新概念英语第四册Lesson-33-Education.docx

新概念英语第四册Lesson 33 Education
Why is education democratic in bookless, tribal societies?
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 textbooks -- 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 tribal people 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 binding 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 parent; therefore the jungles and the savannahs know of no ”juvenile delinquency”. No necessity of making a living away from home results in neglect of children, and no father is confronted with his inability to ”buy” an education for his child.JULIUS E. LIPS The Origin of Things
New words and expressions 生词与短语
adverse
adj.
purchasable
adj.可买到的
preacher
n. 传教士
defendant
n. 被告
outlook
n. 视野
capacity
n. 力量
democratic
adj. 民主的
tribal
n. 部落的
tribe
n. 部落
illiterate
n. 文盲
compulsory
adj. 义务的
deem
v. 认为
means
n. 方法，手段，财产，资力
hamper
v. 阻碍
savannah
n. 大草原
juvenile
adj. 青少年
delinquency
n. 犯罪
本文参考译文
训练是我们这个时代的关键词之一。我们很多人都信任，一个没有受过训练的人，是逆境的牺牲品，被剥夺了20世纪的越的时机之一。现代国家深深懂得训练的重要性，对训练机构投资，收回的‘利息’便是培育出大批有学问的男女青年，这些人可能成为将来的栋梁。训练，以其教学周期如此细心地安排，并以教科书 -- 那些可以买到的才智源泉 -- 予以强化，假如不受其惠，文明将会是个什么样子呢？ 至少，这些是可以确定的：虽然我们还会有医生和牧师、律师和被告、婚姻和生育，但人们的精神面貌将是另一个样子。人们不会重视‘资料和数据’，而靠好记性、有用心理学与同伴相处的力量。假如我们的训练制度仿效没有书籍的古代训练，我们的学院将具有可以想象得出的最民主的形式了。在部落中，通过传统继承的学问为全部人共享，并传授给部落中的每一个成员。从这个意义上讲，人人受到的有关生活本事的训练是相等的。
这就是我们最进步的现代训练试图恢复的“公平起步”的抱负状况。在原始文化中，寻求和承受传统训练的义务对全民都有约束力。因而没有“文盲”（假如这个字眼儿可以用于没有文字的民族的话）。而我们的义务训练成为法律在德国是在1642年，在法国是在1806年，在英国是在1876年。今日，在很多“文明” 国家里，义务训练迄今尚未实行。这说明，经过了多么漫长的时间之后，我们才熟悉到，有必要确保我们的孩子享有多少个世纪以来由‘少数幸运者’所积存起来的学问。 荒芜地区的训练不是钱的问题，全部的人都享有公平起步的权利。那里没有我们今日社会中的匆忙生活，而匆忙的生活经常阻碍共性的全面进展。荒芜地区的孩子无时无刻不在父母关心下成长。因此，丛林和荒芜地区不知道什么叫“青少年犯罪”。人们没有必要离家谋生，所以不会产生孩子无人管的问题，也不存在父亲无力为孩子支付训练费用而犯难的问题。