雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第2章:下一個星期(2)

Alan posed a difficult problem. It was not in question that he must adapt to public school life. But what public school would cater best for a boy whose principal concern was to do experiments with muddy jam jars in the coal cellar? It was a contradiction in terms. As Mrs Turing saw it, 11

這件事情確實很棘手，艾倫必須得適應公學生活，否則哪個公學會喜歡一個整天用泥巴和果醬做實驗的學生？這是一個很嚴重的矛盾。圖靈夫人說：

Though he had been loved and understood in the narrower homely circle of his preparatory school, it was because I foresaw the possible difficulties for the staff and himself at a public school that I was at such pains to find the right one for him, lest if he failed in adaptation to public school life he might become a mere intellectual crank.

在小學時期，艾倫的生活圈子很小，大家能夠理解他，並且喜歡他。但是，如果他去了公學，肯定會遇到很多困難。爲了給他找個合適的學校，我真的煞費苦心，生怕他不能適應公學的生活，變成一個高智商低情商的怪物。

Her pains were not prolonged. She had a friend called Mrs Gervis, the wife of a science master at Sherborne School, a public school in Dorset. In spring 1926 Alan took the examination again, and was accepted by Sherborne.

但她的苦惱並沒持續很久。她有一位朋友，格維斯夫人，是舍爾伯尼公學一位教師的妻子。1926年春天，艾倫再次參加了考試，並進入舍爾伯尼。

Sherborne was one of the original English public schools, whose origins12 lay in the abbey which itself was one of the first sites of English Christianity and in a charter of 1550 establishing the school for local education. In 1869, however, Sherborne had fallen into line as a boarding school on Dr Arnold's model. After a period of low repute, it had revived in 1909 when a Nowell Smith was appointed headmaster. By 1926 Nowell Smith had doubled the roll from two hundred to four hundred, and had established Sherborne as a moderately distinguished public school.

舍爾伯尼是一所歷史悠久的英國公學，它最初是個修道院，1550年開始搞教育，到了1869年，徹底變成了學校。1909年，在一陣低迷期過後，諾威爾.史密斯擔任了校長，學校由此開始復興。到了1926年，諾威爾.史密斯已經使學生規模從200人增長到400人，把舍爾伯尼建成了比較卓越的公學。