教育是我们这个时代的关键词之一。
Education is one of the key words of our time.
我们许多人相信，一个没有受过教育的人，是不幸的逆境受害者，被剥夺了二十世纪最伟大的机遇之一。
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.
现代国家深信教育的重要性，在学习机构上"投资"，以期以一大批受启蒙的、具有领导潜质的青年男女的形式收回"利息"。
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.
教育，带着它那被如此精心设计的一套套教学周期，由教科书——那些可以购买的智慧之井——不时点缀其间，没有它的裨益，文明将会是什么样子？
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?
有一点是确定的：我们会有医生和传教士、律师和被告、婚姻和生育——但我们的精神面貌将会有所不同。
So much is certain: that we would have doctors and preachers, lawyers and defendants marriages and births--but our spiritual outlook would be different.
我们对"事实与数字"的重视程度会降低，而更多地重视良好的记忆力、应用心理学，以及一个人与同胞友好相处的能力。
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.
如果我们的教育体制效法其无书本的过去，我们将拥有可以想象得到的最民主的"大学"形式。
If our educational system were fashioned after its bookless past we would have the most democratic form of 'college' imaginable.
在部落民众中，所有通过传统传承下来的知识为所有人共享；它被传授给部落的每一位成员，使得在这一方面，每个人都同等地具备了生活所需的本领。
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.
这正是"平等起点"的理想条件，而只有我们最进步的现代教育形式才试图重新找回。
It is the ideal condition of the 'equal start' which only our most progressive forms of modern education try to regain.
在原始文化中，寻求并接受传统教导的义务对所有人都具有约束力。
In primitive cultures the obligation to seek and to receive the traditional instruction is binding to all.
（在部落社会）不存在"文盲"——如果这个词可以用于没有文字的民族的话——而我们自己的强制入学制度到1642年才在德国成为法律，1806年才在法国，1876年才在英国，且在一些"文明"国家至今仍不存在。
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 nonexistent in a number of 'civilized' nations.
这说明了我们花了多长时间，才认为有必要确保所有孩子都能分享过去几个世纪里"少数幸运儿"所积累的知识。
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.
荒野中的教育不是金钱财力的问题。
Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.
所有人都有权享有平等的起点。
All are entitled to an equal start.
这里没有那种在我们的社会中常常妨碍一个成长中的人格完整发展的匆忙。
There is none of the hurry which, in our society, often hampers the full development of a growing personality.
在那里，孩子在父母无时不在的关注下成长；因此，丛林和热带稀树草原不知"青少年犯罪"为何物。
There, a child grows up under the everpresent attention of his parents; therefore the jungles and the savannahs know of no 'juvenile delinquency'.
没有任何需要在外谋生的必要会导致对孩子的忽视，也没有任何父亲面临自己无力为孩子"购买"教育的困境。
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.