評論
打印
Take It Easy to Learn Better
不慌不忙學得更好
Donald A. Laird
唐納德·A·萊爾德
Spare-time learners are usually the best learners. Their rate of learning is helped, of course, by the fact that they want to learn and consequently try to learn. But they are also helped by circumstances — they are forced to take their learning by easy stages.
業余時間的學習者往往是最成功的學習者。當然，他們的學習進度得益于這樣一個事實： 他們想學，因而努力去學。但他們也得益于自身所處的環境——迫不得已他們只好從容地、循序漸進地學習。
Edgar Burchell, the janitor who became a leading medical scientist and teacher, is an example. He was one of nine children, and he had to leave school and go to work before finishing the grades. At twenty-two he was scrubbing floors twelve hours a day at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.
埃德加·伯切爾，那個后來成為卓越的醫學家、教師的大樓管理工，就是一個例子。他是一家9個孩子中的一個，沒念完小學就不得不輟學打工。22歲時,他在紐約眼耳科醫院每天擦洗12小時地板。
But during his lunch hour he attended staff lectures, carefully pretending he was in the lecture hall for janitor work, but drinking in every word that was said. When his twelve-hourshift was over he remained at the infirmary, watching the interns in the laboratory. "Teach me how you do these things," he said to them, "and I'll do them for you." Then, from hissmall savings, he bought a second-hand anatomy text which he studied in his other spare moments.
可他利用午餐時間去聽為醫務人員舉辦的講座。他小心翼翼地裝作在演講廳里做清潔工作，但卻如饑似渴地記住聽到的每一個字。他干完12小時一班之后還留在醫院里，在實驗室里看實習醫生工作。“如果你們能教會我怎么做這些活，”他對他們說，“我就來替你們做。”他還用微薄的積蓄買了本舊的解剖學教材，在別的空閑時間鉆研。
Picking up his education in this way, Burchell made himself one of the world's authorities on bacteriology and on the anatomy of the head. Surgeons from all over the country consulted this former janitor before performing puzzling head operations. He had never been a medical student, yet he was given one of those rare honorary degrees of Doctor of Science.
伯切爾就靠這樣自學，使自己成為世界上細菌學和腦部解剖學方面的權威之一。全國各地的外科醫生在進行腦部疑難手術前，都來請教這位過去的大樓管理工。他從來沒上過醫學院，卻被授予最難得的榮譽學位之一——科學博士。
