10.8不要丢弃学问(中译英)

6不要抛弃学问---胡适

诸位毕业同学：

你们现在要离开母校了，我没有什么礼物送给你们，只好送你们一句话罢。这一句话是：“不要抛弃学问”。

以前的功课也许一大部分是为了这张毕业文凭，不得已而做的。从今以后，你们可以依自己的心愿去自由研究了。趁现在年富力强的时候，努力做一种专门学问。少年是一去不复返的，等到精力衰减时，要做学问也来不及了。即为吃饭计，学问也绝不会辜负人的。吃饭而不求学问，３年５年之后，你们都要被后来少年淘汰的。到那时再想通过做学问来补救，恐怕已太晚了。

有人说：“出去做事之后，生活问题急需解决，哪有功夫去读书？即使要做学问，既没有图书馆，又没有实验室，哪能做学问？”

我要对你们说：凡是要等到有了图书馆才能读书的，有了图书馆也不肯读书；凡是要等到有了实验室方才做研究的，有了实验室也不肯做研究。你有了决心要研究一个问题，自然会撙衣节食去买书，自然会想出法子来设置仪器。

至于时间，更不成问题。达尔文一生多病，不能多做工，每天只能做一点钟的工作。你们看他的成绩！每天花一点钟看10页有用的书，每年可看3600多页，30年可读11万页书。

诸位，11万页书可以使你成为一个学者了。可是，每天看３种小报也得费你一点钟的光阴。看小报呢，或是打麻将呢，还是努力做一个学者呢？全靠你们自己的选择！

易卜生说：“你的最大责任是把你这块材料铸造成器。”

学问便是铸器的工具，抛弃了学问便是毁了你们自己。

再会了！你们的母校眼睁睁地要看你们10年之后成什么器。

Never abandon knowledge( Never give up the pursuit of learning)

By Hushi

Distinguished graduates:（Dear students of graduating class）

Now you are leaving school(alma mater), I have nothing but only a few words to share with you. That is, “ Never abandon knowledge.”

When you were at school, you were probably unwilling but had to attend lectures because you had to get your graduate certificate( abtaining the diploma) or in other words, out of sheer necessity . From now on, you can do the research all by your wish. ( you are free to follow your bent in the choice of study.)Since you are young and energetic( you are in the prime of life), it is the best time for you to focus yourself on a certain area. The youth time will never come back once again, and when you are old and your energetic fades away, (Y outh will soon be gone and never to return) it would be too late for you to refocus on knowledge even if you want to.(when in your declining years) Even if you do the study research for the purpose of making a living, you are still a winner on knowledge, ( Knowledge will do you a good turn even as a means of subsistence)on the contrary, if you are making a living without noticing the value of knowledge, you would be lagged behind the latter youth three or five years later. It is too late for you to make remedy on knowledge by then.

Some said, “How can I have so many spare time to do the study while I am busy rushing my feet on earn a living? Even if I want to, where can I make the study since there is no library and no lab?”(once you have a job,you will come up

against the urgent problem of making a living, how…? Even if you want to, will it possible without no library and laboratory available?)

(Now let me tell you this)What I want to tell you is, those who cannot read without a library will never read books even if you have a library, and those who who cannot do the research without a lab will never do the experiment even if they are available to a lab. Once you make your decision to work out a problem, you are naturally willing to save your money and buy books, and you will finally get ideas to have the instruments.(you will cut down on food and clothing to buy books or do everything possible to aquire necessary instruments.)

As for time issue, it is nothing but a issue.( Time is no object) Darwin got a constant sickness throughout his life, he can only work one hour at the most every day. What achivements he has made. ( Charles Darwin could only work an hour at most every day. Y et what a remarkble man he is !)If we spend an hour to read useful information of ten pages, you will read more than 3600 pages a year, and you are likely to read 110,000 pages three years later. ( If you spend an hour a day to read ten pages of a book, you can finish more than 3,600 pages a year, and 110,000 pages in 30 years.)

Attention, ( Dear student, )you are a scholar when you have read 110.000 pages of books. ( 110,000 pages will be quite enough to make a learned man of you) However, it would take you an hour as well if you read three different kinds of newspaper. Which one would you choose to be, reading newspaper ,playing machong or being a scholar? It is all your choice.

Yipusheng took his words by saying that your greatest responsibility was that you were training yourself as an useful person.(…says, it is your supreme duty to cast yourself into a useful impliment.)

Knowledge is what can make us a good and useful person, while abandoning knowledge is destroying yourself.

Learning is the casting mould, forsake learning, and you will ruin yourself. Farewell! Y our school is going to see what kind of person you will be ten years later.”

Y our alma mater is watching eagerly to see

参考翻译：

Never give up the pursuit of learning

Dear students of the Graduating Class,

As you are leaving your alma mater, I have nothing to offer you as a gift except a word of advice.

My advice is, "Never give up the pursuit of learning." You have perhaps finished