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发信人: phychae (愤而忘食,乐而忘优), 信区: English
标 题: NCE4--33
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (2003年06月05日09:18:41 星期四), 站内信件
Lesson 33
Education
教育
First listen and then answer the following question.
听录音,然后回答以下问题。
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, depriv
ed of one of the greatest twentieth-century opportunities. Convinced of the im
portance of education, modern states 'invest' in institutions of learning to g
et back 'interest' in the form of a large group of enlightened young men and w
omen who are potential leaders. Education, with its cycles of instruction so c
arefully worked out, punctuated by textbooks -- those purchasable wells of wis
dom-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 differe
nt. 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 fel
low-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 equippe
d for life.
It is the ideal condition of the 'equal start' which only our most progres
sive forms of modern education try to regain. In primitive cultures the obliga
tion to seek and to receive the traditional instruction is binding to all. The
re are no 'illiterates' -- if the term can be applied to peoples without a scr
ipt -- while our own compulsory school attendance became law in Germany in 164
2, in France in 1806, and in England in 1876, and is still non-existent in a n
umber of 'civilized' nations. This shows how long it was before we deemed it n
ecessary to make sure that all our children could share in the knowledge accum
ulated by the 'happy few' during the past centuries.
Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means. All are ent
itled to an equal start. There is none of the hurry which, in our society, oft
en 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 livi
ng 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 生词和短语
adverse
adj.
purchasable
adj.可买到的
preacher
n. 传教士
defendant
n. 被告
outlook
n. 视野
capacity
n. 能力
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. 妨碍
savannah
n. 大草原
juvenile
adj. 青少年
delinquency
n. 犯罪
参考译文
教育是我们这个时代的关键词之一。我们许多人都相信,一个没有受过教育的人,是
逆境的牺牲品,被剥夺了20世纪的最优越的机会之一。现代国家深深懂得教育的重要性,
对教育机构投资,收回的‘利息’便是培养出大批有知识的男女青年,这些人可能成为未
来的栋梁。教育,以其教学周期如此精心地安排,并以教科书 -- 那些可以买到的智慧源
泉 -- 予以强化,如果不受其惠,文明将会是个什么样子呢?
至少,这些是可以肯定的: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、实用心
理学与同伴相处的能力。如果我们的教育制度仿效没有书籍的古代教育,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,通过传统继承的知识为所有人共享,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领的教育是相等的。
这就是我们最进步的现代教育试图恢复的“平等起步”的理想状况。在原始文化中,
寻求和接受传统教育的义务对全民都有约束力。因而没有“文盲”(如果这个字眼儿可以
用于没有文字的民族的话)。而我们的义务教育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。今天,在许多“文明”国家里,义务教育迄今尚未实行。这
说明,经过了多么漫长的时间之后,我们才认识到,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’所积累起来的知识。
荒凉地区的教育不是钱的问题,所有的人都享有平等起步的权利。那里没有我们今天
社会中的匆忙生活,而匆忙的生活常常妨碍个性的全面发展。荒凉地区的孩子无时无刻不
在父母关怀下成长。因此,丛林和荒凉地区不知道什么叫“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教育费用而犯
难的问题。
--
每天5点的时钟一响,我的手就从键盘上移开,“下班,下班,。。。”
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