杰斐逊对美国早期高等科学教育的推动及影响

Jefferson’s Promotion and Influence on Early Higher Science Education in America

重视高等科学教育是杰斐逊教育哲学的核心,也是其科学进步观的外延。他认为科学进步不仅可以改善经济社会,增进人们的幸福与健康,而且有助于维护共和政治,促进人的思想解放。杰斐逊希望高等院校的科学教育能使年轻一代从国王、贵族和牧师控制的旧知识和权力结构中解放出来,看到科学之光的普遍传播所带来的巨大进步,最终为新生美国未来各个方面的改善提供人才及智力基础。西点军校与弗吉尼亚大学的创建是他尝试将启蒙科学应用于美国高等教育发展过程中的有形成果。这些实践基本实现了杰斐逊对高等科学教育的构想,对此后美国高等教育和经济社会的发展产生了深远影响。不过,杰斐逊没能摆脱时代的局限性,他的科学教育思想及实践也带有种族主义偏见。

Focusing on higher science education is the core of Jefferson’s educational philosophy and the extension of his view of scientific progress.He deemed that scientific progress could improve economic society,enhance people’s happiness and health,maintain republican politics and promote the liberation of people’s ideology.He hoped that higher science education would liberate the younger generation from the old knowledge and power structures controlled by kings,nobles and priests and help them see the great progress made by science,which would provide talent and intellectual foundation for the development of the United States.West Point and the University of Virginia were his attempts to apply enlightenment science to the development of American higher education,which basically realized his conception of higher science education and had a profound influence on the development of American higher education and economic society.However,he failed to escape from the limitations of his time,and his thought and practice contained racist prejudice.