So, if you want an education, the odds aren't with you: The professors are off doing what they call their own work; the other students, who've doped out the way the place runs, are busy leaving the professors alone and getting themselves in position for bright and shining futures; the student-services people are trying to keep everyone content, offering plenty of entertainment and building another state-of-the-art workout facility every few months. The development office is already scanning you for future donations. The primary function of Yale University, it's recently been said, is to create prosperous alumni so as to enrich Yale University.
因此，如果你们想要获得教育，成功的概率并不高：教授们都去做所谓的“自己的工作”了；其他已经弄淸楚这个地方的运行法则的学生忙着不给教授添麻烦，为了光明和灿烂的未来蓄势待发；学生服务处试着让每一个人都满意，为学生提供丰富的娱乐活动，每隔几个月就添加一款最新、最先进的健身设施。学校开发办已经在考察你们未来捐资的可能性。最近有人说耶鲁大学最主要的功能就是培养出大批的优秀毕业生，以让耶鲁大学得到发展。
So why make trouble? Why not just go along? Let the profs roam free in the realms of pure thought, let yourselves party in the realms of impure pleasure, and let the student-services gang assert fewer prohibitions and newer delights for you. You'll get a good job, you'll have plenty of friends, you'll have a driveway of your own.
那么为什么要制造麻烦？为什么不随波逐流？让教授们在纯洁的思想殿堂中自由徜徉，让你们自己在不纯洁的欢乐殿堂中聚会，让学生服务处那伙人颁布更少的禁令，为你们创造更多新的欢乐。你们会找到好工作，你们会结交很多朋友，你们会有属于自己的车道。
You'll also, if my father and I are right, be truly and righteously screwed. The reason for this is simple. The quest at the center of a liberal-arts education is not a luxury quest; it's a necessity quest. If you do not undertake it, you risk leading a life of desperation. For you risk trying to be someone other than who you are, which, in the long run, is killing.
如果我和我的父亲都是正确的话，你们也将真正地完蛋，而且是你们咎由自取。原因很简单，人文教育的核心追求不是一种奢侈，而是一种必须。如果你们不接受，你们的生活将要冒着绝望的风险。 因为你们冒险想要成为别人而不是真正的自己，而这样做，长远来说就是自杀。
By the time you come to college, you will have been told who you are numberless times. Your parents and friends, your teachers, your counselors, your priests and rabbis and ministers and imams have all had their say. They've let you know how they size you up, and they've let you know what they think you should value. They've given you a sharp and protracted taste of what they feel is good and bad, right and wrong. Much is on their side. They have confronted you with scriptures—holy books that have given people what they feel to be wisdom for thousands of years. They've given you family traditions—you've learned the ways of your tribe and your community.
来到大学之前，不断有人告诉你们该做什么人，你们的父母、朋友、老师以及辅导员，你们的神父、拉比、牧师以及伊玛目都有自己的一套说辞。他们让你们知道他们是如何衡量你们的，告诉你们他们认为你们应该重视什么，让你们知道在他们眼中什么是好坏，什么是对错。他们所说的并非全无道理，他们让你们读经文—不管它们真正来源于何处，这些圣书都给人一种包含了几千年智慧的感觉。他们给了你们家族传统—你们学会了自己部族和社团的生活方式。