為了方便同學們的學習，為大家整理了新概念英語第四冊學習手冊，新概念英語作為一套世界聞名的英語教程，以其全新的教學理念，有趣的課文內容和全面的技能訓練，深受廣大英語學習者的歡迎和喜愛。希望以下內容能夠為大家的新概念英語學習提供幫助!
Lesson 31
The sculptor speaks
雕塑家的語言
First listen and then answer the following question.
聽錄音，然后回答以下問題。
What do you have to be able to do to appreciate sculpture?
Appreciation of sculpture depends upon the ability to respond to form in there dimension. That is perhaps why sculpture has been described as the most difficult of all arts; certainly it is more difficult than the arts which involve appreciation of flat forms, shape in only two dimensions. Many more people are 'form-blind' than colour-blind. The child learning to see, first distinguishes only two-dimensional shape; it cannot judge distances, depths. Later, for its personal safety and practical needs, it has to develop (partly by means of touch) the ability to judge roughly three-dimensonal distances. But having satisfied the requirements of practical necessity, most people go no further. Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat from, they do no make the further. Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat form, they do not make the further intellectual and emotional effort needed to comprehend form in its full spatial existence.
This is what the sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head-he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand. He mentally visualizes a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like, he identifies himself with its centre of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.
And the sensitive observer of sculpture must also learn to feel shape simply as shape, not as description or reminiscence. He must, for example, perceive an egg as a simple single solid shape, quite apart from its significance as food, or from the literary idea that it will become a bird. And so with solids such as a shell, a nut, a plum, a pear, a tadpole, a mushroom, a mountain peak, a kidney, a carrot, a tree-trunk, a bird, a bud, a lark, a ladybird, a bulrush, a bone. From these he can go on to appreciate more complex forms of combinations of several forms.
HENRY MOORE The Sculptor Speaks from The Listener
New words and expressions 生詞和短語
colour-blind
adj. 色盲的
perception
n. 知覺
comprehend
v. 理解
spatial
adj. 空間
visualize
v. 使具形象，設想
reminiscence
n. 回憶，聯(lián)想
tadpole
n. 蝌蚪
mushroom
n. 蘑菇
carrot
n. 胡蘿卜
bud
n. 花蕾
lark
n. 云雀
ladybird
n. 瓢蟲
bulrush
n. 蘆葦
參考譯文
對雕塑的鑒賞力取決于對立體的反應能力。雕塑被說成是所有藝術中難的藝術，可能就是這個道理。欣賞雕塑品當然比欣賞平面的藝術品要難。“形盲”的人數(shù)比“色盲”的人數(shù)要多得多。正在學看東西的兒童起初只會分辨二維形態(tài)，不會判斷距離和深度。慢慢地，由于自身安全和實際需要，兒童必須發(fā)展(部分通過觸覺)粗略判斷三維空間距離的能力。但是。大部分人在滿足了實際需要后，就不再繼續(xù)發(fā)展這種能力了。雖然他們對平面形的感覺能達到相當準確的程度，但他們沒有在智力和感情上進一步努力去理解存在于空間的整個形態(tài)。
而雕塑家就必須做到這一點。他必須勤于想像并且利用形體在空間中的完整性?？梢哉f，當他想像一個物體時，不管其大小如何，他腦子里得到的是一個立體的概念，就好像完全握在自己手心里一樣。他的大腦能從物體周圍的各個角度勾畫出其復雜的形象，他看物體的一邊時，便知道另一邊是個什么樣子。他把自身和物體重心、質量、重量融為一體。他能意識到物體的體積，那就是它的形狀有空氣中所占的空間。
因此，敏銳的雕塑觀賞者也必須學會把形體作為形體來感覺，不要靠描述和印象去想象。以鳥蛋為例。觀賞者必須感覺到它是一個單一的實體形態(tài)，而完全不靠它的食用意義或它會變成鳥這樣的文字概念來感覺。對于其他實體，如，貝殼、核桃、李子、梨子、蝌蚪、蘑菇、山峰、腎臟、胡蘿卜、樹干、鳥兒、花蕾、云雀、瓢蟲、蘆葦以及骨頭也應這樣來感覺。從這些形體出發(fā)，觀賞者可進一步觀察更為復雜的形體或若干形體的組合。
Lesson 32
Galileo reborn
伽利略的復生
What has modified out traditional view of Galileo in recent times?
In his own lifetime Galileo was the centre of violent controversy; but the scientific dust has long since settled, and today we can see even his famous clash with the Inquisition in something like its proper perspective. But, in contrast, it is only in modern times that Galileo has become a problem child for historians of science.
The old view of Galileo was delightfully uncomplicated. He was, above all, a man who experimented: who despised the prejudices and book learning of the Aristotelians, who put his questions to nature instead of to the ancients, and who drew his conclusions fearlessly. He had been the first to turn a telescope to the sky, and he had seen there evidence enough to overthrow Aristotle and Ptolemy together. He was the man who climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped various weights from the top, who rolled balls down inclined planes, and then generalized the results of his many experiments into the famous law of free fall.
But a closer study of the evidence, supported by a deeper sense of the period, and particularly by a new consciousness of the philosophical undercurrents in the scientific revolution, has profoundly modified this view of Galileo. Today, although the old Galileo lives on in many popular writings, among historians of science a new and more sophisticated picture has emerged. At the same time our sympathy fro Galileo's opponents ahs grown somewhat. His telescopic observations are justly immortal; they aroused great interest at the time, they had important theoretical consequences, and they provided a striking demonstration of the potentialities hidden in instruments and apparatus. But can we blame those who looked and failed to see what Galileo saw, if we remember that to use a telescope at the limit of its powers calls for long experience and intimate familiarity with one's instrument? Was the philosopher who refused to look through Galileo's telescope more culpable than those who alleged that the spiral nebulae observed with Lord Rosse's great telescope in the eighteen-forties were scratches left by the grinder? We can perhaps forgive those who said the moons of Jupiter were produced by Galileo's spyglass if we recall that in his day, as for centuries before, curved glass was the popular contrivance for producing not truth but illusion, untruth; and if a single curved glass would distort nature, how much more would a pair of them?
MICHAEL HOSKIN Galileo Reborn from The Listener
New words and expressions 生詞和短語
controversy
n. 爭議，爭論
dust
n. 糾紛，騷動
clash
n. 沖突
Inquisition
n. (羅馬天主教的)宗教法庭
perspective
n. 觀點，看法
despise
v. 蔑視
generalize
v. 歸納
undercurrent
n. 潛流
theoretical
adj. 理論上的
potentiality
n. 潛能
intimate
adj. 詳盡的
familiarity
n. 熟悉的
culpable
adj. 應受遣責的
Aristotelian
n. 亞里士多德學派的人
Aristotle
n. 亞里士多德(公元前384-322，古希臘哲學家)
Ptolemy
n. 托勒密(公元90-168，古希臘天文學家)
Leaning Tower of Pisa
比薩斜塔
spiral
adj. 螺旋狀的
nebula
n. 星云
scratch
n. 擦痕
contrivance
n. 器械
distort
v. 歪曲
參考譯文
伽利略在世時是激烈論戰(zhàn)的中心。但是，自他逝世以來，那場科學上的紛爭早已平息了下來，甚至他和宗教法庭的沖突，我們今天也能正確如實地看待。但是相比之下，對于科學史家來說，伽利略只是在現(xiàn)代才變成了一個新的難題。
令人高興的是，過去對伽利略的看法并不復雜。他首先是個實驗工作者，他蔑視亞里士多德學派的偏見和空洞的書本知識。他向自然界而不是向古人提出問題，并大膽地得出結論。他是第一個把望遠鏡對準天空的人，觀察到的論據(jù)足以把亞里士多德和托勒密一起*。他就是那個曾經(jīng)爬上比薩斜塔，從塔頂向下拋擲積各種重物的人;他是那個使地球體沿斜面向下滾動，然后將多次實驗結果概括成的自由落體定律的人。
但是，對那個時代的深化了解，尤其是以科學家革命中哲學潛流的新意識為依據(jù)，進一步仔細研究，就會極大地改變對伽利略的看法。今天，雖然已故的伽利略繼續(xù)活在許多通俗讀物中，但在科學史家中間，一個新的更加復雜的伽利略形象出現(xiàn)了。與此同時，我們對伽利略的反對派的同情也有所增加。伽利略用望遠鏡所作的觀察確實是不朽的，這些觀察當時引起人們極大的興趣，具有重要的理論意義，并充分顯示出了儀表和儀器的潛在力量。但是，如果我們想到，便用一架倍數(shù)有限的望遠鏡需要長期的經(jīng)驗和對自己儀器的熟悉程度，那么我們怎么能去責備觀察了天空但沒有看到伽利略所看到的東西的那些人呢?某位哲學家曾拒絕使用伽利略的望遠鏡去觀察天空;到了19世紀40年代，有人硬把羅斯勛爵高倍望遠鏡觀測到的螺旋狀星云說成是磨鏡工留下的磨痕。難道反對伽利略的哲學家比詆毀羅斯勛爵造謠者應受到更大的譴責嗎?如果我們回想一下伽利略之前幾個世紀期間，曲面鏡一直是一種用于產(chǎn)生幻影而不是產(chǎn)生*的把戲裝置，那么我們就會原諒那些當時把伽利略觀察到的木星衛(wèi)生說成是伽利略用他的小望遠鏡變出來的人們，何況一片曲面鏡就可歪曲自然，那么伽利略的兩片曲面鏡對自然的歪曲又該多大呢?
Lesson 33
Education
教育
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 生詞和短語
adverse
adj.
purchasable
adj.可買到的
preacher
n. 傳教士
defendant
n. 被告
outlook
n. 視野
capacity
n. 能力
democratic
adj. 民主的
tribal
n. 部落的
tribe
n. 部落
illiterate
n. 文盲
compulsory
adj. 義務的
deem
v. 認為
means
n. 方法，手段，財產(chǎn)，資力
hamper
v. 妨礙
savannah
n. 大草原
juvenile
adj. 青少年
delinquency
n. 犯罪
參考譯文
教育是我們這個時代的關鍵詞之一。我們許多人都相信，一個沒有受過教育的人，是逆境的犧牲品，被剝奪了20世紀的優(yōu)越的機會之一?，F(xiàn)代國家深深懂得教育的重要性，對教育機構投資，收回的‘利息’便是培養(yǎng)出大批有知識的男女青年，這些人可能成為未來的棟梁。教育，以其教學周期如此精心地安排，并以教科書 -- 那些可以買到的智慧源泉 -- 予以強化，如果不受其惠，文明將會是個什么樣子呢?
至少，這些是可以肯定的：雖然我們還會有醫(yī)生和牧師、律師和被告、婚姻和生育，但人們的精神面貌將是另一個樣子。人們不會重視‘資料和數(shù)據(jù)’，而靠好記性、實用心理學與同伴相處的能力。如果我們的教育制度仿效沒有書籍的古代教育，我們的學院將具有可以想象得出的民主的形式了。在部落中，通過傳統(tǒng)繼承的知識為所有人共享，并傳授給部落中的每一個成員。從這個意義上講，人人受到的有關生活本領的教育是相等的。
這就是我們進步的現(xiàn)代教育試圖恢復的“平等起步”的理想狀況。在原始文化中，尋求和接受傳統(tǒng)教育的義務對全民都有約束力。因而沒有“文盲”(如果這個字眼兒可以用于沒有文字的民族的話)。而我們的義務教育成為法律在德國是在1642年，在法國是在1806年，在英國是在1876年。今天，在許多“文明”國家里，義務教育迄今尚未實行。這說明，經(jīng)過了多么漫長的時間之后，我們才認識到，有必要確保我們的孩子享有多少個世紀以來由‘少數(shù)幸運者’所積累起來的知識。
荒涼地區(qū)的教育不是錢的問題，所有的人都享有平等起步的權利。那里沒有我們今天社會中的匆忙生活，而匆忙的生活常常妨礙個性的全面發(fā)展?；臎龅貐^(qū)的孩子無時無刻不在父母關懷下成長。因此，叢林和荒涼地區(qū)不知道什么叫“青少年犯罪”。人們沒有必要離家謀生，所以不會產(chǎn)生孩子無人管的問題，也不存在父親無力為孩子支付教育費用而犯難的問題。
Lesson 31
The sculptor speaks
雕塑家的語言
First listen and then answer the following question.
聽錄音，然后回答以下問題。
What do you have to be able to do to appreciate sculpture?
Appreciation of sculpture depends upon the ability to respond to form in there dimension. That is perhaps why sculpture has been described as the most difficult of all arts; certainly it is more difficult than the arts which involve appreciation of flat forms, shape in only two dimensions. Many more people are 'form-blind' than colour-blind. The child learning to see, first distinguishes only two-dimensional shape; it cannot judge distances, depths. Later, for its personal safety and practical needs, it has to develop (partly by means of touch) the ability to judge roughly three-dimensonal distances. But having satisfied the requirements of practical necessity, most people go no further. Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat from, they do no make the further. Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat form, they do not make the further intellectual and emotional effort needed to comprehend form in its full spatial existence.
This is what the sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head-he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand. He mentally visualizes a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like, he identifies himself with its centre of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.
And the sensitive observer of sculpture must also learn to feel shape simply as shape, not as description or reminiscence. He must, for example, perceive an egg as a simple single solid shape, quite apart from its significance as food, or from the literary idea that it will become a bird. And so with solids such as a shell, a nut, a plum, a pear, a tadpole, a mushroom, a mountain peak, a kidney, a carrot, a tree-trunk, a bird, a bud, a lark, a ladybird, a bulrush, a bone. From these he can go on to appreciate more complex forms of combinations of several forms.
HENRY MOORE The Sculptor Speaks from The Listener
New words and expressions 生詞和短語
colour-blind
adj. 色盲的
perception
n. 知覺
comprehend
v. 理解
spatial
adj. 空間
visualize
v. 使具形象，設想
reminiscence
n. 回憶，聯(lián)想
tadpole
n. 蝌蚪
mushroom
n. 蘑菇
carrot
n. 胡蘿卜
bud
n. 花蕾
lark
n. 云雀
ladybird
n. 瓢蟲
bulrush
n. 蘆葦
參考譯文
對雕塑的鑒賞力取決于對立體的反應能力。雕塑被說成是所有藝術中難的藝術，可能就是這個道理。欣賞雕塑品當然比欣賞平面的藝術品要難。“形盲”的人數(shù)比“色盲”的人數(shù)要多得多。正在學看東西的兒童起初只會分辨二維形態(tài)，不會判斷距離和深度。慢慢地，由于自身安全和實際需要，兒童必須發(fā)展(部分通過觸覺)粗略判斷三維空間距離的能力。但是。大部分人在滿足了實際需要后，就不再繼續(xù)發(fā)展這種能力了。雖然他們對平面形的感覺能達到相當準確的程度，但他們沒有在智力和感情上進一步努力去理解存在于空間的整個形態(tài)。
而雕塑家就必須做到這一點。他必須勤于想像并且利用形體在空間中的完整性?？梢哉f，當他想像一個物體時，不管其大小如何，他腦子里得到的是一個立體的概念，就好像完全握在自己手心里一樣。他的大腦能從物體周圍的各個角度勾畫出其復雜的形象，他看物體的一邊時，便知道另一邊是個什么樣子。他把自身和物體重心、質量、重量融為一體。他能意識到物體的體積，那就是它的形狀有空氣中所占的空間。
因此，敏銳的雕塑觀賞者也必須學會把形體作為形體來感覺，不要靠描述和印象去想象。以鳥蛋為例。觀賞者必須感覺到它是一個單一的實體形態(tài)，而完全不靠它的食用意義或它會變成鳥這樣的文字概念來感覺。對于其他實體，如，貝殼、核桃、李子、梨子、蝌蚪、蘑菇、山峰、腎臟、胡蘿卜、樹干、鳥兒、花蕾、云雀、瓢蟲、蘆葦以及骨頭也應這樣來感覺。從這些形體出發(fā)，觀賞者可進一步觀察更為復雜的形體或若干形體的組合。
Lesson 32
Galileo reborn
伽利略的復生
What has modified out traditional view of Galileo in recent times?
In his own lifetime Galileo was the centre of violent controversy; but the scientific dust has long since settled, and today we can see even his famous clash with the Inquisition in something like its proper perspective. But, in contrast, it is only in modern times that Galileo has become a problem child for historians of science.
The old view of Galileo was delightfully uncomplicated. He was, above all, a man who experimented: who despised the prejudices and book learning of the Aristotelians, who put his questions to nature instead of to the ancients, and who drew his conclusions fearlessly. He had been the first to turn a telescope to the sky, and he had seen there evidence enough to overthrow Aristotle and Ptolemy together. He was the man who climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped various weights from the top, who rolled balls down inclined planes, and then generalized the results of his many experiments into the famous law of free fall.
But a closer study of the evidence, supported by a deeper sense of the period, and particularly by a new consciousness of the philosophical undercurrents in the scientific revolution, has profoundly modified this view of Galileo. Today, although the old Galileo lives on in many popular writings, among historians of science a new and more sophisticated picture has emerged. At the same time our sympathy fro Galileo's opponents ahs grown somewhat. His telescopic observations are justly immortal; they aroused great interest at the time, they had important theoretical consequences, and they provided a striking demonstration of the potentialities hidden in instruments and apparatus. But can we blame those who looked and failed to see what Galileo saw, if we remember that to use a telescope at the limit of its powers calls for long experience and intimate familiarity with one's instrument? Was the philosopher who refused to look through Galileo's telescope more culpable than those who alleged that the spiral nebulae observed with Lord Rosse's great telescope in the eighteen-forties were scratches left by the grinder? We can perhaps forgive those who said the moons of Jupiter were produced by Galileo's spyglass if we recall that in his day, as for centuries before, curved glass was the popular contrivance for producing not truth but illusion, untruth; and if a single curved glass would distort nature, how much more would a pair of them?
MICHAEL HOSKIN Galileo Reborn from The Listener
New words and expressions 生詞和短語
controversy
n. 爭議，爭論
dust
n. 糾紛，騷動
clash
n. 沖突
Inquisition
n. (羅馬天主教的)宗教法庭
perspective
n. 觀點，看法
despise
v. 蔑視
generalize
v. 歸納
undercurrent
n. 潛流
theoretical
adj. 理論上的
potentiality
n. 潛能
intimate
adj. 詳盡的
familiarity
n. 熟悉的
culpable
adj. 應受遣責的
Aristotelian
n. 亞里士多德學派的人
Aristotle
n. 亞里士多德(公元前384-322，古希臘哲學家)
Ptolemy
n. 托勒密(公元90-168，古希臘天文學家)
Leaning Tower of Pisa
比薩斜塔
spiral
adj. 螺旋狀的
nebula
n. 星云
scratch
n. 擦痕
contrivance
n. 器械
distort
v. 歪曲
參考譯文
伽利略在世時是激烈論戰(zhàn)的中心。但是，自他逝世以來，那場科學上的紛爭早已平息了下來，甚至他和宗教法庭的沖突，我們今天也能正確如實地看待。但是相比之下，對于科學史家來說，伽利略只是在現(xiàn)代才變成了一個新的難題。
令人高興的是，過去對伽利略的看法并不復雜。他首先是個實驗工作者，他蔑視亞里士多德學派的偏見和空洞的書本知識。他向自然界而不是向古人提出問題，并大膽地得出結論。他是第一個把望遠鏡對準天空的人，觀察到的論據(jù)足以把亞里士多德和托勒密一起*。他就是那個曾經(jīng)爬上比薩斜塔，從塔頂向下拋擲積各種重物的人;他是那個使地球體沿斜面向下滾動，然后將多次實驗結果概括成的自由落體定律的人。
但是，對那個時代的深化了解，尤其是以科學家革命中哲學潛流的新意識為依據(jù)，進一步仔細研究，就會極大地改變對伽利略的看法。今天，雖然已故的伽利略繼續(xù)活在許多通俗讀物中，但在科學史家中間，一個新的更加復雜的伽利略形象出現(xiàn)了。與此同時，我們對伽利略的反對派的同情也有所增加。伽利略用望遠鏡所作的觀察確實是不朽的，這些觀察當時引起人們極大的興趣，具有重要的理論意義，并充分顯示出了儀表和儀器的潛在力量。但是，如果我們想到，便用一架倍數(shù)有限的望遠鏡需要長期的經(jīng)驗和對自己儀器的熟悉程度，那么我們怎么能去責備觀察了天空但沒有看到伽利略所看到的東西的那些人呢?某位哲學家曾拒絕使用伽利略的望遠鏡去觀察天空;到了19世紀40年代，有人硬把羅斯勛爵高倍望遠鏡觀測到的螺旋狀星云說成是磨鏡工留下的磨痕。難道反對伽利略的哲學家比詆毀羅斯勛爵造謠者應受到更大的譴責嗎?如果我們回想一下伽利略之前幾個世紀期間，曲面鏡一直是一種用于產(chǎn)生幻影而不是產(chǎn)生*的把戲裝置，那么我們就會原諒那些當時把伽利略觀察到的木星衛(wèi)生說成是伽利略用他的小望遠鏡變出來的人們，何況一片曲面鏡就可歪曲自然，那么伽利略的兩片曲面鏡對自然的歪曲又該多大呢?
Lesson 33
Education
教育
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 生詞和短語
adverse
adj.
purchasable
adj.可買到的
preacher
n. 傳教士
defendant
n. 被告
outlook
n. 視野
capacity
n. 能力
democratic
adj. 民主的
tribal
n. 部落的
tribe
n. 部落
illiterate
n. 文盲
compulsory
adj. 義務的
deem
v. 認為
means
n. 方法，手段，財產(chǎn)，資力
hamper
v. 妨礙
savannah
n. 大草原
juvenile
adj. 青少年
delinquency
n. 犯罪
參考譯文
教育是我們這個時代的關鍵詞之一。我們許多人都相信，一個沒有受過教育的人，是逆境的犧牲品，被剝奪了20世紀的優(yōu)越的機會之一?，F(xiàn)代國家深深懂得教育的重要性，對教育機構投資，收回的‘利息’便是培養(yǎng)出大批有知識的男女青年，這些人可能成為未來的棟梁。教育，以其教學周期如此精心地安排，并以教科書 -- 那些可以買到的智慧源泉 -- 予以強化，如果不受其惠，文明將會是個什么樣子呢?
至少，這些是可以肯定的：雖然我們還會有醫(yī)生和牧師、律師和被告、婚姻和生育，但人們的精神面貌將是另一個樣子。人們不會重視‘資料和數(shù)據(jù)’，而靠好記性、實用心理學與同伴相處的能力。如果我們的教育制度仿效沒有書籍的古代教育，我們的學院將具有可以想象得出的民主的形式了。在部落中，通過傳統(tǒng)繼承的知識為所有人共享，并傳授給部落中的每一個成員。從這個意義上講，人人受到的有關生活本領的教育是相等的。
這就是我們進步的現(xiàn)代教育試圖恢復的“平等起步”的理想狀況。在原始文化中，尋求和接受傳統(tǒng)教育的義務對全民都有約束力。因而沒有“文盲”(如果這個字眼兒可以用于沒有文字的民族的話)。而我們的義務教育成為法律在德國是在1642年，在法國是在1806年，在英國是在1876年。今天，在許多“文明”國家里，義務教育迄今尚未實行。這說明，經(jīng)過了多么漫長的時間之后，我們才認識到，有必要確保我們的孩子享有多少個世紀以來由‘少數(shù)幸運者’所積累起來的知識。
荒涼地區(qū)的教育不是錢的問題，所有的人都享有平等起步的權利。那里沒有我們今天社會中的匆忙生活，而匆忙的生活常常妨礙個性的全面發(fā)展?；臎龅貐^(qū)的孩子無時無刻不在父母關懷下成長。因此，叢林和荒涼地區(qū)不知道什么叫“青少年犯罪”。人們沒有必要離家謀生，所以不會產(chǎn)生孩子無人管的問題，也不存在父親無力為孩子支付教育費用而犯難的問題。