美国知识分子门肯先生有一段关于教育的文字，我看了十分喜乐，分享一位正在多伦多大学都教育硕士的朋友，他意见与我相异，我们交换了看法。具体如下。
门肯的论述：
From Minority Report (publish by Alfred A. Knopf in 1956), no. 127:The public schools of the United States were damaged very seriously when they were taken over by the State. So long as they were privately operated the persons in charge of them retained a certain amount of professional autonomy, and with it went a considerable dignity. But now they are all petty jobholders, and show the psychology that goes with the trade. They have invented a bogus science of pedagogy to salve their egos, but it remains hollow to any intelligent eye. What they may teach or not teach is not determined by themselves, or even by any exercise of sound reason, but by the interaction of politics on the one side and quack theorists on the other. Even savages have reached a better solution of the educational problem. Their boys are taught, not by puerile eunuchs, but by their best men, and the process of education among them really educates. This is certainly not true of ours. Many a boy of really fine mind is ruined in school. Along with a few sound values, many false ones are thrust into his thinking, and he inevitably acquires something of the attitude of mind of the petty bureaucrats told off to teach him. In college he may recover somewhat, for the college teacher is relatively more free than the pedagogue lower down the scale. But even in college education has become corrupted by buncombe, and so the boy on the border line of intelligence is apt to be damaged rather than benefited. Under proper care he might be pushed upward. As it is, he is shoved downward. Certainly everyday observation shows that the average college course produces no visible augmentation in the intellectual equipment and capacity of the student. Not long ago, in fact, an actual investigation in Pennsylvania demonstrated that students often regress so much during their four years that the average senior is less intelligent, by all know tests, than the average freshman. Part of this may be due to the fact that many really intelligent boys, as soon as they discover the vanity of the so-called education on tap, quit college in disgust, but in large part, I suspect, it is a product of the deadening effect of pedagogy.
朋友M的回复：
还好吧，not my cup of ......大肆的抨击谩骂讽刺，没有太多实质性的东西，毕竟他也不是研究教育的，有点类似文人的批判。他所批判的pedagogy，应该是他那个时代教育的模式下的产物，注重social efficiency, "for a long time boys are trained to be president... now we are training them to get jobs "，教育的目标目的性强 为社会培训工人。那时的教育研究处于 executive leadership period, 1925-1945 教育研究和社会实践都在侧重于如何使得教育机构 发挥最大的功效。 另外，教育从来就跟政治不分的，教育本身就是一件政治行为，代表哪方面的利益 ，什么样的教育目标，一位教授的原话。所以他痛斥 interaction of politics 和quack theorists 也是可以理解的。。。。。俺们系这些人就是些未来的quack theorist吧,但是目标是为了更好的发展 分析 建议 展望 解决。。。。。
我的反馈：
M教授锋芒闪烁，大有前途！但也有值得商榷之处，我倒不觉得是一味地谩骂讽刺。“文人”在中国似乎已经成了贬义词，与“谩骂讽刺”捆绑一起，在文明社会，这种趋势似乎没那么明显，英美只有“知识分子”，少有指涉宽泛的“文人”说法，但连知识分子这一称呼在今日华夏也都成为调侃对象，呜呼哀哉！这种趋势，用一句学术流行语，叫“反智主义”。当然，教育绝对是政治和时代的产物，也只有知识分子和专业学者才能洞悉这一点，并条分缕析具体症结和来龙去脉，芸芸众生浑浑噩噩，除了果腹繁衍，鲜有能清醒思考于己无关的这些“宏大叙事”。真正的知识分子饱览诗书，嗅觉灵敏，超越传统和时代的洗涤与蒙蔽，洞若观火，往往能发现问题，或“大声疾呼”、或“大加挞伐”，亦可“当头棒喝”，以引起世人关注甚至“觉醒”；另一方面，真正的业内专家，不仅要意识到问题，还要研究问题或者提出解决之道，这正是真正知识分子和专家学者的功用，各司其职，“为万世开太平”。学者和知识分子可以雌雄同体、也可以各司其职但协同合作，而不是彼此轻蔑、“文人相轻”。我们来到西方乐土，也当意识到之前一些定势思维留下的“遗毒”。当然，也许我识见粗浅，初来乍到，浑不知这里也并非“乐土”，也不过一样地“文人相轻”、泾渭分明。
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