Chapter 8 preface

I am interested in everything about learning.Because there are too many aspects, the result is that none of them are successful.Not to mention the writing, I have never concentrated on writing a book well.In recent years, the publications under my name are only the handouts of one school in one semester, and there are always more than two homework taught in each semester, and more than two kinds of handouts are always edited.I have a bad habit in my life. I don't want to talk about the homework I have taught before.Every time I talk about it, it is always a new compilation, in a hurry, and it is now on sale, where can there be a satisfactory work!Therefore, after each lecture, the handouts were put away, ready to be re-edited before being printed.But during the lecture break, I was greedy to read other books; after the vacation was over, I was busy with other lectures.Therefore, there is always no time to sort out the old manuscripts, so I have to put him in the bottom of the trunk.There are several such speeches in two or three years!This "Key Books Explaining Problems and Their Reading Methods" is one of them.

This handout was taught at Tsinghua School two years ago.Tsinghua authorities designated a dozen or so ancient books of permanent value, and asked students to read one or two of them each semester, hoping that they would acquire some knowledge of Chinese culture and develop an active reading ability.I was in favor of this approach.The authorities asked me to tell the students about the outline of these more than a dozen books.I agreed to speak every other week.During the first semester, I talked about the "Book of Rites" from Cong to "Book of Rites".Originally, I planned to continue the lecture next semester, but unfortunately my deceased wife fell ill, followed by a funeral, and I couldn't do any homework.Therefore, he resigned from the school and took a break from speaking for a year.Even though I come to school again now, I have no chance to continue my lecture.

Speaking of "required citizenship", there are at least a hundred and dozens of them in China.What are the nondescript books mentioned in this handout?What's more, it is a rough product that is now on the market. When the manuscript was first drafted, there was no room for reading reference books, and there was no time to review it after it was finished.How can such a work be seen by people?Therefore, I have been reluctant to print for a long time, for this reason. The students at Tsinghua University refused to agree, saying that there was a lot of disturbance everywhere, and that Tsinghua Weekly was going to edit a series of books, and decided to use him as the first one, which had already been printed, and asked me to write a preface.I couldn't refuse, so I had to go with it.

I think that a Chinese who has received a middle school education or above should read at least once some of the most important books in the country, including several kinds of academic thinkers, several kinds of history, and several kinds of literature.However, when reading ancient books in today's life, the first one is that it does not attract interest; the second one is that there is not much time to delve into the vast collection of books; It is also difficult to get its essentials.Therefore, it is not that the students are unwilling to read Chinese books, but in the end they still do not want to read them.In order to remedy this shortcoming, books such as "Key Books Solving Problems" or "Key Books Reading Methods" must be said to meet the urgent needs of the times.Although I haven't done a good job in these few articles, I finally want to add a little fun and save a little effort for the young people on this road.I hope that domestic general-educated gentlemen will do more works of this kind, and I especially hope that what I have done can be corrected, such as "The Analects of Confucius and Its Reading" recently published by Mr. Qian in "Tsinghua Weekly".At the same time, I also want to push myself to do some similar work on other important books in the near future.

Many of what is said in this book have been said by predecessors, and not all of them are my own.Why not specify them all?Because (1) I was in a hurry to compile the lecture notes, I did not check the original book. (2) For the convenience of the students, it would be a headache to cite one statement to refute another statement in a trivial manner. It is better to be straightforward. I think that the acceptable ones will be adopted and save some idle words. .All in all, this book is not a writing, but an impromptu lecture in the lecture hall.I hope readers will forgive me for any discrepancies with the writing style.

"Preconceived ideas" were originally the biggest problem in learning; but everyone knows that this is a problem, but it is not easy for everyone to get rid of it.Even in this book of mine, it is my personal opinion that I respect Dai Wang and Cui Shi in "Historical Records".In fact, teaching ordinary young people should not be like this.In addition, there are quite a few such mistakes in each article.That is why I am reluctant to go to press immediately.Now that it has gone to press, I cannot fail to make a statement. At the end of the day, I would like to say a few words to the young people. ——For old Chinese books, gentlemen, you should not stop reading old Chinese books because of the two concepts of "useless" or "difficult to read".It is difficult to determine the standard of usefulness and uselessness.Why can horizontal documents be useful, but thread-bound books are useless?In my opinion, some writings are contemporary and some are not.A timeless book, useful anytime.There are quite a few old books that fall into this category.As for the issue of difficulty and ease of reading, it is true that unorganized books are indeed difficult to read. They are not interesting or pointless, and seem to be a waste of our time.However, from another point of view, reading this kind of books requires hard work, overcoming obstacles, and finding a way. Therefore, you can hone your reading ability and benefit more than those who only eat ready-made meals.Therefore, I hope that studious young people will find one or two books that they think are difficult to read, and read them desperately, and apply the latest methods to read them.After reading it through, the benefits gained, not counting what is in this book, are more than what is outside this book.