Universities and Their Function (excerpt)
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.
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The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old 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 fails 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 energising 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.
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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 organisation 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 organisations, 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 organisation, 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 civilisation - the priests, the lawyers, the statesmen, the doctors, the men of science, and the men of letters. They have been the home of those ideals which lead men to confront the confusion of their present times. The Pilgrim Fathers left England to found a state of society according to the ideals of their religious faith; and one of their earlier acts was the foundation of Harvard University in Cambridge, named after that ancient mother of ideals in England, to which so many of them owed their training. 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; and the universities are the organisations which have supplied this type of mentality for the service of the progress of the European races.
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There is one great difficulty which hampers all the higher types of human endeavour. In modern times this difficulty has even increased in its possibilities for evil. In any large organisation the younger men, who are novices, must be set to jobs which 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 effectprolonged routine work dulls the imagination.
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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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Notes:
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: 但它们存在的首要原因既不在于纯粹向学生传授知识，也不在于为教员的研究提供机会
The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning: 大学之所以有理由存在，是因为它使老少两代在富于想象力的学习中，保持了知识与对生活热情之间的联系
it is energising as the poet of our dreams, and as the architect of our purposes: 它充满活力，犹如能描绘我们梦境的诗人，能实现我们意图的建筑师
It works by eliciting the general principles: 想象是通过引出使用与具体事实本身的一般规律
it preserves the zest of life by the suggestion of satisfying purposes: 通过暗示令人满意的目标，来使人保持对生活的热情
Fools act on imagination without knowledge; pedants act on knowledge without imagination: 蠢夫们无知的凭想象行事，学究们死抠知识、缺乏想象
These reflections upon the general functions of a university can be at once translated in terms of the particular functions of a business school: 关于大学之一的一般功能的见解，可立即用某所商业学校的特定功能来说明
We need not flinch from the assertion that: 我们无须讳言
engaged in differing modes of occupation: 从事不同职业
It requires an imaginative grasp of the interlocking interests of great organisations, and of the reactions of the whole complex to any change in one of its elements: 它要求凭想象把握各大企业之间交织着的利益关系，以把握整个综合企业对其各分企业任何变化的反应
It requires some knowledge of the habits of government, and of the variations of those habits under diverse conditions: 它要求能对政府的决策规律有所了解，并对在不同条件下这些规律的变化有所了解
It requires an imaginative vision of the binding forces of any human organisation, a sympathetic vision of the limits of human nature and of the conditions which evoke loyalty of service: 要求能够设想各组织机构的种种制约力、合情合理地预见人的局限性和激发人的耿耿忠心的条件
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: 在性格上必须受过这样的训练，即对别人的看法表示赞同或反对时，不是出自于固执己见，而是理智地权衡各种相关选择方案，从而变得果断的结果
its possibilities for evil: 产生弊端的可能性
There can be no criticism of the custom, but there may be an unfortunate effectprolonged routine work dulls the imagination: 这种惯例本身无可指摘，但可能有令人遗憾的副作用——长期、机械的工作削弱了想象力
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: 因此，训练有素的人所面临的不再是单调乏味的工作所导致的墨守成规，而是有希望获得一种受详尽的事实和必要习惯所规范的想象力
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: 排除了这一想象的重要性，从事商业或其他职业的人们就完全有理由依照各种场合的需要去就事论事了
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