I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

我相信一名好老师就是一名伟大的艺术家，而且相信好的老师和伟大的艺术家一样难得。教书也许是一门最伟大的艺术，因为它的媒体是人的大脑和灵魂。

I shall speak only of my first teacher because in addition to the other things, she brought discovery.

我特别要说一说我的第一位老师，她教会我们其他知识，也教会我们如何探求知识。

She aroused us to shouting, bookwaving discussions. She had the noisiest class in school and she didn’t even seem to know it. We could never stick to the subject. She breathed curiosity into us so that we brought in facts or truths shielded in our hands like captured fireflies.

她让我们大声讨论，挥舞着书本。她的课堂是全校最乱的课堂，而她对此却好像全然不知。我们从不会拘泥于一个科目上。她培养我们的好奇心，让我们自己去发现事实和真理，把它们攥在手中，像被捕捉的萤火虫一样。

She was fired and perhaps rightly so, for failing to teach fundamentals. Such things must be learned. But she left a passion in us for the pure knowable world and she inflamed me with a curiosity which has never left. I could not do simple arithmetic but through her I sensed that abstract mathematics was very much like music.

她因未能教授我们基础知识而被解雇了，或许这理由很正当，因为这些知识一定要学。但是她给我们留下了对纯粹的可知世界的热情;她燃起我求知的热情，这种热情前所未有。我虽然不会计算简单的算术题，但是通过她，我感到抽象的数学与音乐非常地相似。

When she was relieved, a sadness came over us but the light did not go out. She left her signature on us, the literature of the teacher who writes on minds. I suppose that to a large extent I am the unsigned manuscript of the high school teacher. What deathless power lies in the hands of such a person.

当她被解聘时，我们都很难过，但是那片光明并没有消失。她给我们留下她的签名，那是老师写在我们心中的作品。我想在很大程度上，我正是那位中学老师未经签名的手稿。这样一个人拥有多么永恒的力量啊。

I can tell my son who looks forward with horror to fifteen years of drudgery that somewhere in the dusty dark a magic may happen that will light up the years... if he is very lucky.

我可以告诉我那恐惧地等待15年寒窗之苦的儿子，如果他非常幸运的话，在一片混沌黑暗中，也许会有神奇的事情发生，使他的学生时代一片光明。