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Pepperdine University is another school that takes its core curriculum seriously. It requires three

interdisciplinary courses in Western civilization from the ancient through modern worlds. Each

course studies the art, literature, music, philosophy, and religion of the period, as well as

political and social history. Pepperdine also requires a similar course in a non-Western

civilization. Although postmodernist academics champion multiculturalism, they would rather

criticize Western civilization than instruct students about the complexities of other cultures.

Located in Malibu, California on the Pacific Rim, most Pepperdine students study Asia’s art,

music, religion, and politics.

帕波戴大学（http://www.pepperdine.edu/）是又一所严格设计核心课程的学校。有关从古至今西方文明的三门跨学科课程是必修的。每一门都要研究该时期的艺术、文学、音乐、哲学和宗教，还有政治史和社会史。帕波戴还要求必修一门非西方文明的跨学科课程。虽然后现代主义理论家支持多元文化，他们却宁愿批判西方文化而不是让学生了解其他文化的复杂性。加利福利亚州马利布市就在太平洋沿岸，在此地读书的帕波戴学生，多数都要修习亚洲艺术、音乐、宗教和政治。

Notre Dame, in the tradition of Europe’s Catholic universities, also cultivates the liberal arts.

Unlike schools that pressure students to make early career decisions, Notre Dame freshmen are

not permitted to declare a major. They must first take courses in writing, mathematics, science,

history and literature. When they do declare a major, they will find that each division (Arts and

Letters; Business Administration; Engineering; Science) has its own carefully designed core

curriculum.

忠于欧洲天主教传统的圣母大学（http://www.nd.edu），也培育君子。不像那些迫使学生过早做出职业抉择的学校，圣母大学的大一学生是不允许有主修的。他们首先必须学写作、数学、科学、历史和文学。当他们选择主修时，他们将发现，每个主修领域（艺术和文学，工商管理，工程，理科）本身都有精心设计的核心课程。

There are other small liberal arts colleges that provide the educations they promise. Rhode

Island’s Providence College mandates that all freshmen and sophomores take “Development of

Western Civilization.” Students receive 20 credit hours for an interdisciplinary team-taught class

that meets five days a week over two years. In the first year, students study the history and

literature of the ancient world through the Renaissance. Second year students examine the

formation of the modern world and read from the works of Milton and Locke to Sartre and

Solzhenitsyn³.

还有一些较小的君子大学提供他们承诺的教育。

罗得岛的神佑学院（http://www.providence.edu）要求所有的大一大二生学习《西方文明的发展》。学生要花两年多时间学习一门跨学科的协同教学课[译注：两位老师合作教学]，共20学分，每周有5天课。大一生学古代直到文艺复兴的历史和文学，大二生考察现代世界的形成，阅读弥尔顿、洛克、萨特和索尔仁尼琴³。

Some colleges have devised their own quadrivia around distinct and diverse spheres of

knowledge. The sequence of core courses at Minnesota’s Gustavus Adolphus consists of

“Historical Perspective I” (Western Civilization from the Greeks to the Middle Ages), “The

Biblical Tradition,” “The Individual and Morality” (ethics), “Historical Perspective II” (a

modern sequel), “Quantitative Reasoning” (mathematics, statistics and logic), and “The Natural

World.” The core curriculum at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a state-supported institution, is

organized around four categories: “Abilities and Competencies” (including English,

mathematics, foreign languages, and the arts); “The Western Heritage” (history, literature, art

and music history); “The Sciences in the Modern World” (the physical sciences, social sciences

and economics); and “Integration and Analysis” (philosophy and integrative seminars). Such

schemes are emblematic of a well-designed core, ensuring that students’ education is coherent

and complete.

针对知识领域的特点和变化，有些大学设计了自己的四艺[译注：Quadrivia，拉丁语；英文为Quadrivium]。明尼苏达州古斯塔夫斯·阿道弗斯学院（http://www.iseek.org/sv/index.jsp）的核心课程系列，包括“历史观I”（古代篇：古希腊到中世纪的西方文明），“圣经传统”，“个人和道德（伦理）”，“历史观II”（现代篇），“数量推理”（数学，统计，逻辑），“自然界”。马里兰州的圣玛丽学院是州政府资助的，核心课程围绕四类构建：“能力和资质”（含英语，数学，外语，艺术），“西方传统”（历史，文学、艺术和音乐的历史），“现代学科”（物质科学，社会科学，经济学），《综合与分析》（哲学，综合研讨）。这种安排说明核心课程设计到位，能确保学生教育的连贯性和完整性。

The National Review College Guide: America’s 50 Top Liberal Arts Schools by Charles Sykes

and Brad Miner should be consulted for further recommendations of excellent liberal arts

programs. Among the schools it lauds for their rigorous and systematic core curricula are Asbury

College in Wilmore, Kentucky ("a small, Christian liberal arts college with a core curriculum

that puts many of the nation’s elite universities to shame"); Calvin College in Grand Rapids,

Michigan ("with Illinois’s Wheaton College, it is one of the finest liberal arts schools in the

nation"); Union College in Schenectady, New York ("the core is a clear reaction to what Union’s

dean of faculty calls the formless cafeteria-style general education requirements that came to

dominate many colleges in the 1970s"); and Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington (the "

sense of the primacy of liberal learning permeates the curriculum").

查尔斯·赛克斯和布拉德·迈纳编写的《<国家评论>大学指南：美国50所顶级君子学校》一书，当属进一步推荐卓越的大人之学修习计划参考书。这些学校中，因其核心课程的严密和系统而深受称赞的，有肯塔基州维尔默市的艾斯伯里学院（“一所小小的基督教君子学院,其核心课程令美国众多杰出大学汗颜”）；密歇根州大瀑布市的加尔文学院（“和伊利诺斯州的韦顿学院一样，都是美国最佳的君子学校”）；纽约州谢奈克塔德市的联合学院（核心是联合学院院长所说的“1970年代在许多学院大为风行的无定型自助餐风格的通才教育必修课”）；华盛顿州瓦拉瓦拉市惠特曼学院（其“君子学识的首要意义都渗透在课程中”）。

（译注：50所顶级君子学校http://university-college-search.com / 国家评论http://www.nationalreview.com/）

The National Endowment for the Humanities under Reagan appointee Lynne Cheney published

50 Hours, a report that provided guidelines for a good core curriculum. It recommended that

nearly half of an undergraduate’s program consist of core requirements: 18 hours in Cultures and

Civilizations (one course on the ancients, two in Western civilization, one on American

civilization, and one in a non-Western culture); 12 hours of foreign language; six hours in math,

eight in science, and six in “Social Science and the Modern World,” including psychology,

political science, and economics. While this has neither the intellectual clarity nor rigor of the

trivium and quadrivium, colleges and universities would be much improved were they to adopt

the NEH curriculum.

在里根时代，美国人文科学基金会的负责人莱恩·切尼做了一个《50小时：大学生核心课程》的报告，对构建优秀核心课程给予指导。该报告建议——由核心必修课组成大学生课程计划的几乎一半课程：18小时文化和文明课（一门古代文化课，两门西方文明，一门美国文明，一门非西方文化）；12小时外语课；6小时数学课，8小时自然科学和6小时“社会科学与现代世界”，其中包括心理学、政治学和经济学。这种课程虽然既没有理性的精确，也没有中世纪的三科四科那么严格，但是如果采用了美国人文科学基金会的推荐课程，大学就会大为改观。

Still, liberal education does not require a single and uniform standard, let alone a government imposed one. It is a sign of vitality that liberal arts institutions follow many different paths and exhibit a variety of institutional personalities. The liberal arts are a path to freedom, not only for individuals, but for the institutions that honor them.

尽管如此，大人之学还是不需要整体划一的标准，假设这只是政府强加的一个标准的话。它只是遵循多种发展道路、展示各类教学个性的君子学校的一个活力四射的符号。君子之道是通往自由之路，不只是通往个人自由，也通往借此增光的那些机构的自由。

Conclusion: Myths and Realities of Classical Education

Although there has been little public notice of the rebirth of classical education, schools that

embody its principles are being organized across the country. They teach students at all grade

levels and acknowledge both religious and non-religious traditions. While they take different

forms, their commitment to classical education is marked by certain common elements.

结论：经典教育的神话和现实

虽然经典教育的复兴还不大吸引公众的目光，那些遵循经典教育原理的学校却正在进行跨国组织。他们教授的学生囊括一切年级，既有认同宗教传统的也有认同非宗教传统的。他们虽然风格各异，但是“献身于经典教育”却是他们共同坚实基础的显著标记。

What Classical Schools Do

The classical school is committed to a liberal, or general, curriculum. Its territory is all human

knowledge, from the arts to the sciences, history to mathematics. It does not claim a narrow field

of specialization or market niche for itself. Nor does it permit students to evade issues they

cannot understand or ways of thinking they cannot handle. Instead, it helps them confront

sources of misunderstanding and develop their intellectual powers.

经典学校做什么？

经典学校致力于自由的或说通才的课程。其课程领域乃是人类的全部知识：艺术和科学，历史和数学。它不主张狭窄的专业领域，也不想把自己局限在某个细分市场。它不允许学生逃避他们还不能理解的问题，逃避还不能驾驭的思考方式。与此相反，它帮助学生直面误解的根源，开发智力。

The classical school explicitly or implicitly recognizes and applies the principles of the trivium

(grammar, logic, rhetoric). A classical curriculum is keyed to the stages of the student’s

intellectual development and to the universal process of learning. It provides training in language

and logic, and in expressive writing and speech. The curriculum also understands the principles

of the quadrivium and insists that a good education encompasses abstract thought, aesthetic

appreciation, empirical inquiry, and spatial relation. It applies these “arts”of learning to the

“sciences”of the natural world, the social world, and the realm of religious faith and meaning.

经典学校或明白或含蓄地认可三科原则（语法，逻辑，修辞）。经典课程的核心在于适应学生的智力发展阶段和学问的普遍进程。它提供语言和逻辑训练，也通过优秀作品和演说来训练。经典课程也熟悉四科原则[译注：算术，几何，天文，音乐]，强调好的教育要包含抽象思想、审美体验、实验考察和空间关系。它把学问的“艺术”运用到有关自然、社会和宗教信仰与意义王国的“科学”中去。

Classical schools integrate all elements of the curriculum, and learning is unified and

cumulative. Students are taught to recognize how areas of knowledge relate to one another, and

how basic knowledge learned in earliest childhood is the foundation for more complex ways of

knowing.

经典学校整合课程的所有根本内容，其学问是一贯的，累积的。学生将学会欣赏各个知识领域如何相互贯通，学会了解婴儿时代习得的基本知识如何成为更为复杂知识的基础。

Classical schools do not denigrate or ignore the past; neither are they nostalgic for it.

Acknowledging the continuum of history, classical schools build on great ideas, discoveries and

expressions of those who have gone before. They borrow pedagogical forms, such as the trivium.

Many require or encourage study of Greek and Latin. The great ideas of the past are a starting

point —not the last word— for the “great conversation.” David Hicks endorses a poised and

balanced understanding when he insists that, “The true knowledge of paideia requires a

discerning appreciation for the past, unprejudiced by an assumption of progress or regress.”

经典学校既不诋毁历史不忽视过去，也不怀旧。多谢历史的绵延，经典学校得以奠基在早已过世的那些历史人物的伟大观念、发现和作品之上。它们采用了诸如三科之类的教学形式。许多学校要求或者鼓励学习希腊语和拉丁语。过去的伟大观念是“伟大对话”的开场白，而不是闭幕词。大卫·希克斯是赞成“坦然而平和的理解”的，他强调：“有教养的真知，要求在不带偏见地假定进步和回归的心态下理智地感恩过去。”

Classical schools cultivate a student’s interest in first principles and ultimate purposes. They are

not afraid to delve deeply into philosophy and religion, but encourage questions and answers

about knowledge, faith and meaning. Teachers in classical schools provoke students to ask about

the purpose of education —and they are not satisfied with money and career as answers.

经典学校培养学生对第一原理和终极目标的兴趣。他们不害怕深入钻研哲学和宗教，也鼓励开展有关知识、信仰和意义的问答。经典学校的教师们激发学生质疑教育的目的——他们对“金钱”和“就业”两个答案不满意。

Classical schools inculcate wisdom and virtue. Children yearn to become adults, and a classical

education prepares them for adult responsibilities: for working and earning a living, raising a

family, the privileges and duties of citizenship and friendship, and for courage in the face of

solitude, illness and death. Career counseling and technical training will count for little if our

schools are unable to order the moral character of their students. Ironically, the desire for a wellpaid job —which many parents and children consider education’s only purpose— has failed to motivate many students to study hard and learn well.

经典学校在智慧和美德方面诲人不倦。孩子们渴望成年，经典教育为他们准备了成年职责方面的学养：工作、谋生、养家，公民和友谊方面的权力和责任，敢于面对孤独、疾病和死亡。如果我们的学校不能陶冶其学子们的道德人格，那几乎不用考虑职业咨询和技术训练了。具有讽刺意味的是，对待遇优厚工作的需求——许多家长和学生把这看做教育的唯一目标——并不能激励很多学生刻苦钻研、学好功课。

Classical schools educate for citizenship. Citizens give way to alienation, apathy, and

intemperance without an education in wisdom and virtue, and this leads to family and

neighborhood disintegration, crime and political corruption. Modernism and postmodernism can

scarcely speak to such concerns with a straight face.

经典学校塑造公民角色。没有智慧和美德教育，公民就会趋向孤僻、冷漠和放纵，导致家庭和邻里关系瓦解，导致犯罪和政治腐败。现代主义和后现代主义很少严肃谈论这里的利害关系。

Finally, classical schools are communities of learning. Because teachers and students share an

idealistic and even visionary aim, their schools are humane, disciplined and stimulating.

Classical education is deeply personal: teachers are coaches, midwives and mentors of their

students. Their classes are not organized around lectures and multiple choice tests; they are

Socratic dialogues that provoke clear thinking and fresh insights. Classical schools make

demands on students, but they also inspire them.

最后，经典学校是学习的共同体。由于师生分享着一种理想的甚至梦想的目标，他们的学校很有爱心、纪律和激情。经典教育深入人心：教师是学生的教练、精神助产士和顾问。他们的课堂不是围绕说教和多重选择题组织起来的，而是用苏格拉底式的对话触发清晰的思考和清新的洞察。经典学校严格要求学生，也激发他们的灵感。

Misconceptions About Classical Education

Classical education is not elitist. It is true that the wealthy are more likely to send their children

to private schools that appreciate the importance of the liberal arts. But this argues for making

them more, not less, accessible to all.

对经典教育的误解

经典教育不是精英教育。真的，有钱人的确更可能把孩子送到重视人文科学的私立学校。不过，这说明了经典学校更容易而不是更难以面向所有孩子。

Classical education is not traditionalist or reactionary. It hails achievements, not eras, and only

honors traditions that represent inherently worthy ideas and practices. Classical education values

the testimony of personal experience, but does not glorify it.

经典教育不守旧，不反动。不论哪个时代的成就，它都欢迎，它唯一尊重的传统乃是代表内在价值的观念和经验。经典教育虽然尊重个人经验，但是并不夸大它。

Some equate classical education with the humanities, and contrast it to mathematics and science.

But this confuses the classical understanding of the “humanities”with what it has come to mean

— an exclusive focus on literature and the arts. Cicero, who coined the term, meant an education

fit for a Roman: it comprised all that man could achieve, including arithmetic, geometry, music,

the arts, and the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Properly understood, a classical

education values all branches of learning. It seeks to prevent the unbalanced concentration of

studies that too often produces the “artsy” student or the—science nerd."

有人把经典教育与人文科学等同起来，于是拿它和数学、理科去对比。可这样一来，就把对“人文科学”的古典理解和它的派生意义混淆起来了——派生意义是排他的，集中在文学和艺术方面。西塞罗创造这个词，本来是指一种符合罗马人的教育：它包含一个人能够掌握的一切，包括算术，几何，音乐，艺术，以及语法、逻辑和修辞三科。如果确切地理解，经典教育是重视学问的所有分支的。它力图防止学科失衡偏心，免得经常培养出“华而不实的文科生”或“呆里呆气的理科生”。

Some critics believe classical education is authoritarian and stifling to creativity. They imagine a

teacher rapping the knuckles of the student who has not formed his letters correctly or forcing

children to memorize trivial facts and repeat boring drills. These are myths. Yes, work loads are

great, discipline is strict, and there is plenty of drill, especially in grammar school. But the

purpose of it all is the adult’s creative and independent thought (libera).

有些批评家相信，经典教育是权威主义的，窒息创造力的。他们的想象中，学生没有写对字母，教师就敲打学生的指节，或者责令学生背诵琐屑的事实，重复令人生厌的练习。这都是虚构的。的确，上课负担是重，纪律是严，还有大量的练习，特别是在文法学校中。可这整个场景纯属成年人的编造和异想天开（创世天籁）。

Others believe classical education’s commitment to the search for truth disguises a mentality of

dogmatic certainty. Nothing could be more false. Unlike postmodernism, which is dogmatically

certain that all knowledge is relativist, classical education believes in the possibility of objective

另外还有人相信，经典教育承诺寻找真理，这掩盖了一种独断的心态。其实没有比这更加荒谬的了。和后现代主义不同，经典教育相信客观实在的可能性，而后现代主义却教条主义地断言全部知识都是相对的。

knowledge and truth. The mind that knows that it does not know everything — the humility of

Socrates — still aims to know the truth. This is not “dogmatism” in the pejorative sense of

indoctrination and narrow-mindedness. The method of classical learning is dialectic, a process of

questioning. Dialectic encourages openness to truth in all its complexity and mystery; it does not

lead to an unyielding skepticism. Classical education nourishes wonder; it provokes the curiosity

and inquisitiveness that leads to scientific discovery; and it inclines the mind to ultimate

questions of religious faith.

知识和真理。这颗心知道自己并非一切“通”知——苏格拉底式的谦卑——却还是渴望了解真相。这并不是满嘴说教、心胸狭隘等贬义的“教条主义”。经典学习的方法是辩证的，是一种质疑的进程。辩证法鼓励公开事实的全部复杂性和神秘性；它不会导致生硬的怀疑主义。经典教育精心呵护惊奇感，唤醒好奇爱问的潜能以指向科学发现，驱使心灵思考宗教信仰的顶级天问。

The Future of Classical Education

We do not propose that classical education return us to the glories of Greece, the grandeur of

Rome, the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, the artistry of the Renaissance, or even the

moralism of Victorian England. Our times portend a new age of discovery which will require

new kinds of learning.

经典教育的未来

我们并不提倡，让经典教育把我们都带回到古希腊的光荣，罗马的伟大，中世纪的繁琐哲学，文艺复兴的艺术修养，或者还有英国维多利亚女王时代的道德取向。我们的时代预示了一个发现的新时代，是需要各种新学问的。

But the past is in our present, and what we can know is contained in what we already know. We

do well to avoid the fatal and arrogant conceit of jettisoning our heritage. That heritage is not

solely a gift of wisdom and virtue. It also contains cautions and forewarnings. Sophistry and

cynicism were characteristics of the Hellenistic world. Multiculturalism was part of everyday life

in Imperial Rome. Cultural meltdown was a recurring phenomenon in the ancient world and it

threatens our own time. Classical education reminds us of this bigger picture.

不过，历史就在我们当下，我们能知的就包含在我们的已知中。我们应该彻底消除那种致命的抛弃文化遗产的自大狂。这种遗产不只是一种智慧和美德的馈赠，它也包括提醒和预警。诡辩派和犬儒主义就是希腊文化世界的两个典型。文化多元主义也是罗马帝国日常生活的一部分。文化的彻底崩溃，这种现象在古代就反复出现过，它也威胁到我们自己的这个时代。经典教育促使我们想起这个更大的历史图景。

Classical education employs the wisdom of the past to address present needs. Older and wiser

teachers instruct the young so they will not have to pursue the illusions of their predecessors or

repeat their mistakes. By contrast, the “progressive” theory of education arms the young with

methods of inquiry but keeps them ignorant of the truths that were once thought and said.

Classical education has midwived centuries of cultural transformation. It has always played a

paradoxical double role: preserving the past in order to usher in change and improvement.

We need a new vision of education. Many of our needs are urgent and unmet because our ideas

about what education can accomplish are inadequate or false. Classical education can recover the

tools of learning.

经典教育利用过去的智慧表达我们当今的需求。先师先哲们劝导年轻人，为的是年轻人不必再去追逐前辈的幻觉，重复先人的错误。相反，教育“进步”主义用“拷问法”武装年轻人，却始终不让他们知道先人曾经思考过、论述过的事实。经典教育催生了许多世纪的文化改革。它总是扮演一种似非而是的双重角色：珍存往事，以便迎接变化和进步。我们需要教育的新视野。我们之所以有很多紧迫的尚未如愿的需求，那是因为关于“教育能做到什么”，我们的考虑还不充分，甚至错了。经典教育可以找回学问的利器。

In lauding its virtues, we should not obscure the difficulties that classical education will

encounter. Classical education goes against the grain of much contemporary culture. It makes

pampered children work hard. It forces the television generation to read. Teachers will have to

convince students that the good, the true, and the beautiful have more value than the glittering

prizes of pop culture and the easy answers of relativism. How many parents will be like those

who pulled their children from Marva Collins’school⁴ because she demands too much?

And yet wherever classical education has been tried students have learned to think broadly,

deeply and creatively. They have learned to live up to their responsibilities and to recognize the

possibility of greatness within themselves.

在称颂经典教育的优点时，我们不要遮掩它将面临的困难。经典教育跟当代许多文化成果有冲突。它让营养过剩的孩子努力干活。它推动“电视一代”去读书。老师必须让学生确信善、真、美比流行文化的闪亮得奖和相对主义的轻松答案更有价值。假如由于玛瓦·柯林斯⁴对学生要求太多，许多家长就把他们的孩子从玛瓦·柯林斯学校拉走，有多少父母会成为这种家长呢？然而无论在哪里，经典教育都努力让学生学习大胆、深入、创造性地思考。他们学会了过一种负责任的生活，并且肯定自己身上那种伟大的潜能。

Analyzing the classical education ideas of Thomas Aquinas, Pierre Conway and Benedict Ashley

observe that the liberal arts’capacity to tap the mind’s potential was not fully realized in the

medieval university. Nor did the Greeks or the Renaissance masters fully recognize the richness

of their education theories. “If this curriculum is not at present anywhere genuinely followed,”

they note, “it need not be because it is seven hundred years too late — it may simply be that it is

still just a year or so too soon.” Perhaps now the year has arrived.

分析托马斯·阿奎拉、皮埃尔·康威和本尼迪克特·阿西历的经典教育思想后，可以看到中世纪大学在激活学生心灵潜能时，人文科学的力量还没有充分施展。无论希腊人还是文艺复兴的大师们都没有充分意识到这些教育理论的丰富内涵。“如果这种课程现在无论哪里都没人真正理解”，他们指出，“那就不必开了，因为再等700年就太晚了——而一年左右就完全理解那分明又太快了。”也许眼下适逢其“年”。

Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is Dean of Arts and Sciences at Concordia University in Wisconsin and the

author of several books on culture. Andrew Kern is Director of Classical Instruction at

Foundations Academy in Boise, Idaho. 小吉恩·爱德华·威斯（1951－ ）是维斯康新的肯考迪娅大学艺术和科学学院院长，7本文化著作的作者。安德鲁·克恩是爱达荷州博伊西学术基金会经典教育部主任。

http://www.ccle.org/class-ed.PDF#search='Great%20Books%20curriculum%20,Hutchins'

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注解：

1、PCS: 神佑经典学校——Providence Classical School，Williamsburg，威廉斯堡，美国弗吉尼亚州东南部城市）http://www.pcsvirginia.com/

2、Capital Research Center (资本研究中心，CRC) was established in 1984 to study non-profit organizations, with a special focus on reviving the American traditions of charity, philanthropy, and voluntarism. http://www.capitalresearch.org/about/

3、Solzhenitsyn（索尔仁尼琴/苏辛尼津/索忍尼辛，Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,1918-）：诺贝尔奖得主，俄国作家及小说家，作品有《癌症病房》及《古拉格群岛》（1973－1975）。

4、Marva Collins，美国黑人女教育家，1975年起自办西部预备学校（Westside Preparatory School），大获成功，曾因此担任里根总统的教育秘书。1997年在维斯康新（Wisconsin）开办玛瓦·柯林斯预备学校（Marva Collins Preparatory School）。1982年荣获世界传奇妇女的殊荣。Marva Collins名言：“The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.”——教育的目的就是让年轻人学会通过生活实现自我教育 。