第1页

 教育的中心主题只有一个，
那就是表现为各种形态的生活。

There is only one subject-matter for education, 
and that is Life in all its manifestations. 

抛开生活这个综合体，我们让孩子们分门别类地学代数，但一无所获；
学几何，也一无所获；
学科学，还是一无所获；
学历史，也还是一无所获；
学上几门语言，又是一无所获，
最后学的是乏味的文学，特别是莎士比亚剧本，
一大堆故弄玄虚的注解，
以及那些须得死记硬背的情节与人物的简短分析。

Instead of this single unity, 
we offer children-Algebra, from which nothing follows; 
Geometry, from which nothing follows; 
Science, from which nothing follows; 
History, from which nothing follows; 
a Couple of Languages, never mastered; 
and lastly, most dreary of all, 
Literature, represented by plays of Shakespeare, 
with philological notes and short analyses of plot 
and character to be in substance committed to memory. 

难道以上所列的这些学科能因为是人们生活中所熟知的
就说它们表现生活吗？

Can such a List be said to represent Life, 
as it is known in the midst of the living of it? 

对此，最好的解释是，
这是神在构思创造世界的时候
头脑中一闪而过的目录表，
他当时还不知道将目录内容怎样排列呢？

The best that can be said of it is, 
that it is a rapid table of contents 
which a deity might run over in his mind 
while he was thinking of creating a world, 
and had not yet determined how to put it together. 


		怀特海：《教育的目的》Whitehead, Aims of Education