THE SOCIAL VALUE OF THE COLLEGE-BRED

大學(xué)生的社會(huì)價(jià)值

By William James

威廉·詹姆斯

?

THE SOCIAL VALUE OF THE COLLEGE-BRED, by William James, published in McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXX, p.419.Reprinted in Scott and Zeitlin,College Readings in English Prose, New York, MacMillan Company, 1920, pp. 137-144.

?

?

William James （1842-1910）, American psychologist and philosopher, the brother of Henry James （1843-1916）, novelist and essayist. In 1890 William James published his epoch-making Principles of Psychology in which the germs of his philosophy are already discernible. His fascinating style, his broad culture and cosmopolitanism made him the most influential American thinker of his day.

?

Of what use is a college training? We who have had it seldom hear the question raised—we might be a little nonplused to answer it offhand. A certain amount of meditation has brought me to this as the pithiest reply which I myself can give: The best claim that a college education can possibly make on your respect, the best thing it can aspire to accomplish for you is this—that it should help you to know a good man when you see him. This is as true of women's as of men's colleges; but that it is neither a joke nor a one-sided abstraction I shall now endeavor to show.

大學(xué)教育有何用途？我們接受了大學(xué)教育，但很少聽到過這個(gè)問題——一時(shí)間要給出答案，恐怕多少有些茫然?？紤]良久后，我能給出的最為簡(jiǎn)明扼要的回答就是：大學(xué)教育的理想追求，期望為你達(dá)成的最佳成就便是——幫助你在遇見賢達(dá)時(shí)能有知人之明。這句話既適用于男校，也適用于女校；但它絕非戲言，更不是以偏概全的空洞辭藻。

?

What talk do we commonly hear about the contrast between college education and the education which business or technical or professional schools confer? The college education is called higher because it is supposed to be so general and so disinterested. At the “schools” you get a relatively narrow practical skill, you are told, whereas the “colleges” give you the more liberal culture, the broader outlook, the historical perspective, the philosophic atmosphere, or something which phrases of that sort try to express. You are made into an efficient instrument for doing a definite thing, you hear, at the schools; but, apart from that, you may remain a crude and smoky kind of petroleum, incapable of spreading light. The universities and colleges, on the other hand, although they may leave you less efficient for this or that practical task, suffuse your whole mentality with something more important than skill. They redeem you, make you well-bred; they make “good company” of you mentally. If they find you with a naturally boorish or caddish mind, they cannot leave you so, as a technical school may leave you. This, at least, is pretended; this is what we hear among college-trained people when they compare their education with every other sort. Now, exactly how much does this signify?

有關(guān)大學(xué)教育和商學(xué)院、技校或?qū)？圃盒＝逃牟顒e，我們平常聽到的說法是什么樣的？大學(xué)之所以喚作高等教育，是因?yàn)槠渫ㄗR(shí)性與非功利性。你被告知，在“院?！敝姓莆盏氖且婚T相對(duì)狹窄的實(shí)用技能，而“大學(xué)”賦予你更加自由的文化、廣闊的視野、歷史的視角、哲學(xué)的氛圍，或是類似的詞匯描述的東西。你聽到的是，院校能讓你成為完成特定事項(xiàng)的有效工具；但是僅此而已，就像嗆人的原油一樣無法傳播光亮。大學(xué)和學(xué)院則不然，盡管它們讓你在應(yīng)對(duì)這種或那種實(shí)用任務(wù)時(shí)沒那么熟練，但是卻向你的整個(gè)頭腦注入比技能更為重要的東西。它們重新塑造你，讓你擁有良好的修養(yǎng)；培養(yǎng)你的心智，讓你成為思想上的“知音”。在這里如果你暴露出粗俗不堪的本性，學(xué)校不會(huì)像技校那樣坐視不管。至少表面上看是這樣的；這也是從大學(xué)里出來的人宣稱的大學(xué)教育的獨(dú)到之處。那么，這種說法究竟有多少可信度呢？

?

It is certain, to begin with, that the narrowest trade or professional training does something more for a man than to make a skilful practical tool of him—it makes him also a judge of other men's skill. Whether his trade be pleading at the bar or surgery or plastering or plumbing, it develops a critical sense in him for that sort of occupation. He understands the difference between second-rate and first-rate work in his whole branch of industry; he gets to know a good job in his own line, as soon as he sees it; and getting to know this in his own line, he gets a faint sense of what good work may mean anyhow, that may, if circumstances favor, spread into his judgments elsewhere. Sound work, clean work, finished work;feeble work, slack work, sham work—these words express an identical contrast in many different departments of activity. In so far forth, then, even the humblest manual trade may beget in one a certain small degree of power to judge of good work generally.

首先，即使是最狹義的職業(yè)或?qū)ｉT訓(xùn)練當(dāng)然也不止培養(yǎng)熟練工那么簡(jiǎn)單——它還讓人能夠?qū)λ说牟拍茏龀雠袛?。不管是律師、醫(yī)生、泥瓦匠還是管道工，這些訓(xùn)練讓其具備對(duì)該項(xiàng)職業(yè)的辨別能力。他通曉整個(gè)行業(yè)中優(yōu)和劣的差別；在本職工作完成得好時(shí)，一眼便知；并且憑借對(duì)自身領(lǐng)域的把握，大致地知道優(yōu)秀到底是什么，在合適的情況下便能舉一反三，對(duì)其他領(lǐng)域也做出判斷。精益求精、干凈利落、圓滿完成；敷衍了事、消極怠工、漏洞百出——這些詞匯表明在眾多不同的工作中都有同樣的對(duì)比。那么，到目前為止，即使是最卑微的手工藝人也可以發(fā)揮微小的力量，來判斷普遍意義上工作的優(yōu)劣。

?

Now, what is supposed to be the line of us who have the higher college training? Is there any broader line—since our education claims primarily not to be “narrow”—in which we also are made good judges between what is first-rate and what is second-rate only? What is especially taught in the colleges has long been known by the name of the “humanities,” and these are often identified with Greek and Latin. But it is only as literatures, not as languages, that Greek and Latin have any general humanity value; so that in a broad sense the humanities mean literature primarily, and in a still broader sense, the study of masterpieces in almost any field of human endeavor. Literature keeps the primacy; for it not only consists of masterpieces, but is largely about masterpieces, being little more than an appreciative chronicle of human master-strokes, so far as it takes the form of criticism and history. You can give humanistic value to almost anything by teaching it historically. Geology, economics, and mechanics are humanities when taught with reference to the successive achievements of the geniuses to which these sciences owe their being. Not taught thus, literature remains grammar, art a catalogue, history a list of dates, and natural science a sheet of formulas and weights and measures.

既然如此，我們這些受到高等教育的人應(yīng)該以什么為本業(yè)呢？有沒有更寬廣的領(lǐng)域——既然我們的教育宣稱力避“狹隘”——通過教育我們是否也能夠很好地辨別優(yōu)劣？大學(xué)所開設(shè)的課程長(zhǎng)久以來被稱作“人文學(xué)”，而所謂人文學(xué)往往等同于希臘語和拉丁語。但是希臘語和拉丁語僅僅在作為文學(xué)，而非語言的時(shí)候，才有普遍的人文價(jià)值；因此廣義上的人文學(xué)主要指文學(xué)，繼續(xù)推而廣之，則指對(duì)人類在幾乎任何領(lǐng)域創(chuàng)造的經(jīng)典所進(jìn)行的研究。文學(xué)占據(jù)首位，是因?yàn)槲膶W(xué)不僅由杰作組成，在很大程度上也是關(guān)于杰作的，若以批評(píng)和歷史的形式出現(xiàn)，那么簡(jiǎn)直就是人類偉大成就的欣賞史。你可以借由歷史的視角賦予幾乎任何事物人文價(jià)值。在教學(xué)的時(shí)候若關(guān)注天才們相繼取得的科學(xué)成就，那么地質(zhì)學(xué)、經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)和力學(xué)也可以成為人文學(xué)。相反，則會(huì)將文學(xué)教成語法，藝術(shù)教成目錄，歷史教成日期列表，或是把自然科學(xué)變成公式、重量和度量組成的表單。

?

The sifting of human creations! —nothing less than this is what we ought to mean by the humanities. Essentially this means biography; what our colleges should teach is, therefore, biographical history, that not of politics merely, but of anything and everything so far as human efforts and conquests are factors that have played their part. Studying in this way, we learn what types of activity have stood the test of time; we acquire standards of the excellent and durable. All our arts and sciences and institutions are but so many quests of perfection on the part of men; and when we see how diverse the types of excellence may be, how various the tests, how flexible the adaptations, we gain a richer sense of what the terms “better” and “worse” may signify in general. Our critical sensibilities grow both more acute and less fanatical. We sympathize with men's mistakes even in the act of penetrating them; we feel that pathos of lost causes and misguided epochs even while we applaud what overcame them.

對(duì)人類創(chuàng)造的精挑細(xì)選！——我們對(duì)人文學(xué)的理解必在此之上。從根本上說，這意味著傳記；因此我們的大學(xué)應(yīng)當(dāng)講授的是傳記歷史，不僅是政治，而是有關(guān)人類努力和成就的任何事物和一切事物。依此展開研究，我們就知道何種活動(dòng)經(jīng)受住了時(shí)間的檢驗(yàn)，從而取得衡量卓越與持久的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。所有的藝術(shù)、科學(xué)和機(jī)構(gòu)都不過是人類對(duì)完美孜孜不倦的追求；在看到卓越的不同類型，檢驗(yàn)的多種多樣，適應(yīng)的靈活變化時(shí)，我們就對(duì)普遍意義上的“更好”和“更壞”有了更深的理解。批判能力就變得多一分敏銳，少一分偏執(zhí)。即使在糾正他人的偏誤時(shí)，也能夠?qū)⑿谋刃模患词乖跒閯倮囊环胶炔蕰r(shí)，也可以對(duì)功敗垂成和崎嶇年代的痛苦感同身受。

?

Such words are vague and such ideas are inadequate, but their meaning is unmistakable. What the colleges—teaching humanities by examples which may be special, but which must be typical and pregnant—should at least try to give us, is a general sense of what, under various disguises, superiority has always signified and may still signify. The feeling for a good human job anywhere, the admiration of the really admirable, the disesteem of what is cheap and trashy and impermanent—this is what we call the critical sense, the sense for ideal values. It is the better part of what men know as wisdom. Some of us are wise in this way naturally and by genius; some of us never become so. But to have spent one's youth at college, in contact with the choice and rare and precious, and yet still to be a blind prig or vulgarian, unable to scent out human excellence or to divine it amid its accidents, to know it only when ticketed and labeled and forced on us by others, this indeed should be accounted the very calamity and shipwreck of a higher education.

雖然表述尚不確切，觀點(diǎn)也有待完善，但意思是顯而易見的。大學(xué)——講授人文學(xué)所舉案例或許特殊，但必須是典型而富有深意的——至少應(yīng)該力圖撥開重重迷霧，讓我們至少在普遍意義上知曉高貴一直以來并將繼續(xù)承擔(dān)的含義。對(duì)一切人類杰作的感知，對(duì)值得仰慕之事的仰慕，對(duì)廉價(jià)、低劣和曇花一現(xiàn)的蔑視——所謂批判意識(shí)即是如此，是對(duì)理想價(jià)值的渴求。這是更為高級(jí)的智慧。在這方面有些人天性聰慧，有些人卻永遠(yuǎn)難以企及。但是如果年輕人進(jìn)了大學(xué)，接觸了精選、稀有而珍貴的事物，卻仍然愚昧庸俗，做不到去蕪存菁，只有等別人做好了標(biāo)記說明，三令五申之后才有所察覺，那么這才真正是高等教育的災(zāi)難和悲劇。

?

The sense for human superiority ought, then, to be considered our line, as boring subways is the engineer's line and the surgeon's is appendicitis. Our colleges ought to have lit up in us a lasting relish for the better kind of man, a loss of appetite for mediocrities, and a disgust for cheap Jacks. We ought to smell, as it were, the difference of quality in men and their proposals when we enter the world of affairs about us. Expertness in this might well atone for some of our awkwardness at accounts, for some of our ignorance of dynamos. The best claim we can make for the higher education, the best single phrase in which we can tell what it ought to do for us, is, then, exactly what I said: it should enable us to know a good man when we see him.

因此，追求人的高貴應(yīng)當(dāng)視作我們的本業(yè)，正如乏味的地鐵之于工程師，闌尾炎之于外科醫(yī)生。大學(xué)應(yīng)當(dāng)讓我們心中始終保有對(duì)賢達(dá)的向往，對(duì)平庸之輩的漠視，以及對(duì)販夫走卒的鄙視。在應(yīng)對(duì)紛繁復(fù)雜的事務(wù)時(shí)，我們應(yīng)當(dāng)留意人們品格與意見的不同。擅長(zhǎng)于此或許能補(bǔ)償我們對(duì)事物的不知所措，彌補(bǔ)我們對(duì)原動(dòng)力的無知。我們對(duì)大學(xué)教育的最高要求，最能概括高等教育目的的正是我說過的那句話——讓我們?cè)谟鲆娰t達(dá)時(shí)能有知人之明。

?

That the phrase is anything but an empty epigram follows from the fact that if you ask in what line it is most important that a democracy like ours should have its sons and daughters skilful, you see that it is this line more than any other. “The people in their wisdom”—this is the kind of wisdom most needed by the people. Democracy is on its trial, and no one knows how it will stand the ordeal. Abounding about us are pessimistic prophets. Fickleness and violence used to be, but are no longer, the vices which they charge to democracy. What its critics now affirm is that its preferences are inveterately for the inferior. So it was in the beginning, they say, and so it will be world without end. Vulgarity enthroned and institutionalized, elbowing everything superior from the highway, this, they tell us, is our irremediable destiny; and the picture-papers of the European continent are already drawing Uncle Sam with the hog instead of the eagle for his heraldic emblem. The privileged aristocracies to the foretime, with all their iniquities, did at least preserve some taste for higher human quality and honor certain forms of refinement by their enduring traditions. But when democracy is sovereign, its doubters say, nobility will form a sort of invisible church, and sincerity and refinement, stripped of honor, precedence, and favor, will have to vegetate on sufferance in private corners. They will have no general influence. They will be harmless eccentricities.

之所以說這句話并非空洞的辭藻是因?yàn)?，如果你問在我們這樣的民主中，最該讓人們?cè)谀姆矫鎿碛胁拍?，你就?huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)這一方面脫穎而出?！叭吮M其才”——這正是人們最需要的智慧。民主正經(jīng)歷一場(chǎng)試驗(yàn)，沒有人知道它將如何渡過難關(guān)。我們周圍有太多悲觀的預(yù)言家。他們?cè)?jīng)給民主安上反復(fù)無常和暴力的罪名，但如今已經(jīng)不再如此。批評(píng)家們現(xiàn)在的論調(diào)是，民主習(xí)慣性地傾向于底層。他們因此宣稱，民主起步如此，并將照此狀不斷向世界擴(kuò)散。他們告訴我們，粗俗登上了王位并且體制化，將所有的高雅推到一旁，這將是我們無藥可救的宿命；歐洲大陸的畫報(bào)在描繪美國(guó)時(shí)，已經(jīng)用豬替掉了老鷹的標(biāo)志。過去高高在上的貴族，縱使惡貫滿盈，至少沿襲了一部分對(duì)人類高貴品質(zhì)的追求，并通過保留下來的傳統(tǒng)，推崇某種形式的雅致生活。但是，在質(zhì)疑者看來，一旦民主占了統(tǒng)治地位，高貴便成了某種看不見的教會(huì)，失去了榮譽(yù)、優(yōu)先和偏愛，真誠(chéng)和雅致便只有在私人的角落茍延殘喘，不再擁有廣泛的影響力，淪落為與人無害的怪癖。

?

Now, who can be absolutely certain that this may not be the career of democracy? Nothing future is quite secure; states enough have inwardly rotted; and democracy as a whole may undergo self-poisoning. But, on the other hand, democracy is a kind of religion and we are bound not to admit its failure. Faiths and utopias are the noblest exercise of human reason, and no one with a spark of reason in him will sit down fatalistically before the croaker's picture. The best of us are filled with the contrary vision of a democracy stumbling through every error till its institutions glow with justice and its customs shine with beauty. Our better men shall show the way and we shall follow them;so we are brought round again to the mission of the higher education in helping us to know the better kind of man whenever we see him.

那么，誰敢斷言這可能不是民主事業(yè)呢？未來的事情是難以確定的；有些國(guó)家已經(jīng)從內(nèi)部變得腐朽；民主作為一個(gè)整體也有可能經(jīng)歷自我毒害。但是，就另一方面而言，民主是一種宗教，我們必定不會(huì)承認(rèn)它的失敗。信仰和烏托邦是對(duì)人類理性最高尚的鍛煉，稍有理性的人都不會(huì)在抱怨者描繪的圖景面前坐以待斃。我們中間最優(yōu)秀的人頭腦里更是充滿民主逆流而上的愿景，歷經(jīng)艱難，直至其正義的制度和習(xí)俗放出美麗的光芒。精英們應(yīng)當(dāng)指明道路，我們應(yīng)當(dāng)緊緊相隨；這樣我們就又回到了高等教育幫助我們?cè)谟鲆娰t達(dá)時(shí)能有知人之明這一使命。

?

The notion that a people can run itself and its affairs anonymously is now well known to be the silliest of absurdities. Mankind does nothing save through initiatives on the part of inventors, great or small, and imitation by the rest of us—these are the sole factors active in human progress. Individuals of genius show the way, and set the patterns, which common people then adopt and follow. The rivalry of the patterns is the history of the world. Our democratic problem thus is statable in ultra-simple terms: Who are the kind of men from whom our majorities shall take their cue? Whom shall they treat as rightful leaders? We and our leaders are the x and the y of the equation here; all other historic circumstances, be they economical, political, or intellectual, are only the background of occasion on which the living drama works itself out between us.

如今大家已經(jīng)知道，民眾可以自我運(yùn)行和管理事務(wù)是最荒唐的無稽之談。大小事務(wù)，若沒有創(chuàng)造者開辟道路、其他人追隨模仿，人類會(huì)一事無成——這些是人類進(jìn)步過程中唯一發(fā)揮作用的因素。天才們指引道路、建立模式，普通人采納效法。模式間的斗爭(zhēng)構(gòu)成了世界歷史。因此民主的問題可以用最簡(jiǎn)潔的表達(dá)來描述：誰為大部分人帶來啟發(fā)？誰應(yīng)當(dāng)成為領(lǐng)袖人物？這里我們和我們的領(lǐng)袖分別代表方程式中的x和y；其余一切歷史環(huán)境，不論是經(jīng)濟(jì)、政治，還是知識(shí)上的，都只不過是生活戲劇上演的背景罷了。

?

In this very simple way does the value of our educated class define itself; we more than others should be able to divine the worthier and better leaders. The terms here are monstrously simplified, of course, but such a bird's-eye view lets us immediately take our bearings. In our democracy, where everything else is so shifting, we alumni and alumn? of the colleges are the only permanent presence that corresponds to the aristocracy in older countries. We have continuous traditions, as they have; our motto, too, is noblesse oblige;and, unlike them, we stand for ideal interests solely, for we have no corporate selfishness and wield no powers of corruption. We ought to have our own class-consciousness.“Les intellectuels! ”What prouder club-name could there be than this one, used ironically by the party of “red blood,” the party of every stupid prejudice and passion, during the anti-Dreyfus craze, to satirize the men in France who still retained some critical sense and judgment! Critical sense, it has to be confessed, is not an exciting term, hardly a banner to carry in processions. Affections for old habit, currents of self-interest, and gales of passion are the forces that keep the human ship moving; and the pressure of the judicious pilot's hand upon the tiller is a relatively insignificant energy. But the affections, passions, and interests are shifting, successive, and distraught;they blow in alteration while the pilot's hand is steadfast. He knows the compass, and, with all the leeways lie is obliged to tack toward, he always makes some headway. A small force, if it never lets up, will accumulate effects more considerable than those of much greater forces if these work inconsistently. The ceaseless whisper of the more permanent ideals, the steady tug of truth and justice, give them but time, must warp the world in their direction.

受教育階層用這樣一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的方式定義自身價(jià)值；我們比其他人更有能力預(yù)見誰可以成為更可敬可佩的領(lǐng)袖人物。這當(dāng)然是極端簡(jiǎn)化后的說法，但是縱覽全局讓我們可以迅速定位。在我們的民主中，其他一切事物都在變化，只有我們這些大學(xué)校友成為穩(wěn)定的存在，與舊國(guó)度的貴族一脈相承。跟貴族一樣，我們沿襲傳統(tǒng)；而我們的口號(hào)也正是“位高則任重”；與貴族不同之處在于，我們只代表理想的利益，因?yàn)槲覀儾粫?huì)徇私舞弊，也不會(huì)貪贓枉法。我們應(yīng)當(dāng)抱有階層自覺性。“知識(shí)分子！”沒有比這個(gè)集體名詞更加充滿自豪感的了，但是那些滿腦子愚蠢的偏見和沖動(dòng)的“血性”階層卻在“反德雷福斯狂熱”中，用這個(gè)稱號(hào)來諷刺法國(guó)那些仍然保有批判意識(shí)和判斷力的人！必須承認(rèn)，批判意識(shí)并非一個(gè)激動(dòng)人心的詞語，更不會(huì)成為游行中高舉的橫幅。對(duì)于舊習(xí)慣的喜好、自私的潮流、狂熱的風(fēng)潮是讓人類這艘大船前行的力量；而睿智的船長(zhǎng)在舵柄上施加的力量相對(duì)而言則微不足道。但是這些喜好、熱情和利益是在不斷變化、交替和錯(cuò)亂的；就在這此消彼長(zhǎng)之中，船長(zhǎng)的手卻是穩(wěn)定的。他對(duì)羅盤了然于心，并且在偏航時(shí)搶風(fēng)行駛，奮力向前。再微弱的力量，如果持之以恒，相比起那些雖然強(qiáng)勁但卻時(shí)斷時(shí)續(xù)的力量而言，其效果都將是更為可觀的。更加恒久的理想信念有如微風(fēng)輕輕吹拂，真理和正義堅(jiān)持不懈地引領(lǐng)道路，那么假以時(shí)日，必能扭轉(zhuǎn)乾坤。

?

This bird's-eye view of the general steering function of the college-bred amid the driftings of democracy ought to help us to a wider vision of what our colleges themselves should aim at. If we are to be the yeast cake for democracy's dough, if we are to make it rise with culture's preferences, we must see to it that culture spreads broad sails. We must shake the old double reefs out of the canvas into the wind and sunshine, and let in every modern subject, sure that any subject will prove humanistic, if its setting be kept only wide enough.

在民主的起伏中來縱觀大學(xué)生發(fā)揮的總體引領(lǐng)作用，可以幫助我們從更廣闊的視角來看待大學(xué)本身的目標(biāo)。如果我們要成為民主這個(gè)面團(tuán)的酵母，如果我們要通過文化的偏好來推動(dòng)民主，我們就必須保證文化鼓起風(fēng)帆。我們就必須將折疊風(fēng)帆打開接受風(fēng)和陽(yáng)光的洗禮，接受現(xiàn)代學(xué)科進(jìn)入——如果視野足夠?qū)拸V，那么任何學(xué)科都將是人文的。

?

Stevenson says somewhere to his reader: “You think you are just making this bargain, but you are really laying down a link in the policy of mankind.” Well, your technical school should enable you to make your bargain splendidly;but your college should show you just the place of that kind of bargain—a pretty poor place, possibly—in the whole policy of mankind. That is the kind of liberal outlook, of perspective, of atmosphere, which should surround every subject as a college deals with it.

史蒂文森曾經(jīng)這樣寫道：“你認(rèn)為自己只是在談判，其實(shí)卻在人類進(jìn)程中建立了一個(gè)聯(lián)系?！碑?dāng)然了，技校理應(yīng)教會(huì)你得心應(yīng)手地討價(jià)還價(jià)，但是大學(xué)應(yīng)當(dāng)向你展現(xiàn)出人類進(jìn)程中這種談判的場(chǎng)所——可能是個(gè)破爛不堪的地方。這應(yīng)當(dāng)是圍繞大學(xué)每一門學(xué)科的通識(shí)觀、視角和氛圍。

?

We of the colleges must eradicate a curious notion which numbers of good people have about such ancient seats of learning as Harvard. To many ignorant outsiders, that name suggests little more than a kind of sterilized conceit and incapacity for being pleased. In Edith Wyatt's exquisite book of Chicago sketches called Every One His Own Way, there is a couple who stand for culture in the sense of exclusiveness, Richard Elliot and his feminine counterpart—feeble caricatures of mankind, unable to know any good thing when they see it, incapable of enjoyment unless a printed label gives them leave. Possibly this type of culture may exist near Cambridge and Boston, there may be specimens there, for priggishness is just like painter's colic or any other trade disease. But every good college makes its students immune against this malady, of which the microbe haunts the neighborhood-printed pages. It does so by its general tone being too hearty for the microbe's life. Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdains—under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core. If a college, through the inferior human influences that have grown regnant there, fails to catch the robuster tone, its failure is colossal, for its social function stops; democracy gives it a wide berth, turns toward it a deaf ear.

身處大學(xué)的我們應(yīng)當(dāng)消除一個(gè)不少人關(guān)于哈佛等古老學(xué)府的奇怪觀念。在很多無知的旁觀者看來，這個(gè)名字不過意味著固執(zhí)自負(fù)和難以取悅。在伊迪斯·懷亞特描寫芝加哥的書《各行其是》中，有一對(duì)夫婦代表著一種獨(dú)一無二的文化，即理查德·艾略特和他的妻子，他們見到任何美好的事物都無從辨別，若沒有一個(gè)印出來的標(biāo)簽，欣賞就無從談起——這二人正是對(duì)人類的諷刺影射。這類文化可能就存在于哈佛校園附近，那里恐怕找得到一些典型人物，因?yàn)樽悦环簿秃孟癞嫾业酿逇饣蚱渌鞣N職業(yè)病一樣。但是每所好的大學(xué)都避免讓學(xué)生沾染上這類頑疾，避免讓病菌擴(kuò)散到附近的書本：它們調(diào)動(dòng)整體基調(diào)活躍起來，讓病菌難以為繼。真正的文化興盛之道在于同理心與敬畏心，而非厭惡和鄙夷，即能夠突破重重偽裝，直達(dá)人類心靈深處。如果一所大學(xué)在人類惡習(xí)的控制之下，無法創(chuàng)造蓬勃的氛圍基調(diào)，就將因喪失社會(huì)功能而一敗涂地；民主會(huì)對(duì)它敬而遠(yuǎn)之，視而不見。

?

“Tone,” to be sure, is a terribly vague word to use, but there is no other, and this whole meditation is over questions of tone. By their tone are all things human either lost or saved. If democracy is to be saved it must catch the higher, healthier tone. If we are to impress it with our preferences, we ourselves must use the proper tone, which we, in turn, must have caught from our own teachers. It all reverts in the end to the action of innumerable imitative individuals upon each other and to the question of whose tone has the highest spreading power. As a class, we college graduates should look to it that ours has spreading power. It ought to have the highest spreading power.

當(dāng)然，“基調(diào)”這個(gè)詞太過模糊，但是也沒有其他的選擇，而此處的全部思考正是有關(guān)基調(diào)的問題。人類的所有事物正是因基調(diào)而丟失，或是留存。若要留住民主，就必須抓住更為高尚和健康的基調(diào)。如若我們要讓民主如愿發(fā)展，就必須使用恰當(dāng)?shù)幕{(diào)。而我們正是從自己的老師那里繼承基調(diào)。最終一切都回到無數(shù)個(gè)體的相互模仿，回到何種基調(diào)擁有最大影響力這一問題上來。作為一個(gè)階層，大學(xué)畢業(yè)生應(yīng)當(dāng)力圖使我們的基調(diào)得到傳播。這種基調(diào)應(yīng)當(dāng)擁有最高的傳播力。

?

In our essential function of indicating the better men, we now have formidable competitors outside. McClure's Magazine, the American Magazine, Collier's Weekly and, in its fashion, the World's Work, constitute together a real popular university along this very line. It would be a pity if any future historian were to have to write words like these: “By the middle of the twentieth century the higher institutions of learning had lost all influence over public opinion in the United States. But the mission of raising the tone of democracy, which they had proved themselves so lamentably unfitted to exert, was assumed with rare enthusiasm and prosecuted with extraordinary skill and success by a new educational power; and for the clarification of their human sympathies and elevation of their human preferences, the people at large acquired the habit of resorting exclusively to the guidance of certain private literary adventures, commonly designated in the market by the affectionate name of ‘ten-cent magazines.'”

在辨識(shí)賢達(dá)之人這一本質(zhì)功能之中，我們現(xiàn)在也遇到了來自外界的勁敵?！尔溈吮R爾雜志》《美國(guó)雜志》《科里爾周刊》，以及類似的《環(huán)球作品》，在這一領(lǐng)域共同打造了一所真正的平民大學(xué)。如果將來哪位歷史學(xué)家寫了接下來這段話，那可真是一樁憾事：“二十世紀(jì)中葉，高等學(xué)府對(duì)于美國(guó)的公眾意見已全然喪失了影響力。這些學(xué)府已經(jīng)證實(shí)了自己無力承擔(dān)起提高民主基調(diào)這一使命，取而代之的是一股新興的教育力量，帶著無與倫比的熱情，并用非凡的能力和成就付諸實(shí)踐；為了滿足同理心，提升人生品位，大眾已經(jīng)習(xí)慣完全聽命于某些私下開展的文學(xué)行動(dòng)，市場(chǎng)上通常把它們親切地統(tǒng)稱為‘十美分雜志’?！?/span>

?

Must not we of the colleges see to it that no historian shall ever say anything like this? Vague as the phrase of knowing a good man when you see him may be, diffuse and indefinite as one must leave its application, is there any other formula that describes so well the result at which our institutions ought to aim? If they do that, they do the best thing conceivable. If they fail to do it, they fail in very deed. It surely is a fine synthetic formula. If our faculties and graduates could once collectively come to realize it as the great underlying purpose toward which they have always been more or less obscurely groping, a great clearness would be shed over many of their problems; and, as for their influence in the midst of our social system, it would embark upon a new career of strength.

難道我們不應(yīng)該力圖避免歷史學(xué)家說出這樣的話來嗎？盡管“遇見賢達(dá)能有知人之明”這樣的表述還不夠明了，在實(shí)際運(yùn)用中也難免困惑與不確定，但是還能找到其他方法來很好地描述高等學(xué)府應(yīng)有的使命嗎？如果大學(xué)做到了這一點(diǎn)，那么就做了想象中最好的事情。如果沒有辦到，那么就一事無成。這確實(shí)是一個(gè)不錯(cuò)的綜合表述方法。如果有朝一日大學(xué)的師生能夠集體認(rèn)識(shí)到，它便是自己一直以來在摸索的偉大的目標(biāo)，那么很多問題將有望得到解決；并且鑒于他們?cè)谏鐣?huì)體系中的影響力，也將開辟一番全新的蓬勃事業(yè)。

?

（鄭文博　譯）