異類之不一樣的成功啟示錄 第190期:麥克米蘭抨擊牙買(mǎi)加

In 1935, for example, when my mother and her sister were four, a historian named William M. MacMillan came to visit Jamaica.

例如，在1935年，我的母親和她的妹妹才4歲時(shí)，一個(gè)名叫威廉姆·麥克米蘭的歷史學(xué)家訪問(wèn)牙買(mǎi)加，

He was a professor at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

他是南非約翰內(nèi)斯堡威特沃特斯蘭德大學(xué)的教授。

MacMillan was a man before his time:

麥克米蘭是一個(gè)超越他所在時(shí)代的男人：

he was deeply concerned with the social problems of South Africa's black population, and he came to the Caribbean to make the same argument he had made back home in South Africa.

他深切地關(guān)心南非黑人的社會(huì)問(wèn)題，并且到加勒比海發(fā)表了曾在南非發(fā)表過(guò)的言論。

Chief among MacMillan's concerns was Jamaica's educational system.

麥克米蘭最關(guān)心牙買(mǎi)加的教育系統(tǒng)。

Formal schooling— if you could call what went on in the wooden barn next door to my grandparent's house "formal schooling" —went only to fourteen years of age.

當(dāng)時(shí)，牙買(mǎi)加正式的學(xué)校教育——如果你把我外祖父家旁邊的木屋子稱做“正式的學(xué)校教育”的話——僅僅開(kāi)展14年。

Jamaica had no public high schools or universities.

牙買(mǎi)加沒(méi)有公立高中或者大學(xué)，

Those with academic inclinations took extra classes with the head teacher in their teenage years and with luck made it into teachers' college.

那些有學(xué)習(xí)天分的10來(lái)歲孩子只能和班主任一起參加一些其它的課程，如果幸運(yùn)的話，還可能成為師范學(xué)校的一員。

Those with broader ambitions had to somehow find their way into a private school and from there to a university in the United States or England.

另一些更有雄心的人則會(huì)想盡辦法進(jìn)入私立學(xué)校并從那里踏入美國(guó)或英國(guó)的大學(xué)。

But scholarships were few and far between, and the cost of private schooling prohibitive for all but privileged few.

但是獎(jiǎng)學(xué)金非常少并且差距極大，除了對(duì)一少部分享有特權(quán)的人來(lái)說(shuō)，私立學(xué)校的花費(fèi)也高得讓人卻步。

The "bridge from the primary schools" to high school, MacMillan later wrote,

麥克米蘭后來(lái)在《來(lái)自西印度群島的警告》一文中，以一種非常嚴(yán)厲的批評(píng)語(yǔ)氣寫(xiě)道：

in a blistering critique of England's treatment of its colonies entitled Warning from the West Indies, "is narrow and insecure."

“從小學(xué)到中學(xué)的橋梁，非常狹窄且不可靠，”

The school system did nothing for the "humblest" classes.

正規(guī)學(xué)校教育什么都沒(méi)有為下等人做。

He went on: "If anything these schools are a factor deepening and sharpening social distinctions."

他繼續(xù)寫(xiě)道：“不管怎樣，這樣的學(xué)校說(shuō)得上是加深和加劇社會(huì)等級(jí)分化的重要因素。”

If the government did not give its people opportunities, he warned, there would be trouble.

如果政府不能給人民所應(yīng)該得到的機(jī)會(huì)，就會(huì)有更多麻煩產(chǎn)生。