论法的精神 （共和政体中的教育）

 Of Education in a Republican Government.

    It is in a republican government that the whole power of education is required.【共和政体对教育力量的依仗远多于其他政体】The fear of despotic governments naturally arises of itself amidst threats and punishments; the honour of monarchies is favoured by the passions, and favours them in its turn; but virtue 【此处指共和政体的政治品德】is a self-renunciation【自我牺牲】, which is ever arduous and painful.

    This virtue may be defined as the love of the laws and of our country.[热爱法律和国家] As such love requires a constant preference of public to private interest【始终把公共利益置于个人利益之上】, it is the source of all private virtues; for they are nothing more than this very preference itself.

This love is peculiar to democracies. In these alone the government is entrusted to private citizens. Now a government is like everything else: to preserve it we must love it.【民主政治的独特之处，就在于它鼓励每一个公民参与国家事务，以致国家得以长久的有序运行。】

    Has it ever been known that kings were not fond of monarchy, or that despotic princes hated arbitrary power?       

Everything therefore depends on establishing this love in a republic; and to inspire it ought to be the principal business of education: but the surest way of instilling it into children is for parents to set them an example. 【最好的办法就是把这种品德一代代传承下去，所以父母应该以身作则。】People have it generally in their power to communicate their ideas to their children; but they are still better able to transfuse【灌输】their passions.

    If it happens otherwise, it is because the impressions made at home are effaced by those they have received abroad. 【如果这一切不能奏效，便是孩子们在家庭里所获得的教育被外界的不良思想所影响。】

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of maturer age are already sunk into corruption.【人之初，性本善。性相近，习相远。】