Study

Reading New Asia Life before I went to bed: There is an article on the life of Ch'ien Mu (錢穆), recalled by his wife.

As a studious academic, this founder of our university spent much of his time reading and writing. A favourite story of his, re-told by Mrs. Chien is this:

After Ouyang Xiu (歐陽修) retired at the age of 64, he continued his daily study until late evening. His wife tried to tease him, "Why are you so hard working ? Are you worried that you would be punished by your teacher tomorrow ?"

Ouyang made a seminal answer, "I'm not worried about my teacher of course, but I'm afraid that people in the future would regard me as having a big name but actually knowing very little."

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While working in the university, Ch'ien used to be engaged in all sorts of administrative matters in the day time, and could only focused on his serious study after work or during weekends. Life of an academic seems not to have changed since then.