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A Harvard education is a liberal education, that is, an education conducted in a spirit of free inquiry without concern for vocational utility. Although Harvard is a compre-hensive university, it attaches great importance to liberal arts education and cultivation of humanistic quality. This feature is reflected in its “General Education” and “Core Curriculum” . Harvard students are required to take 32 core curricula. These curricular cover 8 major disciplines and are divided into 7 categories，which include foreign cultures, history studies, literature and arts, moral ethics, mathematical ethics, science, and social analysis, etc. These courses aim not to draw students into a discipline, but to bring the disciplines into students5 lives. General education seeks to connect in an explicit way what students learn in Harvard classrooms to life outside the ivied walls and beyond the college years.
哈佛教育是一种人文教育，即一种不用考虑职业效用、在自由探索精神下实施的 教育。尽管哈佛大学是一所综合性大学，但它却很重视人文科学教学和人文素质培养。 这一特点突出地表现在其“通识教育”和“核心课程”中。每个哈佛本科生必须修满 涵盖8大学科领域、分为7大类的32门核心课程，包括：外国文化、历史研究、文学 艺术、道德伦理、数理伦理、.科学和社会分析等。这些课程的目的不是把学生带进某 个学科领域，而是要把这些学科带进学生的生活。通识教育设法以一种明确的方式， 把学生在哈佛课堂上学到的东西和在校园外以及大学毕业后的人生连接起来。
This kind of education heightens students’ awareness of the human and natural worlds they inhabit0. It makes them more reflective about their beliefs and choices, more self-conscious and critical of their presuppositions and motivations, more creative in problem-solving, more perceptive of the world around them, and more able to inform themselves about the issues that arise in their lives, personally and socially.
这种教育提高了学生对人和他们所居住的世界的认识，让学生更多思考自己的信 仰和选择，更自觉地和批评地认识自己的臆想和动机，更有创造性地解决问题，更加 洞察周围的世界，更有能力获得私人生活和社交生活中各种事务的信息。
A liberal education is also a preparation for the rest of life. The subjects that undergraduates study and, as importantly, the skills and habits of mind they acquire in the process, shape the lives they will lead after they leave the academy. Some students will go on to become academics; many will become physicians, lawyers, and businesspeople. Nevertheless, all of them will be citizens, whether of the United States or another country. All of them will engage with forces of change — cultural, religious, political, demographic，technological, and planetary. All of them will interpret cultural expressions, and confront ethical dilemmas in their personal and professional lives. Harvard liberal education gives students the tools to face these challenges in an informed and thoughtful way.
人文教育还是一种对人生的准备。本科生所学科目，同样包括他们在学习过程中所获得的技能和思维习惯，塑 造了他们离开学术界以后的生活。一些人会成为学者，很 多人会成为、律师、商人。但不管怎样，所有人都会成为 公民，不管是美国公民还是其他国籍的公民。所有人都要 与改变的力量做斗争.文化的、宗教的、政治的、人口的、科技的、行星的。所有人都要解读文化表现，都会面临在 生活和工作中的道德困境。哈佛人文教育为学生提供一些 方法，让学生见多识广、深思熟虑，然后去面对这些挑战。
This is Harvard’s philosophy: We teach our students enough economics to read the business page, enough science to read the Science Times，and enough sense of irony to be able to get the jokes in the New Yorker. But when we do this we must be sure to keep it in the context of the overall purpose of a liberal education. It is not enough to teach a person a professional skill. Otherwise, (s)he will become a useful machine without balanced personalities.
这就是哈佛的理念：我们教给学生足够的经济学知识 让他们去读商务信息,足够的科学知识去读《科学时代》，足够的讽刺感去理解《纽约客》 里的笑话。当我们这么做时，我们必须保证这一切都在通识教育的总体目标之内。仅 仅授人一门专业技能并不足够，否则这个人只会是一架有用的机器，而没有和谐发展 的人格。
