The Ivy League Schools: Excellence in Education常春藤盟校──教育界的翹首The first permanent English settlement in the New World was at Plymouth Bay in what is now the state of Massachusetts in 1620. Merely 16 years later, a group of successful settlers in New Town (renamed Cambridge after their alma mater) started a college. They named it after the Puritan minister who willed half his estate and all his books to the college. This clergyman's name was John Harvard, and his namesake remains the most prestigious among the more than 2,000 institutes of higher education in the United States today.[qh]
英國人于1620年在新大陸建立的第一個永久殖民地是在普利茅斯灣，即今天的馬薩諸塞州境內。在僅僅16年后，一群功成名就的移民在新城（后來依其母校改名為劍橋）創辦了一所大學。他們以一位在遺囑中將半數產業和所有書籍都捐給這所大學的清教徒牧師來為學校命名。這位神父的名字就叫約翰‧哈佛，一直到今天他的名聲在美國兩千多所高等教育學府當中仍是最有名望的。 　　[qh]
Harvard is not the only great school in the U.S., of course. A small industry has grown up around the ranking of the best tertiary schools, and year after year, seven schools dominate most of these Top Twenty or Top Fifty lists. Harvard is nearly always at or close to the top, joined frequently by Yale (in Connecticut), Princeton (in New Jersey), Dartmouth (in New Hampshire), Cornell (in New York State), Columbia (in New York City), the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown (in Rhode Island). These eight private universities are collectively referred to as the Ivy League schools. 　[qh]
當然，哈佛不是美國唯一的名校。多年來在這些執牛耳的高等學府周圍興起了一群小小的教育團體，而年復一年，前20或50大排名大都由7所學校所囊括。哈佛幾乎總是排名第一或接近第一，經常一起上榜的前20或50大排名的學校尚有耶魯大學（在康涅狄格州），普林斯頓大學（在新澤西州），達特默恩大學（在新罕布什爾州），康乃爾大學（在紐約州），哥倫比亞大學（在紐約市），賓州大學和布朗大學（在羅得島）。這8所大學被總稱為常春藤聯盟學校。 　　[qh]
Why the name? Ivy is a vine; that is, a plant which grows up or along the surface of other plants such as trees, or, in the human landscape, along the sides of stone buildings. As these eight universities are old (the youngest among them, Cornell, was founded in 1853), ivy has had plenty of time to decorate the outsides of the more historic buildings on these campuses. The word league, however, is more an invention of imagination than a reality. Though there is an association called the Ivy League, it refers to the above schools' participation in an American football athletic conference rather than to any academic alliance. Further, despite the lengthy academic lineage of these schools, the footballing Ivy League was not formally formed until 1956, though highly competitive football and other athletic games have been hotly contested among the schools for many generations.[qh]
為什么叫這個名字呢？常春藤是一種藤蔓，也就是一種往上或沿著樹木等其它植物表面生長、或者在人工景觀中沿著石造建筑物墻壁生長的植物。由于這8所大學都很古老（其中最年輕的康乃爾大學創立于1853年），常春藤有的是時間可以裝飾這些校園里歷史較悠久的建筑物外觀。然而，“聯盟”這個字比較像是想象出來的產物而不是事實。雖然有一個叫做“常春藤聯盟”的組織，但那指的是上列名校所參加的一項美式足球會，而非任何學術上的結盟。況且，盡管這些學校的學術歷史悠久，而且競爭激烈的美式足球和其它運動比賽在各校之間也已熱烈展開了好幾個世代，但是美式足球的常春藤聯盟卻一直到1956年才正式成立。 　　[qh]
Since these institutes of higher learning had such an early start in the history of the United States, it is not surprising that they should individually and collectively have exerted a great influence on American society. Their status within national scholarly circles is unparalleled. Admission to these universities is highly demanding: many students apply for every one lucky enough to be accepted. As these universities are private, they are relatively expensive. Offsetting the extremely high tuition are many opportunities for scholarships. These scholarships are awarded to meritorious students regardless of their backgrounds.[qh]
因為這些高等學府在美國歷史上起步非常早，它們能個別或共同對美國社會發揮巨大的影響也就不足為奇。在國際學術圈內它們的地位崇高無比。這些學校對入學標準的要求很嚴格：許多學生申請了常春藤盟校每一所大學，被一所接受就算幸運了。由于這些大學都是私立的，學費因此相當昂貴。而許多領取獎學金的機會可以對極高的學費作些補償。這些獎學金頒給成績優異的學生，不論他們的背景為何。　　Additionally, the roster of the faculties of these schools reads like a Who's Who list of important Americans (and quite a few foreigners, as well). Their intellectual integrity shows in the number of Nobel and other major prizes awarded which they have garnered over the years. Some of the country's most famous doctors, statesmen, engineers, scientists, and educationists have studied and taught within these ivy-covered walls. No fewer than 14 U.S. presidents have earned degrees here, including six at Harvard, six at Yale, and two at Princeton. 　[qh]
除此之外，這些學校的教職員名冊讀起來就像一份美國名人錄（也有不少外國人）。他們豐富的學識表現在多年來所獲得的諾貝爾獎和其它大獎的數量上。許多美國最有名的醫生、政治人物、工程師、科學家和教育家都曾在這些墻上爬滿常春藤的校園內學習和執教。有不下14位美國總統在常春藤盟校中取得學位，其中6位在哈佛，6位在耶魯，2位在普林斯頓大學。　　[qh]
Though only a select few can join the ranks as Ivy Leaguers each year, Americans are endowed with a world-class tertiary educational system second to none. Not every graduate from an Ivy League school "makes the grade" in life; even a first-rate education is no guarantee of success. Still, those who do enter and leave the Ivy League universities in the northeastern United States have a much better than average chance to join the ranks of the movers and shakers of not only the U.S. society, but, once back in their home countries, of their native lands as well. 　　[qh]
雖然每年只有少數雀屏中選的人可以加入常春藤盟校成為其中一員，美國人仍擁有無人能比的世界級高等教育體系。并不是每一個常春藤盟校的畢業生都能在人生中“出人頭地”，即使一流的學府也不能保證功成名就。盡管如此，那些能夠進出美國東北部常春藤盟校的人，比一般人更有機會晉升為美國社會以及一旦回國后他們祖國社會上有權勢的人物。[qh]