工业革命前的英国

工业革命前的英国 England Before the Industrial Revolution

1．在农村，人们从早到晚都得干活，劳动者并不是沐浴在阳光下，而是生活在贫困和黑暗之中。

The country was a place where men worked from dawn to dark, and the labourer lived not in the sun, but in poverty and darkness .

2．那些帮助减轻劳动的机械都不知从哪个时代就有了,比如磨坊，在乔叟的时代就已经是古老的了.

What aids there were to lighten labour were immemorial , like the mill, which was already ancient in Chaucer’s time .

3．而工业革命就是从这些机械开始的，修造磨坊的匠人就是开创新时代的工程师。

The Industrial Revolution began with such machines ; the millwrights were the engineers of the coming age .

4．斯坦福郡的詹姆斯·布林德雷，出身于贫苦的农村家庭;一七三三年，他十七岁，就招收改良磨坊的车轮，从而开始

了他那自我奋斗的生涯。

James Brindley of Staffordshire started his self-made career in 1733 by working at mill wheels , at the age of

seventeen ,having been born poor in a village .

5．布林德雷所做的改良是很实际的：改良并加强水车的实际功能。这是为新工业提供的第一部多功能机器。

Brindley’s improvements were practical : to sharpen and step up the performance of the water wheel as a machine . It was

the first multi-purpose machine for the new industries . Brindley worked ,

6．例如，布林德雷努力的改良燧石的碾磨过程，燧石是新兴的陶瓷工业有用的材料。

For example , to improve the grinding of flints , which were used in the rising pottery industry .

7．然而，到了一七五0年，一场更大的运动已经在酝酿之中。

Yet there was a bigger movement in the air by 1750 .

8．水成了工程师们大显身手的对象，想布林德雷这样的人对它都着了迷。

Water had become the engineers’ element , and men like Brindley were possessed by it .

9．水在农村到处涌流漫溢。

Water was gushing and fanning out all over the countryside .

10．它不仅是一种能源，而且带来了一场新的运动。

It was not simply a source of power , it was a new wave of movement .

11．布林德雷是运河的先驱者，当时人们把开凿运河叫做navigation.

James Brindley was a pioneer in the art of building canals or ,as it was then called , ‘navigation’.

12．布林德雷在为他的磨坊和矿井建筑工程到处奔走的时候，出于自愿和兴趣，对沿途经过的河道进行了勘察。

Brindley had begun on his own account ,out of interest , to survey the waterways that he travelled as he went about his

engineering projects for mills and mines .

13．于是布里奇瓦特公爵就让他开一条运河，以便把煤从公爵在乌斯利拥有的矿井运往新兴城市曼彻斯特……

The Duke of Bridgewater then got him to build a canal to carry coal from the Duke’ pits at Worsley to the rising town of

Manchester……

14．布林德雷还更加大胆第用运河把曼彻斯特同利物浦联结起来，修凿了总长度为四百英里的遍布全英国的运河网。 Brindley went on to connect Manchester with Liverpool in an even bolder manner ,and in all laid out almost four hundred

miles of canals in a network all over England .

15．在修建英国运河网的过程中，有两点是非常突出的，而这两点也正是整个工业革命的特点。

Two things are outstanding in the creation of the English system of canals , and they characterise all the Industrial

Revolution .

16．首先法中这场革命的都是些实干家。同布林德雷一样，他们都一般都没有受过什么教育。

One is that the men who made the revolution were practical men . Like Brindley , they often had little education .

17．事实上，当时那种学校教育也只能窒息人的创造性。

and in fact school education as it then was could only dull an inventive mind

18．按规定文法学校只能讲授古典学科，这些学校的办学宗旨本开就是如此。

The grammar schools legally could only teach the classical subjects for which they had been founded .

19．大学（当时只有两所，一所牛津，一所剑桥）对现代的或科学的学科也不怎么感兴趣；这两所学校还把

不信奉英国国教的人关在门外。

The universities also (there were only two , at Oxford and Cambridge ) took little interest in modern or scientific

studies ;and they were closed to those who did not conform to the Church of England .

20．第二个突出的特点是：新发明都是为日常生活服务的。运河是交通的动脉，开运河不是为了走游艇，而是为了通

行驳船。

The other outstanding feature is that the new inventions were for everyday use .The canals were arteries of

communication : They were not made to carry pleasure boats ,but barges .

21．而驳船也不是为了运送奢侈品，而是为了运送瓦罐铁锅、成包的棉布、成箱的缎带，以及那些只花了个把便士便

能买到的各式日用品。

And the barges were not made to carry luxuries ,but pots and pans and bales of cloth ,boxes of ribbon , and all the

common things that people buy by the pennyworth .

22．这些物品都是在远离伦敦渐渐发展成为城镇的农村制造的。这是一场全国范围的贸易。

These things had been manufactured in villages which were growing into towns now , away from London ;it was a

country-wide trade .