President Hatcher, Governor Romney, Senators McNamara and Hart, Congressmen Meader and Staebler, and other members of the fine Michigan delegation, members of the graduating class, my fellow Americans: 哈彻校长、罗姆尼州长、麦克纳马拉和哈特参议员、米德和斯特布勒众议员，以及优秀的密歇根代表团其他成员、毕业生同学们、我的美国同胞们：
I have come today from the turmoil of your capital to the tranquility of your campus to speak about the future of your country. The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation. 今天我从喧嚣的首都来到宁静的校园，与诸位谈谈国家的未来。保护国民生命、维护公民自由的目的，在于追求人民的幸福。我们在这一追求中的成败，正是衡量国家成就的标尺。
For a century we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization. 一个世纪以来，我们辛勤劳作，征服大陆。半个世纪以来，我们凭借无限的创造力与不懈的勤奋，为全体人民创造了富足的秩序。下半个世纪的挑战在于，我们是否有智慧运用这份财富，来丰富和提升我们的国民生活，来推进美国文明的品质。
Your imagination and your initiative and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. 你们的想象力、你们的主动性、你们的义愤，将决定我们建设的是一个进步服务于需求的社会，还是一个旧价值观与新愿景被肆意增长所埋葬的社会。因为在你们的时代，我们有机会不仅迈向富裕的社会和强大的社会，更要向上攀登至伟大社会。
The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. 伟大社会建立在人人富足与自由的基础之上。它要求终结贫困与种族不公——这是我们这个时代矢志不渝的承诺。但这仅仅是开始。
The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. 伟大社会是这样一个地方：每个孩子都能获得知识，充实心智，施展才华。在这里，闲暇是建设与思考的良机，而非令人恐惧的烦闷与不安之源。
It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods. 在这里，人类之城不仅满足身体的需要和商业的需求，更满足对美的渴望和对社群的向往。在这里，人们能够重归自然。在这里，创造因其本身的价值及对人类理解的贡献而受到尊崇。在这里，人们更关心目标的品质，而非物品的数量。
But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor. 而最重要的是，伟大社会并非一个安全的港湾、一个歇息的处所、一个最终的目标或一件完成的作品。它是一项不断更新的挑战，召唤我们迈向这样一种命运——在那里，生命的意义与我们劳动的奇迹产物相称。
So I want to talk to you today about three places where we begin to build the Great Society -- in our cities, in our countryside, and in our classrooms. 因此，今天我想和大家谈谈我们开始建设伟大社会的三个地方——我们的城市、我们的乡村，以及我们的课堂。
Many of you will live to see the day, perhaps 50 years from now, when there will be 400 million Americans -- four-fifths of them in urban areas. In the remainder of this century urban population will double, city land will double, and we will have to build homes and highways and facilities equal to all those built since this country was first settled. So in the next 40 years we must re-build the entire urban United States. 你们中许多人将亲眼看到那一天——或许五十年后——美国人口将达到四亿，其中五分之四居住在城市。在本世纪剩余的时间里，城市人口将翻倍，城市用地将翻倍，我们必须建造的住房、公路和设施，将相当于自这个国家建立以来所建造的全部总和。因此，在未来四十年里，我们必须重建整个美国的城市。
Aristotle said: "Men come together in cities in order to live, but they remain together in order to live the good life." It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today. 亚里士多德说过："人们为了生存而聚居在城市，但为了美好生活而留在城市。"今天，在美国的城市里过上美好生活变得越来越难。
The catalog of ills is long: there is the decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. Open land is vanishing and old landmarks are violated. 弊病的清单很长：市中心衰败，郊区遭破坏。人民住房不足，交通运力匮乏。开放土地正在消失，历史地标遭受侵害。
Worst of all expansion is eroding these precious and time honored values of community with neighbors and communion with nature. The loss of these values breeds loneliness and boredom and indifference. 最糟糕的是，无节制的扩张正在侵蚀邻里社群与亲近自然这些珍贵而悠久的价值观。这些价值观的丧失滋生了孤独、厌倦和冷漠。
And our society will never be great until our cities are great. Today the frontier of imagination and innovation is inside those cities and not beyond their borders. New experiments are already going on. 我们的城市不伟大，我们的社会就永远不会伟大。今天，想象力与创新的前沿就在这些城市内部，而非在其边界之外。新的实验已经在进行。
It will be the task of your generation to make the American city a place where future generations will come, not only to live, but to live the good life. And I understand that if I stayed here tonight I would see that Michigan students are really doing their best to live the good life. 让美国城市成为子孙后代不仅前来居住、更前来追求美好生活的地方，将是你们这一代人的使命。我明白，如果今晚我留在这里，就会看到密歇根学生确实在尽最大努力"过上美好生活"。
This is the place where the Peace Corps was started. 这里正是和平队的诞生之地。
It is inspiring to see how all of you, while you are in this country, are trying so hard to live at the level of the people. 看到你们所有人——当你们身处这个国家时——都在如此努力地与人民同甘共苦，这令人振奋。
A second place where we begin to build the Great Society is in our countryside. We have always prided ourselves on being not only America the strong and America the free, but America the beautiful. Today that beauty is in danger. The water we drink, the food we eat, the very air that we breathe, are threatened with pollution. Our parks are overcrowded, our seashores overburdened. Green fields and dense forests are disappearing. 我们开始建设伟大社会的第二个地方是乡村。我们一向引以为豪的是：我们不仅是强大的美国、自由的美国，更是美丽的美国。今天，这份美丽正面临危险。我们饮用的水、食用的食物、呼吸的空气，都面临污染的威胁。公园人满为患，海岸不堪重负。绿野与密林正在消失。
A few years ago we were greatly concerned about the "Ugly American." Today we must act to prevent an ugly America. 几年前，我们深为"丑陋的美国人"忧心忡忡。今天，我们必须采取行动，防止一个丑陋的美国。
For once the battle is lost, once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted. 因为一旦这场战役失败，一旦我们的自然壮丽被摧毁，就永远无法复得。而一旦人类再也无法与美同行、再也无法对自然心生敬畏，他的精神就会枯萎，他的生命力就会被浪费。
A third place to build the Great Society is in the classrooms of America. There your children's lives will be shaped. Our society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and imagination. We are still far from that goal. 建设伟大社会的第三个地方是美国的课堂。你们孩子的人生将在那里被塑造。直到每一颗年轻的心灵都被释放，去探索思想与想象的最远边界，我们的社会才算伟大。我们距离这一目标仍很遥远。
Today, 8 million adult Americans, more than the entire population of Michigan, have not finished 5 years of school. Nearly 20 million have not finished 8 years of school. Nearly 54 million -- more than one quarter of all America -- have not even finished high school. 今天，有八百万美国成年人——比密歇根州的全部人口还多——连五年级都未读完。近两千万人未读完八年级。近五千四百万人——超过全美人口的四分之一——甚至连高中都未毕业。
Each year more than 100,000 high school graduates, with proved ability, do not enter college because they cannot afford it. And if we cannot educate today's youth, what will we do in 1970 when elementary school enrollment will be 5 million greater than 1960? And high school enrollment will rise by 5 million. And college enrollment will increase by more than 3 million. 每年有十多万名能力已获证实的高中毕业生因负担不起费用而未能进入大学。如果我们连今天的青年都教育不了，那么到1970年，当小学入学人数比1960年多出五百万、高中入学人数增加五百万、大学入学人数增加三百多万时，我们该怎么办？
In many places, classrooms are overcrowded and curricula are outdated. Most of our qualified teachers are underpaid and many of our paid teachers are unqualified. So we must give every child a place to sit and a teacher to learn from. Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty. 在许多地方，教室拥挤不堪，课程过时落伍。大多数合格教师薪资过低，而许多在岗教师并不合格。因此，我们必须让每个孩子有座位可坐，有老师可从。贫困绝不能成为学习的障碍，而学习必须为贫困提供出路。
But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows in size. This means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy their hours of leisure as well as their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation. 但更多的教室和更多的教师还不够。我们必须寻求一种在规模扩大的同时品质也随之提升的教育体系。这意味着要为教师提供更好的培训。这意味着要让青年学会享受闲暇时光，如同享受劳动时光一样。这意味着要探索新的教学技术，寻找激发热爱学习和创造能力的新方法。
These are three of the central issues of the Great Society. While our Government has many programs directed at those issues, I do not pretend that we have the full answer to those problems. But I do promise this: We are going to assemble the best thought and the broadest knowledge from all over the world to find those answers for America. 这些是伟大社会的三个核心议题。虽然我们的政府已有许多针对这些问题的方案，但我并不佯称我们已掌握这些问题的全部答案。但我确有此承诺：我们将汇聚来自全世界的最优思想与最广博知识，为美国找到那些答案。
I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of White House conferences and meetings -- on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other emerging challenges. And from these meetings and from this inspiration and from these studies we will begin to set our course toward the Great Society. 我打算设立工作组，筹备一系列白宫会议和座谈会——议题涵盖城市、自然之美、教育质量，以及其他正在浮现的挑战。从这些会议中，从这份灵感中，从这些研究中，我们将开始设定通往伟大社会的航向。
The solution to these problems does not rest on a massive program in Washington, nor can it rely solely on the strained resources of local authority. They require us to create new concepts of cooperation, a creative federalism, between the National Capital and the leaders of local communities. 这些问题的解决之道，既不在于华盛顿的庞大计划，也不能仅靠地方政府捉襟见肘的资源。它们要求我们在国家首都与地方社区领袖之间，建立新的合作理念——一种创造性的联邦主义。
Woodrow Wilson once wrote: "Every man sent out from his university should be a man of his Nation as well as a man of his time." 伍德罗·威尔逊曾写道："每一位从大学走出的人，都应当既是他时代的人，也是他国家的人。"
Within your lifetime powerful forces, already loosed, will take us toward a way of life beyond the realm of our experience, almost beyond the bounds of our imagination. 在你们的有生之年，已然释放的强大力量将把我们带向一种超乎既有经验、几近超乎想象边界的生活方式。
For better or for worse, your generation has been appointed by history to deal with those problems and to lead America toward a new age. You have the chance never before afforded to any people in any age. You can help build a society where the demands of morality, and the needs of the spirit, can be realized in the life of the Nation. 无论好坏，你们这一代人已被历史委任来处理这些问题，带领美国迈向一个新时代。你们拥有的机遇，是任何时代的任何民族都未曾拥有的。你们可以帮助建设这样一个社会——在那里，道德的要求与精神的需求，都能在国家生活中得以实现。
So, will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires, whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin? 那么，你们是否愿意加入这场战斗，让每一位公民——不论其信仰、种族或肤色——都享有上帝所命、法律所要求的完全平等？
Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty? 你们是否愿意加入这场战斗，让每一位公民都能摆脱贫困的沉重枷锁？
Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace -- as neighbors and not as mortal enemies? 你们是否愿意加入这场战斗，让所有国家都能在持久和平中共处——如同邻里而非死敌？
Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit? 你们是否愿意加入这场战斗，来建设伟大社会，证明我们的物质进步仅仅是基石，我们将在其上构建更富足的心智与精神生活？
There are those timid souls that say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth. I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will and your labor and your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society. 有一些怯懦的灵魂说，这场战斗无法取胜；说我们注定只能拥有一种没有灵魂的财富。我不同意。我们有能力塑造我们想要的文明。但如果我们要建设那样的社会，就需要你们的意志、你们的劳动和你们的心血。
Those who came to this land sought to build more than just a new country. They sought a new world. So I have come here today to your campus to say that you can make their vision our reality. So let us from this moment begin our work so that in the future men will look back and say: It was then, after a long and weary way, that man turned the exploits of his genius to the full enrichment of his life. 来到这片土地的先辈们，所追求的不仅仅是一个新国家。他们追寻的是一个新世界。因此，今天我来到你们的校园，就是要说：你们能够让他们的愿景成为我们的现实。让我们从此刻开始行动吧，这样未来的人们回望时会说：正是在那时，在漫长而疲惫的道路之后，人类将其天才的成就，完全倾注于生命的丰盈之中。
Thank you. Good-bye. 谢谢大家。再见。
