Zeng Guofan's four reading methods are contained in Zeng Jiaxun, which was written by Ceng Gong to his eldest son Jize in the eighth year of Xianfeng.
The "four reading methods" mentioned in the letter refer to reading, reading, writing and writing.
Ceng Gong taught his son that some books only need to be read and some books need to be read. Ceng Gong stressed that reading must be read aloud or recited secretly. Only in this way can we win its importance and understand its significance.
He made a series of comparisons between reading and reading:
In terms of accumulating wealth at home, reading is a foreign business transaction, with more profits as the main income, while reading is to support the family and be diligent in accumulating wealth; Take the military war as an example, reading is to attack the city and plunder the land, and reading is to dig deep ditches and strengthen the defense of barriers; Xia Zi, a disciple of Confucius, said that reading should learn and master new knowledge every day, and don't forget to review the original knowledge every month. Ceng Gong also corresponded this statement with "seeing" and "reading". He advocates accumulating new knowledge by "watching" every day, while "reading" is the latter.
Looking at Ceng Gong's words, as far as modern vocabulary is concerned, "looking" means constantly broadening the width of knowledge reserves, while "reading" means further digesting, deepening understanding, deepening knowledge points and digging the depth of knowledge reserves.
Ancient people always attached great importance to reading aloud, reciting and reciting, and teachers also emphasized reading behind and explaining after the teacher. On weekdays, we often say that "reading a book a hundred times is self-evident".
The combination of reading on weekdays and recently participating in the endorsement activities of group reading clubs corresponds to the "reading" and "reading" advocated by Zeng Gongsuo. It may not be appropriate, but it is similar.
Looking back at reading on weekdays, there are few recites or recites. If you encounter something slightly difficult to understand, you may read more books and inquire more, but what you lack most is reading aloud, let alone reciting.
This kind of endorsement, from Huangdi Neijing to Zeng's family instructions, is a change of past habits. The order is: read the original text first, and then inquire about the pronunciation when you encounter uncommon words. Read and recite the words that are slightly puzzled, and don't rush into their meaning. When reading fluently and reciting fluently, some original intentions are really "self-evident". Even the most difficult sentences are suddenly realized by querying, which is more memorable than querying the original intention at the beginning.
On second thought, Ceng Gong advocated reading, emphasizing "reading aloud" and "singing quietly", which mobilized the * * * operation of many organs of the eyes, mouth, ears and heart. In this way, reading is the all-round input of body and mind, and its gains are undoubtedly multiplied.
Ceng Gong also wrote "Five Arrivals", that is, "physical arrival, mental arrival, eye arrival, hand arrival and mouth arrival". This "five arrivals" mainly refers to daily official duties; Since then, Mr. Lu Xun has also used "five arrivals" in his reading. I remember when I was at school, the teacher often reminded me. This endorsement returned to the original state when I was a child. It is a wonderful memory to be able to endorse like this after many years.
Not long ago, I read an article about writing, saying that extensive reading is one of the ways to improve writers' accumulation. However, if you can concentrate on reading a book thoroughly, you can actually make a breakthrough in composition. I think this reading method is the "reading" among Ceng Gong's four reading methods. The ancients said, "You can recite poems by reading 300 Tang poems.".
Li Yuxiu, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, was familiar with The Analects of Confucius, and devoted his accumulation and knowledge to writing Meng Xunwen (later revised by Jia Cunren, renamed Di Zigui), and devoted himself to giving lectures, so that Di Zigui has been praised as the enlightenment classic of Chinese studies so far, which is rare among ancient scholars. Since the birth of A Dream of Red Mansions, it has supported so many redologists and book critics, which is the best verification.
Writing is writing and learning calligraphy.
Ji Zeping is good at "truth, line, seal and official" every day, and Ceng Gong reminds him to learn Chinese characters every day without interruption. It is also required that its Japanese characters be regular script.
I was shocked to see this request. Although the writing brush was the only writing tool in the Qing Dynasty, and Ceng Gong also said that he made this request because "Yu Yisheng suffered a lot from slow writing", it seems very difficult to print Japanese books with 10,000 words.
After some hesitation, I found a short story: It is said that public servants always value people's strengths, and those who see that professionals are beyond their abilities must be reused. He knows that writing is "slow". Seeing that he has a scribe who specializes in copying documents, he can write 12,000-word Japanese official documents in regular script, which is fast and good. In the evening, he still has leisure to play chess with others, so he set the monthly salary at 320 taels of silver, just like other scribes who are responsible for drafting copywriting. It can be seen that the methods that have been used by the public are not eclectic, and the requirements for Jize are well-founded.
Writing is writing.
Compared with today, the style of ancient literati's works is more complicated and the rhythmic format is more exquisite. I often feel ashamed when I think about this. As a modern person, articles with ordinary style may be difficult to write. If I was born in ancient times, I really don't know how to deal with them.
Ceng Gong suggested that JiZe try all kinds of styles one by one. When you are in your twenties and thirties, you should' set a standard' when writing, and it will be extremely difficult to increase after 30 years old. Before the age of 30, life is the most shaping and active time, so it is also the stage of creating more possibilities with the motive force of life. So next, Ceng Gong encouraged him to "try one by one. Teenagers are not terrible or ugly, but they must have an interest in being enterprising by crazy people. "
Yes, what's wrong with teenagers!
How energetic! How heroic and passionate! There is a Spanish proverb "God will forgive the mistakes of young people"! Try it, let the youth have no regrets, and the letter also said that I dare to take risks, so I may not dare to move in the future! Ceng Gong's exhortation is not only a written article, but also a great life article. "Teenagers are not terrible or ugly, but they must have enterprising interest." This should be the original intention.
Although reading notes will come to an end no matter how long they are written, it has been said that the best way to learn reading is to practice and use, which is the fundamental method of reading. The road is long, I will go up and down!
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