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Yes, study comes hard to you, my dear Enrico, as your mother says: I do not yet see you set out for school with that resolute mind and that smiling face which I should like. You are still intractable. But listen; reflect a little! What a miserable, despicable thing your day would be if you did not go to school! At the end of a week you would beg with clasped hands that you might return there, for you would be eaten up with weariness and shame; disgusted with your sports and with your existence. Everybody, everybody studies now, my child. Think of the workmen who go to school in the evening after having toiled all the day; think of the women, of the girls of the people, who go to school on Sunday, after having worked all the week; of the soldiers who turn to their books and copy-books when they return exhausted from their drill! Think of the dumb and of the boys who are blind, but who study, nevertheless; and last of all, think of the prisoners, who also learn to read and write. Reflect in the morning, when you set out, that at that very moment, in your own city, thirty thousand other boys are going like yourself, to shut themselves up in a room for three hours and study. Think of the innumerable boys who, at nearly this precise hour, are going to school in all countries. Behold them with your imagination, going, going, through the lanes of quiet villages; through the streets of the noisy towns, along the shores of rivers and lakes; here beneath a burning sun; there amid fogs, in boats, in countries which are intersected with canals; on horseback on the far-reaching plains; in sledges over the snow; through valleys and over hills; across forests and torrents, over the solitary paths of moutains; alone, in couples, in groups, in long files, all with their books under their arms, clad in a thousand ways, speaking a thousand tongues, Russia. from the most remote schools in Russia almost lost in the ice to the furthermost schools of Arabia, shaded by palm-trees, millions and millions, all going to learn the same things, in a hundred varied forms. Imagine this vast, vast throng of boys of a hundred races, this immense movement of which you form a part, and think, if this movement were to cease, humanity would fall back into barbarism; this movement is the progress, the hope, the glory of the world. Courage, then, little soldier of the immense army. Your books are your arms, your class is your squadron, the field of battle is the whole earth, and the victory is human civilization. Be not a cowardly soldier, my Enrico.
我亲爱的安利柯，就像你母亲说的那样，学习对你来说变得难了，我从没见过你坚强地、开开心心地出发去学校，那才是我喜欢看到的。你还是在闹别扭啊。但是听着，稍微想一想！如果你不去上学，你的日子将会变得多么悲惨和可鄙啊！一周之后，你将会双手合十，求着要回到学校的，因为你将会充满疲倦感和羞愧感，对游戏和自己的生活方式感到恶心。每个人都在学习，我的孩子。想想辛苦工作了一整天，晚上还去上课的工人们；想想工作了整个星期，周日还去上学的妇女、姑娘们；想想从训练归来已经疲惫不堪，却还要看书和练字的士兵们！想想哑巴和眼睛失明的男孩们，他们还坚持学习；最后再想想囚犯们，他们也学习读书写字。每天早晨去上学时，你要想想，就在那个时刻，城里有三万别的孩子也像你一样，正在上学的路上，将要把自己锁在教室里学习三个小时。想想所有的国家里不计其数的孩子，几乎都在这同一个时刻去上学。发挥你的想象吧，去到宁静的乡间小径；穿过嘈杂的城镇街道，走过河堤和湖岸；这边骄阳似火，那边雾气笼罩；在运河星罗棋布的国家，在船上；在遥远的平原上，在马背上；在雪地上的雪橇里；穿山越岭；越过森林和急流，踏上山间幽静的小径；独自一人的，两两结伴的，成群结队的，手臂下都夹着书本，身着千差万别的服装，说着成千上万种语言；从几乎被冰雪覆盖的俄罗斯最偏远的学校，到阿拉伯半岛的棕榈树遮蔽下的最远的学校，上千万的孩子们都即将去学习以成百种不同形式呈现的同样的知识。想象一下这上百种民族的数不清的男孩们，还有这个你有份参与的广大的运动。如果这个运动要停止了，人类就会倒退回野蛮状态。这个运动是世界的进步、希望和荣耀。勇敢点儿吧，这广大行军中的小士兵。你的书本是你的武器，班级是你的中队，战场是全世界，胜利是人类文明。我的安利柯啊，别做怯懦的士兵。
Thy Father.
你的父亲