-
Baccalaureate address to Class of 2008
2008
届本科毕业典礼上的讲话
The Memorial Church
纪念教堂
Cambridge, Mass.
麻省剑桥市
June 3, 2008
200
8
年
6
月
3<
/p>
日
凯瑟琳
·
德
鲁
·
吉尔平
·
福斯特（
Catharine Drew Gilpin
Faust
）
As prepared for delivery
准备稿
In the curious custom of
this venerable institution, I find myself standing
before you
expected to impart words of
lasting wisdom. Here I am in a pulpit, dressed
like a
Puritan minister
—
an apparition that would
have horrified many of my distinguished
forebears and perhaps rededicated some
of them to the extirpation of witches. This
moment would have propelled Increase
and Cotton into a true “Mather lather.” But
here I am and there you are and it is
the moment of and for Veritas.
在这所久负盛名的大学的别具一
格的仪式上，
我站在了你们的面前，
被期待着给
予一些蕴含着恒久智慧的言论。
站在这个讲坛上，
我穿
得像个清教徒教长——一
个可能会吓到我的杰出前辈们的怪物，
或许使他们中的一些人重新致力于铲除巫
婆的事业上。这个时刻也许曾激励了很多清教徒
成为教长。但现在，我在上面，
你们在下面，此时此刻，属于真理，为了真理。
You have been undergraduates for four
years. I have been president for not quite
one. You have known three presidents; I
one senior class. Where then lies the voice
of experience Maybe you should be
offering the wisdom. Perhaps our roles could be
reversed and I could, in Harvard Law
School style, do cold calls for the next hour or
so.
你们已经在哈佛做了四年的大学生，
而我当哈佛校长还不到一年。
你们认识了三
个校长，
而我只认识了你们这一届大四的。
算起来我哪有资格说什么经验之谈或
许应该由你们上来展示一下智慧。
要不我们换换位置然后我就可以像
哈佛法学院
的学生那样，在接下来的一个小时内不时地冷不防地提出问题。
We all do seem to have made it to this
point
—
more or less in one
piece. Though I
recently learned that
we have not provided you with dinner since May 22.
I know we
need to wean you from Harvard
in a figurative sense. I never knew we took it
quite
so literally.
学校和学生们似乎都在努力让时
间来到这一时刻，而且还差不多是步调一致的。
我这两天才得知哈佛从
< br>5
月
22
日开始就不向你们提供
伙食了。
虽然有比喻说
“我
们早晚得给
你们断奶”，但没想到我们的后勤还真的早早就把“奶”给断了。
But let’s return to that notion of cold
calls for a moment. Let’s imagine this were a
baccalaureate service in the form of Q
& A, and you were asking the questions.
“What is the meaning of life, President
Faust What were these four years at Harvard
for President Faust, you must have
learned something since you graduated from
college exactly 40 years ago” (Forty
years. I’ll say it out loud since every detail of
my
life
—
and
certainly the year of my Bryn Mawr degree
—
now seems to be publicly
available. But please remember I was
young for my class.)
现在还是让我们回到我刚才提到的提问题的事上吧。
让我们设想下这是个哈佛大
学给本科生的毕业服务，
是以问答的形式。
你们将问些问题，
比如：
“福校长啊，
人生的价值是什么呢我们上这大学四年是为了什么呢福校长，
你大学毕业到现在
的
40
< br>年里一定学到些什么东西可以教给我们吧”（
40
年啊，
我就直说了，因为
我人生中的每段细节——当然包括我在布林茅尔女子学院的一年——现
在似乎
都成了公共资源。但请记住在哈佛我可是“新生”）
In
a way, you have been engaging me in this Q & A for
the past year. On just these
questions,
although you have phrased them a bit more
narrowly. And I have been
trying to
figure out how I might answer and, perhaps more
intriguingly, why you
were asking.
在某
种程度上，
在过去的一年里你们一直都在让我从事这种问答。
从
仅仅这些问
题上，
即使你们措辞问题都倾向于狭义，
而我除了思考怎么做出回答外，
更激发
我去思考的
，是你们为什么问这些问题。
Let me explain. It actually
began when I met with the UC just after my
appointment
was announced in the winter
of 2007. Then the questions continued when I had
lunch at Kirkland House, dinner at
Leverett, when I met with students in my office
hours, even with some recent graduates
I encountered abroad. The first thing you
asked me about wasn’t the curriculum or
advising or faculty contact or even student
space. In fact, it wasn’t even alcohol
policy. Instead, you repeatedly ask
ed
me: Why
are so many of us going to Wall
Street Why are we going in such numbers from
Harvard to finance, consulting,
i-banking
听我解释。提问从
2007
年冬天我的任职被
公布时与校方的会面就开始了。然后
提问一直持续，不论是我在
Kirkland House
（哈佛的
12
< br>个本科生宿舍之一）吃午
饭还是在
Leverett H
ouse
（哈佛的
12
个本科生宿舍之
一，本科高年级学生使用）
吃晚饭，
或是当我在办公时间与学生
会见，
甚至是我在与国外认识的刚考来的研
究生的谈话中。
你们问的第一个问题不是关于课业，
不是让我提建议，
也不是为
了和教员接触，甚至是想向我提建议。事实上，更不是为了和我讨论
酒精政策。
相反，
你们不厌其烦问的却是：
为什么我们之中这么多人将去华尔街为什么我们
大量的学生都从哈佛走向了金融，理
财咨询，投行
There are a number of ways
to think about this question and how to answer it.
There
is the Willie Sutton approach.
You may know that when he was asked why he robbed
banks, he replied, “Because that’s
where the money is.”
对于这个问题
有多种思考和回答方式。有一种解释就是如
Willie Sutton
所说的，
一切向“钱”看。（
Willie Sutt
on
是个抢银行犯，被逮住后当被问到为什么去抢
银行时，他说
：“
Because that is where the money
is!
”）
Professors Claudia Goldin and Larry
Katz, whom many of you have encountered in
your economics concentration, offer a
not dissimilar answer based on their study of
student career choices since the
seventies. They find it notable that, given the
very
high pecuniary rewards in finance,
many students nonetheless still choose to do
something else.
你们中很多人见过的普通经济学教授
Claudia
Goldin
和
Larry Katz
，
基于对上世纪
70
年代以来的学生
的职业选择的研究，作出了差不多的回答。他们发现了值得
注意的一点：
即使从事金融业可以得到很高的金钱回报，
很多学生仍然选择做其
它的事情。
Indeed, 37 of you have signed on with
Teach for America; one of you will dance
tango and work in dance therapy in
Argentina; another will be engaged in
agricultural development in Kenya;
another, with an honors degree in math, will
study poetry; another will train as a
pilot with the USAF; another will work to combat
breast cancer. Numbers of you will go
to law school, medical school, and graduate
school.
实事上，你们中间
有
37
人签到了“教育美国人”（
Te
ach for America
，美国的一
个组织，其作用类
似于中国的“希望工程”）；
1
人将去跳探戈舞蹈并在阿根廷<
/p>
从事舞蹈疗法；
1
人将致力于肯尼亚的农
业发展；另有
1
人获得了数学的荣誉学
位，却转而去研究诗歌；
1
人将去美国空军接受飞行员训练；还
有
1
人将加入到
与乳癌抗战当中。你们
中的很多人将去法学院，医学院或研究生院。
But, consistent with the pattern Goldin
and Katz have documented, a considerable
number of you are selecting finance and
consulting. The Crimson’s survey of last
year’s class reported that 58 percent
of men a
nd 43 percent of women entering
the
workforce made this choice. This
year, even in challenging economic times, the
figure is 39 percent.
但是，和
Goldin
和
Katz
教授有据证明的一样，你们中相当一部分人将选择金融
和理财咨询。
Crimson
对于上届学生的调查
显示，在就业的学生中，
58%
的男生
和
43%
的女生做出了这个选择。今年，即使在经济受挑战的一
年，这个数据是
39%
。
High salaries, the all but irresistible
recruiting juggernaut, the reassurance for many
of you that you will be in New York
working and living and enjoying life alongside
your friends, the promise of
interesting work
—
there are
lots of ways to explain
these choices.
For some of you, it is a commitment for only a
year or two in any case.
Others believe
they will best be able to do good by first doing
well. Yet, you ask me
why you are
following this path.
也许是为了高薪——难以抵抗的招聘诱惑，
< br>也许是为了留在纽约然后和朋友们一
起工作生活和享受人生，
也许是为了做自己感兴趣的工作——对于这些选择可以
有各种各样的理由。
对你们中的一些人，
无论如何那也只是个一两年的契约。
其
他的一部分人相信他们只有在过得“富有”了以后才有可能过得“富有”价值
。
不过，你们依然会问我，为什么要走这条路
I
find myself in some ways less interested in
answering your question than in figuring
out why you are posing it. If
Professors Goldin and Katz have it right; if
finance is
indeed the “rational
choice,” why do you keep raising this issue with
me Why does
this seemingly rational
choice strike a number of you as not
understandable, as not
entirely
rational, as in some sense less a free choice than
a compulsion or necessity
Why does this
seem to be troubling so many of you
我发现我自己有时候对于回答你
们的问题并没有多大兴趣，
比较而言更感兴趣的
却是捉摸你们为
什么提那些问题。如果果真如
Goldin
和
< br>Katz
教授所说；如果去
搞金融确实是一个
“理性”
的选择，
为什么你们会不停地向我提出这
类问题为什
么看似理性的选择却让你们当中相当一部分人认为是令人费解的，
伪理性的，
或
出于某种需求和强迫所作出的并不自
由的选择为什么这个问题似乎困扰着你们
当中的很多一部分人
You are asking me, I think, about the
meaning of life, though you have posed your
question in code
—
in terms of the observable
and measurable phenomenon of
senior
career choice rather than the abstract,
unfathomable and almost
embarrassing
realm of metaphysics. The Meaning of Life
—
capital M, capital L
—
is a
clich
ｅ
—
easier to deal with as the
ironic title of a Monty Python movie or the
subject of a Simpsons episode than as a
matter about which one would dare admit
to harboring serious concern.
我想
，
你们问我的是：
关于人生价值的问题。
虽然你们问得比较隐晦——即是些
可以观察和衡量的大四学生职业选择的问题，
而不是那抽象的，
晦涩的，
甚至会
令人难堪的形而上学范畴的问题。人生价值，要人生还是要价值作为
Mon
ty
Python
那部片子（指的是六人行里《人生的价值》
那一集）的讽刺意味的片名
是不难理解的，作为《辛普森一家》
（美国特别受欢迎的动画连续剧）的其中一
集的主题也是不难理解的，可是当关系到“生
存问题”的时候，就是不那么好办
了。
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