圖書館對於國家的意義

雙語書話專欄

在這個世界上，有這樣一些人——他們一走進書店，心就怦怦亂跳，不管有多少瑣事纏身，總忍不住進店轉轉；見到一本心儀的書，不弄到手就坐立不安，哪怕買了書就要挨餓，也覺得心滿意足。許多名人亦為愛書人，他們會在文章中不經意間流露愛書之情。而「雙語書話」專欄，將會每周截取一篇《新東方雙語書話譯叢》中的一部分和您一起分享西方大文豪的藏書趣聞或者是讀書歷程......

What Libraries Mean to the Nation

圖書館對於國家的意義

作者介紹

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

安娜 ? 埃莉諾 ? 羅斯福

安 娜?埃 莉 諾?羅 斯 福（Anna Eleanor Roosevelt，1884—1962），美國第 32 任總統富蘭克林?羅斯福（Franklin Roosevelt）之妻，社會活動家、外交家、作家。她任美國「第一夫人」長達 12 年，創美國歷史之最。二戰期間，她在歐洲、拉美等地區為改善青少年和下層人民的生活而鬥爭。她是美國第一任駐聯合國大使，後當選為聯合國人權委員會主席，協助起草了《世界人權宣言》（The Universal Declaration of Human Rights）。她的作品包括《我的故事》（This Is My Story）、《走向明天》（Tomorrow Is Now）等。

本文是羅斯福夫人 1936 年 4 月 1 日在哥倫比亞特區圖書館協會晚宴上的致辭。在講話中，她以樸實動人的語言表達了對美國教育狀況的擔憂，以及對吸引更多人讀書、愛書、討論書的期許。她將書籍與青年成長、終身教育乃至國家興衰聯繫在一起，使閱讀的意義不言而喻。

我曾在鄉下生活過很久，那個州以重視教育投資為榮。我很肯定，有些人認為那裡不缺乏教育和圖書館設施。

有時我真想帶人們去看看一些我熟悉的紐約州的偏遠地區。

我知道紐約州北部的一個地方，夏天時我曾在那裡住過一陣。我走訪了當地的學校並和老師們聊過天。他們用的課本是孩子們一級一級傳下來的，他們除了課本以外根本沒有別的書。

那個地區的孩子非常貧困，有些孩子非常悲慘，我覺得他們要拚命掙扎求生，此時此刻，你很難想到去給他們的心靈提供養料。

但我對此的感覺是，在我國最大最富裕的州之一，有一大片區域需要書和圖書館，以幫助這些學校更好地教育孩子，進而幫助當地居民豐富精神生活。

通過設立家庭經濟學院，我們開展了大量工作，幫助人們學會過家庭生活、提高物質生活水平。

我們還需要以同樣的方式想一想，如何幫助他們過精神生活、提高精神生活水平。要做到這一點，我們只能通過孩子。我們可以在孩子身上打基礎；

我們必須從娃娃抓起，但對老人也有大量工作要做。

前些天我收到一封令人心酸的來信。信是一位老人寫的，他說自己 74 歲了，他寫信是為了讓我確認一下他那個社區的成人教育班沒有停辦，因為學習閱讀對他來說意義非凡。

他認為我肯定理解不了書上的字一個也看不懂意味著什麼。

他說：「我不是唯一的一個。我隔壁的鄰居今年 81 歲，他去年冬天學會了閱讀，這讓我們重生了。」這讓我覺得，儘管我們已經做了一些事，但我國的教育事業仍有大量工作要做。

我們已經走了很遠， 我們已經做了很多，但是要改進教育體系，我們還有許多事可以做，僅僅在圖書館這件事上就大有可為。

我們要讓圖書館成為新的精神生活的中心，因為人們渴望開動腦筋。

原文

I have lived a great deal in the country, in a state which prides itself in spending much money on education, and I am quite sure that some people think there is no lack of education and no lack of library facilities, and sometimes I long to take people and let them see some of the back country districts that I know, in New York State. I know one place in the northern part of the state where I camped for a while in the summer, and I went to the schools and talked to the teachers. They are using school books which have been passed down from one child to another. They have practically no books outside of the textbooks. The children in the district are so poor and some of them so pathetic that I suppose the struggle to live has been so great you could not think much about what you fed the mind, but I came away feeling that right there, in one of the biggest and richest states in the country, we had a big area that needed books and needed libraries to help these schools in the education of the children, and, even more, to help the whole community to learn to live through their minds.

We are doing a tremendous amount through the home economics colleges to help people to learn how to live in their homes, to better their standards of material living. We have got to think in exactly the same way about helping them to live mentally and to attain better standards, and we can do it only through the children. We can do ground work with the children; we must begin with them; but we have got to do a tremendous amount with the older people.

I had a letter the other day which was pathetic. It was from a man who said he was 74 years old. He wrote to ask me to see that the adult education classes in that particular community were not stopped, because it had meant so much to him to learn to read. He did not think that I could understand what it meant never to have been able to understand a word on the printed page. He said, 「I am not the only one. My next door neighbor is 81 and he learned to read last winter, and it has just made life over for us.」 It gave you the feeling that there is a good deal of education that is not being done in this country, in spite of all that is done.

We have come a long way. We have done a great deal, but we still have a lot that can be done to improve our educational system, and we still have a tremendous amount to do with our libraries. We have got to make our libraries the center of a new life in the mind, because people are hungry to use their minds.

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