英语专业

Let me tell you one of the earliest disasters in my career as a teacher. It was January of 1940

Kansas City. Part of the student body was a beanpole with hair on top who came into my class, sat down, folded his arms, and looked at me as if to say "All right, teach me something." Two weeks later we started Hamlet. Three weeks later he came into my office with his hands on his hips. "Look," he said, "I came here to be a pharmacist. Why do I have to read this stuff" And not having a book of his own to point to, he pointed to mine which was lying on the desk.

给你们讲讲我刚当老师时候的一次失败经历吧。那是1940年的1月，我从研究生院

毕业不久，在堪萨斯城大学开始第一学期的教学工作。一个瘦高，长得就像顶上有毛的豆角架一样的男学生走进我的课堂，坐下，双臂交叉放在胸前，看着我，好像在说：“好吧，教我一些东西。”两周后我们开始学习《哈姆雷特》。三周后他双手叉腰走进我的办公室，“看，”他说，“我来这是学习当药剂师的。我为什么必须读这个？”由于没有随身带着自己的书，他就指着桌子上放着的我的那本。

New as I was to the faculty, I could have told this specimen a number of things. I could have pointed out that he had enrolled, not in a drugstore-mechanics school, but in a college and that at the end of his course meant to reach for a scroll that read Bachelor of Science. It would not

mankind has generated within its history. That is to say, he had not entered a technical training

虽然我是位新老师，我本来可以告诉这个家伙许多事情的。我本来可以指出，他考

入的不是制药技工培训学校而是大学，而且他在毕业时，应该得到一张写有理学学士而不是“合格的磨药工”的学位证书。这证书会证明他专修过药剂学，但它还能进一步证明他曾经接触过一些人类发展史上产生的思想。换句话说，他上的不是技能培训学校而是大学，在大学里学生既要得到培训又要接受教育。

I could have told him all this, but it was fairly obvious he wasn't going to be around long enough for it to matter.

twenty-four hours. They will be a little shorter when you are in love, and a little longer when you are out of love, but the average will tend to hold. For eight of these hours, more or less, you will be asleep."

但是，由于我当时很年轻而且责任感也很强，我尽量把我的意思这样表达出来：“在

你的余生中，”我说，“平均每天24小时左右。谈恋爱时，你会觉得它有点短；失恋时，你会觉得它有点长。但平均每天24小时会保持不变。在其余的大约8个小时的时间里，你会处于睡眠状态。

"Then for about eight hours of each working day you will, I hope, be usefully employed. Assume you have gone through pharmacy school —or engineering, or law school, or

client doesn't go to the electric chair as a result of your incompetence. These are all useful pursuits. They involve skills every man must respect, and they can all bring you basic

英语专业

your table, supports your wife, and rears your children. They will be your income, and may it always suffice."

“然后在每个工作日8个小时左右的时间里，我希望你会忙于一些有用的事情。假

设你毕业于一所药科大学——或工程大学，法学院，或者其他什么大学——在那8个小时时间里，你将用到你的专业技能。作为一个药剂师，你要确保氯化物没有和阿斯匹林混在一起；作为一个工程师，你要确保一切都在你的掌控之中；作为一个律师，你要保证你的当事人没有因为你的无能而被处以电刑。这些都是有用的工作，它们涉及到的技能每个人都必须尊重，而且它们都能给你带来基本的满足。无论你还干些什么，这些技能都很可能是你养家糊口的本领。它们会给你带来收入；但愿你的收入总能够用。”

"But having finished the day's work, what do you do with those other eight hours Let's say you go home to your family. What sort of family are you raising Will the children ever be exposed to

some contact with the great democratic intellect Will there be a book in the house Will there be a painting a reasonably sensitive man can look at without shuddering Will the kids ever get to hear Bach"

“但完成一天的工作后，剩下的8小时你做什么呢？比如说你可以回家，和你的家

人待在一起。你所供养的是一个什么样的家庭呢？孩子们在家里能接触到一点还算是精辟的思想吗？你主持的家庭中有民主气息吗？家里有书吗？有那种一般敏感的人看了不会发怵的画吗？孩子们会听到巴赫的音乐吗？”

That is about what I said, but this particular pest was not interested. "Look," he said, "you professors raise your kids your way; I'll take care of my own. Me, I'm out to make money."

这差不多就是我所说的，但这个讨厌鬼不感兴趣。“看，”他说，“你们教授用你们的方法培养孩子；我会以我自己的方式抚养我自己的孩子。我呀，我会尽一切努力挣钱的。”

"I hope you make a lot of it," I told him, "because you're going to be badly stuck for极力追求something to do when you're not signing checks."

“我希望你能赚很多，”我告诉他，“因为你在开支票的余暇会愁没事干的。”

Fourteen years later I am still teaching, and I am here to tell you that the business of the college is not only to train you, but to put you in touch with what the best human minds have thought. If you have no time for Shakespeare, for a basic look at philosophy, for the continuity of the fine arts, for that lesson of man's development we call history —then you have no

mechanized savage, the push-button Neanderthal. Our colleges inevitably graduate a number of such life forms, but it cannot be said that they went to college; rather the college went through them — without making contact.

14年后的今天，我仍然在教书，在此我要告诉你们，大学的职责并不只是在于培训

你，它还要使你接触人类思想的精髓。如果你没时间看莎士比亚的作品，没时间看哲学入门，没时间欣赏艺术的存续，也没时间学习我们称之为历史的人类发展的课程——那么你就没有必要呆在大学里了。你正在变为那种新型的机械化的野蛮人，那种装有按钮的尼安德特人。我们大学的毕业生里不可避免有不少这样的行尸走肉；但是我们不能说他们上过大学，只能说大学曾存在于他们的生活——却没能留下任何痕迹。

lifetime to invent for oneself everything one needs to know in order to be a civilized human.

没有外界的帮助，谁也不会成长为一个文明人。要想成为一个文明人，必须获取文

明社会所需的知识和文化，而人生苦短，不足以获取人类历史长河中的所有宝贵财产。