1705038492 受教育阶层用这样一个简单的方式定义自身价值；我们比其他人更有能力预见谁可以成为更可敬可佩的领袖人物。这当然是极端简化后的说法，但是纵览全局让我们可以迅速定位。在我们的民主中，其他一切事物都在变化，只有我们这些大学校友成为稳定的存在，与旧国度的贵族一脉相承。跟贵族一样，我们沿袭传统；而我们的口号也正是“位高则任重”；与贵族不同之处在于，我们只代表理想的利益，因为我们不会徇私舞弊，也不会贪赃枉法。我们应当抱有阶层自觉性。“知识分子！”没有比这个集体名词更加充满自豪感的了，但是那些满脑子愚蠢的偏见和冲动的“血性”阶层却在“反德雷福斯狂热”中，用这个称号来讽刺法国那些仍然保有批判意识和判断力的人！必须承认，批判意识并非一个激动人心的词语，更不会成为游行中高举的横幅。对于旧习惯的喜好、自私的潮流、狂热的风潮是让人类这艘大船前行的力量；而睿智的船长在舵柄上施加的力量相对而言则微不足道。但是这些喜好、热情和利益是在不断变化、交替和错乱的；就在这此消彼长之中，船长的手却是稳定的。他对罗盘了然于心，并且在偏航时抢风行驶，奋力向前。再微弱的力量，如果持之以恒，相比起那些虽然强劲但却时断时续的力量而言，其效果都将是更为可观的。更加恒久的理想信念有如微风轻轻吹拂，真理和正义坚持不懈地引领道路，那么假以时日，必能扭转乾坤。

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1705038494 在民主的起伏中来纵观大学生发挥的总体引领作用，可以帮助我们从更广阔的视角来看待大学本身的目标。如果我们要成为民主这个面团的酵母，如果我们要通过文化的偏好来推动民主，我们就必须保证文化鼓起风帆。我们就必须将折叠风帆打开接受风和阳光的洗礼，接受现代学科进入——如果视野足够宽广，那么任何学科都将是人文的。

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1705038496 史蒂文森曾经这样写道：“你认为自己只是在谈判，其实却在人类进程中建立了一个联系。”当然了，技校理应教会你得心应手地讨价还价，但是大学应当向你展现出人类进程中这种谈判的场所——可能是个破烂不堪的地方。这应当是围绕大学每一门学科的通识观、视角和氛围。

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1705038498 身处大学的我们应当消除一个不少人关于哈佛等古老学府的奇怪观念。在很多无知的旁观者看来，这个名字不过意味着固执自负和难以取悦。在伊迪斯·怀亚特描写芝加哥的书《各行其是》中，有一对夫妇代表着一种独一无二的文化，即理查德·艾略特和他的妻子，他们见到任何美好的事物都无从辨别，若没有一个印出来的标签，欣赏就无从谈起——这二人正是对人类的讽刺影射。这类文化可能就存在于哈佛校园附近，那里恐怕找得到一些典型人物，因为自命不凡就好像画家的疝气或其他各种职业病一样。但是每所好的大学都避免让学生沾染上这类顽疾，避免让病菌扩散到附近的书本：它们调动整体基调活跃起来，让病菌难以为继。真正的文化兴盛之道在于同理心与敬畏心，而非厌恶和鄙夷，即能够突破重重伪装，直达人类心灵深处。如果一所大学在人类恶习的控制之下，无法创造蓬勃的氛围基调，就将因丧失社会功能而一败涂地；民主会对它敬而远之，视而不见。

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1705038500 当然，“基调”这个词太过模糊，但是也没有其他的选择，而此处的全部思考正是有关基调的问题。人类的所有事物正是因基调而丢失，或是留存。若要留住民主，就必须抓住更为高尚和健康的基调。如若我们要让民主如愿发展，就必须使用恰当的基调。而我们正是从自己的老师那里继承基调。最终一切都回到无数个体的相互模仿，回到何种基调拥有最大影响力这一问题上来。作为一个阶层，大学毕业生应当力图使我们的基调得到传播。这种基调应当拥有最高的传播力。

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1705038502 在辨识贤达之人这一本质功能之中，我们现在也遇到了来自外界的劲敌。《麦克卢尔杂志》《美国杂志》《科里尔周刊》，以及类似的《环球作品》，在这一领域共同打造了一所真正的平民大学。如果将来哪位历史学家写了接下来这段话，那可真是一桩憾事：“二十世纪中叶，高等学府对于美国的公众意见已全然丧失了影响力。这些学府已经证实了自己无力承担起提高民主基调这一使命，取而代之的是一股新兴的教育力量，带着无与伦比的热情，并用非凡的能力和成就付诸实践；为了满足同理心，提升人生品位，大众已经习惯完全听命于某些私下开展的文学行动，市场上通常把它们亲切地统称为‘十美分杂志’。”

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1705038504 难道我们不应该力图避免历史学家说出这样的话来吗？尽管“遇见贤达能有知人之明”这样的表述还不够明了，在实际运用中也难免困惑与不确定，但是还能找到其他方法来很好地描述高等学府应有的使命吗？如果大学做到了这一点，那么就做了想象中最好的事情。如果没有办到，那么就一事无成。这确实是一个不错的综合表述方法。如果有朝一日大学的师生能够集体认识到，它便是自己一直以来在摸索的伟大的目标，那么很多问题将有望得到解决；并且鉴于他们在社会体系中的影响力，也将开辟一番全新的蓬勃事业。

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1705038506 （郑文博　译）

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1705038508 西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033840]

1705038509 26 LIBERTY AND DISCIPLINE

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1705038511 By Abbot Lawrence Lowell

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1705038514 LIBERTY AND DISCIPLINE, by Abbott Lawrence Lowell, from the Yale Review , Vol. V, p.741, July, 1916. Reprinted in Maurice Garland Fulton’s National Ideals and Problems , New York, The MacMillan Company, 1918, pp. 269-282.

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1705038518 Abbott Lawrence Lowell （1856-1943）, American educator, president of Harvard University, 1909-1933. He is distinguished as an authority on the science of government and is the author of many books and articles in this field.

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1705038520 We are living in the midst of a terrific war in which each side casts upon the other the blame for causing the struggle;but in which each gives the same reason for continuing it to the bitter end—that reason being the preservation from destruction of the essential principle of its own civilization. One side claims to be fighting for the liberty of man; the other for a social system based on efficiency and maintained by discipline. Of course the difference is one of degree. No one believes in permitting every man to do whatever he pleases, no matter how it may injure his neighbor or endanger the community; and no country refuses all freedom of action to the individual. But although the difference is only of degree and of emphasis, it is none the less real. Our own people have always asserted their devotion to the principle of personal liberty, and in some ways they have carried it farther than any other nation. It is not, therefore, useless to compare the two principles that we may understand their relative advantages, and perceive the dangers of liberty and the conditions of its fruitfulness.

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1705038522 Americans are more familiar with the benefits of discipline, in fact, than conscious of them in theory. Anyone who should try to manage a factory, a bank, a railroad, a ship, a military company, or an athletic team, on the principle of having every employee or member of the organization take whatever part in the work, and do it in whatever way seemed best in his own eyes, would come to sudden grief and be mercilessly laughed at. We all know that any enterprise can be successful only if there is coördination of effort, or what for short we call team play; and that this can happen only if the nature of each man’s work, and the way he is to perform it, is arranged with a view to the whole, so that each part fitting into its place contributes its proper share to the total result. Experience has taught us that the maximum efficiency is attained where the team play is most nearly perfect, and therefore, the subordination of the individual to the combined action is most nearly complete. Then there is the greatest harmony of action, and the least waste by friction or working at cross purposes. But everyone is aware that such a condition does not come about of itself. Men do not fit into their places in a team or organization spontaneously. Until they have become experts they do not appreciate the relation of their particular work to the plan as a whole; and even when they have become familiar with the game or the industry, they are apt to overestimate their own part in it, or disagree about the best method of attaining the result. Everyone likes to rule, and when Artemus Ward suggested that all the men in a regiment should be made Brigadier Generals at once to avoid jealousy, he touched a familiar weakness in human nature. He was not obliged to explain the joke, because no one fails to see the absurdity of having everybody in command. But that would be exactly the situation if nobody were in command. If there is to be a plan for combined action, somebody must have power to decide what that plan shall be; and if the part of every performer is to be subordinated to the common plan, somebody must have authority to direct the action of each in conformity with the plan. Moreover, that authority must have some means of carrying its directions into effect. It must be maintained by discipline; either by forcing those who do not play their parts rightly to conform to the general plan, or by eliminating them from the organization.

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1705038524 This principle of coördinated effort maintained by discipline applies to every combination of men where the maximum efficiency for a concrete object is desired, be it a business, a charity, or a whole state. It is a vitally important principle which no people can afford to lose from sight, but it is not everything. Whether it conduces to the greatest happiness or not is a question I leave on one side, for I am now discussing only effectiveness. Yet even from that standpoint we have left something out of account. The principle would be absolutely true if men were machines, or if the thing desired were always a concrete object to be attained by coöperation, such as the building of a railroad, the production of wealth, the winning of victory in war or on a playing field. But men are human beings and the progress of civilization is a thing far too complex to be comprised within any one concrete object or any number of such objects depending on combined effort. This is where the advantages of liberty come in.

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1705038526 Pasteur, one of the greatest explorers of nature and benefactors of the age, remarked that the value of liberty lay in its enabling every man to put forth his utmost effort. In France under the ancient monarchy men were very nearly born to trades and professions or at least large portions of the people were virtually excluded from many occupations. The posts of officers in the army were generally reserved for men of noble rank. The places of judges were purchased, and were in fact largely hereditary, and so on through much of the higher grade of employments. The Revolution broke this system down, and Napoleon insisted that the true principle of the French Revolution was the opening of all careers to talent;not so much equality as freedom of opportunity. Under any system of compulsion or restraint a man may be limited to duties unsuited to his qualities, so that he cannot use the best talents he possesses. The opportunities in a complex modern civilization are of infinite variety, subtle, elastic, incapable of being compassed by fixed regulations for attaining definite objects. The best plan for perfecting the post office, if strictly followed, would not have produced the telegraph; the most excellent organization of the telegraph would not have created the telephone; the most elaborate system of telephone wires and switchboards would not have included the wireless. The greatest contributions to knowledge, to the industrial arts, and to the comforts of life have been unforeseen, and have often come in unexpected directions. The production of these required something more than a highly efficient organization maintained by discipline.

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1705038528 Moreover—what is nearer to our present purpose—believers in the principle of liberty assert that a man will put forth more effort, and more intelligent effort, if he chooses his own field, and works in his own way, than if he labors under the constant direction of others. The mere sense of freedom is stimulating in a high degree to vigorous natures. The man who directs himself is responsible for the consequences. He guarantees the result, and stakes his character and reputation on it. If after selecting his own career he finds that he has chosen wrongly, he writes himself down a fool. The theory of liberty, then, is based upon the belief that a man is usually a better judge of his own aptitudes than anyone else can be, and that he will put forth more and better effort if he is free than if he is not.

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1705038530 Both these principles, of discipline and of liberty, contain much truth. Neither is absolutely true, nor can be carried to its logical extreme, for one by subjecting all a man’s actions to the control of a master would lead to slavery, the other by leaving every man free to disregard the common welfare would lead to anarchy. In America we are committed, as it were, to err on the side of liberty; and it is my purpose to consider here what are the dangers and conditions of liberty in the American college. It is in college that young men first enjoy the pleasure of liberty and assume its responsibilities. They sometimes think themselves still under no little restriction, because they cannot leave the college during term time without permission, and must attend the lectures, examinations, and other duties;but these are slight compared with the restraints which will surround any busy man in after life. There is no better place than college to learn to use freedom without abusing it. This is one of the greatest opportunities of college life, the thing that makes strong men stronger and sometimes weak men weaker than before.

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1705038532 Liberty means a freedom of choice in regulating one’s conduct. If you are free to attend a lecture, but not free to stay away from it, then it is compulsory. You have no liberty whatever in the matter. A man of wealth has no freedom about paying taxes. He is obliged to pay them. But he has freedom about giving money away to relieve distress, or for other charitable purposes, because he may give or not as he pleases. A man is at liberty to be generous or mean, to be kindly or selfish, to be truthful or tricky, to be industrious or lazy. In all these things his duty may be clear, but he is free to disregard it. In short, liberty means freedom to do wrong as well as to do right, else it is no freedom at all. It means freedom to be foolish as well as to be wise, to prefer immediate self-indulgence to future benefit for oneself or others, liberty to neglect as well as to perform the duties of the passing hour that never comes again. But if liberty were used exclusively to do wrong, it would be intolerable, and good sense would sweep it from the earth. The supposition on which liberty is based, the condition on which it exists, is that men will use it for right more than for wrong; that in the long run they will do right more often, and do more that is good, than under a system of restraint.

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1705038534 Mark this, liberty and discipline are not mutually exclusive. Liberty does not mean that good results can ever be attained without discipline. If rightly used it means only that regulation by others is replaced by self-discipline no less severe and inexorable. The man who does not force himself to work when he is disinclined to do so will never achieve anything worth doing. Some really industrious men affect to do only what they like, never working save when the spirit moves them; and occasionally such men deceive themselves in trying to deceive others. If not, they have usually schooled themselves to want what they ought to want. Self-discipline has brought their inclinations as well as their conduct into a happy subjection to their will. But, in fact, labor carried anywhere near the point of maximum productivity, the point where a man puts forth his utmost effort, is never wholly pleasurable, although the moral force required to drive oneself at top speed varies much in different people. An idle disposition, however, is no sufficient excuse for shirking. Many years ago a stingy old merchant in Boston lay dying. The old miser turned to the brother sitting by his bedside and said:“John, I wish I had been more generous in giving away money in my life. But it has been harder for me than for most men to give money; and, John, I think the Lord will make allowance for differences in temperament.” Thus do we excuse ourselves for self-indulgence.

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1705038536 How many men in every American college make an effort to get through with little to spare, win a degree, and evade an education? Not an insignificant number. How many strive earnestly to put forth their utmost effort to obtain an education that will develop their intellectual powers to the fullest extent, and fit them in the highest possible degree to cope with the problems they will face as men and as citizens? Again not an insignificant number, but are they enough to satisfy Pasteur’s aspirations, or even to justify his idea of the object of liberty?

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1705038538 Everywhere in the higher education of Europe, whether the system is one of freedom or restraint, whether as in Germany a degree is conferred only on men who have real proficiency, or as in Oxford and Cambridge a mere pass degree is given for very little real work, everywhere the principle of competition is dominant for those who propose to make a marked success in life. Let us take the countries which claim to be fighting in this war for liberty. A student at Oxford or Cambridge knows that his prospects, not only of a position in the university, but at the bar, in permanent public employment and political life, are deeply influenced by, and in many cases almost dependent upon, his winning a place in the first group of scholars at graduation. The man who gets it plays thereafter with loaded dice. It gives him a marked advantage at the start, and to some extent follows him ever afterwards. Of course, there are exceptional men who by ability come to the front rank without it, but on the whole they are surprisingly few. Mr. Balfour is sometimes referred to as a man who did not distinguish himself at Cambridge, and Sir Edward Grey is said to have been an incorrigibly poor scholar at Balliol in Oxford, yet both of them won third-class honors, which is not far from what we should considerФBK rank. To mention only men who have been prominent in public life, Peel, Cardwell, Sherbrooke, Gladstone, Harcourt, Bryce, Trevelyan, Asquith, Haldane, Milner, Simon, Ambassador Spring-Rice, and many more won honors of the first class at one of the two great English universities; while a number of other men distinguished in public life, such as Disraeli, Chamberlain, and Lloyd-George, did not go to Oxford or Cambridge. It would not be difficult to add a long list of judges, and in fact, as an Oxford man once remarked to me, high honors at the university have been almost a necessity for reaching the bench. No doubt the fact that men have achieved distinction at their universities is a test of their ability; but also the fact that they have done so is a direct help at the outset of their careers.

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1705038540 If we turn to France we find the same principle of competition in a direct form though working in other channels. The Ecole Centrale , the great school of engineering, and the Beaux Arts , the great school of architecture and art, admit only a limited number of students by competitive examination; and the men who obtain the highest prizes at graduation are guaranteed public employment for life. Europeans believe that preëminence in those things for which higher education exists is a measure of intellectual and moral qualities; and the fact that it is recognized as such tends to make it so, for the rewards attached to it make ambitious and capable young men strive for it, and put forth their utmost effort in the competition. Let us hope that some day our colleges, and the public at large, will recognize more fully than they do to-day the value of excellence in college work as a measure of capacity, as a promise of future achievement, and thereby draw out more effort among the undergraduates. It is already the case to a large extent in our professional schools, and ought to be the case in our colleges, if a college education is really worth the money and labor expended on it.

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