2024年4月1日发(作者：)

The humanities: Out of date?

人文学科：过时了吗？

When the going gets tough, the tough take accounting. When the job market

worsens, many students calculate they can't major in English or history. They have

to study something that boosts their prospects of landing a job.

当形势变得困难时，强者会去选学会计。当就业市场恶化时，许多学生估算着他们不

能再主修英语或历史。他们得学一些能改善他们就业前景的东西。

The data show that as students have increasingly shouldered the ever-rising

cost of tuition, they have defected from the study of the humanities and toward

applied science and "hard" skills that they bet will lead to employment. In other

words, a college education is more and more seen as a means for economic

betterment rather than a means for human betterment. This is a trend that is likely

to persist and even accelerate.

数据显示，随着学生肩负的学费不断增加，他们已从学习人文学科转向他们相信有益

于将来就业的应用科学和“硬”技能。换言之，大学教育越来越被看成是改善经济而不是

提升人类自身的手段。这种趋势可能会持续，甚至有加快之势。 Over the next few years,

as labor markets struggle, the humanities will probably continue their long slide in

succession. There already has been a nearly 50 percent decline in the portion of

liberal arts majors over the past generation, and it is logical to think that the trend

is bound to continue or even accelerate. Once the dominant pillars of university

life, the humanities now play little roles when students take their college tours.

These days, labs are more vivid and compelling than libraries.

在未来几年内，由于劳动力市场的不景气，人文学科可能会继续其长期低迷的态势。

在上一代 大学生中，主修文科的学生数跌幅已近 50%。这种趋势会持续、甚至加速的想

法是合情合理的。人文学科曾是大学生活的重要支柱，而今在学生们参观校园的时候，却

只是一个小点缀。现在，实验室要 比图书馆更栩栩如生、受人青睐。

Here, please allow me to stand up for and promote the true value that the

humanities add to people's lives.

在这儿，请允许我为人文学科给人们的生活所增添的真实价值进行支持和宣传。 Since

ancient times, people have speculated about the mystery of those inner forces that

drive some people to greatness and others to self-destruction. This inner drive has

been called many things over the centuries. The famous psychologist,

Sigmund Freud, called it the "unconscious mind" or, more familiarly, "instinct".

自古以来，人们一直在思索人类自身具有什么神奇的内力使一些人变得崇高伟大，而

使另一些人走向自我毁灭。几个世纪以来，这股内力被称作很多东西。著名的心理学家西

格蒙德·弗洛伊德称之为“潜意识”，或更为人熟知的“本能”。 From the beginning of

time, this inner aspect of our being, this drive that can be

constructive or destructive, has captured our imagination. The stories of this

amazing struggle have formed the basis of cultures the world over. Historians,