即使是哈佛大學出身的人，如果要他答覆每一個問題，也會錯誤百出。
從小時候開始，我就經常想到一件事，那就是一個人長大到某一階段後，就會達到一個非常完滿的時期，那時候：他知道了一切問題的答案，生活一定會舒適得多了，因為再也沒有疑慮，再也不會猶豫不決了。在任何場合，碰到任何事情，都知道該怎麼辦了。
這是我好多年以前的想法，現在這麼多年過去了我只真正學懂了一件事。那就是一切都肯定的時刻將永遠不會降臨人間。就在我不斷探索答案的那段時間裡，有幸得認識哈佛大學前任校長羅威爾博士，聽了他那些精彩而有意義的話，真比讀四年大學還來得有用。
例如有一次，他說：「即使是哈佛大學出身的人，如果要他答覆每一個問題，也會錯誤百出。」 她的結論是說，我們各有專長，一個人永不會對每一件事的每一答案都瞭如指掌的。
另外，他有一句愛說的有意義的話就是：「一個受過教育的人的特徵，是在他能夠在資料不充分的情況下，作出合理的推測。」
我們從羅威爾博士的觀點中可以得出怎麼樣的結論呢？簡易地說就是：當一個人面臨抉擇，往往無法把所有未經確定的事情都列進去。他無法確定他已經面面俱到。因此，他作決定的時候，就必需要推斷，這就需要教育來幫忙了。因為真正的教育超乎一般人認為的事實之上，也不僅止於上上課，聽聽訓誡和考考試而已。尚包含著經驗和信仰，智和勇的教育意義，而教育最大的意義是造就思想和行動的能力。具備了這些素質，才能把死的知識轉變成活的智慧，經由教育的幫助，使我們的『推測』 成為正確。
On Being Right
“There’s a Harvard man on the wrong side of every question.”
－A. LAWRENCE LOWELL
When I was a boy I used to think that somewhere out ahead lay magic moment when one would be grown up, and know all the answers. At that point life would be easy: no more doubts, no more uncertainties. In any given situation, one would always know exactly what to do.
Since then, many years have gone by, and the only thing I have really learned is that the moment of absolute certainty never comes.
Along the way, while looking for the answers, I had the treat of the late president of Harvard, A. Lawrence Lowell. Some of his salty sayings were better than a college degree.
Once, for example, he said: “There’s a Harvard man on the wrong side of every question.” It was his way of making the point that each of us is different and that no one can ever know ali that answers all the time.
Another of his favorite saying went this way: “The mark of an educated man is the ability to make a reasoned guess on the basis of insufficient information.”
What can we infer from Lowell’s observations? Simply this: that often, when a man is faced with a decision, it is impossible for him to fill in all the uncertainties. He cannot be sure he has every fact. And so, in deciding, he must guess. But this is precisely the point at which “education” comes in. For true education goes far beyond facts. It means more than classrooms and lectures and examinations. Education also means experience and faith, courage and understanding. Most of all it means the ability to think and act. These are the qualities which translate dead knowledge into living wisdom. They are what make our “guesses” turn out right.
－WILLIAM NICHOLS
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