Zhou Peiyuan
Self-study is a way for us to cultivate talents today.
what is success? People have a habit of thinking that through self-study, they can get into universities and graduate students, become scientists, engineers, write books and publish works. We say that this can be regarded as success, but "success" can not be limited to this range. From the fact that many young people have made achievements in self-study, we believe that anyone who becomes an expert in his job through study and practice; Those who sum up the systematic experience of work from rich practice make the learning results exceed the general level; All work and labor have made a certain contribution to society, which can be called self-taught.
self-study, what to learn? I think there are two categories: basic knowledge and professional knowledge. There are many kinds of professional knowledge, but we must learn the basic knowledge well before we can learn it well. If you learn professional knowledge without laying a good foundation, you may not learn it; Even learning a little professional knowledge will not consolidate. In order to study and delve into professional knowledge, it is necessary to learn basic knowledge well. The so-called basic knowledge roughly refers to the knowledge of arts and sciences equivalent to middle school.
Today, there is a bad atmosphere of "valuing reason over literature" in our society. To carry out the four modernizations, of course, science and technology are needed, but liberal arts can't be neglected. We should attach equal importance to the knowledge of arts and sciences. They are mutually supportive and useful. Especially in the middle school education stage, they are all foundations, and they should all learn well. Without literature, they can't learn science well. Broadly speaking, "literature" is liberal arts, including social sciences. If a person knows too little about liberal arts and social sciences, such as Chinese, history, geography, politics, economy, law and so on, his "science" study will not play much role. Comrade Su Buqing, president of Fudan University in Shanghai and a famous mathematician, said in his speech at the Chinese teaching research conference held in Shanghai at the end of the year before last. If Fudan University is allowed to enroll students separately, my opinion is that the Chinese should be tested first in the first class, and then the papers will be judged after the exam. If you fail, don't take the following homework. You can't do Chinese, and you can't learn anything else. This is what a famous mathematician said, which I think is very reasonable.
Why does mastering Chinese knowledge occupy such an important position in learning? The reason is simple. In all walks of life in China's socialist construction, we need to sum up experience, report work, exchange results, exchange ideas, discuss and learn from each other. Whether oral or written, we should not only be able to understand other people's words, articles or reports written by others, but also be able to explain or write our own opinions clearly, so that others can understand what we say and what we write, so we should work hard on grammar and rhetoric. I remember that at the beginning of liberation, our party attached great importance to Chinese education. In order to educate the broad masses of people and cadres to master the necessary knowledge of Chinese, People's Daily has continuously published articles on "Grammar and Rhetoric" written by two linguists, Lv Shuxiang and Zhu Dexi. Now it seems that what People's Daily did at that time had far-reaching significance.
Our Chinese nation has a long history, excellent cultural traditions and rich cultural heritage. China culture is one of the oldest cultures in the world. However, one characteristic of our culture that is different from other ancient cultures is that it has not been interrupted for thousands of years. Our rich cultural heritage can not only enrich our people, but also enrich the treasure house of spiritual civilization of the people of the world. As a China people, we are extremely proud of this. We should not only study the history of our country, which is an important lesson in patriotism education, but also learn ancient Chinese, read classical literature and understand ancient literature and art. This is also an integral part of the "five stresses and four beauties" in socialist social life.
due to the limitations of the times, intellectuals in feudal society can only study ancient books. This phenomenon often appeared at that time; If the reader can't understand some classic documents, they will be passed down as a laughing stock in the "scholar forest". When I was young, I heard such a joke: There is a saying in Mencius that "it is better to believe in books than to have no books". One scholar asked another scholar about this sentence: "What book is Mencius talking about?" The man replied sarcastically, "Believe in books is a good book, but there is no book better than this one!" "
Of course, we young people who are determined to become self-taught can't devote our whole life to studying a vast number of books like the "scholar-officials" in feudal times, but we should study ancient culture with the guiding ideology of "making the past serve the present". Take the above sentence of Mencius for analysis, which contains elements of simple materialism. If Einstein had believed in the space-time view of Newtonian mechanics, he would not have discovered the theory of relativity. And physics in the twentieth century probably wouldn't be what it is today. Similarly, there are similar situations in the cause of building socialism. Taking "grain as the key link" as the guiding principle for developing agricultural production in a certain period, region and under certain conditions will become a disaster. Practice has also proved this point. Isn't the lesson of "believing in books" painful enough?
As far as young people are self-taught, China in the 2th century has produced two models, one is Mr. Lu Xun and the other is Comrade Guo Moruo. When they were young, they all went to Japan to study medicine voluntarily. Later, when they saw that the people of China were living a miserable life under feudal rule and imperialist aggression, they changed to study literature and history and engaged in writing to carry out revolutionary work. Through study, work, practice and struggle, Mr. Lu Xun became the greatest revolutionary writer and Marxism–Leninism soldier in modern China. Comrade Guo Moruo is a writer, poet, archaeologist, epigraphist, calligrapher and translator. He is a talented person who has made outstanding contributions in several academic fields. The two of them are shining examples of young people's self-taught.
Of course, we can't ask everyone about the accomplishments of Lu Xun and Guo Moruo. On the other hand, if he doesn't master Chinese knowledge, basic writing skills, and lacks common sense in history and geography, he can't be regarded as a China native with considerable cultural literacy. Among the older generation of intellectuals I know, like Comrade Xu Deheng, a 92-year-old social scientist, it goes without saying that his poems, essays and calligraphy are highly accomplished. Even among natural scientists, many people have exquisite knowledge of literature and history. For example, Comrade Zhu Kezhen is a famous meteorologist and phenologist in China and the world. Since his youth, he has been very fond of Chinese classical literature and has read it extensively. In his professional research, he quoted a lot of classical literature. In his study of phenology, he quoted many ancient poems as proof. For example, when it comes to places where the elevation of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River basin is more than 4 thousand meters, there is neither summer nor spring, this quoted Li Bai's "Sai Xia Qu": "It snows in Tianshan Mountain in May, and there is no flower but cold; I smell the willow in the flute, but I haven't seen the spring scenery. " Explain that this is a record. Zhu Lao also introduced natural science into the field of edition collation. For example, he said that Wang Zhihuan's "Liangzhou Ci": "The yellow sand goes straight to the white clouds, and a lonely city, Wan Ren Mountain. Why should the flute blame the willows, and the spring breeze will not pass Yumenguan. " This is in line with the spring situation in Yumenguan, west of Liangzhou. Yumenguan was the only place that led to the Silk Road in the Western Regions in ancient times. In the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty, poets who wrote frontier poems were familiar with the situation that yellow sand was blown up and soared into the sky almost every day in the Yumenguan area of Anxi in spring. But then I don't know when, the first sentence of Wang Zhihuan's Liangzhou Ci was changed to "The Yellow River is far above the white clouds." Up to now, the anthology of Tang poetry popular in bookstores has always followed the changed sentences. In fact, the Yellow River has nothing to do with Liangzhou and Yumenguan. Comrade Zhu Kezhen's textual research is more scientific and more convincing than general textual research. It can be seen that if natural science workers have extensive knowledge of literature and history, they can not only promote their own scientific research, but also influence literature and history research in turn. In a word, self-study is the only way. If you don't go to school, you must learn by yourself. Even if you go to school, teachers can only play a guiding, consulting and auxiliary role, and students' success depends mainly on their own subjective initiative. Self-taught students must lay a good foundation, and acquiring certain knowledge of literature and history is the foundation of self-taught students. It is difficult to really master the knowledge of literature and history. The key to overcoming these difficulties lies in persistence and perseverance. If you persist in studying for a few years, you will definitely learn. I firmly believe that our younger generation will certainly achieve this.
February 2, 1982