Education is one of the key words of our time. A man without an education, many of us believe, is an unfortunate victim of adverse circumstances deprived of one of the greatest twentieth-century opportunities. Convinced of the importance of education, modern states 'invest' in institutions of learning to get back 'interest' in the form of a large group of enlightened young men and women who are potential leaders. Education, with its cycles of instruction so carefully worked out, punctuated by text-books--those purchasable wells of wisdom-- what would civilization be like without its benefits ?

教育一词当代的我们都听腻了。你要是没有受过教育，我们很多人都会相信，你就是不幸的逆境中的受害人，你是被剥夺了在20世纪最伟大的良机的人（作者其实是说，即使不受现代的所谓的教育，也可以生存地很好，第二段、第三段有几句暗含了该意，本段末尾一句进行反问）。因深信教育的重要性，当代的许多国家纷纷向学术机构、各类学习的机构“投资”，是为了收回“利息”---大批所谓受了教育的年轻的男男女女们，这些人可是要成为将来的领导者呢。我们所谓的“教育”，你看看，又是煞费心思地安排一个个教学环节，又用教科书（这些可以买到的智慧的源泉）来进一步强化，假如没有这些【所谓的“教育”的成效】，人类文明又会是什么样子呢？【"将会更好"，本人认为这是作者的暗语，下边一段最后一句有此含义】

So much is certain: that we would have doctors and preachers, lawyers and defendants, marriages and births--but our spiritual outlook would be different. We would lay less stress on 'facts and figures' and more on a good memory, on applied psychology, and on the capacity of a man to get along with his fellow-citizens. If our educational system were fashioned after its bookless past we would have the most democratic form of 'college' imaginable. Among the people whom we like to call savages all knowledge inherited by tradition is shared by all; it is taught to every member of the tribe so that in this respect everybody is, equally equipped for life.

It is the ideal condition of the 'equal start' which only our most progressive forms of modern education try to regain. In primitive cultures the obligation to seek and to receive the traditional instruction is binding to all. There are no 'illiterates '--if the term can be applied to peoples without a script--while our own compulsory school attendance became law in Germany in 1642, in France in 1806, and in England in 1876, and is still non-existent in a number of 'civilized' nations. This shows how long it was before we deemed it necessary to make sure that all our children could share in the knowledge accumulated by the 'happy few' during the past centuries.

 Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means. All are entitled to an equal start. There is none of the hurry which, in our society, often hampers the full development of a growing personality. There, a child grows up under the ever-present attention of his parents, therefore the jungles and the savannahs know of no 'juvenile delinquency.' No necessity of making a living away from home results in neglect of children, and no father is confronted with his inability to 'buy' an education for his child.  

在那些贫困、荒凉地区的教育并不是钱不钱的问题。所有人都被赋予了平等起步的资格。没有那种在我们社会里常常出现的障碍成长中的人格全面发展的仓促之举（建设林林种种的学校，大笔大笔的投资，成堆成堆的书籍），在那种社会里，孩子是在父母无时不在的关怀下成长；因此在那些所谓的“丛林”、“大草原”根本就不存在“少年犯罪”问题。人们也无需外出谋生以致于丢下孩子不管，也就不会有为人父母者会面临无力为子女“买”教育的情况。