Never Give up the Pursuit of Learning
Hu Shih

Dear Students of the Graduating Class,

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

My advice is, “Never give up the pursuit of learning.” You haveperhaps finished your college courses mostly for obtaining the diploma, or, inother words, out of sheer necessity. However, from now on you are free tofollow your own bent in the choice of studies. While you are in the prime oflife, why not devote yourselves to a special field of study? Youth will soon begone never to return. And it will be too late for you to go into scholarshipwhen in your declining years. Knowledge will do you a good return even as ameans of subsistence. If you give up studies while holding a job, you will in acouple of years have had yourselves replaces by younger people. It will then betoo late to remedy the situation by picking up studies again.

Some people say, “Once you have a job, you’ll come up against theurgent problem of making a living. How can you manage to find time to study?Even if you want to, will it be possible with no library or laboratoryavailable?”

Now let me tell you this. Those who refuse to study for lack of alibrary will most probably continue to do so even though there is a library.And those who refuse to do research for lack of a laboratory will most probablycontinue to do so even though a laboratory is available. As long as you setyour mind on studies, you will naturally cut down on food and clothing to buybooks or do everything possible to acquire necessary instruments.

Time is no object. Charles Darwin could only work one hour a day dueto ill health. Yet what a remarkable man he was! If you spend one hour a dayreading 10 pages of a book, you can finish more than 3,600 pages a year, and110,000 pages in 30 years.

Dear students, 110,000 pages will be quite enough to make a learnedman of you. It will take you one hour to read three tabloids a day, and one andhalf hours to finish four rounds of mah-jong a day. Reading tabloids, playingmah-jong or striving to be a learned man, the choice lies with you.

Henrik Ibsen says, “It is your supreme duty to cast yourself into auseful implement.”

Learning is the casting mould. Forsake learning, and you will ruinyourself.

Farewell! Your alma mater is watching eagerly to see what willbecome of you ten years from now.