Original text:
Respect for education and persuasion is the foundation of the country; Promoting talents and educating people is the first task of politics. Would you rather give up this and ask for something else? There is nothing else to do, that is to say, be slow and then compete with others. What can you get if you want to be enlightened by politics and religion and have pure and beautiful customs?
Translation:
Respecting education and promoting learning is the foundation of the founding of the country, and selecting talents and appointing talents is the premise of governing the country. If we don't build this foundation well and do other things well, some crooked ways will spread, and it is impossible to form clean politics, good fashion and good customs.
Extended data:
It can be said that such an understanding of education is very consistent with the original intention of Mr. Zhu Shunshui's sentence and his consistent educational thought. Zhu Shunshui was born in the late Ming Dynasty and devoted himself to the anti-Qing cause in middle age. After his failure, he avoided Japan. He was saddened by the emptiness of the style of study and the abandonment of the holy religion in the late Ming Dynasty. He thought that there were problems in education and enlightenment, which led to the corruption of knowledge and soul, political corruption and the loss of people's hearts.
Together with Gu's "study of statecraft" and Yan Yuan's "study of six arts", it constitutes the main characteristics of practical learning in Ming and Qing Dynasties.