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In 1935, for example, when my mother and her sister were four, a historian named William M. MacMillan came to visit Jamaica.
例如，在1935年，我的母亲和她的妹妹才4岁时，一个名叫威廉姆·麦克米兰的历史学家访问牙买加，
He was a professor at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
他是南非约翰内斯堡威特沃特斯兰德大学的教授。
MacMillan was a man before his time:
麦克米兰是一个超越他所在时代的男人：
he was deeply concerned with the social problems of South Africa's black population, and he came to the Caribbean to make the same argument he had made back home in South Africa.
他深切地关心南非黑人的社会问题，并且到加勒比海发表了曾在南非发表过的言论。
Chief among MacMillan's concerns was Jamaica's educational system.
麦克米兰最关心牙买加的教育系统。
Formal schooling— if you could call what went on in the wooden barn next door to my grandparent's house "formal schooling" —went only to fourteen years of age.
当时，牙买加正式的学校教育——如果你把我外祖父家旁边的木屋子称做“正式的学校教育”的话——仅仅开展14年。
Jamaica had no public high schools or universities.
牙买加没有公立高中或者大学，
Those with academic inclinations took extra classes with the head teacher in their teenage years and with luck made it into teachers' college.
那些有学习天分的10来岁孩子只能和班主任一起参加一些其它的课程，如果幸运的话，还可能成为师范学校的一员。
Those with broader ambitions had to somehow find their way into a private school and from there to a university in the United States or England.
另一些更有雄心的人则会想尽办法进入私立学校并从那里踏入美国或英国的大学。
But scholarships were few and far between, and the cost of private schooling prohibitive for all but privileged few.
但是奖学金非常少并且差距极大，除了对一少部分享有特权的人来说，私立学校的花费也高得让人却步。
The "bridge from the primary schools" to high school, MacMillan later wrote,
麦克米兰后来在《来自西印度群岛的警告》一文中，以一种非常严厉的批评语气写道：
in a blistering critique of England's treatment of its colonies entitled Warning from the West Indies, "is narrow and insecure."
“从小学到中学的桥梁，非常狭窄且不可靠，”
The school system did nothing for the "humblest" classes.
正规学校教育什么都没有为下等人做。
He went on: "If anything these schools are a factor deepening and sharpening social distinctions."
他继续写道：“不管怎样，这样的学校说得上是加深和加剧社会等级分化的重要因素。”
If the government did not give its people opportunities, he warned, there would be trouble.
如果政府不能给人民所应该得到的机会，就会有更多麻烦产生。
