The idea that a university education really should have no substantial content, should not be about what John Keats was disposed to call Soul-making, is one that you might think professors and university presidents would be discreet about. Not so. This view informed an address that Richard Brodhead gave to the senior class at Yale before he departed to become president of Duke. Brodhead, an impressive, articulate man, seems to take as his educational touchstone the Duke of Wellington's precept that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Brodhead suggests that the content of the courses isn't really what matters. In five years (or five months, or minutes), the student is likely to have forgotten how to do the problem sets and will only hazily recollect what happens in the ninth book of Paradise Lost. The legacy of their college years will be a legacy of difficulties overcome. When they face equally arduous tasks later in life, students will tap their old resources of determination, and they'll win.
你們可能會以為，對于大學教育不該有什么實質性的內容，不該有以約翰·濟慈稱之為“心靈培養”為目的的這種觀念，教授們和大學校長們一定會十分謹慎，不去張揚。不是這樣的。在出任杜克大學校長前，理査德·布羅德海德在給耶魯大學的高年級學生所做的一次演講中就提到了這個觀點。布羅德海德是一位給人印象深刻、能言善辯的男士，他似乎將威靈頓公爵的格言——滑鐵盧戰役的勝利來自伊頓公學的操練場(勝利來自平時的訓練)——當成了自己的教育試金石。布羅德海德認為真正重要的不是課程內容，五年后（甚至五個月，或五分鐘后），學生很可能忘記怎么做那幾道題，而且只能模糊地記起《失樂園》第九章發生了什么。他們大學生活的財富在于克服困難的能力。當學生在此后的生活中遇到同樣艱巨的任務時，他們將發掘舊時意志力的資源，并取得勝利。
All right, there's nothing wrong with this as far as it goes—after all, the student who writes a brilliant forty-page thesis in a hard week has learned more than a little about her inner resources. Maybe it will give her needed confidence in the future. But doesn't the content of the courses matter at all?
好了，到這里為止似乎一切都沒錯——畢竟，對通過一周的辛苦完成一篇40頁優秀論文的學生來說，所學知識的增長超過了內在品質的那點提升。雖然這可能讓將來的她更加自信，但是課程內容真的一點都不重要嗎？
On the evidence of this talk, no. Trying to figure out whether the stuff you're reading is true or false and being open to having your life changed is a fraught, controversial activity. Doing so requires energy from the professors. This kind of perspective-altering teaching and learning can cause the things which administrators fear above all else: trouble, arguments, bad press, etc.
根據這次的演講，答案是不重要。試著發現你們所閱讀的內容是真是偽或者對生活的改變持開明的態度是一種令人擔憂并且富有爭議的活動。這樣做需要教授們的精力投人，因為這種改變觀念的教與學會導致管理者們最害怕的事情發生：麻煩、爭論、負面報道等。
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