最近我問了自己這個問題，一時找不出答案，這主要是因為，我從來沒有把學習當做一個個醍醐灌頂的瞬間。學習是個持續的過程，是畢其一生去領悟這個世界的複雜性。
然而，我很快還真的想到了一些東西，它並非可以獨立出來的一課，而是一段運動的畫面，配有音軌。我看見一個叫安·霍爾(Anne Hall)的女人站在北卡羅來納州教堂山的一間教室前，陶醉地擺動着身軀，講解《李爾王》(King Lear)中情感的本真和莊嚴。
我聽到三個字：「等一等。」("Stay a little.")那是他在哀求即將離世的科迪利婭，他的三個女兒中最忠誠的一個。霍爾高聲念出這三個字，顫抖的不只是她的聲音。還有她的全身。
她開了一個莎士比亞悲劇課程，包括《李爾王》、《麥克白》(Macbeth)和《奧瑟羅》(Othello)。那是我在1980年代中期就讀北卡羅來納大學(University of North Carolina)期間最喜愛的課，雖然無論當時還是現在，我都想不出修這門課有任何顯而易見的實際意義，除非你打算以戲劇為業，或進入學術界。
我最終沒有往這兩個方向發展。所以我想，我只是浪費了時間吧，至少我從越來越多的政客和其他人士口中聽到的是這樣，他們都認為，高等教育的衡量標準是技能獲取和就業安置。
威斯康星州長、有望成為總統候選人的斯科特·沃克(Scott Walker)近日的言行表明，他也是這麼想的，他提議對威斯康星大學(University of Wisconsin)削減13%的州府撥款。據多方報道，他同時還在考慮改變該大學的校訓，要把「尋找真相」和勉力「改善人類狀況」等表述換成滿足「州內勞動力之需」這樣的具體擔憂。
我不知道《李爾王》該如何滿足勞動力的需求。
關於大學該發揮何種作用的爭論，很久之前就已經展開。衛斯理大學(Wesleyan University)校長邁克爾·羅斯(Michael Roth)在2014年出版的著作《大學之外：自由主義教育之必要》(Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters)中做出了相關闡述。他提出，托馬斯·傑斐遜(Thomas Jefferson)對為學習而學習的觀念十分推崇，而本·富蘭克林(Ben Franklin)則對那些花很多時間在演講廳的人表示不屑。
羅納德·里根(Ronald Reagan)也是這樣。1967年就任加利福尼亞州長後，他對加州大學系統的財政支出和兼收並蓄的課程表進行了大幅削減，宣稱不應該讓納稅人「去資助知識分子的好奇心」，而且「某些知識奢侈品，就算沒了，對我們可能也沒什麼影響」。
丹·貝瑞特(Dan Berrett)近日發表在《高等教育紀事報》(The Chronicle of Higher Education)上的一篇文章表示，這在關於高等教育理想益處的討論中，是一個轉折點，在這之後「天平開始向功利傾斜」。這篇題為《那一天，大學的目的被改變》(The Day the Purpose of College Changed)的文章回顧了里根的言論。奧巴馬總統去年就藝術史學位發表的那段看起來相當輕蔑的看法，也在文中有提及。奧巴馬呼籲建立一個評分系統，把畢業生得到高薪職位的狀況作為大學問責的一項評估指標。
他和沃克提出這個問題不無道理，畢竟高等教育的成本高昂，而且我們身處一個競爭極度激烈的世界。學生不應該對就業形勢充耳不聞。
但敏銳而富有適應力的才智，是很難用金錢來衡量價值的，它並非任何具體的學習課程的結果，但在一個瞬息萬變的經濟和招聘市場里，它可能是最佳的工具。
在一個民主社會，大學的用途不僅僅是培養工程師，而且要培養更好的公民，要讓他們去領略浩瀚的歷史和多種多樣的文明。忘記這一點是很危險的。
去貶低我們這些霍爾的學生從莎士比亞那裡學到的東西，以及她對那些作品的真知灼見，也是愚蠢的。
「等一等。」她讓我們看到，一個簡單的要求里可以藏納如此宏大的痛苦，捕捉到一個落難的君王對情感聯繫的渴望，和對正常神志與生活滿足感的脆弱把握。我們因此從她那裡學到，寥寥幾個音節可以承載何等的份量，語言的力量何其之大。
她向我們證明注意力的專註會讓你獲益匪淺。她的專註——她的眼神狂熱，顫慄的身體散發著喜悅——是一種激情的鼓舞，它證明我們可以從藝術得到怎樣的愉悅。自那以後，我的一切閱讀都遵循了這種方式。它甚至影響了我聆聽他人、觀看電視的方式。
它改造了我。
這是一種奢侈嗎？當然。但同時，它也是一個石階，幫助我進入一種更有知覺、更縝密的存在。我所知道的大學，就是這樣一座金礦。
翻譯：經雷
What’s the most transformative educational experience you’ve had?
I was asked this question recently, and for a few seconds it stumped me, mainly because I’ve never viewed learning as a collection of eureka moments. It’s a continuum, a lifelong awakening to the complexity of the world.
I heard three words: “Stay a little.” They’re Lear’s plea to Cordelia, the truest of his three daughters, as she slips away. When Hall recited them aloud, it wasn’t just her voice that trembled. It was all of her.But then something did come to mind, not a discrete lesson but a moving image, complete with soundtrack. I saw a woman named Anne Hall swooning and swaying as she stood at the front of a classroom in Chapel Hill, N.C., and explained the rawness and majesty of emotion in “King Lear.”
She taught a course on Shakespeare’s tragedies: “Lear,” “Macbeth,” “Othello.” It was by far my favorite class at the University of North Carolina, which I attended in the mid-1980s, though I couldn’t and can’t think of any bluntly practical application for it, not unless you’re bound for a career on the stage or in academia.
I headed in neither direction. So I guess I was just wasting my time, at least according to a seemingly growing chorus of politicians and others whose metrics for higher education are skill acquisition and job placement.
Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin and a likely presidential candidate, signaled his membership in this crowd when he recently proposed a 13 percent cut in state support for the University of Wisconsin. According to several reports, he simultaneously toyed with changing the language of the university’s mission statement so that references to the “search for truth” and the struggle to “improve the human condition” would be replaced by an expressed concern for “the state’s work force needs.”
I’m not sure where “Lear” fits into work force needs.
The debate over the rightful role of college goes a long way back. Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, documented as much in his 2014 book, “Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters.” He noted that Thomas Jefferson exalted learning for learning’s sake, while Ben Franklin registered disdain for people who spent too much time in lecture halls.
Ronald Reagan did, too. In 1967, just after he became the governor of California, he moved to slash spending for the University of California system and its eclectic menu of instruction, announcing that taxpayers shouldn’t be “subsidizing intellectual curiosity” and that “there are certain intellectual luxuries that perhaps we could do without.”
That was a pivotal moment in the discussion of higher education’s ideal benefits, after which “the balance started to tip toward utility,” according to a recent essay by Dan Berrett in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Titled “The Day the Purpose of College Changed,” it looked back at Reagan’s remarks. It also recalled President Obama’s, in particular a seemingly dismissive
comment last year about art history degrees. Obama has called for a
rating system that would take into account how reliably colleges place their graduates into high-paying jobs.
Neither he nor Walker is wrong to raise that issue, given the high cost of higher education and the fierce competition in the world. Students shouldn’t be blind to the employment landscape.
But it’s impossible to put a dollar value on a nimble, adaptable intellect, which isn’t the fruit of any specific course of study and may be the best tool for an economy and a job market that change unpredictably.
And it’s dangerous to forget that in a democracy, college isn’t just about making better engineers but about making better citizens, ones whose eyes have been opened to the sweep of history and the spectrum of civilizations.
It’s also foolish to belittle what those of us in Hall’s class got from Shakespeare and from her illumination of his work.
“Stay a little.” She showed how that simple request harbored such grand anguish, capturing a fallen king’s hunger for connection and his tenuous hold on sanity and contentment. And thus she taught us how much weight a few syllables can carry, how powerful the muscle of language can be.
She demonstrated the rewards of close attention. And the way she did this — her eyes wild with fervor, her body aquiver with delight — was an encouragement of passion and a validation of the pleasure to be wrung from art. It informed all my reading from then on. It colored the way I listened to people and even watched TV.
It transformed me.
Was this a luxury? Sure. But it was also the steppingstone to a more aware, thoughtful existence. College was the quarry where I found it.
Earl Wilson/The New York Times法蘭克·布魯尼
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