摘要：Before you do, however, longstanding tradition permits the university president to offer a few remarks about the path that lies ah
In a few minutes, all of you will walk out of this stadium as newly minted graduates of this university.
几分钟后，你们所有人将作为这所大学的新晋毕业生走出这座体育场。
Before you do, however, longstanding tradition permits the university president to offer a few remarks about the path that lies ahead.
然而，在你们启程之前，按照悠久的传统，大学校长有权对未来道路发表几点看法。
As I began drafting this year's speech, I found myself reflecting on what I recall from my own graduation, which alas is very little.
当我开始起草今年的演讲稿时，我不禁回想起自己毕业时的情景，可惜记忆已经非常模糊。
After more than 40 years, the day is mostly a blur.
40多年过去了，那一天的大部分细节已模糊不清。
I do remember leaving campus with a new hard-shell Samsonite briefcase, a gift from my beloved grandmother intended to mark my transition from backpack-toting undergraduate to office-going adult.
我还记得离开校园时， 带着一个新买的硬壳萨姆森ite公文包，这是我亲爱的祖母送给我的礼物， 意在标志着我从背着背包的本科生转变为去办公室工作的成年人。
The briefcase would soon yield again to the backpacks that I favored for most of my professorial career.
不久之后，公文包又将让位于我担任教授期间大多数时间偏爱的背包。
During that post-summer graduation, though, I proudly carried my books and papers in the briefcase, feeling suitably professional and accomplished.
在那个暑假后的毕业典礼上，我自豪地把书和论文放在公文包里，感觉非常专业和有成就。
One of the books I was reading at the time on the recommendation of a Princeton mentor was Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America." The book, but not the briefcase, accompanied me to England where I began my graduate studies.
我在普林斯顿的一位导师推荐下阅读的一本书是亚历克西斯·德·托克维尔的《论美国的民主》。这本书，而非那个公文包， 陪伴我前往英国， 开始了我的研究生学习。
Living outside the United States for the first time since my childhood, I marveled at the 19th century Frenchman's ability to make perceptive and durable observations about a culture different from his own.
这是我童年后第一次生活在美国以外的地方，我惊叹于这位19世纪的法国人能够对他国文化作出敏锐且持久的观察。
Tocqueville admired some of what he saw during his visits to America in the 1830s, but he was deeply skeptical about the country's ability to produce humanistic and scientific achievements of the kind that distinguish this university.
托克维尔在他19世纪30年代访问美国期间， 对所见的一些事物表示赞赏，但他对这个国家能否产生像这所大学一样杰出的人文和科学成就深感怀疑。
For example, he reported that there is almost no one in the United States who gives himself over to the essentially theoretical and abstract portion of human knowledge.
例如，他报告说在美国几乎没有人完全致力于人类知识中本质上理论和抽象的部分。
He opined that the United States still does not have a literature properly speaking.
他认为美国至今还没有严格意义上的文学。
And he predicted a future dominated by books that could be procured without trouble and quickly read.
他预测未来将被那些可以轻松获取并快速阅读的书籍所主导。
Tocqueville, despite all his truly magnificent insights did not anticipate the rise of universities like the one from which you graduate today.
托克维尔，尽管他有着真正卓越的洞察力，却未能预见到像你们今天毕业的这所大学——普林斯顿大学——的崛起。
He did note "that Americans had a very high, " and I'm quoting him here, "and often much exaggerated idea of human reason, " and were prone to quote, "conclude that everything in the world is explicable and that nothing exceeds the bounds of intelligence, " unquote.
他确实指出，“美国人对于人类理性有着极高的——我在此引用他的原话——‘且常常被过分夸大的’看法”，并且倾向于认为，“世界上的一切皆可解释，没有任何事物超出智力的范畴”，此言引述完毕。
Tocqueville also observed that Americans constantly unite, forming organizations and associations to give fests, found seminaries, build inns, raise churches, distribute books, and create hospitals, prisons, or schools.
托克维尔还观察到，美国人经常联合起来，成立组织和协会来举办节日、创办神学院、建造客栈、修建教堂、分发书籍，并创建医院、监狱或学校。
If Tocqueville had put together these observations about American zealous faith in reason and their incessant associative activity, he might perhaps have predicted the network of research universities that we know today.
如果托克维尔将他对美国人热衷于理性信仰以及他们持续不断的社团活动的观察结合起来，他或许可以预测到我们今天所熟知的研究型大学网络。
Be that as it may, America's colleges and universities have changed the country for the better.
尽管如此，美国的学院和大学已经使国家变得更好了。
The nation that Tocqueville thought ill-suited to the theoretical and abstract portion of human knowledge has become a magnet for the world's leading mathematicians and scientists.
托克维尔认为不擅长理论和抽象知识的国家，如今已成为世界顶尖数学家和科学家的磁石。
The country that Tocqueville thought might never produce a literature of its own cultivates brilliant writers and critics, not only at this university, but at many others, including, for example, at the famous University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.
托克维尔认为可能永远无法产生自己文学的国家， 如今培养了杰出的作家和批评家，不仅是在这所大学， 而且在许多其他大学也是如此，例如着名的爱荷华大学作家工作坊。
Tocqueville wrote that there is no country in the civilized world where people are less occupied with philosophy than the United States, but New Jersey by itself boasts two of the world's greatest philosophy departments at Princeton and Rutgers.
托克维尔写道， 在文明世界中， 没有哪个国家像美国这样， 人们对哲学的关注更少，但仅新泽西州就拥有普林斯顿和罗格斯两所世界上最好的哲学系。
Yet, if Tocqueville did not foresee the rise of America's universities, his observations about democratic sentiments should alert us to a persistent tension between our scholarly institutions and the broader society upon which they depend.
然而， 尽管托克维尔未能预见美国大学的崛起，他对民主情感的观察却应提醒我们， 学术机构与其所依赖的更广泛社会之间存在着一种持续的张力。
The creativity that universities cultivate, the idiosyncrasies that we tolerate, and the speculative or esoteric research that we cherish, all of these can put universities at odds with the more pragmatic culture around us, and thereby jeopardize the academic freedom on which our institutions vitally depend.
大学所培养的创造力、我们所能容忍的特立独行，以及我们珍视的那些探索性或深奥的研究，这些都可能使大学与周围更为务实的文化产生冲突，从而危及我们机构赖以生存的学术自由。
Tensions between the academic, between the academy, public opinion and government policy have ebbed and flowed over the course of American history.
在美国历史的长河中，学界与公众舆论及政府政策之间的张力时起时伏。
They are now at an unprecedented high point.
它们现在正处于前所未有的高峰。
In this tender and pivotal moment, we must stand boldly for the freedoms and principles that define this and other great universities.
在这个脆弱而关键的时刻，我们必须勇敢地扞卫定义这所及其他伟大大学的自由和原则。
We must also at the same time find ways to listen to thoughtful critics and steward our relationship with the broader society upon which we depend.
我们还需同时探寻途径，倾听那些深思熟虑的批评之声，并精心维护我们与所依赖的更广泛社会之间的关系。
Universities risk losing public support if they deviate from their core mission of teaching and research, or if they appear to become organs of partisan advocacy rather than impartial forums for the pursuit of truth and the dissemination of knowledge.
如果大学偏离了教学和研究的核心使命，或者看起来变成了党派倡导的工具， 而不是追求真理和传播知识的公正论坛， 那么它们可能会失去公众的支持。
People sometimes make this point by recommending that universities adopt a posture of institutional neutrality, a concept that they take from a report issued in 1967 by the Calvin Committee at the University of Chicago.
人们有时会通过建议大学采取一种机构中立的姿态来阐述这一点，这一概念源自1967年芝加哥大学卡尔文委员会发布的一份报告。
Though I agree with much that is said in the Calvin Report, I have never liked the language of neutrality, partly because neutral has multiple meanings.
虽然我同意卡尔文报告中的许多观点，但我一直不喜欢中立性的说法，部分原因是“中立” 这个词有多重含义。
Neutral can mean impartial, which is a more precise way to capture what the Calvin Committee had in mind.
“中立”可以意味着公正无私，这更准确地表达了卡尔文委员会的本意。
Another meaning of neutral, however, is lacking distinguishing quality or characteristics.
然而，“中立”的另一个含义是缺乏鲜明的特质或特征。
Synonyms for neutral include innocuous, unobjectionable, harmless, bland, and colorless.
中立的同义词包括无害的、无可非议的、无害处的、平淡的和没有特色的。
Some current day proponents of the neutrality standards seem to relish the term's double meaning.
一些当前支持中立标准的人似乎很享受这个术语的双关含义。
They want university faculties and students to produce useful inventions, illuminate poetic beauty, and study the virtues of successful leaders.
他们希望大学教师和学生能够发明有用的东西，揭示诗歌的美感， 并研究成功领导者的美德。
But they appear to become uneasy when, for example, scholars expose and analyze the role of race, sexuality, or prejudice in society and politics.
但当学者们揭露并分析种族、性取向或偏见在社会和政治中的作用时，他们似乎变得不安。
The actual Calvin Committee was under no such illusion.
卡尔文委员会并没有这样的幻想。
It described universities this way.
它这样描述大学。
"A university faithful to its mission will provide enduring challenges to social values, policies, practices, and institutions.
“一所忠于其使命的大学将会持续对社会价值观、政策、实践和制度提出挑战。”
By design and by effect, it is the university that creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones.
刻意如此设计并产生效果的是，大学会制造对现有社会安排的不满，并提出新的安排。
In brief, a good university, like Socrates, will be upsetting." Like Socrates.
简而言之，一所好的大学，就像苏格拉底一样，会让人感到不安。像苏格拉底一样。
The reference is telling, as the Calvin Committee certainly knew Socrates was so upsetting, so colorful, so provocative, so decidedly not neutral, that the Athenians sentenced him to death for disrespecting their most sacred beliefs.
这个引用很有说明力， 因为卡尔文委员会当然知道苏格拉底是多么令人不安，多么丰富多彩， 多么具有挑衅性，以至于雅典人因为他不尊重他们最神圣的信仰而判处他死刑。
Universities might be less vulnerable to criticism and attack if they were bland, innocuous, and neutral, but then they would not be true universities.
如果大学变得平淡无奇、无害且中立，或许会减少受到批评和攻击的风险，但那样它们就不再是真正的大学了。
Great universities must have a Socratic spirit.
伟大的大学必须具备苏格拉底式的批判精神。
We aim to encourage and elevate what Tocqueville depicted as the sometimes irritating tendency of Americans and democratic citizens more generally to believe that human intelligence can explain, critique, and improve the world.
我们的目标在于激励并提升托克维尔所描绘的，美国人及更广泛的民主社会公民有时令人不悦的倾向——坚信人类智慧能够解释、批判并改善世界。
At the heart of Princeton's undergraduate and graduate degree programs is a commitment to inculcate a fierce independence of mind.
普林斯顿大学本科和研究生学位课程的核心，在于致力于培养一种强烈的思想独立性。
We want you to have the skill and the courage to ask questions that are unsettling and uncomfortable to the world, and indeed, to you.
我们希望你们拥有提问的技能和勇气， 这些问题可能会让世界感到不安和不适，甚至也会让你们自己感到如此。
I hope you have embraced this independence during your time here, and that you have also learned how to speak up for what you believe, even when it may be uncomfortable to do so.
我希望你们在这里的时光中已经拥抱了这种独立，同时也学会了如何为你们所信仰的事物发声，即便这样做可能会感到不适。
I hope, too, that these habits will stay with you as you venture forth into a world that needs your creativity, your learning, and your valor.
我也希望这些习惯能伴随你们进入这个世界，因为这个世界需要你们的创造力、知识和勇气。
The path that you follow from this stadium today lead into a world more fraught, turbulent, and uncertain than the one that I entered with my brand new briefcase four decades ago.
你们今天从这个体育场出发的道路，将通往一个比我在四十年前带着崭新的公文包进入的世界更加充满挑战、动荡和不确定的世界。
Yet, whether you depart carrying backpacks or briefcases, or neither of the two, you should know, as my classmates and I did, that you will always be welcome back on this campus.
然而，无论你们离开时携带的是背包还是公文包，或者两者皆无， 你们应当知晓，正如我的同学们和我所经历的那样， 你们永远都是这个校园的座上宾。
Indeed, all of us on this platform hope that you'll return often to Old Nassau.
的确，我们在这里的所有人都希望你们能经常回到老拿骚。
We will greet you then as we cheer you today, wishing you every success as Princeton University's great Class of 2025.
届时我们将以今日的欢呼迎接你们，祝愿普林斯顿大学2025届的杰出毕业生们前程似锦。
Congratulations!
祝贺！
来源：英语东