4543楼的表扬，让我很“激动”（其实是amazing）又很“羞愧”(not worthy of it)啊
其实我也是略知皮毛。
由于对于原点文化（比如希腊文明）了解得太少。所以只能到此为止了。
在石头快进入大学之际
送给他一篇文章：大学和它的功能。
从别的论坛看来的。目前还没有找到中文翻译。
作者是怀特海，是数学家。哲学家。
Universities And Their Function
by Alfred North Whitehead
The universities are schools of education, and schools of research: But the primary reason for their existence is not to be found either in the mere knowledge conveyed to the students or in the mere opportunities for research afforded to the members of the faculty。
The justification for a university is that it preserves theconnection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and theold in the imaginative consideration of learning。 The university imparts information, but it imparts it imaginatively。 At least, this is the function which it should perform for society。 A university which falis in this respect has no reason for existence。 This atmosphere of excitement, arising from imaginative consideration, transforms knowledge。 A fact is no longer a bare fact: it is invested with all its possibilities。 It is no longer a burden on the memory: it is energizing as the poet of our dreams, and as the architect of our purposes。
Imagination is not to be divorced from the facts: it is a way of illuminating the facts。 It works by eliciting the general principles which apply to the facts, as they exist, and then by an intellectual survey of alternative possibilities which are consistent with those principles。 It enables men to construct an intellectual vision of a new world, and it preserves the zest of life by the suggestion of satisfying purposes。
Youth is imaginative, and if the imagination be strengthened by discipline, this energy of imagination can in great measure be preserved through life。 The tragedy of the world is that those who are imaginative have but slight experience, and those who are experienced have feeble imaginations。 Fools act on imagination without knowledge; pedants act on knowledge without imagination。 The task of a university is to weld together imagination and experience。
These reflections upon the general functions of a university can be at once translated in terms of the particular functions of a business school。 We need not flinch from the assertion that the main function of such a school is to produce men with a greater zest for business。
In a simpler world, business relations were simpler, being based on the immediate contact of man with man and on immediate confrontation with all relevant material circumstances。 Today business organization requires an imaginative grasp of the psychologies of populations engaged in differing modes of occupation; of populations scattered through cities, through mountains, through plains; of populations on the ocean, and of populations in mines, and of populations in forests。
It requires an imaginative grasp of conditions in the tropics, and of conditions in temperate zones。 It requires an imaginative grasp of the interlocking interests of great organizations, and of the reactions of the whole complex to any change in one of its elements。 It requires an imaginative understanding of laws of political economy,not merely in the abstract, but also with the power to construe them in terms of the particular circumstances of a concrete business。 It requires some knowledge of the habits of government, and of the variations of those habits under diverse conditions。 It requires an imaginative vision of the binding forces of any human organization, a sympathetic vision of the limits of human nature and of the conditions which evoke loyalty of service。 It requires some knowledge of the laws of health, and of the laws of fatigue, and of the conditions for sustained reliability。 It requires an imaginative understanding of the social effects of the conditions of factories。 It requires a sufficient conception of the role of applied science in modern society。 It requires that discipline of character which can say “yes” and “no” to other men, not by reason of blind obstinacy, but with firmness derived from a conscious evaluation of relevant alternatives。
The universities have trained the intellectual pioneers of our civilization—the priests, the lawyers, the statesmen, the doctors,the men of science, and the men of letters。 The conduct of business now requires intellectual imagination of the same type as that which in former times has mainly passed into those other occupations。
There is one great difficulty which hampers all the higher types of human endeavor。 In modern times this difficulty has even increased in its possibilities for evil。 In any large organization the younger men, who are novices, must be set to jobswhich consist in carrying out fixed duties in obedience to orders。 No president of a large corporation meets his youngest employee at his office door with the offer of the most responsible job which the work of that corporation includes。 The young men are set to work at a fixed routine, and only occasionally even see the president as he passes in and out of the building。 Such work is a great discipline。 It imparts knowledge, and it produces reliability of character; also it is the only work for which the young men, in that novice stage, are fit, and it is the work for which they are hired。 There can be no criticism of the custom, but there may be an unfortunate effect-prolonged routine work dulls the imagination。
The way in which a university should function in the preparation for an intellectual career, such as modern business or one of the older professions, is by promoting the imaginative consideration of the various general principles underlying that career。 Its students thus pass into their period of technical apprenticeship with their imaginations already practised in connecting details with general principles。 The routine then receives its meaning,and also illuminates the principles which give it that meaning。 Hence, instead of a drudgery issuing in a blind rule of thumb, the properly trained man has some hope of obtaining an imagination disciplined by detailed facts and by necessary habits。
Thus the proper function of a university is the imaginative acquisition of knowledge。 Apart from this importance of the imagination, there is no reason why business men, and other professional men, should not pick up their facts bit by bit as they want them for particular occasions。 A university is imaginative or it is nothing-at least nothing useful。
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