1935年秋进北大中文系,沈兼士先生教我们新生班文字学概要。他在课堂上有时谈些似乎离题其实很有意义的话。比如有一次说:“咱们中文系语言文字学方面,每隔几年就出个‘状元’:魏建功是乙丑科状元(1925年毕业),丁声树是壬申科(1931)状元,现在读四年级的周祖谟看来是丙子科(1936)状元。”这话是鼓励大家“见贤思齐焉”。沈先生无法预见我们班将来是否有个乙卯科 In the autumn of 1935, he taught at Peking University Department of Chinese, Mr. Shen Jianshi taught us a freshman class text summary. He sometimes talks in class that seems to make a lot of sense to the contrary. For example, once said: "We Chinese Language and Philology, every few years out of a ’champion’: Wei Jiang Gong is a ugly champion (graduated in 1925), Ding Shengshu is Shin Shin (1931) champion, Zhou Zumo, who is now in fourth grade, appears to be a champion of Bingzi (1936). Mr. Shen can not predict whether there will be a class in the future