以下内容选自“杨凡英语学习丛书-拓展写作思路”

This materialistic outlook has seriously influenced education.
这种物欲观严重地影响到我们的教育。

Fewer and fewer young people these days acquire knowledge only for its own sake. Every course of studies must lead somewhere: i.e. o a higher wage packet.
仅仅为了知识本身而去获取知识的人已经越来越少了。每一门课程都必须有所回报：即将来能拿到更高的薪水。

The demand for skilled personnel far exceeds the supply and big companies compete with each other to recruit students before they have completed their studies. Tempting salaries and ‘fringe benefits’ are offered to them. Recruiting tactics of this kind have led to the ‘brain drain’, the process by which highly skilled people offer their services to the highest bidder. The wealthier nations deprive their poorer neighbors of their most able citizens.
技术人员供不应求，以至大公司竞相招募未完成学业的学生，向他们提供诱人的薪水和福利待遇。这种招聘策略导致人才流失，因为在招募过程中高技术人才都去出价最高的公司工作了。比较富裕的国家则把他们邻国最能干的公民挖走。

Whiles Mammon is worshipped as never before, the rich get richer and the poor, poorer.
当财神比以往任何时候都更受崇拜的时候，穷者愈穷，富者愈富。

Some count the material a pursuit worth devoting their lives to. In their eyes, the art of living means holding fast to as enormous fortune as possible and then passing away in vast wealth as a proof of his worth. By their standard, therefore, the greatness of a person can be only ranked according to how much wealth he has accumulated before his death.
有人认为物质是值得他们献出生命的追求。在他们看来，生活的艺术就是抓住尽可能多的财富，尔后在作为证明其身价的财富中谢世。依照他们的标准，一个人的伟大只能根据其生前所积攒财富的多少去排定座次。

 “The value of human life consists in its constant charm of endless pursuit”, once a motto of some great minds, is now being echoed by more and more working people. But this echo ceases to continue when it comes to what to pursue in life.
“人类生命的价值在于其不断追求的恒定魅力”，这曾是一些大思想家的座右铭，现正在被越来越多的劳动者所共识。然而，当论及生活中要追求什么时，这一共识就不复存在了。

But others contend that the spiritual rather than the material is the only lofty ideal they are born to follow. In their minds, it is bad taste to waste one’s life amassing objects that will only turn to dung and dirt, while, on the other hand, it is of enduring worth to pursue the spiritual that distinguish man from animals. So in the light of their principles, one’s pursuit of an ideal should be so persistent that it is in vain to make him live the life of the mortal.
另一些人认为他们生来追求的崇高理想是精神而不是物质。在他们的心里，浪费一生的时光去积聚终将变为粪土的东西是一种低级趣味，而追求使人类有别于动物的精神财富才具有永恒的价值。故此，按照他们的准则，一个人对理想的追求应坚持不懈，直至使其不食人间烟火。

I can give my consent to neither of the extreme opinions, for I believe that the material is the basis for the spiritual whereas the pursuit of the latter invests that of the former with noble meaning.
我对两种偏激的观点都不赞同，因为我坚持：物质是精神的基础但精神追求又使物质追求变得高尚。

In other words, the spiritual wealth is exploited on the basis of the material wealth, and the latter, in turn, is revalued upward under the guidance of the former.
换句话讲，精神财富的挖掘基于物质财富，而物质财富的升华又受益于精神财富的指导。

Any undue emphasis on either of the two will do a disastrous threat to a society.
任何对两者之一的片面性强调，都将给社会造成灾难性的威胁。

As countless facts have proved, the progress of society results from the interaction of both.
正如无数事实所证实的那样，社会的进步来自于物质与精神的相互作用。