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.
你们可能会以为，对于大学教育不该有什么实质性的内容，不该有以约翰·济慈称之为“心灵培养”为目的的这种观念，教授们和大学校长们一定会十分谨慎，不去张扬。不是这样的。在出任杜克大学校长前，理査德·布罗德海德在给耶鲁大学的高年级学生所做的一次演讲中就提到了这个观点。布罗德海德是一位给人印象深刻、能言善辩的男士，他似乎将威灵顿公爵的格言——滑铁卢战役的胜利来自伊顿公学的操练场(胜利来自平时的训练)——当成了自己的教育试金石。布罗德海德认为真正重要的不是课程内容，五年后（甚至五个月，或五分钟后），学生很可能忘记怎么做那几道题，而且只能模糊地记起《失乐园》第九章发生了什么。他们大学生活的财富在于克服困难的能力。当学生在此后的生活中遇到同样艰巨的任务时，他们将发掘旧时意志力的资源，并取得胜利。
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，到这里为止似乎一切都没错——毕竟，对通过一周的辛苦完成一篇40页优秀论文的学生来说，所学知识的增长超过了内在品质的那点提升。虽然这可能让将来的她更加自信，但是课程内容真的一点都不重要吗？
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.
根据这次的演讲，答案是不重要。试着发现你们所阅读的内容是真是伪或者对生活的改变持开明的态度是一种令人担忧并且富有争议的活动。这样做需要教授们的精力投人，因为这种改变观念的教与学会导致管理者们最害怕的事情发生：麻烦、争论、负面报道等。