历史的吊诡往往让人哭笑不得。在一个时代巨变，政局动荡，外族入侵，战火频仍，物质生活极其匮乏，连生命安全都不能保证的环境里，从小学至中学，至大学，少年和青年时代的何兆武所感受到的，非但不是恐慌、忧虑、不安，恰恰相反，是幸福。而在今天的学校里，在一个安定、富足、物质条件极大提高的环境中，莘莘学子们恐怕很难体会到幸福的感觉。当代学校教育的失败，早已不是新鲜话题。学校教育的目的到底是什么，政治和教育之间，教育和社会之间，应该建立一种什么样的关系，何兆武通过他的回忆，向我们提出了一系列的追问，促使我们再度面对国民教育这个无比重大的话题。当然，这本书的价值远远不止是对教育的追问，它所触发的感受和思考，必将发生长期的影响和讨论。 口述历史是近年来的一个热点，薄薄的一册《上学记》更是2006年读书界的一个亮点。超然与淡定让年逾八十的何先生获得了一种“随心所欲不逾矩”的自由，这份自由让几乎见证了整个中国二十世纪历史的他在追忆过去的时候，充分地保持了一个历史学家的本真与哲学家的睿智。可以说，《上学记》是上个世纪前半叶中国历史的一页剪影，可其中又缠绕着口述者对后半叶历史的深切反思。其中个别的记忆或有偏差，但是并不影响何先生对于过去那个时代整体精神的准确理解和表达。追求自由却拒绝虚无，捍卫真实却并不偏执，追忆过去并不造神和美化，反思现实又烙印着历史的启示，何先生的为人、为学都令人钦敬。

A series of anecdotes, such as are included in , shouldn't by rights add up to an autobiography, but that's just one of the many pieces of received wisdom that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) cheerfully ignores in this engagingly eccentric book. Fiercely independent (read the chapter entitled "Judging Books by Their Covers"), intolerant of stupidity even when it comes packaged as high intellectualism (check out "Is Electricity Fire?"), unafraid to offend (see "You Just Ask Them?"), Feynman informs by entertaining. It's possible to enjoy , a bestseller ever since its initial publication in 1985, simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realise that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary on what constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not by rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems, and total disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world. Feynman himself had all these qualities in spades, and they come through with vigour and verve in his no-bull prose. No wonder his students--and readers around the world--adored him. --