The Complete Works of Xu Zhimo's Classical Prose

Chapter 44 Laughing at Life's Hibiscus Bird (16)
Ms. Russell, Mrs. Blank recently published a booklet called "Hypatia" (Hypatia, a female scholar who was convicted of heresy and burned to death in the Middle Ages), summarizing the achievements of women in the past century and the future hope (Xu has seen the Chinese translation, if not quite worth translating).WL George, a novelist who advocates women's rights, also published a book called "Women", which is a very sympathetic and superb essay. Ludovlci, who talks about Nietzsche's philosophy, also has a new book on women's future. There are more "Counter-revolutionary".There was another Austrian eccentric named Otto Weininger, who wrote "Sex and Character" (Sex and Character) at the age of 19 (he died at the age of 23). Women are soulless (he is Catholic).But this is not new, as the pessimistic poet Leopardi said a hundred years ago, and he said that therefore the highest spiritual loves of men, such as Dande's, are never understood by women.

Originally published on August 1925, 10, "Morning News Supplement"

Russell and Childhood Education

I went to Cornwall (Cornwall, the southernmost province of England) in early July last year to see the Russells.They live in a small village on the coast nine miles from Panjang, where the radio station is located, and they can see the "Gecko" tip of "Land's End" protruding into the Atlantic Ocean, which is the southernmost point of the British Isle, Kang The "Red Cliffs" along the coast of Waldorf are famous, but what I saw in that area was far from the magnificence of the Red Cliffs I imagined.Because of the heat flow, the climate along the coast is almost tropical. I heard that it is extremely rare to see ice and snow in winter.This area is rather desolate, no more flat than the central part, with few trees, and giant bulls rolling in the barren grass; the seaside, especially the rocky land in Qiaoqiao, has some places with towering walls, overlooking the island of Baiyu. Haunted among the turbulent sea waves.Russell's house is a light gray square three-story house surrounded by low walls. Two small square corridors protrude from the back of the house. The two corridor pillars are painted yellow, which is a commemoration of China. Standing in the middle of a wilderness, looking from a distance, the light color and dull expression remind you of a village girl in an eighteenth-century play, with a satin knot like a strange bird resting on her hair, and her hands are crossed. waist, standing upright in a daze.Behind the house is a lawn, with a door on one side, and there are no less than twenty or thirty kinds of grass and flowers planted on the other side; in a corner, they planned to build a small platform like a Chinese gazebo. I wrote a piece like " I don't know the flat title of "□Feng" for "Listening to the Wind", but now I think it should have been made.This little home is where our philosopher educates his new Emile.

I almost didn't know Russell when he picked me up at the Panjang station that day in a rickety car.What a countryman!A straw hat is blooming, the jacket is rotten, the tie, if there is one, is like a straw floating on the chest, and the shoes, needless to say, are of course qualified to worship brothers like Jabolin's!In his hand he held a pipe of dark caramel, to temper the color of his skin.But his eyes, how sharp, how concentrated, how bright the countryman's outline can't hide the wisdom of the philosopher!
It was Sunday, and I only had this extremely slow train going down from Exeter.Mr. Russell's words are epigrams. He said, "Sabais' day of rest is the only common creed of the Jesuits and Syndicalists"!When the car arrived at the door, a woman with bare "feet" came over and carried a bath cloth. Her complexion was more purple than Russell's. She greeted me with a smile. It was not Ms. Blank, but now Mrs. Russell, I would never have recognized her if she hadn't smiled or spoken.When they entered the door, they introduced their pair of babies, the older one was a boy, four years old, with a Chinese name named Jinling, and the younger one was a girl named Kaidi.I asked them why they came to this extreme south to be hermits. Russell said that firstly, it was to write books quietly, and secondly (this is a more important reason) to take care of the moral education of their two children (“to look after the moral education”) of our kids").

I stayed at their house for two nights.Listening to Russell's talk is like watching German fireworks. All kinds of dazzling magic burst out in mid-air inconceivably.But if I don't follow up on his conversation, the difficulty is like trying to describe the silver and fire trees in the sky; what I can think of at this moment is only what I saw at the time of his so-called "moral education for children".I've said that, and I'll talk about his new book on education next time.
On Education: Especially in Early Childhood, By bertrand Russell, Published: London, George Allen and Unwin.
Jinling and Kaidi have their nanny and their nursery (Nursery), and the nanny leads them during the day when their parents are working.After each meal, they went to play on the lawn behind the house as usual, riding wooden horses, playing with bears, looking at flowers, and running. At this time, their parents always came to join their games.Some people say that great people are all childish, and this may be partly true.Once I watched him play "marching ball" with his two children in a "barn" at Wells's house. His joy was really amazing to watch. , arguing, laughing, yelling, winning or losing, a pair of bright little blue eyes are full of uncontrollable joy, the face is red and sweaty, and he is out of breath, just like a lively child Who would have thought that he was the author of "the greatest intelligence in the English-speaking world" (France's review) at the age of nearly sixty!So did Russell, though he wasn't quite as utterly carried away as Wells, perhaps because his kids were too young to play together.This innocence in the body (not only in the mind and mood) is, in my opinion, one of the great secrets of the success of Western culture; think back to the Han nationality in our sixteen-character couplet, "the old man is old, the corpse is still alive; the young is graceful, and he is very weak". I couldn't help shivering down my spine.

We were all standing on the grass.Russell said to the older kids, come on, let's practice.He grabbed a pair of small hands, and sang the nursery rhyme "Let's go to the mulberry garden, let's go to the mulberry garden", spinning his little body up and down.At the same time, brother Kai, who was under three years old, went to find his mother to give her one just like his elder brother.Then ride a horse.The father made the horse's head, the mother made the horse's tail, and the two children were sandwiched between them to make the horse's body. They had to run, and they had to run around the grass to catch their breath.Once, the brother and sister fought over the wooden horse and got into a fight. Dad went over and said John (the boy's name) that you come first, and then let the younger sister come. Brother Kai stood and waited for her turn.But John refused to let him come, Kaidi was about to cry, and he didn't listen to his parents' orders. This time the old philosopher was annoyed, he picked him up and ran into the house with his servants, and John cried , listening to them go upstairs.But in less than 5 minutes, the father and son walked out holding hands and smiling, and they stopped making trouble.

Mom asked John to take Mr. Xu to see the flowers. This is so cute. There are more than [-] kinds of flowers in the garden. I am ashamed that my boss can’t recognize three kinds. John, who is four years old, is not familiar with any of them, and many of them are from his little hands. He planted it himself, and when he saw his favorite, he knelt down and kissed it. He also knew when all kinds of flowers bloomed, which kinds of butterflies liked them the most, and which kinds of flowers blossomed and flourished. He knew it all and was proud of it. Extremely.Although Brother Kai is still reluctant to walk, she also came to follow suit, touching and sniffing lightly, that look is so fun.

The children also came down at tea time.John brought a big book, which was his, to show the guest.In the book are different locomotives from different places, and he told me about each of them: the green one is from South Africa to there, the long one is from Canada, and the yellow one is from London to Panjang City. Change trains at that stop, this is to go to China through Siberia, China that parents like the most, John must go to the Great Wall to eat big ducks when he grows up; How long is the longest one? John knows everything, and he recognizes it at a glance!Russell said that not only did he know trains, but he also knew ships. He knew dozens of large ships and the routes they took. From there to there, his geography knowledge surpassed that of his nanny. The instinct of curiosity was gradually discovered by him one by one; now you can ask him from London to Shanghai, or from Sydney to Liverpool, or more complicated routes, and he can point you out from the map Look, he knows where he has been and what good things to watch and eat!

But it was this incident that impressed me the most.Russell told me that when they arrived early, John was not yet three years old. They went to bathe in the sea. It was the first time he saw the sea. Russell's son can be afraid of anything! He can feel timid when he sees it! That's not okay!" The couple almost threw their son who was under three years old, regardless of his crying, into the sea, and came back again and again. , make him cry!Well, after three to five days, if you don't tell him to play in the water, he will definitely go!Now it was no surprise that he went into the sea than he walked on flat ground.Parents in the East must not resort to such tricks, right?I also understand, but bravery, courage, and fearless spirit are the origin of all virtues and the foundation of character, and there must be no ambiguity in this place; everything else is fine, but cowardice and fear are not acceptable. If you don't break it for him as soon as possible, you may harm him for the rest of his life.Every time Russell uttered the word Courage, his voice was very calm, and his eyes were shining strangely, as if this was the first tenet of his religion, the only proof of being a man!
Who of us has never been a child?We often hear that childhood is the happiest time of life.Children are innocent, have no troubles, no worries, just play all day, their limbs are flexible, and their spirit is lively.Children with parents are especially blessed. If parents don't love their children, if a man is added to the family, the remotest corners of the house will be illuminated with festive brilliance.Who wouldn't want to go back and live a sweet child's life, snuggling up in mom's soft pocket, asking dad for fruit candies, having someone change your clothes when you sleep at night, singing softly to coax you to close your eyes, Do your sweet little dreams?Years are troubles, years are troubles, years are troubles: curse it, why must the knowledge of human affairs wipe out the bright childlike innocence?We will always be seventy or eighty years old, never grow up, and always have parents who love us; like the warbler in the forest, always drunk in the joyful singing, never knowing: The weariness, the fever , and the fret here, where men sit and hear each other groan... that's pretty enough!
This is our ideal childhood. Every time we feel that we can't bear the burden of life, we often feel that time has swept away the most intriguing traces of us in a hurry.But let us not be too hypnotized by the poets, since the past is the past; we know that conscious life has its own dignity, and that our troubles and pains have their own dignity if we can bear them and not let them overwhelm us. their meaning and value.Excessively thinking about the easy life of being a child is just revealing your lack of understanding of life, as much as lamenting old age is also a kind of ignorance in knowledge, no, we have to regard life as a whole: just as trees have roots and roots Trunks have branches, leaves, flowers and fruits, and a complete life must have three periods: childhood, adulthood, and old age: childhood is the period of sowing and cultivation, adulthood is the period of flowering and shading, and old age is the period of fruiting and harvesting.The importance of childhood is that it is a great preparation for future work. If this time is not done seriously, the future flowers and fruits will have to pay the price:

The child is father of the Man.
Really, we seldom reflect on the flaws in our life, the lack of firm will, the lack of soundness in body and mind, and the obstacles of various habits that make us go in the direction of degeneration unconsciously at any time. How many of these situations can be traced back to our original Negligence and negligence during cultivation and nutrition.The diseases and injuries in the root heart are hard to cure; the ban planted in the era of Benmao, you can find traces on the hair of Ban Bai, where the iron law of cause and effect is not relaxed at all.Moreover, the childhood period we are talking about does not only refer to education in the narrow sense in the early years. In fact, the development of a person's character is before the age of six, not after; the childhood period mentioned here can be said to be from the time of womb to school age. Don't look at the yellow-haired, spitting newborn child who is as ignorant as a kitten or puppy. The moment when its senses start to activate is the proof that it came to this school in life.No, prenatal educators have to go further and advocate that parents should start to check their own behavior during pregnancy and start to take on the responsibility of their upbringing.This reasoning is correct; just as the flowers and trees on the ground with only or even a little green buds can't help feeling the influence of the wind and dew, of course the fetus that inherits the blood of the parents can also absorb the breath of their thoughts and actions, no matter how of fineness.

But the child is incapable of itself, and the responsibility for this falls, of course, entirely on the parents and other managers.But on the one hand, we have seen that modern men and women who are not qualified to be parents are doing their best to carry out their production instincts mechanically, adding waste and even the burden of toxic substances to society without any hindrance, and ruining flesh and blood and spirituality without caring. On the other hand, we see dutifully qualified parents who do not prepare a suitable environment for their children, do not give them proper As a result, good materials are at least partially disabled, and we cannot but feel pity and pity.Because raising children, even if we only care about the body, a little instinctive love is not enough; to expect a perfect child, we must first assume a pair of perfect parents. Body, knowledge, and thought are generally important.As a result of human civilization, the tissues of the human body are more complex, softer, and less easy to cultivate than all living things; its chances of suffering from diseases and the types of diseases are far worse than other animals.Therefore, it is not a problem for cats, dogs, cows and horses, but it has become the most troublesome problem for human beings today.

(End of this chapter)