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Jefferson died long ago, but many of his ideas are still of great interest.
杰斐遜已謝世很久，但他的許多思想仍使我們感到很大的興趣。
Lessons from Jefferson
杰斐遜的遺訓(xùn)
Bruce Bliven
布魯斯·布利文
Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, may be less famous than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but most people remember at least one fact about him: he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
美國第三任總統(tǒng)托馬斯·杰斐遜也許不像喬治·華盛頓和亞伯拉罕·林肯那樣著名，但大多數(shù)人至少記得有關(guān)他的一件事實：是他寫的《獨立宣言》。
Although Jefferson lived more than 200 years ago, there is much that we can learn from him today. Many of his ideas are especially interesting to modem youth. Here are some of the things he said and wrote:
雖然杰斐遜生活在二百多年以前，但我們今天仍可以從他身上學(xué)到很多東西。他的許多思想對當(dāng)代青年特別有意義。下面就是他講過和寫到過的一些觀點：
Go and see. Jefferson believed that a free man obtains knowledge from many sources besides books and that personal investigation is important. When still a young man, he was appointed to a committee to find out whether the South Branch of the James River was deep enough to be used by large boats. While the other members of the committee sat in the state capitol and studied papers on the subject, Jefferson got into a canoe and made on-the-spot observations.
自己去看。杰斐遜認為，一個自由的人除了從書本中獲取知識外，還可以從許多別的來源獲得知識；他認為，親自做調(diào)查是很重要的。在他還很年輕的時候，他就被任命為一個委員會的成員，去調(diào)查詹姆斯河南部支流的水深是否可以通行大型船只。委員會的其他成員都坐在州議會大廈內(nèi)研究有關(guān)這一問題的文件，而杰斐遜卻跳進一只獨木舟去做現(xiàn)場觀測。
You can learn from everyone. By birth and by education Jefferson belonged to the highest social class. Yet, in a day when few noble persons ever spoke to those of humble origins except to give an order, Jefferson went out of his way to talk with gardeners, servants, and waiters. Jefferson once said to the French nobleman, Lafayette, "You must go into the people's homes as I have done, look into their cooking pots and eat their bread. If you will only do this, you may find out why people are dissatisfied and understand the revolution that is threatening France."
你可以向任何人學(xué)習(xí)。按出身及其所受的教育，杰斐遜均屬于最高的社會階層。然而，在那個貴人們除了發(fā)號施令以外很少跟出身卑賤的人說話的年代，杰斐遜卻常破例跟園丁、仆人和侍者交談。有一次杰斐遜曾這樣對法國貴族拉斐特說過：“你必須像我那樣到平民百姓的家里去，看看他們的鍋里煮些什么，吃吃他們的面包。只要你肯這樣做，你就會發(fā)現(xiàn)老百姓為什么會不滿意，你就會理解正在威脅著法國的革命。”
