A Liberal Education
Thomas H. Huxley
(1. a metaphor)
1. Suppose it were (subjunctive mood) perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, (Parenthesis) depend upon (depend on, more formal in usage) his winning or losing a game at chess. (If our lives are all about playing chess) Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion (vague awareness, concept, understanding) of a gambit (a move or moves made at the beginning of a game of chess in order to gain an advantage later 国际象棋中为获得优势而采取的开局让棋法) , and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check (guess: sth. unfavorable to you in chess. in the game of chess, a position in which a player's king(= the most important piece) can be directly attacked by the other player's pieces 被将军的局面)? Do you not (emphasize) think that we should look with a disapprobation (disapproval, disagree) amounting to scorn (show your reje
ction on your face), upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?
2. Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth (it’s a common truth, every one should know), that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that hissort of in order play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks (miss, fail to notice) a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing (too full that contents go over the side. Flow: continuous supply of sth.) generosity (generous: giving or willing to give freely) with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated--without haste, but without remorse. (a feelin
g of deep regret)
3. My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture（Die Schachspieler <the chess player>） in which Retzsch has depicted（描绘） Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking（嘲讽的） fiend（恶魔） in that picture a calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win—and I should accept it as an image of human life.
(2. definition)
4. Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty (very powerful and impressive) game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning (forming) of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor less than this. Anything which professes (to claim, to state openly) to call itself education must be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the
test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of numbers, upon the other side. (no one can change my mind)
(3.men will always be educated by nature’s law)
5. It is important to remember that, in strictness (严格来说 to be strict), there is no such thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose that an adult man, in the full vigour of his faculties (very strong and healthy), could be suddenly placed in the world, as Adam is said to have been (which Adam once have been), and then left to do as he best might (strength). How long would he be left uneducated? Not five minutes. Nature would begin to teach him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. Pain and pleasure would be at his elbow telling him to do this and avoid that; and by slow degrees the man would receive an education which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, and adequate to his circumstances, though there would be no extras and very few accomplishments.（once placed in the nature, a man will more or less be educated to adapt the circumstance）
6. And if to this solitary (single) man entered a second Adam, or, better still, an Eve, a new and greater world, that of social and moral phenomena, would be revealed. Joys and woes, compared with which all others might seem but faint shadows, would spring from the new relations. Happiness and sorrow would take the place of the coarser (rough, not fine) monitors (checking device), pleasure and pain; but conduct (behaviour) would still be shaped by the observation of the natural consequences of actions; or, in other words, by the laws of the nature of man. (Even if placed in the society, the man’s behaviour is still shaped by the laws of nature)
7. To every one of us the world was once as fresh and new as to Adam. And then, long before we were susceptible (easily influenced) of any other mode of instruction, Nature took us in hand, and every minute of waking life brought its educational influence, shaping our actions into rough accordance with Nature's laws, so that we might not be ended untimely (too soon) by too gross (unpleasant) disobedience (failure to obey). Nor should I speak of this process of education as past for any one, be he as old as he may. For every man the world is as fresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties (
new, different and interesting things) for him who has the eyes to see them. And Nature is still continuing her patient education of us in that great university, the universe, of which we are all members--Nature having no Test-Acts. (Nature has long been teaching us.)

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