"It takes ten years to grow trees, but it takes a hundred years to cultivate people" comes from "Pipe? Quan Xiu: "A year's plan is like a tree valley; Ten years' plan is nothing more than trees; A lifelong plan is nothing more than a tree person. One tree gains one, and the valley also; Ten winners in one tree, wood also; A tree is a hundred winners, and people are also. " The meaning of this passage is that for a country, the most profitable person is to cultivate talents. Once the talents are successfully cultivated, they will "get a hundred things from one tree", which is a lifelong plan for the country to govern the country. Then people have always summarized this passage of Guan Zi as "it takes ten years to plant trees, but it takes a hundred years to cultivate people", which means that "it is of great significance to cultivate talents, and it also means that it is not easy to cultivate talents". But the phrase "it takes ten years to plant trees, but it takes a hundred years to cultivate people" is puzzling and perhaps incorrect.

The pillars of the Forbidden City are all made of nanmu, which comes from the deep forests in the south. It is said that it will take four or five hundred years, but ten years is not enough to grow into a pillar that only a few people can embrace like the Forbidden City. Fast-growing forests can grow into big trees in ten years. However, such trees are only blended into pulp for paper making, or for producing things such as disposable chopsticks. If they are to be used as the pillars of high-rise buildings, I am afraid it is hard to grow them in ten years.

In fact, "cultivating people in a hundred years" is also an empty talk, because most people in the world will not live to be 1 years old. The average life expectancy of the ancients was only 3 to 4 years old, and the modern average life expectancy is said to have reached more than 7 years old. Although there are people who can live to be over 1 years old, they are only a few, and the centenarian's body has deteriorated and his thinking has nearly stagnated, so he can't make any contribution to society. I wonder what the significance of being a tree person for a hundred years is? Is it to cultivate individual old people?

I don't know when the saying "it takes ten years to plant trees, but it takes a hundred years to cultivate people" began. However, this is just an empty slogan. If it is really implemented, it is impossible to get many good trees and talents. Ten years of wood is not good wood, and really good wood, such as nanmu ebony, has to be cultivated for hundreds of years before it can become useful, and the cultivation of talents is really to improve efficiency and seize the day. Therefore, as long as the methods are proper, ten years is enough, and it does not need a long time of one hundred years.

"cultivating people in a hundred years" may be understood as: cultivating talents is a century-long plan. Although there is no big problem with this understanding, the sentence "cultivating people in a hundred years" is prone to ambiguity. Most people will interpret this sentence as: it takes a hundred years to cultivate talents. In fact, Guan's original text only uses a "lifelong plan", and there is no such thing as a "hundred years". This shows that Mr. Guan is actually very objective. Perhaps he has noticed the objective fact that ordinary people can't live to be 1 years old. The theory of "one hundred years" is obviously exaggerated and attached by later generations, but it is too outrageous and absurd, which violates the laws of science and is divorced from the reality of mankind. Perhaps it is more practical to change the formulation of "it takes ten years to plant trees, but it takes a hundred years to cultivate people" to "it takes a hundred years to plant trees and cultivate people"?

Chinese people like to shout some false slogans, such as "it takes ten years to plant trees, but it takes a hundred years to cultivate people", which should actually be stopped.