機械迷亨利·福特中英文

　　MACHINE MAD — HENRY FORD

　　Growing up on a remote Michigan farm. Henry Ford knew little of all this — but he soon showed signs that he belonged to a new generation of Americans interested more in the industrial future than in the agricultural past. Like most pioneer farmers, his father, William, hoped that his eldest son would join him on the farm，enable it to expand, and eventually take it over. But Henry proved a disappointment. He hated farm work and did everything he could to avoid it . It was not that he was lazy. Far from it. Give him a mechanical job to do， from mending the hinges of a gate to sharpening tools, and he would set to work eagerly. It was the daily life of the farm, with its repetitive tasks, that frustrated him. “What a waste it is,” he was to write years later, remembering his work in the fields, “for a human being to spend hours and days behind a slowly moving team of houses.

　　Henry was excited by the possibilities for the future that were being opened up by developments in technology that could free farmers like his father from wasteful and boring toil. But these developments, in Henry’s boyhood, had touched farming hardly at all and farmers went on doing things in the way they had always done. Low profits, the uncertainties of the weather, and farmers’ instinctive resistance to change prevented all but the richest and most far-sighted farmers from taking advantage of the new age of machines.

　　So Henry turned his attention elsewhere. When he was twelve he became almost obsessively interested in clocks and watches. Like most children before and since, he became fascinated by peering into the workings of a timepiece and watching the movement of ratchets and wheels, springs and pendulums. Soon he was repairing clocks and watches for friends, working at a bench he built in his bedroom.

　　In 1876, Henry suffered a grievous blow. Mary died in childbirth. There was now no reason for him to stay on the farm， and he resolved to get away as soon as he could. Three years later, he took a job as a mechanic in Detroit. By this time steam engines had joined clocks and watches as objects of Henry’s fascination.

　　According to an account given by Henry himself, he first saw a steam-driven road locomotive one day in 1877 when he and his father, in their horse-drawn farm wagon, met one on the road. The locomotive driver stopped to let the wagon pass, and Henry jumped down and went to him with a barrage of technical questions about the engine’s performance. From then on, for a while, Henry became infatuated with steam engines. Making and installing them was the business of the Detroit workshop that he joined at the age of sixteen.

　　A chance meeting with an old co-worker led to a job for Henry as an engineer at the Edison Detroit Electricity Company, the leading force in another new industry. Power stations were being built and cables being laid in all of the United States’ major cities; the age of electricity had dawned. But although Henry quickly learned the ropes of his new job— so quickly that within four years he was chief engineer at the Detroit power plant — his interest in fuel engines had come to dominate his life. At first in the kitchen of his and Clara’s home, and later in a shed at the back of their house, he spent his spare time in the evenings trying to build an engine to his own design.

　　Meanwhile, Henry’s domestic responsibilities had increased. In November 1893, Clara gave birth to their first and only child, Edsel.

　　Henry learned the hard way what a slow, painstaking business it was to build an engine by hand from scratch. Every piece of every component had to be fashioned individually, checked and rechecked, and tested. Every problem had to be worried over and solved by the builder. To ease the burden, Henry joined forces with another mechanic, Jim Bishop, Even so, it was two years before they had succeeded in building a working car. It was an ungainly-looking vehicle, mounted on bicycle wheels and driven by a rubber belt that connected the engine to the rear wheels. Henry called it the “Quadricycle”.

　　機械迷——亨利·福特

　　亨利·福特雖然生長在偏遠的密執安農場，但他對農事知之甚少——他很早便顯露出新一代美國人的特點，比起農業的過去來，他們對工業的未來更感興趣。他的父親威廉姆，如同大多數早期的農場主一樣，希望長子能隨他務農，擴展農場并繼承他的衣缽。而亨利令他感到失望。他厭惡農活并想方設法予以逃避。這并不是說他懶惰。絕對不是。倘若讓他干點兒機械活，從修門的合葉到磨農具，他都干勁。使他感到沮喪的是農場的日常生活和單調重復和勞動。后來他在回憶他的這段農莊生活時寫道：“一個人整天跟在一群慢騰騰的馬后，這是多么大的浪費呀。”

　　亨利對技術發展可能開創的未來興奮不已，這能使像他父親一樣的農夫從費時和枯燥的辛勞中解脫出來。但在亨利的童年，這些發展幾乎根本觸及不到農業，而農民們一直延續著由來已久的務農方式。收益低、變化無常的天氣和農民們對改變現狀的本能抵制都妨礙農民們（早富有和最有遠見者除外）充分利用新型機械。

　　因此亨利將注意力專向其它方面。當他十二歲時就對鐘表異常著迷。與在此前后的大多數孩子一樣，他癡迷于探查計時器的工作方式及觀察棘輪、車輪、彈簧和鐘擺的運動。不久他就能在臥室里自己做的長凳上給朋友們修理鐘表了。

　　1876年，亨利遭受到一次痛苦的打擊。瑪麗在分娩時死去。他再也沒有理由呆在農場了，隨即人決定盡快遠走他鄉。三年后，他在底特律得到一份機械師的工作。此時蒸汽發動機已成為繼鐘表后亨利的又一癡迷物。

　　據亨利自己所說，他第一次見到蒸汽驅動的機車是在1877年的一天，他和父親坐在農用馬車上。機車司機停下給他們讓路，亨利跳下車過去問了一連串有關發動機性能的問題。從那天起，又過了一段時間，亨利便開始對蒸汽發動機如癡如醉。當他十六歲在底特律的工作間做事時，制造和安裝發動機就成了他的工作。

　　由于一次偶然的機會，亨利遇到了一位原來的同事，這得以使他在愛迪生底特律電力公司謀到一份工程師的工作，該公司屬另一新興行業的中堅。在美國的主要城市，都在興建電廠，鋪設纜線；電氣時代業已到來。但盡管亨利很快就學會了新工作中的各種技能，使得他不出四年他便成為底特律電廠的總工程師，然而他對燃油發動機的興趣在其生活中占據著主要地位。先是在他與克拉拉家中的廚房里，而后在他們房后的一間工作棚里，他用晚上的業余時間試圖制造出一臺自行設計的發動機。

　　與此同時，亨利的家庭責任也日趨繁重起來。1893年11月，克拉拉生了他們唯一的孩子艾德賽。

　　亨利懂得了靠手工白手起家地制造發動機是一項緩慢、辛苦、困難重重的工作。每種部件的每個部分都要分別制作、檢查及調試。制造者要操心和解決每個問題。為了減輕負擔，亨利與另一位機械師吉姆·畢曉普一起分工合作。即便如此，他們也是花了兩年的時間才造出一輛工作車。這輛車樣子笨拙，架在自行車輪子上并靠一根膠皮帶將發動機與后車輪相連。亨利戲稱它為“四輪驅動腳踏車。”

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