What kind of person will Zhu Kezhen be after graduation?

This is Mr. Zhu Kezhen's speech at the opening ceremony when he was the president of Zhejiang University in September. 1936.

The following is the original text of this speech:

Dear students, the school has been open for a week. Today, the training and education department convened this meeting, and I am very happy to get together and talk as a family.

College students are the happiest period in their lives, with no direct economic burden and no problem of making a living. When you were in middle school, most of your classmates were from the same county or province. But after coming to the university, students from all over the country can know the situation in the country. After a long time, everyone knows. In this way, everyone's family situation and hometown scenery can understand each other, which is also an education. Compared with middle schools, universities are richer in funds and equipment, and teachers' experience and knowledge far exceed those of middle schools, which provides you with an excellent opportunity to learn from each other. Meanwhile, the state spends 1500 yuan on you every year. Besides, there are only 40,000 college students in China, and you are all one tenth of the youth. You must not miss this opportunity.

When you come here, you should know the school spirit here. A school has the spirit of a school, which is called university spirit in English. As for the spirit of Zhejiang University, it can be expressed by the words "sincerity" and "diligence". The predecessor of Zhejiang University is Qiushi College and institutions of higher learning, which can be said to come down in one continuous line. Both can represent their style of study. Students are not grandiose, diligent and have a good reputation in society. Some school buildings are very good, but graduates want to have material enjoyment as soon as they leave school, but they don't want to work and live in a broken house when they earn less. Graduates of Zhejiang University don't have this habit. People outside the school always praise Zhejiang University for its simplicity. I hope you can keep this trend.

At school, you should ask yourself two questions First, what are you doing in Zhejiang University? Second, what kind of person will you be after graduation? I don't think any of you said that you came to Zhejiang University for a diploma, or some people think that you came here to seek a skill to make a living. However, there are many ways to make a living. You don't have to come to college, even if you talk about technology, you don't have to be in college. Lowell, a great American writer, said, "The purpose of a university is not to let students get bread, but to make it taste better." Education is not only to let students find a way to survive, but learning a skill alone is not the most important purpose of education.

I can tell a story here. In ancient China, there was a man who longed to live forever and travel all over the world. Lu Chunyang was merciful and knew that he was sincere, so he wanted to give him some money and told him that my finger could turn the stone into gold or something, and I would give you anything you want. But what the man wants is not money, but his finger. This story also exists in the west, which is what the so-called wishing ring in English means. You can get anything you want. Everything in the world has a reason for its existence. Zhu's so-called knowledge of things means that things are poor. If you want to deal with things, the most important thing is to have a clear head.

A clear mind is the foundation of career success. After two or three years, you should go out and do something in society, regardless of industry, agriculture and commerce, you should have a clear mind. A person who specializes in a certain technology may not have a clear mind. On the contrary, with a clear head, our country can be saved by people with a clear head. Anyone doing a thing or studying a problem can be roughly divided into the following three steps:

First, use scientific methods to analyze and simplify the complex;

Second, plan with a fair attitude;

Third, resolutely implement it.

These three points, scientific methods, fair attitude and decisive determination, should be cultivated and studied in primary schools. China's industrial and commercial depression and the lack of scientific progress in recent years are all due to the lack of a sober host's mind. Plague epidemic, flood and drought disasters, repeated year after year, still have to rely on various superstitious methods of asking God for salvation. Starting a business without a plan is an act of losing clarity. Feng Shui, fortune telling and praying for God are superstitions, which are not only criticized by modern scientists, but also deeply understood by the wise men in ancient China. But today, many college graduates and international students are assimilated by the environment, but they are in cahoots. The success of Jiuda Company, Wynn Company and Commercial Press is an exception. In recent years, most government-run cotton mills, flour mills, sulfuric acid plants, alcohol plants and sugar factories have closed down. The reason for the failure is that scientific methods were not used in the investigation. For example, if you run a sugar factory, you should investigate in advance how much sugar cane is produced near the factory, where the sugar is sold, how much it costs, the profit and the dumping competition abroad. If you don't investigate clearly in advance, you will lose money and close down later. This kind of thing is very common in China, such as the paper mill in Hankou and the sulfuric acid plant in Wuzhou. There is also the reason for failure, that is, there is no fair attitude. Employing people is not entirely based on talent, and likes to abuse relatives. Every organization and company should hire more experts. After the plan is decided, no matter how the outside world attacks it, it must be done according to the plan, so as to succeed.

We should try our best to avoid the habit of following blindly. You can't blindly follow the slogan because it is loud or the doctrine is relatively new. We should all calmly observe the purpose of slogans and the background of socialism, and use our judgment and conscience to decide our opinions. If it is right, we should try our best to follow it. If it is wrong, try to rule it out. Ambiguous and wise attitudes, such as blind obedience, are to be avoided. We should be people who advocate and do something, so we must have a clear head.

Now, I want to ask the second question, that is, what kind of person will I be after I graduate from college? What should our outlook on life be? Some people think that China's outlook on life is greatly influenced by Confucius and Mencius, and Laozi has the greatest influence. Confucius and Mencius advocated being brave, while Laozi advocated being wise and keeping in good health. Confucius and Mencius advocated right and wrong, and Laozi advocated clearing the fortunes. Mencius said: "Heaven will come to Sri Lanka, so we must first work hard for it, and work hard for its bones and muscles." Zhuge Liang "tried his best until he died." This is not a philosophy of enjoying happiness. Laozi said that "misfortune is greater than discontent", and he also said that "misfortune is the place where happiness depends, and happiness is the place where happiness lies". Now the ultimate goal of ordinary people in China is to enjoy happiness. We envy those who say that someone is lucky and wish him "many blessings and many men" when he marries his wife. It is the biggest purpose of having children, that is, to enjoy happiness when you are old. The paradise in the eyes of ordinary people in China is a world without pains. Tea comes first, and rice comes second. This philosophy of enjoying happiness has a great influence on people's livelihood.

Ordinary people regard enjoying happiness as their greatest purpose in life, and the Chinese nation is about to perish. Historically, the death of Rome can be Yin Jian. Today's world is a competitive world. If a nation still aims at enjoyment and refuses to aim at service, it will surely fail. We should be ashamed of enjoying happiness. Only the old, the weak and the sick can enjoy happiness and be proud of self-reliance. When the king of England was young, he had to be a soldier on a warship. Only in this way can he know the sufferings of soldiers. The richest man in the world is Rockefeller, the king of kerosene. His son started at an early age, so their career can be passed down from generation to generation. More than 20 years ago, China and Japan sent students to study in Europe, America and China. Seeing all kinds of machinery, I asked where to buy it. Where is the cheapest? Japanese students only ask how to do it. China people only know to buy, for the purpose of enjoyment, and the Japanese do it for the purpose of service; People who used to study engineering and agriculture in China always told workers and peasants to push machines and plow fields, while they stood by and watched, so they would not make progress if they paid attention to agricultural industry. China despised labor in ancient times, but now it has completely changed. Do everything by yourself. This change in outlook on life is extremely important.

The two points mentioned above: first, you should not only study the subject itself, but also study how to train your thinking correctly; Second, the purpose of our life is to serve, not to enjoy.