大学理想与精英教育

The Ideals of University and Elite Education

大学培育精英，精英创造大学。精英阶层的存在赋予了大学精英主义的气质，大学理念的张扬灌输给精英超越功利与实用的理想。20世纪60年代以来，伴随高等教育规模的急剧扩张，精英高等教育为大众化高等教育所取代，精英主义逐渐式微。在职业化、民主化和市场化思潮影响下，大学里平等排斥了优秀，数量遮蔽了质量，直接为经济发展服务取代了对系统人生哲学和精英意识的追寻。由于对财富和权力的过分追逐，加之对精英理想的放逐，作为世俗教会和人类精神家园的大学不可避免地面临重重危机。在当下日益多元化的世界中，大学必须回归真正意义的自我。大学不同于高等教育，高等教育可以大众化乃至普及化，但大学的理想依然应是精英主义的，只有坚守[得天下英才而育之]的精英理念，大学才能成为市场主义和消费社会的有效抗体。

Historically， elitists create universities and universities nurture elitists. The existence of elite gives the university a kind of elite temperament; the ideals of university install a concept that transcends utilitarianism and pragmatism into the elite’s minds. With the rapid expansions of the higher education， elite education has been gradually taken place by the mass higher education since 1960s. From then on， elitism began to lose its dominance. Under the influence of the trends of professionalism， democratization and marketization， the concepts of equivalence and quantity， respectively replaced the ideals of excellence and quality in the development of university. Therefore， instead of pursuing systematic life philosophy and elite consciousness， universities are aimed at serving national economic development directly. As a result of excessive pursuit of wealth and power， as well as the exile of elitism ideals， universities which were once the secular church and human’s spiritual garden， inevitably， have to face numerous crisis. In the diversified world， universities should return to what they are. Differing from higher education which could be popularized， even universalized， the ideals of universities should still be elitism. Only when adhering to the saying， “Gain the talents and nurture them”， could universities keep detached from the influence of marketization and the consumer society.