"If you don't accumulate steps, there will be no miles; If you don't accumulate small streams, you won't be a river. " It means that there is no way to reach a thousand miles without accumulating half a step; Without the accumulation of tiny flowing water, there is no way to merge into the rivers and seas.

This sentence comes from Xunzi, a thinker and writer in the Warring States period. "Encouraging Learning" is the first article in Xunzi. This paper systematically discusses the theory and method of learning, and comprehensively and profoundly discusses the problems related to learning from the aspects of the importance, attitude, content and method of learning.

The full text can be divided into four paragraphs. The first paragraph clarifies the importance of learning, the second paragraph talks about the correct attitude towards learning, the third paragraph talks about the content of learning, and the fourth paragraph talks about learning from beginning to end. The full-text reasoning is profound and the structure is rigorous, which represents the level of the mature stage of pre-Qin essays.

Extended data:

I. Appreciation

A major feature of "encouraging learning" in writing is to explain the truth and prove the argument through metaphor. Except for a few places that directly explain the truth, the whole text is almost a metaphor. In this paper, a large number of metaphors commonly used in life are used, which makes the abstract truth clear, concrete and vivid and easy for readers to accept.

Two. Brief introduction of the author

Xunzi (about 3 13-238 BC) was honored as Qing, which was also called in the Western Han Dynasty to avoid being taboo by Emperor Gaozu, because Xun and Sun had the same ancient sound. At the end of the Warring States Period, the Yi family of Zhao (now Anze County, Shanxi Province) was a representative figure of the late pre-Qin Confucianism.