“Education cannot be mixed with intelligence”: Dmitry Likhachev on how to learn to learn. Selective presentation of a text in a journalistic style (with a creative task) Literature gives us a colossal, vast

“Great is the benefit of book learning:
books instruct and teach the path of repentance,
For we find wisdom and self-control in the words of the books.
These are the rivers that water the universe, these are the sources of wisdom,
There is immeasurable depth in books;
with them we are comforted in sorrow; they are the reins of abstinence..."
"The Tale of Bygone Years"

“Literature gives us a colossal, vast and profound experience of life. It makes a person intelligent, develops in him not only a sense of beauty, but also understanding, understanding of life, all its complexities, serves as a guide to other eras and to other peoples, opens the hearts of people to us.”
(Likhachev D.S. Letters about good)
Literature develops a sense of understanding of life...

I am sitting by the window, in front of me are the works of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, which I read again and again - “Letters about the Good and the Beautiful” and “Memoirs”. In between readings, I am interested in mentally communicating with nature, which is my best interlocutor. You just need to learn to talk to her in time. Dmitry Sergeevich’s opinion about nature is significant for understanding its essence. He writes: “Nature has its own culture... Nature is social in its own way. The Russian landscape was mainly created by the efforts of two great cultures: the culture of man, which softened the harshness of nature, and the culture of nature, which softened all the imbalances that man unwittingly brought into it...” Winter is cold this year, and my bird feeder very conveniently hangs by the window on an apple tree, and sparrows fly to it every day to eat. They arrive in a whole flock, but three or four sparrows fly up to the feeder. And such peaceful bliss comes when you watch their meal! Happy sparrows, happy I am. We have complete mutual understanding with them. I pour another portion of food into the feeder, they don’t even fly away, one of them has learned to eat from his hand without looking back. It turns out that in ordinary life you don’t need much to feel happy. I thought about this question: in all times and eras, people were pleased with such moments of communication with nature, were people always happy from such little things, or is this an isolated feeling given to a few? Where can I learn to understand life? Maybe through mistakes, making them so as not to repeat them later, maybe in a youth environment close to me with a certain slang that covers up our “lack of reading”, our ignorance, established positions of free communication, lack of thinking about
consequences of what we do, or maybe through information sources preferred by most of my peers?
We talk little, reason little, argue little, as our peers did several years ago. The truth is realized in a dispute - this is an irrefutable fact. A lot of different things are written in books: how to learn to distinguish where is right and where is wrong?
“Do no evil, be honest, kind, fair...” - how simply and how clearly you answer my question, Dmitry Sergeevich.
“Live life, don’t cross the field,” my great-grandmother, who was a Teacher with a capital T and devoted more than forty years to this matter, often liked to repeat. Her daughters followed in her footsteps. In general, my family is teachers for several generations. I agree with Dmitry Sergeevich that “Teaching must be written with a capital letter. True Teaching is sacred." My great-grandmother built a school in the village, my grandfather continued her work. I have never heard in my family that my relatives, teachers, chose the wrong path in life. Now the third generation from our teaching dynasty works at my school. The moral commandments bequeathed by Dmitry Sergeevich to all humanity, and not to individual people, are taken as the basis for the life of each member of our family, special preference is given to the following rules:
“Love people - both near and far.
Do good without seeing any merit in it.
Learn to read with interest, with pleasure, without rushing.
Be conscientious: all morality is in conscience.
Honor the past, create the present, believe in the future."
It is more important to understand life through communication with people who have extensive life experience behind them, and, of course, through reading, which “should not be accidental.” In the book “Russian Culture,” which became the spiritual and moral testament of Russia, Dmitry Sergeevich wrote: “Secondary school should educate a person capable of mastering a new profession, be sufficiently capable of various professions and, above all, be moral. For the moral basis is the main thing that determines the viability of society: economic, state, creative...” I really like to read books about the history of our Motherland: from fiction about Peter the Great, A. Nevsky, G.K. Zhukov to essays and articles on this topic. My great-grandfather Alexey Semenovich Vinogradov, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, a true patriot of his Motherland, instilled in me an interest in books of this genre. He went to war as a boy, has awards, and was wounded. I love to draw scenes of battles and battles. In my opinion, every person should have favorite books. I know that my great-grandfather’s reference books were “The Tale of a Real Man” by B. Polevoy and “Memoirs” by G.K. Zhukov., at my great-grandmother’s - “How the Steel Was Tempered” by N. Ostrovsky and “Anna Karenina” by L.N. Tolstoy.
My grandmother and I read “one by one,” that is, first one reads, then the other reads, then we re-read if the work interests us. So in the seventh grade I reread the book “Two Captains” twice. For the third year now, I have been interested in everything that Dmitry Sergeevich wrote about the monuments of Russian culture, about Novgorod, Leningrad, about its history. I believe that you need to prepare for moral actions from childhood. Adults are often asked if they would like to live their lives “again” in order to change something in their lives? Most give a positive answer. We need to learn to live life “again” “in our thoughts” after all the things we have done and accomplished in childhood, when we begin to become aware of ourselves. For example, in my short conscious life I have done things that I’m ashamed to remember, that I want to live again, but in a different way. But I am endlessly pleased when the whole class goes to help people who need us and our help. There are many old single people in the village and its surroundings, especially women. We help them cope with digging the garden, planting potatoes, cleaning the house, cleaning paths, removing snow. And then they invite us for a cup of tea, and we talk about life. Understanding of life also comes in these moments of communication with people born in a different time, who lived life in their own way. It seems to me that they lived a difficult life, but very lightly and respectably. What reverence for parents I noticed in the stories from the past lives of our great-grandmothers. Studying the front-line letters of my fellow villagers, I did not find a single one where the great tribute to the elders was violated. “Dear father, Boris Anisimovich and my revered mother Anna Sergeevna, as well as children ....!” This is the heartfelt love with which letters from the front began... Where does this tribute to the parents from our lives go? Why? Is a war necessary to regain everything lost? I will also be old, but it will be pleasant for me to live out my life with my children, as was the custom of our ancestors, where the whole family lived on a family estate, and not live out my life alone, even in comfortable houses of mercy. The main thing is to take care of the people around us.
“...Any state is doomed to decline if it does not care about preserving the highest spiritual achievements of many generations, if it does not create conditions for the cultural education of the people based on the great examples of heroes and devotees of science, art, and religion.” The state is obliged to help the younger generation understand life not through one-time actions, but through an entire ideology, which will be based on a set of rules of life, moral commandments that were developed by Dmitry Sergeevich and understandable to us teenagers. Then the core basis of life will be the same for everyone, and we will strive for it.

Literature opens people's hearts to us...

Danko’s heart, torn out of his chest for the sake of people’s happiness, the heart of Susanin, going to certain death, the heart of a mother who received a letter from the front: “I’m dying, mom, but I’m not giving up, because I passionately love you and my Motherland!” All these people's Hearts burn with the same flame - the flame of love for other people! In one of his speeches, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', Kirill, expressed concern that the modern generation has forgotten how to be compassionate. We don’t know how, and often don’t want to live with the “pain of others,” understand the troubles of others, and support each other in difficult times. Such actions disappear from our lives. The science of compassion is not easy to comprehend in our time. To understand how painful it is for a person to have his finger cut off, you need to go through this pain yourself. To understand how the heart hurts, you need to learn to sympathize and feel the pain of others, “without cutting a finger.” The science of hatred in practical life is easily comprehended; we talk little about the science of compassion.
“Besieged Leningrad is a city of horrors, a long-suffering city,” Dmitry Sergeevich writes about it. Several times I re-read the diary entries of Dmitry Sergeevich and his wife Zinaida Aleksandrovna about how they, as a family, survived the horrors of besieged Leningrad. “The winter seemed incredibly long. We made a wish for every next week: whether we would live or not.” That description of the winter of 1941-42 in Leningrad seems terribly implausible to my contemporaries. I never tire of asking myself the question: “Can this be possible?” But numbers and facts are stubborn things, the memories of living witnesses of that time speak for themselves. One million two hundred thousand dead people...900 blockade days and nights... The road of life, which Dmitry Sergeevich called the road of death...
About what the Leningraders of the besieged city were like, Dmitry Sergeevich writes: “Were the Leningraders heroes? Not only them: they were martyrs...” In my opinion, it is necessary that everyone, young and old, knows about the blockade that Dmitry Sergeevich described.
I read a lot of books about the Great Patriotic War. These are my favorite works. I adhere to your advice, Dmitry Sergeevich... “try to choose a book to your liking, take a break from everything in the world for a while, sit down more comfortably with a book...” I realized that there are books you cannot live without. A TV show provides contemplation that cannot always be repeated, but a book is always at hand. I want to learn more and more about the history of our Motherland.
Echo of war... Memory of war... If there is an echo, then it is long, drawn-out, eerie, screaming to the point of pain in the souls of adults and inaudible, mysterious,
unknown for my generation.
If the Memory is about the Great Patriotic War, then for us, contemporaries of the 21st century, it is associated, first of all, with the holiday - Victory Day. In my short life, I don’t remember May 9th being a cloudy day. On this day there is always sun, blooming lilacs, smiling people, St. George ribbons, music. Everyone goes to the obelisks, monuments, in the square, but every year there are fewer and fewer witnesses among us - the heroes of that formidable and fateful time for our country and the whole world. And from the first Victory Day to the 65th year of Victory there were long miles of war, lasting millions of human lives and irreparable losses for our Motherland. For as long as I can remember, on this holy day for all of us, I always go to the Monument in the center of the village. For the last three years I have been coming here without my mentor and just a very dear person to me - this is the great-grandfather of Alexey Semenovich Vinogradov, the soldier-liberator of that distant Great Patriotic War. For me, my great-grandfather was and remains a living witness of history; he taught me to comprehend the science of Memory. All his stories about the war will forever remain in my Memory. When I still couldn’t read, he read to me Russian epics, stories, tales about the exploits and greatness of the Russian people. I remember the words of Prince Svyatoslav from the “Tale of Bygone Years”: “Let us not disgrace the Russian land, but let us lie down here with our bones, for the dead have no shame in imam...” I now realized that this is the core of the Russian spirit, which was passed on by our ancestors from generation after generation, “absorbed” with mother’s milk, like a spell, like a prayer. The enemies and envious people of our country, and Russia has many of them, have to this day “broken” their heads over where we got such invincibility! We coped with the Mongol-Tatar yoke; neither the Turks, nor the Swedes, nor the Germans, nor the French were afraid of us. And behind every Victory stood the great people of the Russian land: Nevsky, Kutuzov, Peter I, Suvorov, Bagration, Minin, Pozharsky, Zhukov, Rokossovsky.…
The Nazis mourned their shame after the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, and they would not have to raise their eyes to humanity for a long time for everything they did during the Second World War. How many real sons and daughters have my land lost! The German people also suffered! But Russia has always been, is and will be a great Power! The Russian people could not imagine any other outcome in the Great Patriotic War!
“But Moscow emerged from fires and destruction again and again, each time wider, richer and more beautiful than before, for love for their native city and deep faith in their own strength gave birth to confidence in the Russian people in a great and vitally strong future,” Dmitry wrote about Moscow Sergeevich, and our Vyaznikovsky poetess Gavrilova Nina Ivanovna expressed the essence of our today’s existence very accurately in her poems:
“Wherever you look for thousands of miles, RUSSIA,
The land of our fathers and our roots are here,
She bears her name worthily,
In which there is will, courage and honor.
Having inherited them from their ancestors,
That gift is priceless, we must keep it,
And cherish this inheritance from childhood,
Increase it and live with it with dignity.
And pass on the inheritance rightfully
To your descendants - grandchildren and sons,
So that they are a great power
We would be proud to the envy of all our enemies.”
The centenary of the Great Victory will come, the two hundredth spring will come, and we will always remember this day - May 9, as a holy and national holiday and we will be grateful to those who gave their lives for us, without thinking for a single minute. The Moscow Battle was the most important in this war. After all, when we say Moscow, we mean Russia. Low bow to you, warriors - liberators!
Literature provides an opportunity to come into contact with great people...

Great people write about themselves modestly, without pomp. But I would like to say about Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev in his own words:
“And people who served others, who served wisely, who had a good and significant goal in life, are remembered for a long time. They remember their words, actions, their appearance, their jokes, and sometimes eccentricities...”
You want to be friends with such people for a long, long time, you are drawn to them, you want to consult with them, you want to read and re-read their books. The works of Dmitry Sergeevich serve as a guide to getting acquainted with other works. My advice to peers is very simple: learn to read the present and find answers to many questions. and the small ones will disappear altogether... And may you be lucky, as I was lucky: from childhood, may you be surrounded by wise adults and real books.

What place does literature have in people's lives? How does reading affect us? Academician Dmitry Likhachev suggests thinking about such questions. Every person can turn reading books into their lifestyle, but for this it is important to decide on the right book. This is a way to find yourself in other eras, among other peoples and see the hearts of different people revealed before you. Literature has a huge place in a person’s life, since it provides “a colossal, extensive... experience of life” for us.

She is able to make people wiser, enriching their inner world, and at the same time raising an educated personality.

Reading a book is a meaningful, thoughtful activity. It is important to focus your attention on every little detail, because it is the details that hide interesting and mysterious facts. You need to immerse yourself in reading only for your own pleasure, and not for the sake of someone else. The most useful things to read are classic works that have stood the test of time. Although modern literature also has the ability to provide answers to questions that puzzle modern

Human. You can truly love a book and come to understand it only by rereading it several times.

The heroine of the novel “Eugene Onegin” by Pushkin, Tatyana Larina, had a strong love for books. She read them, imagining herself as the main heroines of the novels. Tatyana was so able to immerse herself in the process that she began to experience the feelings that possessed them.

Tolstoy’s epic novel “War and Peace” also evokes exciting feelings in readers in relation to its characters. Feelings for the characters make you open your favorite novel again and again.

Other works on this topic:

Is John Amos Comenius, the great teacher of the 17th century, right when he asserts that “... an intelligent reader is unthinkable who would not at the same time be a Selector”? How are you...
A difficult trial by war changes a person’s worldview. Tragic events remain in the soul forever and are reflected in behavior. A person can radically change for the better or for the worse....
War is the worst thing that can happen to humanity. But even in our 21st century, people have not learned to solve problems peacefully. And still...
War is a difficult test for any person. During war one has to endure debilitating physical and psychological stress. A person does not know what awaits him ahead...
Love, if we consider this concept from the point of view of sincere feelings, implies complete acceptance of a person with all his character traits, that is, his shortcomings...
Can literature change anything in a person? The famous Soviet and Russian philologist Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev reveals the problem of the role of books in people's lives. In the proposed...
The concept of “good” evokes in me associations with morality, with something good and useful, opposite to evil. Absolutely anyone can do good, it doesn’t require...
Each person creates his own idea of certain moral values. Often, one person’s understanding can be very different from the understanding of the essence of the same moral...

Russian language lesson in 9th grade. Developed by: Elena Aleksandrovna Khorubko, teacher of Russian language and literature.

Lesson topic: Preparation for writing a concise presentation in the State Examination Paper.

Lesson Objectives:

Develop basic skills in working with text: learn to see the structure of the text, identify micro-topics, find theses and arguments, distinguish between main and secondary information.
Strengthen the skills of briefly retelling a text, observing logical connections between its parts.
Learn to compress text using basic techniques: generalization and exclusion.
Continue to instill in schoolchildren a love of books and reading.

Lesson type: speech development lesson.

Equipment: text by D.S. Likhachev for writing a concise presentation (from the collection “Dictations and presentations in the Russian language”. Publishing house “Exam” Moscow 2012)

During the classes.

Organizing time.
Communicating to students the topic and objectives of the lesson.
Teacher's opening speech.

Guys, you know that one of the parts of the exam paper in the Russian language is writing a concise summary. This type of work with text requires knowledge of the structure of the text, the correct selection of its semantic parts, and the ability to use text compression techniques.

What does the word "compressed" mean?

What text compression techniques do we know?

On students' desks: text by D.S. Likhachev for writing a condensed presentation (from the collection “Dictations and presentations in the Russian language.” Publishing house “Exam” Moscow 2012).

Text by D.S. Likhacheva.

Every person is obliged to take care of his intellectual development. This is a duty to the society in which he lives and to himself.

The main (but, of course, not the only) way of one’s intellectual development is reading.

Reading, in order to be effective, must interest the reader. Interest in reading in general or in certain branches of culture

tours need to be developed in yourself. Interest may be largely

the result of self-education.

Why is TV now partially replacing books? Yes, because TV forces you to slowly watch some program, sit comfortably so that nothing disturbs you, it distracts you from your worries, it dictates to you how to watch and what to watch. But try to choose a book to your liking, take a break from everything in the world for a while, sit comfortably with a book, and you will understand that there are many books that you cannot live without, which are more important and more interesting than many programs. I'm not saying stop watching TV. But I say: look with choice. Spend your time on things that are worth spending. Read more and read with greater choice. Determine your choice yourself, depending on the role the book you have chosen has acquired in the history of human culture. To become a classic. This means that there is something significant in it. Or maybe this essential for the culture of mankind will be essential for you too?

A classic work is one that has stood the test of time. With him you won't waste your time. But the classics cannot answer all the questions of today. Therefore, it is necessary to read modern literature. Don't just jump at every trendy book. Don't be fussy. Vanity makes a person recklessly spend the largest and most precious capital he has - his time.

4.Work according to the text.

Read the text. What type of speech does it belong to? (Reasoning).
What is the main idea of the text? (Main idea: reading is the main way of human intellectual development).
Remember the definition of the main concepts: microtheme, thesis, argument.
How can you title the text? “Reading is the basis of human development,” “Love reading.”
How many parts does the text consist of? The text consists of six parts.
Highlight the main ideas of each micro-topic.

Paragraph No. Microtheme

1 Every person needs to take care of his own

intellectual development.

2 Reading is the main way of intellectual

development.

3 Interest in reading - result

literature gives understanding of life.

modern literature. The main thing is not to be

vain, don't waste time.

Since this text relates to reasoning, it is necessary to highlight the author’s thesis and arguments.

Thesis: Reading is the main way of human intellectual development.

Arguments: 1) It is necessary to develop an interest in reading. 2) Reading with pleasure makes a person wise and develops an understanding of life. 3)Read more and with the greatest choice. 4) Modern literature provides answers to today's questions.

8.Work on text compression.

We will compress the text using methods of excluding and summarizing information.

In our work we will combine the first three paragraphs of the source text:

Every person should take care of his intellectual development through reading. It should be interesting to the reader. Interest in reading is the result of a person’s self-education.

The next paragraph contains arguments and evidence of the author's thesis.

Literature gives life experience, makes a person wise and intelligent, and develops an understanding of life. All this is possible only when you read with pleasure and delve into every little detail. Watch TV shows and read books with serious choices. Don't waste time on unimportant works. Pay attention to both classical and modern literature. She will give answers to today's questions.

Here we have excluded repetitions of words ( understanding, little things), author's explanation in parentheses ( whether according to the school curriculum or at the behest of fashion and vanity), interrogative sentences. Sentence structures have been made simpler. We summarize sentences connected by one thought.

Therefore, read more, but do not be vain in your choice of literature. This will save you from losing your greatest value - time.

We replaced part of the sentence with a pronoun, eliminated repetitions of words and homogeneous members of the sentence. Summarize sentences that are similar in meaning.

Logical connections between parts of the text are provided by words of the same thematic group (book, reading, literature), summary words (therefore), and the use of personal and demonstrative pronouns.

5. Summing up the lesson.

What text compression techniques did we use?

Were all lesson objectives achieved?

Russian language lesson in 9th grade.

Lesson topic : Preparation for writing a concise presentation in the State Examination Paper.

Lesson Objectives :

Develop basic skills in working with text: learn to see the structure of the text, identify micro-topics, find theses and arguments, distinguish between main and secondary information.

Strengthen the skills of briefly retelling a text, observing logical connections between its parts.

Learn to compress text using basic techniques: generalization and exclusion.

Continue to instill in schoolchildren a love of books and reading.

Lesson type : speech development lesson.

Equipment : text by D.S. Likhachev for writing a concise presentation (from the collection “Dictations and presentations in the Russian language”. Publishing house “Exam” Moscow 2012)

During the classes.

Organizing time.

Communicating to students the topic and objectives of the lesson.

Teacher's opening speech.

What does the word "compressed" mean?

What text compression techniques do we know?

Text by D.S. Likhacheva.

Every person is obliged to take care of his intellectual development. This is a duty to the society in which he lives and to himself.

The main (but, of course, not the only) way of one’s intellectual development is reading.

Reading, in order to be effective, must interest the reader. Interest in reading in general or in certain branches of culture

tours need to be developed in yourself. Interest may be largely

the result of self-education.

4.Work according to the text.

Read the text. What type of speech does it belong to? (Reasoning).

What is the main idea of the text? (Main idea: reading is the main way of human intellectual development).

Remember the definition of the main concepts: microtheme, thesis, argument.

How can you title the text? “Reading is the basis of human development,” “Love reading.”

How many parts does the text consist of? The text consists of six parts.

Highlight the main ideas of each micro-topic.

№ Paragraph Microtheme

1 Every person needs to take care of his own

intellectual development.

2 Reading is the main way of intellectual

development.

3 Interest in reading - result

self-education.

literature gives understanding of life.

choice.

modern literature. The main thing is not to be

vain, don't waste time.

Since this text relates to reasoning, it is necessary to highlight the author’s thesis and arguments.

Thesis: Reading is the main way of human intellectual development.

8.Work on text compression.

We will compress the text using methods of excluding and summarizing information.

In our work we will combine the first three paragraphs of the source text:

Every person should take care of his intellectual development through reading. It should be interesting to the reader. Interest in reading is the result of a person’s self-education.

The first sentence states the author's thesis. We use generalization of sentences that are close in meaning, combining them into one. Next, we use the technique of eliminating homogeneous members and replacing a complex sentence with a simple one.

The next paragraph contains arguments and evidence of the author's thesis.

Here we have excluded repetitions of words (understanding, little things ), author's explanation in parentheses (whether according to the school curriculum or at the behest of fashion and vanity ), interrogative sentences. Sentence structures have been made simpler. We summarize sentences connected by one thought.

Therefore, read more, but do not be vain in your choice of literature. This will save you from losing your greatest value - time.

We replaced part of the sentence with a pronoun, eliminated repetitions of words and homogeneous members of the sentence. Summarize sentences that are similar in meaning.

5. Summing up the lesson.

What text compression techniques did we use?

Were all lesson objectives achieved?

“Letters about the Good and the Beautiful,” in which academician Dmitry Likhachev reflects on the eternal and gives advice to young people, became a bestseller back in 1985 and was translated into many languages. Alpina Publisher is re-releasing a collection by one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century. “Theories and Practices” publishes several letters - about why careerism can make a person unhappy and unbearable, how intelligence will help you live a long time, and why a person needs “disinterested” reading.

Letter Eleven

About careerism

A person develops from the first day of his birth. He is focused on the future. He learns, learns to set new tasks for himself, without even realizing it. And how quickly he masters his position in life. He already knows how to hold a spoon and pronounce the first words.

Then, as a boy and a young man, he also studies.

And the time has come to apply your knowledge and achieve what you strived for. Maturity. We must live in the present...

But the acceleration continues, and now, instead of studying, the time comes for many to master their situation in life. The movement proceeds by inertia. A person is always striving towards the future, and the future is no longer in real knowledge, not in mastering skills, but in placing oneself in an advantageous position. The content, the real content, is lost. The present time does not come, there is still an empty aspiration to the future. This is careerism. Internal anxiety that makes a person personally unhappy and unbearable for others.

Letter Twelve

A person must be intelligent

A person must be intelligent! What if his profession does not require intelligence? And if he could not get an education: did the circumstances turn out that way? What if the environment doesn’t allow it? What if his intelligence makes him a “black sheep” among his colleagues, friends, relatives, and simply prevents him from getting closer to other people?

No, no and NO! Intelligence is needed under all circumstances. It is necessary both for others and for the person himself.

This is very, very important, and above all in order to live happily and long - yes, long! For intelligence is equal to moral health, and health is needed to live long - not only physically, but also mentally. One old book says: “Honor your father and your mother, and you will live long on earth.” This applies to both an entire nation and an individual. That's wise.

But first of all, let's define what intelligence is, and then why it is associated with.

Many people think: an intelligent person is one who has read a lot, received a good education (and even mainly a humanitarian one), traveled a lot,...

Meanwhile, you can have all this and be unintelligent, and you can not possess any of this to a large extent, but still be an internally intelligent person.

Education cannot be confused with intelligence. Education lives by old content, intelligence - by creating new things and recognizing the old as new.

Moreover... Deprive a truly intelligent person of all his knowledge, education, deprive him of his memory. Let him forget everything in the world, he will not know the classics of literature, he will not remember the greatest works of art, he will forget the most important historical events, but if at the same time he remains receptive to intellectual values, a love of acquiring knowledge, an interest in history, an aesthetic sense, he will be able to to distinguish a real work of art from a crude “thing” made only to surprise, if he can admire the beauty of nature, understand the character and individuality of another person, enter into his position, and having understood the other person, help him, he will not show rudeness, indifference, or gloating , envy, but will appreciate another if he shows respect for the culture of the past, the skills of an educated person, responsibility in resolving moral issues, the richness and accuracy of his language - spoken and written - this will be an intelligent person.

Intelligence is not only about knowledge, but about the ability to understand others. It manifests itself in a thousand and a thousand little things: in the ability to argue respectfully, to behave modestly at the table, in the ability to quietly (precisely imperceptibly) help another, to take care of nature, not to litter around you - do not litter with cigarette butts or swearing, bad ideas (this is also garbage, and what else!).

I knew peasants in the Russian North who were truly intelligent. They maintained amazing cleanliness in their homes, knew how to appreciate good songs, knew how to tell “happenings” (that is, what happened to them or others), lived an orderly life, were hospitable and friendly, treated with understanding both the grief of others and someone else's joy.

Intelligence is the ability to understand, to perceive, it is a tolerant attitude towards the world and towards people.

You need to develop intelligence in yourself, train it - train your mental strength, just as you train your physical strength. And training is possible and necessary in any conditions.

That training physical strength contributes to longevity is understandable. Much less understands that longevity requires training of spiritual and mental strength.

The fact is that an angry and angry reaction to the environment, rudeness and lack of understanding of others is a sign of mental and spiritual weakness, human inability to live... Pushing around in a crowded bus is a weak and nervous person, exhausted, reacting incorrectly to everything. Quarreling with neighbors is also a person who does not know how to live, who is mentally deaf. An aesthetically unresponsive person is also an unhappy person. Someone who cannot understand another person, attributes only evil intentions to him, and is always offended by others - this is also a person who impoverishes his own life and interferes with the lives of others. Mental weakness leads to physical weakness. I'm not a doctor, but I'm convinced of this. Long-term experience has convinced me of this.

Friendliness and kindness make a person not only physically healthy, but also beautiful. Yes, exactly beautiful.

A person’s face, distorted by malice, becomes ugly, and the movements of an evil person are devoid of grace - not deliberate grace, but natural grace, which is much more expensive.

A person's social duty is to be intelligent. This is a duty to yourself. This is the key to his personal happiness and the “aura of goodwill” around him and towards him (that is, addressed to him).

Everything I talk about with young readers in this book is a call to intelligence, to physical and moral health, to the beauty of health. Let us live long as people and as a people! And veneration of father and mother should be understood broadly - as veneration of all our best in the past, in the past, which is the father and mother of our modernity, great modernity, to which it is great happiness to belong.

Letter twenty two

Love to read!

Every person is obliged (I emphasize - obliged) to take care of his intellectual development. This is his responsibility to the society in which he lives and to himself.

The main (but, of course, not the only) way of one’s intellectual development is reading.

Reading should not be random. This is a huge waste of time, and time is the greatest value that cannot be wasted on trifles. You should read according to the program, of course, without strictly following it, moving away from it where additional interests for the reader appear. However, with all deviations from the original program, it is necessary to draw up a new one for yourself, taking into account the new interests that have arisen.

Reading, in order to be effective, must interest the reader. An interest in reading in general or in certain branches of culture must be developed in oneself. Interest can be largely the result of self-education.

Creating reading programs for yourself is not so easy, and this should be done in consultation with knowledgeable people, with existing reference guides of various types.

The danger of reading is the development (conscious or unconscious) of a tendency towards “diagonal” viewing of texts or various types of speed reading methods.

Speed reading creates the appearance of knowledge. It can be allowed only in certain types of professions, being careful not to create the habit of speed reading; it leads to attention disorders.

Have you noticed how great an impression is made by those works of literature that are read in a calm, leisurely and unhurried environment, for example on vacation or during some not very complex and non-distracting illness?

“Teaching is difficult when we do not know how to find joy in it. It is necessary to choose forms of recreation and entertainment that are smart and capable of teaching something.”

“Disinterested” but interesting reading is what makes you love literature and what broadens a person’s horizons.

Why is TV now partially replacing books? Yes, because TV forces you to slowly watch some program, sit comfortably so that nothing disturbs you, it distracts you from your worries, it dictates to you how to watch and what to watch. But try to choose a book to your liking, take a break from everything in the world for a while, sit comfortably with a book, and you will understand that there are many books that you cannot live without, which are more important and more interesting than many programs. I'm not saying stop watching TV. But I say: look with choice. Spend your time on things that are worth spending. Read more and read with greater choice. Determine your choice yourself, depending on the role your chosen book has acquired in the history of human culture in order to become a classic. This means that there is something significant in it. Or maybe this essential for the culture of mankind will be essential for you too?

A classic is one that has stood the test of time. With him you won't waste your time. But the classics cannot answer all the questions of today. Therefore, you need to read and. Don't just jump at every trendy book. Don't be fussy. Vanity makes a person recklessly spend the largest and most precious capital he has - his time.

Letter twenty-six

Learn to learn!

We are entering a century in which education, knowledge, and professional skills will play a decisive role in a person’s destiny. Without knowledge, by the way, which is becoming more and more complex, it will simply be impossible to work and be useful. Because, robots. Even calculations will be done by computers, as well as drawings, calculations, reports, planning, etc. Man will bring in new ideas, think about things that a machine cannot think about. And for this, a person’s general intelligence will be increasingly needed, his ability to create new things and, of course, moral responsibility, which a machine cannot bear. Ethics, simple in previous centuries, is endless. It is clear. This means that a person will have the most difficult and complex task of being not just a person, but a person of science, a person morally responsible for everything that happens in the age of machines and robots. General education can become a creative person, a creator of everything new and morally responsible for everything that will be created.

Teaching is what a young man now needs from a very young age. You always need to learn. Until the end of their lives, all the major scientists not only taught, but also studied. If you stop learning, you won’t be able to teach. For knowledge is growing and becoming more complex. It must be remembered that the most favorable time for learning is youth. It is in youth, in childhood, in adolescence, in adolescence, that the human mind is most receptive. Receptive to the study of languages (which is extremely important), to mathematics, to the assimilation of simple knowledge and aesthetic development, which stands next to moral development and partly stimulates it.

Know not to waste time on trifles, on “rest”, which sometimes tires more than the hardest work, do not fill your bright mind with muddy streams of stupid and aimless “information”. Take care of yourself for learning, for acquiring knowledge and skills that only in your youth you will master easily and quickly.

And here I hear the young man’s heavy sigh: what a boring life you offer our youth! Just study. Where is the rest and entertainment? Why should we not rejoice?

No. Acquiring skills and knowledge is the same sport. Teaching is hard when we don’t know how to find joy in it. We must love to study and choose smart forms of recreation and entertainment that can also teach us something, develop in us some abilities that we will need in life.

What if you don’t like studying? This cannot be true. This means that you simply have not discovered the joy that the acquisition of knowledge and skills brings to a child, boy or girl.

Look at a small child - with what pleasure he begins to learn to walk, talk, delve into various mechanisms (for boys), and nurse dolls (for girls). Try to continue this joy of mastering new things. This largely depends on you. Make no mistake: I don’t like studying! Try to love all the subjects you take at school. If other people liked them, why shouldn't you like them! Read worthwhile books, not just reading matter. Study history and literature. An intelligent person should know both well. They are the ones who give a person a moral and aesthetic outlook, make the world around him large, interesting, radiating experience and joy. If you don’t like something about an item, strain yourself and try to find a source of joy in it - the joy of acquiring something new.

Learn to love learning!