The Meaning of Life哈佛校长2008年毕业演讲.pdf

The Meaning of Life by Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust June 3, 2008 《生活的意义》凯瑟琳·吉尔平·福斯特（2007年10月就任哈佛第28任校长） 2008年6月3日 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. 根据这所受人尊重的大学别具一格的传统， 我站在你们面前，要为你们传授亘古不变的智 慧。此刻，我站在讲台上，打扮得像个清教徒-我们的杰出先辈们可能会被我这幽灵似的形 象吓坏了，也许还会让一些前辈们重新致力于铲除女巫的事业。而这一时刻可能会使因克瑞 斯·马瑟和科顿·马瑟父子（因克瑞斯，哈佛第六任校长，任职期间与神职人员在宗教问题上 出现纠纷，最终辞职和其子科顿在耶鲁任教）大为恼火。但是现在，我在这里，你们在台下， 这一刻属于真理，也为真理而存在。 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. 你们已经在这儿学习了四年，我担任校长却还不到一年。你们已经认识了三届校长，而我只 认识你们这一届的学生。因此，我哪有什么经验之谈，或许我们应该呼唤角色，你们到台上 展示智慧，而我坐在下面听你们说，像哈佛大学法学院的学生一样冷不丁的提出几个问题。 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 s o literally. 在经历了诸多事情之后，我们似乎终于盼到了毕业这一时刻的到来-而且基本顺利，没出什 么大的状况。最近我听说学校食堂从5月22日开始就已经向你们停止供应伙食。虽然“哈佛迟 早会给你断奶”，但我没想到，学校断奶断的这样彻底。 But let’s return to that notion of cold calls for a moment. Let ’s imagine this was a baccalaureate service in the form of QA, and you were asking the questions. “Wha