歷史文化:男女分校的延續

AN ODDITY has hidden for nearly a century in a dusty bowl just east of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Deep Springs is a two-year college and, also, a cattle-and-alfalfa ranch. Its 26 students share duties irrigating fields and riding the herd, but also fixing boilers and scrubbing pots, alongside reading Nietzsche and swotting at their maths problems. They pay no tuition fees, and most finish their bachelor’s degrees at Harvard, Yale and the like.

近一個世紀以來，加州內華達山脈東部的凹地中藏匿了一座男校——深泉（Deep Springs）,它是一座兩年學制的男校，學校中有長滿苜蓿的大農場，養了些牛。深泉中的26名學生分工勞動，有灌溉田地，放牧，看鍋爐，洗碗。課業方面，學生閱讀尼采，鑽研數學。學生無需交學費。大多數學生都會去哈佛、耶魯等名校完成大學學業。

And they are all male. The college has admitted no women as regular students since it was founded in 1917, in accordance with a trust established by Lucien Nunn, the tycoon who founded it as a place “for promising young men”. The atmosphere is intellectual, rugged and ascetic, and the college is a democratic body, where student-led committees decide admissions, hire the faculty and mind most matters of policy.

這所學校由 Lucien Nunn於1917年出資創立，這位大亨要爲有潛力的年輕男性提供學習機會。自創立以來該校只收男生，從沒有女生被錄取。學校的校訓是學術、勞動、自制。深泉十分民主，學生領導的委員會有權決定招生，教職工應聘和學校政策的制定。

The big exception is over the question of co-education. Since the 1970s successive student bodies have lobbied to admit women, only to be rebuffed by the college’s trustees. Only recently, with the support of a newer tycoon from the class of 1980, have the co-ed supporters on the board felt able to press their case. In September 2011 they moved to make the change. Young women were invited to apply for the entering class of 2013.

但唯獨在招收女生這個問題上由不得學生委員會做主。自從20世紀70年代開始，連續幾屆的學生委員會都建議招收女生並對資助方進行遊說，但都招到了拒絕。直到最近，在得到一位曾是深泉1980屆校友的新資助人的支持後，董事會中支持男女同校的成員覺得時機來了。在2011年9月他們竭力推行男女同校，最終決定將在2013年第一次招收女生。

On January 8th that plan stumbled. A county court rejected the trustees’ motion to reinterpret the college’s trust. A judge found that “young men” in fact means young men. More than 140 young women had applied by then, for perhaps only six places. They were summarily rejected.

但在1月8日，該計劃流產了。縣法院反對現任出資者重新解釋 Lucien Nunn的辦校宗旨。一位法官認爲“young men”指的就是年輕男性而不是年輕人。深泉只招收六名女生，而截止到8日，有超過140名女生申請。在招生流產後，學校草草的拒絕了所有申請。

Deep Springs is one of only four remaining (non-clerical) all-male colleges in America. Yet despite the prevalence of co-education these days, the trustees face a legal mess if they try to modify the terms of the trust. By all accounts, the place is flourishing as it is. That poses a difficulty for the trustees, and current students, who would claim that the founder’s intent is being thwarted by the all-male policy. If they cannot make that case quickly, Deep Springs will enter its second century in almost the same form in which it began.

深泉是美國現有的4所男校之一（非教會辦學），雖然如今男女同校當道，不過據說，深泉發展勢頭強勁。現任出資者與學生都認爲只招收男生的政策與創立者建校初衷相悖。如果出資者改動出資協議的內容，就會面臨法律麻煩。如果他們不能儘快推行男女同校，那麼深泉就會以同樣的形式繼續發展下去。

擴展：1。學員們在深泉完成兩年的學業之後可以得到Associate(副學士)學位，而將近80%的畢業生離開深泉大學後直接轉學到哈佛、耶魯、布朗、哥倫比亞、康奈爾和牛津大學等名校讀大三，其他人則會先志願服務一年。