白菜对《Culture, Behavior, Beauty》的笔记(2)

  书籍仅在孩子愿读的时候才是有益的。
但孩子有时开窍甚晚。

Books are good only as far as a boy is ready for them.  
He sometimes gets ready very slowly.
  
你把孩子送到学校教师那儿去受教，
但教他的教师却是那些学生娃娃；
你送他去学拉丁文，
但他学到的多半都是上学的路上从店铺橱窗里所看到的那些东西；
你喜欢严格的规章制度并希望学期能开得长一些，
而他却巴不得自行其事，
除了自己喜欢的伙伴谁也不要。
他讨厌语法和诗律词典，爱好枪，渔竿，马和船等。

You send your child to the schoolmaster, 
but 't is the schoolboys who educate him.  
You send him to the Latin class, but much of his tuition comes, 
on his way to school, from the shop-windows.  
You like the strict rules and the long terms; 
and he finds his best leading in a by-way of his own, 
and refuses any companions but of his own choosing.  
He hates the grammar and Gradas, and loves guns, fishing-rods, horses and boats.  

然而，这孩子的做法是对头的，
如果你的理论是要取消他的体育活动，
那么你就没有资格来对他的教养问题指手画脚。

Well, the boy is right, 
and you are not fit to direct his bringing-up 
if your theory leaves out his gymnastic training.  

射箭术，板球，枪，鱼竿，马和船，
统统都是老师，是孩子的自由神；
还有跳舞，穿衣打扮，以及街头巷尾的闲聊也都能带给孩子类似的好处；
除非孩子另有娱乐方式，且本身出自名门望族，
以上那些活动所能给予他的好处绝不会亚于书本。

Archery, cricket, gun and fishing-rod, horse and boat, are all educators, liberalizers; 
and so are dancing, dress and the street talk; 
and provided only the boy has resources, 
and is of a noble and ingenuous strain, 
these will not serve him less than the books.  

		爱默生：《论文化》 Emerson, Culture

2011-05-12 15:31:10 回应

 大学教育的好处之一在于使青年人看到其作用的有限。

One of the benefits of a college education 
is to show the boy its little avail. 

		爱默生：《论文化》Emerson, Culture

2011-05-12 15:32:01 回应