新概念英语4册第33课

Education

Education is one of the key words of our time. A man without an education, many of us believe, is an unfortunate victim of adverse circumstances deprived of one of the greatest twentieth-century opportunities. Convinced of the importance of education, modern states 'invest' in institutions of learning to get back 'interest' in the form of a large group of enlightened young men and women who are potential leaders. Education, with its cycles of instruction so carefully worked out, punctuated by text-books -- those purchasable wells of wisdom -- what would civilization be like without its benefits?

So much is certain: that we would have doctors and preachers, lawyers and defendants, marriages and births -- but our spiritual outlook would be different. We would lay less stress on 'facts and figures' and more on a good memory, on applied psychology, and on the capacity of a man to get along with his fellow-citizens. If our educational system were fashioned after its bookless past we would have the most democratic form of 'college' imaginable. Among the people whom we like to call savages all knowledge inherited by tradition is shared by all; it is taught to every member of the tribe so that in this respect everybody is, equally equipped for life.

It is the ideal condition of the 'equal start' which only our most progressive forms of modern education try to regain. In primitive cultures the obligation to seek and to receive the traditional instruction is binging to all. There are no 'illiterates' -- if the term can be applied to peoples without a script -- while our own compulsory school attendance became law in Germany in 1642, in France in 1806, and in England in 1876, and is still non-existent in a number of 'civilized' nations. This shows how long it was before we deemed it necessary to make sure that all our children could share in the knowledge accumulated by the 'happy few' during the past centuries.

Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means. All are entitled to an equal start. There is none of the hurry which, in our society, often hampers the full development of a growing personality. There, a child grows up under the ever-present attention of his parents, therefore the jungles and the savannahs know of no 'juvenile deliquency'. No necessity of making a living away from home results in negliect of children, and no father is confronted with his inability to 'buy' an education for his child.

教育是我们这个时代的关键词之一。一个人如果没有受过教育，许多人就会认为这是不幸地被剥夺了二十世纪最大的机会。出于对教育重要性的信任，许多国家开始“购买”教育以获得那些作为潜在领导人的男男女女们的兴趣。教育，以它的重要性，作为可以购买的智慧。如果我们失去了它带来的收益，文明会是怎么样呢？

可以确定的是，我们仍然会有医生和传教士，律师和辩护人，婚姻与生产。但是我们的精神世界会有所不同。我们会减少对事实与特征的关注，而会更多地注意应用心理学，以及为人处世的能力。如果教育是以前无书的风格我们会获得学院派想象的那样最大的民主形式。在我们被成为野蛮人的中间所有的知识都是被遗传下来的。知识被传授给部落的每个成员。因为，从这个角度来说，每个人都为生活做好了准备。

这种“平等地开始”的理性情况正是我们现在教育体制希望重新达到的。文明的最初阶段，寻找并接受传统的教育是每个人的责任。没有文盲--如果这个次可以用于没有书写的人--当我们的强制入学政策在1642年变成法律的时候。在法国是1802年，而在英国是1876年。在一些国家至今（这种政策）还不存在。这显示了在我们花了多久才认识到确保所有的孩子都能都得到几个世纪来的知识积累。

在大草原上，教育并不意味着金钱。所有人都从相同的起点开始。这里没有我们社会中的那种急噪。而正是这种及早，经常阻碍了个性的完整发展。在这里，孩子在双亲的关注下成长起来。因此丛林和草原中不会知道“青年人的错失”。没有必要因为离家谋生而忽略了孩子。也不会有父亲面临无力“购买”自己孩子的教育。