[美文欣賞]

Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles.

Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentleman, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life--these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge; they are the objects of a University; I am advocating, I shall illustrate and insist upon them; but still, I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness, they may attach to the man of the world, to the profligate, to the heartless, pleasant, alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them. Taken by themselves, they do but seem to be what they are not; they look like virtue at a distance, but they are detected by close observers, and on the long run; and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretense and hypocrisy, not, I repeat, from their own fault, but because their professors and their admirers persist in taking them for what they are not, and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to which they have no claim. Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk, then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.

[參考譯文]

知識是一回事，美德是另一回事。好意并非良心，優雅并非謙讓，廣博與公正的觀點也并非信仰。哲學，無論多么富有啟迪和深奧莫測，都無法駕馭情感，不具備有影響力的動機，不具有導致生動活潑的原理。

文科教育并不造就基督教徒抑或天主教徒，而是造就了紳士。造就一個紳士誠為美事。有教養的才智，優雅的情趣，正直、公正而冷靜的頭腦，高貴而彬彬有禮的舉止--這些是與淵博的學識生來固有的品質, 它也是大學教育的目的。對此我提倡之，并將加以闡釋和堅持。然而我要說的是，它們仍然不能確保圣潔，或甚至不能保證誠實。它們可以附庸于世故的俗人，附庸于玩世不恭的浪子。唉，當他們用它偽裝起來時，就更增加了他們外表上的冷靜、快活和魅力。就其本身而言，它們似乎已遠非其本來面目，它們似乎一遠看的美德，經久久細察方可探知。因此它們受到廣泛的責難，指責其虛飾與偽善。我要強調，這絕非是因為其自身有什么過錯，而是因為教授們和贊美者們一味地把它們弄得面目全非，并且還要殷勤地獻上其本身并不希冀的贊頌。如若用剃刀就可以開采出花崗巖，用絲線即能系泊位船只，那么，也許你才能希望用人的知識和理性這樣美妙而優雅的東西去與人類的情感與高傲那樣的龐然大物進行抗爭。