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Why do we even need college, critics demand? Can't we do it all on our own?
曾有人批评说，我们要大学干什么？自己学不行吗？
Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, has urged students to drop out and has even subsidized them
硅谷的一位企业家彼得·蒂尔就曾教唆学生辍学，还给辍学的学生提供补贴，
including several of our undergraduates -- to leave college and pursue their individual entrepreneurial dreams.
其中就包括几位我们学校的肄业生，他鼓动学生离开学校去追逐自己的企业家梦想。
After all, the logic goes, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates dropped out and they seem to have done OK.
他的逻辑是，马克·扎克伯格和比尔·盖茨就是辍学创业的，他们就发展的很不错。
Well, yes. But we should remember: Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg had Harvard to drop out of.
事实的确如此。但请记住一件事 比尔·盖茨和马克·扎克伯格是从哈佛辍的学。
Harvard to serve as the place where their world-changing discoveries were born.
他们用来改变世界的发现就诞生于哈佛。
Harvard and institutions like it to train the physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, business analysts, lawyers,
是哈佛和其他教育机构培养出了Facebook和微软公司渴求的物理学家、数学家、计算机科学家、律师
and thousands of other skilled individuals upon whom Facebook and Microsoft depend.
以及成千上万名其他技艺精湛的员工。
Harvard to enlighten public servants to lead a country in which Facebook, Microsoft, and companies like them can thrive.
是哈佛启蒙了国家公务员，所以在他们领导下的这个国家里，Facebook、微软和其他公司才能发展壮大。
Harvard to nurture the writers and filmmakers and journalists who create the storied "content" that gives the Internet its substance.
是哈佛培养了作家、制片人和记者，所以才有了那些知名的故事，互联网才有内容可供浏览。
And we must recognize as well that universities have served as sources of discoveries
同样地，我们还应该意识到，大学是各种发现的源头，
essential to the work of the companies advancing the revolutions in technology that have changed our lives
这些发现在企业推动科技革命改变人们的生活时扮演了至关重要的角色，
from early successes in creating and programming computers to development of prototypes that laid the groundwork for the now-ubiquitous touchscreen.
其中就包括早期电脑和编程的产生，以及给现在随处可见的触摸屏打下基础的原型机的开发。
We are told, too, that universities are about to be unbundled,
也有人说，大学的门槛即将为技术革新所颠覆，
disrupted by innovations that enable individuals to teach themselves, selecting from a buffet of massive open online courses and building do-it-yourself degrees.
每个人现在都可以从浩如烟海的在线课程中选择喜欢的课进行自学并取得学位。
But online opportunities and residential learning are not at odds; the former can strengthen -- but does not supplant -- the latter.
但其实在线教育与学校教育并不冲突；在线教育可以作为学校教育的补充，却无法代替它。
And through initiatives like edX and HarvardX,
通过早申课堂和哈佛在线课堂计划，
we are sharing intellectual riches that are the creations of institutions of higher learning, sharing them with millions of people around the globe.
我们与全世界数百万师生分享了高等教育机构的智慧结晶。
Intriguingly, we have found that a highly-represented group among these online learners around the world is teachers
而有趣的是，在全世界的在线学习者中，最多的恰好是老师，
who will use this knowledge to enrich their own schools and face-to-face classrooms.
他们上这堂课的目的就是帮助自己的学校提高面授水平。
