An Explication of “Progress in Learning”
Han Yü (768–824)
One morning a professor at the Imperial University entered his college and called all the students to line up in front of the school. He then instructed them as follows:
“Hard work will perfect your studies,
which can be lost through play;
hard thought will achieve right conduct,
which sloth may then undo.
5 At this moment,
our Sage-king 1 has met
his men of worth,2
and tools of good rule
have covered the earth.
10 They have rooted up, destroyed
the evil and cruel,
have raised and honored
the perfect and true.
Even those with the smallest skill
15 are all enrolled,
those known for a single art
are all employed.
They dig, they unearth, they comb, they screen,3
they rub out blemishes, they polish to a sheen.
20 Some, indeed, are perhaps
by chance selected,
but none can say he was
worthy and unaccepted.
So all you students—
25 beware lest your studies
go unperfected,
and worry not that our officials
may be unaware;
beware your conduct
30 is not yet true,
and worry not that our officials
may be unfair.”
Before this lecture was over, someone in the ranks laughed and said,
“You would deceive us, Sir!
We pupils have served you now
35 these many years,
and your mouth has not ceased
to intone the texts
of the Six Classics,
and your hands not ceased
40 to unroll the scrolls
of the hundred persuasions;
you have extracted the essence
of historical accounts
and plumbed the mysteries
45 of abstruse compilations.
Yet still you strove
and worked for more,
and big or small
did all belong;
50 you burned your oil
to stretch the sun’s shadow,
tired and weary
year after year.
Truly, Sir, of your own studies,
55 it must be said,
you’ve worked hard and long.
“You refute, resist
false doctrines,
repel, reject
60 Buddhist and Taoist,
you patch and mortar
crack and leak,
fill out and expand
the dark and oblique.
65 Alone you search the far
maze of fallen threads,
and everywhere seek to join them
across time’s gap.
You have channeled and brought home
70 the hundred streams,
have turned back a raging wave,
already crested.
Truly, Sir, it must be said,
your labors for Confucian teaching
75 are uncontested.
“You have immersed, submerged
yourself in ambrosial essence,
taking flowers to your mouth
to savor their blooms;
80 and these you have worked
to your own literary art,
these writings that now
fill your rooms.
Your earliest models
85 are the ‘Books of Yüh’4
and the ‘Books of Hsia,’5
without end vast and profound;
the ‘Pronouncements of Chou,’ 6
the ‘Proclamations of Yin,’7
90 tortuous and hard to construe;
the Spring and Autumn,
strict and severe;
the Chronicle of Tso,
verbose and inflated;
95 the Changes,
prodigious yet ordered;
the Odes,
refined yet true.
Your later models
100 are Chuang Tzu8
and ‘Encountering Sorrows’9
and what the Grand
Historian 10 recorded;
then Yang Hsiung 11
105 and Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju,12
all skilled alike, yet
each in a separate norm.
Truly, Sir, it can be said,
your labors at literature
110 have enlarged its core,
set free its form.
“Ever since you were young
and began to study,
you’ve been strong in
115 your courage to act.
Now grown, and versed
in the social arts,
you’ve made all around you
into what it should be.
120 Truly, Sir, it can be said,
your behavior as a man
is perfect in all its parts.
“Yet in spite of all this
in public no one
125 will trust you;
in private no one
will help you.
Stumbling ahead,
falling behind,
130 whenever you move
there’s ruin anew.
For a short time, you
served as censor,
but then were exiled
135 to the southern wilds.
For three years, you
held the doctorate,13
a useless post, no merits
at all to come by.
140 You are fated always
to fight with your foes,
and another reverse could
come at any time.
Even in a warm winter,
145 your children cry of cold;
even after a good harvest,
your wife weeps in hunger.
Your head’s gone bald,
your teeth are gapped;
150 and things’ll never get better
till the day you die.
But you yourself refuse to reflect
on any of this,
Preferring instead to teach
155 to others what you deem apt.”
The master replied,14
“You, there, stand to the front!
Great timber is
turned into beams,
the smaller logs
160 become rafters,
columns, batten,
and shorter stays,15
doorjambs, pivots,
posts and seams;
165 that each of these
works as it will
and is used and placed
to complete a house
is all the master
170 craftsman’s skill.
“Shavings of jade,16
red cinnabar,
‘Scarlet arrow,’17
brown mushrooms,
175 bull’s urine,
and puffballs,
and old leather
drum skins,
all these he searches out
180 then stores apart,
awaiting the time
and use for each—
such is the master
physician’s art.
185 “With wise promotions
and fair selections,
he uses alike
both able and inept,
so the devious are refined,
190 the outstanding enshrined:
he examines for failings,
weighs for strengths
so that each to his measure
is staffed—
195 such is the prime
minister’s craft.
“In ancient times,
because Mencius was fond of dispute,
the way of Confucius was brought to light:
200 but the tracks of his wagon
encircled the world,
and he ended
old in his travels.
Hsün Tzu embraced
205 what was right,
his great teachings
towered over everything,
yet he fled to Ch’u
to escape slander
210 and died an exile
in Lan-ling.
These were two scholars
who brought forth words
that became our classics,
215 who trod the steps
that became our models.
They surpassed by far
the ranks of their peers
and entered deep
220 in the realm of the Sage.
Yet how were they
met by their age?
“Now although your professor has worked hard at his studies,
he could not trace their lineage;
225 although he has spoken much,
he could not strike their heart;
his literary style is outstanding,
but could not succeed at real use;
his conduct has been exemplary
230 but has not marked him as one apart.
And yet in spite of all this,
every month 18 he
receives a salary,
and every year
235 consumes his rice and wheat;
his children do not hoe,
his wife does not sew;
he travels by horse,
is attended by pages,
240 and sits in comfort
and ease to eat;
he earnestly treads the narrow,
common lanes,
pores over old pages
245 to rob and to plunder.
And yet our Sagacious Lord
imposes no wrath upon him,
nor have ministers rebuked
him for blunder.
250 How fortunate indeed has he been!
“If his every action
has drawn slander,
so renown too
has followed him.
255 To be thrown this idle
empty post
is thus for him
a proper fate.
And so, were he now
260 to argue the extent
or not of his wealth,
to reckon the status
of his rank and estate,
to forget what best befits
265 his own gifts,
and to mark his elders
as evils incarnate,
all such were to query a master craftsman
who would not use a pear-tree stake
270 for a column head,
or to malign a master physician
who prescribed sweet flag for long life
and then take chinaroot instead.” 19
Translated by Charles Hartman
“Progress in Learning” is defined by the following paragraph from the “Record of Studies” chapter of the Record of Rites (Li chi):
A good student, even though his teacher be lax, will outperform others, but ultimately attribute the merit to his teacher. The bad student, even though his teacher be strict, will do only half as well as others, and in the end will ultimately put the blame on his teacher. Those who are good at asking questions are like a woodsman who trims a great tree: first he cuts the easy parts, then later the joints and knots. After a long while, teacher and student enjoy solving problems through mutual discussion. Those who are not good at asking questions are the opposite of this. Those who are good at being questioned are like a bell when struck: when that which strikes it is small, the sound is small; when that which strikes it is large, the sound is large. When the bell is struck consistently and with force, then it gives forth its full sound. Those who are not good at answering questions are the opposite of this. And this is the way of making progress in learning.
It is important to observe that this inimitable piece is a comic attempt at the “explication” (a genre of commentary) of the classical idea of “progress in learning.” In other words, this is a mimicry of commentarial writing at the same time that it is a self-satire of intellectuals like the author himself.
For Han Yü, see selection 42.
1. “Sage-king” refers to Emperor Hsien Tsung of the T’ang period, who was on the throne during Han Yü’s active years.
2. The sage-king’s prime ministers.
3. Describing the work of the prime ministers.
4. “Books of Yüh” refers to the early chapters of the Classic of Documents (see selection 157), traditionally ascribed to Emperor Shun, whose dynastic name was Yüh.
5. “Books of Hsia” refers to the following chapters of the Classic of Documents attributed to Yü the Great, founder of the Hsia dynasty.
6. “Pronouncements of Chou” refers loosely to the latter chapters of the Classic of Documents, supposedly dating from the Chou dynasty, such as the “Grand Pronouncement.”
7. “Proclamations of Yin” refers to the P’an keng chapters of the Classic of Documents, allegedly dating from Shang times.
8. See selection 8.
9. See selection 122.
10. Ssu-ma Ch’ien (145–90? B.C.E.)., whose place in the development of Chinese historiography is comparable to that of Herodotus in the Western tradition. His Records of the Grand Historian (Shih chi, also rendered in English as Records of the Scribe) provided the pattern for all later official dynastic histories of China. Begun by his father Ssu-ma T’an, Grand Astrologer of the Han court during the early years of Emperor Wu’s reign, the bulk of the Records of the Grand Historian was researched and written by Ssu-ma Ch’ien himself. Much of the finest writing in this enormous work occurs in the “Memoirs” (sometimes referred to as “Biographies of Hereditary Houses”) section.
11. See selection 161.
12. See selection 129.
13. This actually happened to Han Yü (806–809).
14. The metaphors in the ensuing lines derive from the following passage in the Huai-nan Tzu:
A wise lord uses men like a skilled craftsman works his lumber. The large pieces he uses for boats and barges, for beams and rafters; the smaller ones he uses for poles and wedges. Long ones become planks and eaves; short ones become stays and cornices. Thus for him no piece is too large, small, long, or short; but each functions as best it will. He measures their shapes, and so each is used and placed.
No substance under Heaven is more lethal than wolf’s-bane; and yet a good physician collects and stores it, for it does have some use. Therefore no tree or shrub from the forest should be discarded. How much truer is this of men!
15. “Shorter stays” may also be translated as “dwarf, a man of small stature.” This and most of the other architectural terms in this passage derive from the Record of Rites.
16. The substances in this and the following lines are all important in traditional Chinese medicine.
17. “Scarlet arrow” is the root of Gastrodia elata, a plant belonging to the orchid family, used as a restorative.
18. T’ang officials received a monthly salary in cash and a yearly allotment of grain.
19. The root of “sweet flag” or calamus (Acorus calamus) was commonly ingested for longevity. Chinaroot, on the other hand, a variety of tuckahoe, was an ancient purgative.