Similarly, the pioneer of public education in Massachusetts, Horace Mann,

相似的是，马萨诸塞州的公共教育倡导者霍勒·斯曼相信，

believed that working students too hard would create a "most pernicious influence upon character and habits....Not infrequently is health itself destroyed by over-stimulating the mind."

让学生学得太辛苦可能会对他们的“性格和习惯产生有害影响，而过度刺激头脑也常会对健康造成伤害。”

In the education Journals of the day, there were constant worries about overtaxing students or blunting their natural abilities to too much schoolwork.

那个时期的教育期刊总是担心学生负担太重，认为这样会造成学生天性的泯灭。

The reformers, Gold writes, strove for ways to reduce time spent studying, because long periods of respite could save the mind from injury.

改革家戈德写道：要努力找到方法来减少花在学习上的时间，因为这样可以挽救受损的神经。

Hence the elimination of Saturday classes, the shortening of the school day, and the lengthening of vocation—all of which occurred over the course of the nineteenth century.

之后，周六不再上课，上课的天数减少了，假期增加了。所有这些措施都是在19世纪之后才有的。

Teachers were cautioned that "when students are required to study, their bodies should not be exhausted by long confinement, nor their minds bewildered by prolonged application."

“学生的身体不应该由于长期的限制而造成疲劳，所以当他们用脑时间过长时，教师就会被警告。”

Rest also presented particular opportunities for strengthening cognitive and analytical skill.

充足的休息时间让学生有更多机会去掌握认知和分析的技巧，

As one contributor to the Massachusetts Teacher suggested, "it is when thus relieved from the state of tension belonging to actual study that boys and girls, as well as men and women,

正如《马萨诸塞教师》的一位投稿人所建议的那样：“这个国家对成年及未成年学生实际学习的关心程度是令人放心的，

acquire the habit of thought and reflection, and of forming their own conclusions independently of what they are taught and the authority of others."

这就要求他们能对自己的结论有思考和借鉴的习惯，不能依赖于那些被灌输的观念或者其他的权威言论。

This idea-that effort must be balanced by rest-could not be more different from Asian notions about study and work, of course.

要努力做到劳逸结合的观念与亚洲那些有关学习和工作的观点大相径庭。

But then again, the Asian worldview was shaped by the rice paddy.

但是亚洲人的世界观是由黄种人形成的。

In the Pearl River Delta, the rice farmer planted two and sometimes three crops a year.The land was fallow only briefly.

在珠江三角洲地带，农民一年会种两到三批水稻，土地被闲置的时间很短。

In fact, one of the singular features of rice cultivation is that because of the nutrients carried by the water used in irrigation, the more a plot of land is cultivated, the more fertile it gets.

由于营养是从灌溉的水中获得，所以水稻耕作的特征之一就是：土地被耕作的次数越多，就会越肥沃。