范仲淹少年時代讀書非??炭?,常常一人徹夜伴燈苦讀。清貧的生活并沒有動搖他矢志求學的決心,他在書本中尋找生活的樂趣。23歲時,范仲淹來到應天府書院(Yingtianfu Academy),它是宋代著名的四大書院之一。他在這里向名師請教,和許多同學相互切磋,大量閱讀書院豐富的藏書,眼界大開。這一時期的學習生活為他以后成為一個博學多才、精通儒家經典又擅長詩文的學者奠定了基礎。
Fan Zhongyan was very diligent in studying when he was young, and he often studied hard all night. Although he lived a poor life, it did not shake his will to study. He tried to seek pleasure of life in books. At the age of 23, he went to the Academy of Yingtianfu, one of the four famous academies of the Song Dynasty, where he worked with established scholars and exchanged ideas with his fellow classmates. After reading a large portion of the Academy’s collection of books, his breadth of vision was greatly extended. His life at the academy paved the road along which he eventually became an erudite scholar. Besides, he developed into an expert on the classics of Confucianism and was well versed in poetry and prose.