讓孩子聽品德高尚的典範

譯/ 文謙

要知道，任何工作的開始部分都是最重要的，尤其是針對年輕稚嫩之事。因為這是他們的性格養成時期，此時他們渴望什麼，相應的銘印就更容易形成. . . . . . 我們會漫不經心地允許孩子們聽那些隨便的人寫出的馬馬虎虎的故事嗎？對那些故事中大部分是同我們期許孩子們在長大成人後擁有的美德相反的理念，我們應該允許它們進入孩子們的思想中嗎？

我們不能。 所有進入他們年幼思想的都可能會難以擦掉並不可改變， 因此最重要的就是讓孩子們最先聽到故事應該是種種品德高尚的思想的典範. . . . . .

如此，則我們的青少年將常駐於健康之地，耳聞目及之事將俱皆澄澈，並會盡享萬物之美好；澄澈物事之美將會充盈我們的眼睛和雙耳，就如同來自更潔淨之處的頤養健康的微風拂面，不知不覺中將早年幼稚的心靈，帶入與理性之美共鳴與相近的境界。

沒有比這些更尊貴的培育了。

原文欣賞

You know that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. . . . Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?

We cannot. . . . Anything received into the mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts. . . .

Then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from the earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.

There can be no nobler training than that.

-PLATO’S Republic

責任編輯：章勤