The Ivy League Schools: Excellence in Education

The first permanent English settlement in the New World was at Plymouth Bay in what is now the state of Massachusetts in 1620. Merely 16 years later, a group of successful settlers in New Town (renamed Cambridge after their alma mater) started a college. They named it after the Puritan minister who willed half his estate and all his books to the college. This clergyman's name was John Harvard, and his namesake remains the most prestigious among the more than 2,000 institutes of higher education in the United States today.
　　Harvard is not the only great school in the U.S., of course. A small industry has grown up around the ranking of the best tertiary schools, and year after year, seven schools dominate most of these Top Twenty or Top Fifty lists. Harvard is nearly always at or close to the top, joined frequently by Yale (in Connecticut), Princeton (in New Jersey), Dartmouth (in New Hampshire), Cornell (in New York State), Columbia (in New York City), the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown (in Rhode Island). These eight private universities are collectively referred to as the Ivy League schools.
　　Why the name? Ivy is a vine; that is, a plant which grows up or along the surface of other plants such as trees, or, in the human landscape, along the sides of stone buildings. As these eight universities are old (the youngest among them, Cornell, was founded in 1853), ivy has had plenty of time to decorate the outsides of the more historic buildings on these campuses. The word league, however, is more an invention of imagination than a reality. Though there is an association called the Ivy League, it refers to the above schools' participation in an American football athletic conference rather than to any academic alliance. Further, despite the lengthy academic lineage of these schools, the footballing Ivy League was not formally formed until 1956, though highly competitive football and other athletic games have been hotly contested among the schools for many generations.
　　Since these institutes of higher learning had such an early start in the history of the United States, it is not surprising that they should individually and collectively have exerted a great influence on American society. Their status within national scholarly circles is unparalleled. Admission to these universities is highly demanding: many students apply for every one lucky enough to be accepted. As these universities are private, they are relatively expensive. Offsetting the extremely high tuition are many opportunities for scholarships. These scholarships are awarded to meritorious students regardless of their backgrounds.
　　Additionally, the roster of the faculties of these schools reads like a Who's Who list of important Americans (and quite a few foreigners, as well). Their intellectual integrity shows in the number of Nobel and other major prizes awarded which they have garnered over the years. Some of the country's most famous doctors, statesmen, engineers, scientists, and educationists have studied and taught within these ivy-covered walls. No fewer than 14 U.S. presidents have earned degrees here, including six at Harvard, six at Yale, and two at Princeton.
　　Though only a select few can join the ranks as Ivy Leaguers each year, Americans are endowed with a world-class tertiary educational system second to none. Not every graduate from an Ivy League school "makes the grade" in life; even a first-rate education is no guarantee of success. Still, those who do enter and leave the Ivy League universities in the northeastern United States have a much better than average chance to join the ranks of the movers and shakers of not only the U.S. society, but, once back in their home countries, of their native lands as well.

　　英国人于1620年在新大陆建立的第一个永久殖民地是在普利茅斯湾，即今天的马萨诸塞州境内。在仅仅16年后，一群功成名就的移民在新城（后来依其母校改名为剑桥）创办了一所大学。他们以一位在遗嘱中将半数产业和所有书籍都捐给这所大学的清教徒牧师来为学校命名。这位神父的名字就叫约翰‧哈佛，一直到今天他的名声在美国两千多所高等教育学府当中仍是最有名望的。
　　当然，哈佛不是美国唯一的名校。多年来在这些执牛耳的高等学府周围兴起了一群小小的教育团体，而年复一年，前20或50大排名大都由7所学校所囊括。哈佛几乎总是排名第一或接近第一，经常一起上榜的前20或50大排名的学校尚有耶鲁大学（在康涅狄格州），普林斯顿大学（在新泽西州），达特默恩大学（在新罕布什尔州），康乃尔大学（在纽约州），哥伦比亚大学（在纽约市），宾州大学和布朗大学（在罗得岛）。这8所大学被总称为常春藤联盟学校。
　　为什么叫这个名字呢？常春藤是一种藤蔓，也就是一种往上或沿着树木等其它植物表面生长、或者在人工景观中沿着石造建筑物墙壁生长的植物。由于这8所大学都很古老（其中最年轻的康乃尔大学创立于1853年），常春藤有的是时间可以装饰这些校园里历史较悠久的建筑物外观。然而，“联盟”这个字比较像是想象出来的产物而不是事实。虽然有一个叫做“常春藤联盟”的组织，但那指的是上列名校所参加的一项美式足球会，而非任何学术上的结盟。况且，尽管这些学校的学术历史悠久，而且竞争激烈的美式足球和其它运动比赛在各校之间也已热烈展开了好几个世代，但是美式足球的常春藤联盟却一直到1956年才正式成立。
　　因为这些高等学府在美国历史上起步非常早，它们能个别或共同对美国社会发挥巨大的影响也就不足为奇。在国际学术圈内它们的地位崇高无比。这些学校对入学标准的要求很严格：许多学生申请了常春藤盟校每一所大学，被一所接受就算幸运了。由于这些大学都是私立的，学费因此相当昂贵。而许多领取奖学金的机会可以对极高的学费作些补偿。这些奖学金颁给成绩优异的学生，不论他们的背景为何。
　　除此之外，这些学校的教职员名册读起来就像一份美国名人录（也有不少外国人）。他们丰富的学识表现在多年来所获得的诺贝尔奖和其它大奖的数量上。许多美国最有名的医生、政治人物、工程师、科学家和教育家都曾在这些墙上爬满常春藤的校园内学习和执教。有不下14位美国总统在常春藤盟校中取得学位，其中6位在哈佛，6位在耶鲁，2位在普林斯顿大学。
　　虽然每年只有少数雀屏中选的人可以加入常春藤盟校成为其中一员，美国人仍拥有无人能比的世界级高等教育体系。并不是每一个常春藤盟校的毕业生都能在人生中“出人头地”，即使一流的学府也不能保证功成名就。尽管如此，那些能够进出美国东北部常春藤盟校的人，比一般人更有机会晋升为美国社会以及一旦回国后他们祖国社会上有权势的人物。