I’ve just returned from a tour of British universities with our 16-year-old twins. The boys can’t wait to finish school and start their degrees, and I’m psyched for them. I grew up around universities. My dad has been an academic for over 60 years. My sister is one too. I’m with Nils Gilman, former associate chancellor of Berkeley, who writes: “No other institution ever invented has been anywhere near as good at educating a broad population to a high level of technical competency, nor at creating the conditions for the discovery of new facts about and conceptions of the world, nor at maintaining the knowledge already created.” The UK has the advantage over the US in possessing a government that mostly recognises this.
我刚刚带两个16岁的双胞胎儿子参观完了英国的一些大学。他们迫不及待地想结束中学生活，开始攻读学位，我也为他们感到兴奋。我是在大学边长大的。我父亲是从事学术工作60多年的学者，我妹妹也是学者。我赞同加州大学伯克利分校(Berkeley)前副校长尼尔斯•吉尔曼(Nils Gilman)的观点，他写道：“大学在培养广大民众具备高水平的技术能力、为发现关于这个世界的新事实和新观念创造条件、保护和传承人类已经创造的知识方面所发挥的巨大作用，是人类发明过的任何其他机构都望尘莫及的。”与美国相比，英国的优势在于它拥有一个在大多数情况下能够认识到这一点的政府。