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In 1935, for example, when my mother and her sister were four, a historian named William M. MacMillan came to visit Jamaica.
例如，在1935年，我的母親和她的妹妹才4歲時，一個名叫威廉姆·麥克米蘭的歷史學家訪問牙買加，
He was a professor at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
他是南非約翰內斯堡威特沃特斯蘭德大學的教授。
MacMillan was a man before his time:
麥克米蘭是一個超越他所在時代的男人：
he was deeply concerned with the social problems of South Africa's black population, and he came to the Caribbean to make the same argument he had made back home in South Africa.
他深切地關心南非黑人的社會問題，并且到加勒比海發表了曾在南非發表過的言論。
Chief among MacMillan's concerns was Jamaica's educational system.
麥克米蘭最關心牙買加的教育系統。
Formal schooling— if you could call what went on in the wooden barn next door to my grandparent's house "formal schooling" —went only to fourteen years of age.
當時，牙買加正式的學校教育——如果你把我外祖父家旁邊的木屋子稱做“正式的學校教育”的話——僅僅開展14年。
Jamaica had no public high schools or universities.
牙買加沒有公立高中或者大學，
Those with academic inclinations took extra classes with the head teacher in their teenage years and with luck made it into teachers' college.
那些有學習天分的10來歲孩子只能和班主任一起參加一些其它的課程，如果幸運的話，還可能成為師范學校的一員。
Those with broader ambitions had to somehow find their way into a private school and from there to a university in the United States or England.
另一些更有雄心的人則會想盡辦法進入私立學校并從那里踏入美國或英國的大學。
But scholarships were few and far between, and the cost of private schooling prohibitive for all but privileged few.
但是獎學金非常少并且差距極大，除了對一少部分享有特權的人來說，私立學校的花費也高得讓人卻步。
The "bridge from the primary schools" to high school, MacMillan later wrote,
麥克米蘭后來在《來自西印度群島的警告》一文中，以一種非常嚴厲的批評語氣寫道：
in a blistering critique of England's treatment of its colonies entitled Warning from the West Indies, "is narrow and insecure."
“從小學到中學的橋梁，非常狹窄且不可靠，”
The school system did nothing for the "humblest" classes.
正規學校教育什么都沒有為下等人做。
He went on: "If anything these schools are a factor deepening and sharpening social distinctions."
他繼續寫道：“不管怎樣，這樣的學校說得上是加深和加劇社會等級分化的重要因素。”
If the government did not give its people opportunities, he warned, there would be trouble.
如果政府不能給人民所應該得到的機會，就會有更多麻煩產生。
