Chapter 22 Economics - 17

I have thus a tight, shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, with posts eight feet high, with a garret, a small room, and a large window on each side, Two trapdoors, a door at the end, and a brick fireplace directly opposite the door.The expenses of my house are only the general price of the materials I used, labor is not included, because I did it all by myself, the total I write down below: I copied it in such detail, because few people can accurately He told how much their houses cost after all, and there were fewer, if any, jobs who could tell the various materials and prices that made up these houses:—

Wooden boards...8.035 yuan (mostly old boards) Old wood chips for roofing and wall panels... 4.000 yuan Slats... 1.250 yuan Two old windows and glass... 2.430 yuan One thousand old bricks... 4.000 yuan Two boxes of lime... 2.400 yuan——too expensive Hair... ○ · 310 yuan - I bought too much Iron sheets for the fireplace... ○·150 yuan Nail... 3.900 yuan Hinges and screws... ○·140 yuan Latch... ○·100 yuan Chalk... ○·○10 yuan Moving fee... 1.400 yuan—most of them are carried by themselves Total... 28.125 yuan All the materials are here, except wood, stones, and sand, which I got from the privileges that people who occupy land and build houses on public land should enjoy.I also built a lean-to, mostly of materials left over from the building.

I would have thought of having a house built for me of greater grandeur and splendor than any in Concord Street, if it would please me as much as the present one, and cost no more. In this way, I found that the student who only wants to live in the dormitory can get a house for lifelong use, and the cost is not more than the annual dormitory fee he pays now. The explanation is that I exaggerate not for myself, but for mankind; my shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statements, although I have a lot of falsehood and hypocrisy-that seems to be difficult to knock from the wheat. chaff, I regret it as much as anyone,—I shall still breathe free, and erect my back in this matter, which is a great pleasure to moral and physical; and I Decided, never to become the devil's advocate without humiliation, I'm going to try to speak a good word for the truth.In Cambridge College, a student lived in a room slightly larger than mine, and the accommodation fee alone was 30 yuan a year, but the company built 32 adjacent rooms under one roof, taking advantage of all the advantages. The tenants, however, are noisy from the many neighbors and may have to live four floors up, which is deeply inconvenient.I have to think that if we have more real knowledge in these areas, not only the need for education can be reduced, because more education work can be done earlier, but also the need for money to pay for education. Things must have mostly been wiped out.Necessary conveniences at Cambridge or elsewhere cost the student so much in his or someone else's life that, if the sort of things were done reasonably by both parties, it would cost only a tenth of that.The things that need to be charged are by no means what the students need most.School fees, for instance, are a large expense in the accounts of the term, while he associates with the most educated of his contemporaries, and receives by them a much more valuable education, which costs him nothing.The way to set up a college is usually to get a group of donors to donate money and coins, and then blindly follow the principle of division of labor. A contractor for a big project came, and he hired Irishmen or other workers, and finally the foundation was laid, and then the students had to get used to living in it; Have to pay tuition.I think it would be much better if the students, or those who wanted to benefit from the school, could lay the groundwork themselves.The student gets the leisure and rest he craves, and according to the system, avoids any labor necessary for human beings. Did not learn. "But," someone said, "you don't mean that students should learn with their hands instead of their brains?" They should not take life as a game, or just use life as a study, and human society should pay a high price to support them. They should live enthusiastically from beginning to end.How can the youth better learn how to live unless they immediately engage in the practice of living?I think this will train their minds like mathematics.Give an example to clarify.If I want a child to know something about science and culture, I don't want to go the old way, which is just to send him to the nearby professor, where everything is taught and everything is practiced, but the art of living is not taught and life is not practiced. the art of man;--sees the world only through a telescope or microscope, but never teaches him to see with his own eyes; studies chemistry, but does not learn how his bread is made, or any craft, nor how to earn it. All in all, although he discovered the satellites of Neptune, he did not discover the dust in his eyes, let alone the satellites of some tramp; he observed monsters in a drop of vinegar, but he would be swallowed by the monsters around him.A boy digs his own iron ore, smelts it himself, gets all he needs to know out of a book, and he makes his own pocket-knife—another kid is doing metallurgy on the one hand. He listened to the technical class of smelting in the college, and on the one hand, he received a Loggers brand folding knife from his father. Just imagine, which child made faster progress after a month?And what child would cut his hand with a jackknife? . . . To my surprise, I left the university saying that I had studied navigation! —Actually, I'll learn more about it if I go to the port and turn around.Even poor students learn and are taught only political economy, while the economics of life, which is synonymous with philosophy, is not even seriously taught in our colleges.The result was a situation where the son was studying Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, and the father was in debt he couldn't get out of.