parting advice based on my experience in reading for the past thirty-five years.
Article Source:
This article is Hu Shi's speech at the Shanghai Youth Association on November 6, 1930.
Originally published in Modern Students from December 1930 to February 1931
Vol. 1, Issues 3 and 5
Focus on education | It is to pay attention to China's future