To Know or to Feel？
Guidance for Reciting
This paragraph can be used as a strong proof against the abnormal phenomenon in China that Chinese children are thrust upon too much learning pressure too early.
I sincerely believe that for the child，and for the parent seeking to guide him，it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom，then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused―a sense of the beautiful，the excitement of the new and the unknown，a feeling of sympathy，pity，admiration or love―then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found，it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.
Notes
1.pave the way（for sb/sth）为……铺平道路
2.assimilate [E5simileit] vt.使同化，吸收，使相似，把……比作
求知还是感知
诵读导言
当前中国的父母过早地让孩子们背上学习的重担，这段话足以告诫我们这种现象是不正常的。
我真诚地相信，对于儿童，以及对力求引导儿童的父母来说，感觉远比知识更为重要。如果说事实等于种子，以后会萌发知识和智慧，那么，激情以及感官得到的印象就等于肥沃的土壤，种子离开它无法生长。童年早期是准备土壤的时期。一旦唤起了种种感情――美感、对新鲜事物和未知事物的兴奋感、同情心、恻隐之心、钦羡之情、爱慕之心――那么，我们就希望获得引起感情反应的事物的知识。而这种知识一旦获得，就有深远的意义。为孩子的求知欲铺路，比像饮食似的规定孩子吞下他还吸收不了的事实更为重要。
注：雷切尔？卡森（Rachel Carson 1907―1964）是当代生态文学的创始人，美国生物学评论家、科学杂志撰稿人，也是整个生态思潮和环境运动的肇始者。她的著作《寂静的春天》促使全世界注意农药造成的环境污染问题。本段选自卡森专门写的一本小书《神奇的感觉》（The Sense of Wonder，1956），用以记叙她领着年幼的外甥在缅因的海边树林度过的无数快乐时光，论述自然的神奇感在儿童教育中的作用，论证她多次强调的道理：对于理解自然，“感觉”（sense或feel）比“认识”（know）更重要。如她所言：“只有最灵敏的耳朵，才听得见一只寄居蟹拖着它的壳屋，在水线上方沙滩上行走的声音；也才辨别得出一只小虾被鱼群追赶，匆忙上岸时抖落一身小水珠，在水面跌出的叮咚声。”