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Arnold Toynbee has said that all progress, all development come from challenge and a consequent response. Without challenge there is no response, no development, no freedom. So first we owe to our children the most demanding, challenging curriculum that is within their capabilities. Michelangelo did not learn to paint by spending his time doodling. Mozart was not an accomplished pianist at the age of eight as the result or spending his days in front ofa television set. Like Eve Curie, like Helen Keller, they responded to the challenge of their lives by a disciplined training: and they gained a new freedom.
阿諾德·湯因比說過，一切進步，一切發展均來自挑戰以及由此引起的反應。沒有挑戰就沒有反應，沒有發展，沒有自由。所以，我們首先應該在我們孩子的能力所允許的范圍內為他們開設要求最嚴格、最富有挑戰性的課程。米開朗琪羅并不是靠心不在焉地亂涂一氣學會繪畫的。莫扎特八歲成為一名造詣頗深的鋼琴家也并不是終日在電視機前消磨時光的結果。像伊芙·居里和海倫·凱勒一樣，他們都以嚴格的訓練對生活的挑戰作出了反應，從而獲得了一種新的自由。
The second opportunity we can give our boys and girls is the right to failure. "Freedom isnot only a privilege, it is a test," writes De Nouy. What kind of a test is it, what kind of freedom where no one can fail? The day is past when the United States can afford to give high school diplomas to all who sit through four years of instruction, regardless ofwhether any visible results can be discerned. We live in a narrowed world where we must bealert, awake to realism; and realism demands a standard which either must be met or result in failure. These are hard words, but they are brutally true. If we deprive our children of the right to fail we deprive them of their knowledge of the world as it is.
我們可以向我們的孩子提供的第二個機會是允許他們有失敗的權利。德·紐伊寫道：“自由不僅是一種特權，也是一種考驗。”如果沒有人可以失敗，那它算是什么考驗，什么自由呢？美國可以向所有在高中讀完四年而不管其是否取得任何明顯結果的學生發放畢業文憑的日子已經一去不復返了。我們現在生活在一個變得狹窄的世界里，我們必須對現實主義保持警覺，有所認識；而現實主義要求樹立一個或必須達到或導致失敗的標準。這些話聽起來很刺耳，但卻是嚴峻的事實。如果我們剝奪了孩子們的失敗權，我們就剝奪了他們如實認識世界的機會。
Finally, we can expose our children to the best values we have found. By relating our lives to the evidences of the ages, by judging our philosophy in the light of values that history has proven truest, perhaps we shall be able to produce that "ringing message, full of content and truth, satisfying the mind, appealing to the heart, firing the will, a message on which one can stake his whole life." This is the message that could mean joy and strength and leadership --- freedom as opposed to serfdom.
最后，我們可以讓孩子們廣泛接觸一下我們已發現的最好的價值觀。把我們的生活跟各個時代的事實聯系起來，以歷史所證實的最正確的價值觀來評價我們的人生觀，也許這樣我們就能使他們得到那種“時時在耳邊回響的啟示，這啟示內容豐富，閃爍著真理的光輝；令人心悅誠服，感人至深而又激發斗志，讓人終生受用不盡”。這就是那種可以帶來歡樂、力量和領導能力，也就是自由而不是被奴役的啟示。
