One thing I have found out is that how smart or how educated a person is has nothing to do with how many years he spent in school. I have seen plenty of people who graduated from college who don't have the sense God gave a turkey - in other words, they were educated beyond their intelligence - and plenty who stopped even before they graduated from high school who have done an excellent job of educating themselves.

I suppose the necessary quality would be motivation. I'm not sure how anybody would make it through four years of college and still be as, . . .um, unknowing as the day they entered. Or twelve years of high school for that matter. We provide twelve free years of education, or I should say thirteen since kindergarten is now included in most states. I guess we'll always have someone blaming the teachers if a child comes out not knowing how to read.

Let me get off my soapbox and continue with the purpose of this piece, which is to let you know that there are some shortcuts for people who would like to be a little more educated than they are. Lots of people dropped out of school for this reason or that, and now wish they could go back and redeem their learning, but feel like they have too big of a mountain to climb.

As an educator, I can tell you that you do not have to go back and learn every single item that you should have learned in school. In fact, the vast majority of people don't remember most of that information. There are certain things that help a person have an aura of being more learned, and here I have tried to distill this down to its very essence.

1. Build your vocabulary.It may not be fair, but most people judge how educated a person is by the words they use. A Roget's Thesaurus will do the trick, as will any number of vocabulary building books. Also, cut out the curse words. A person with a great store of words to use does not need to rely on vulgar language as a crutch.

Learning a great variety of words will give you more of a store to draw from. People who read a lot tend to have wider vocabularies than those who do not, which is probably how the idea got started that more intellectual you are, the more words you will know.

2. Read out loud from a book.This sounded silly to me when I first heard it. A friend said that he was trying to get some of the "country" out of how he talked and somebody had told him to try this. Oddly enough, it worked. You don't have to come out sounding like a national news anchor, just do it enough to get to where you want to be.

3. Invest in a book of quotations.Find a Bartlett's Familiar Quotations or some similar book. Just read over it. You'll be surprised to find that a lot of familiar sayings came from one of three sources: the Bible, Shakespeare, or Poor Richard's Almanac by Ben Franklin. Just being familiar with all the old saws of the English Language and where they came from will give you a smug feeling. Most people don't know this information.

4. Get one book with a synopsis of each of Shakespeare's plays.I had to take a Shakespeare class in college. Fortunately, I had one of these books that I happened to have picked up. I didn't have time to read the entire plays as they were assigned, so I read the synopsis. This gets the job done! Get familiar with the characters as well as the events. A lot of cultural references are based on Shakespeare.

5. Ditto with the Bible.Even if you don't believe the Bible, it doesn't hurt to be acquainted with the stories in it.

6. Get a GED book and work through it.The GED tends to be looked down on as a secondary, or "Good Enough Diploma." As a GED teacher, I can tell you that if you know enough to pass the GED, you have an education.

7. Read Cliff's Notes or MasterPlots.Get familiar with the characters and plots of most of the major works of literature.

8. Keep up with current events.Read the newspaper. Read the national news. Read all the national news magazines. You can go to the library and do this, they usually will have subscriptions to the major newspapers and magazines. Even though most magazines have a slant, usually liberal, this will teach you to read with an open mind. Take the information that you can use and discard the rest.

9. Know the history of your area.This is history come to life. Knowing about where you live is the very least you should know.

10. Show some curiosity.The more questions you ask, the more you wind up knowing. It's a fact that the smarter a person is, the more he realizes he doesn't know, and therefore asks questions.

You have made a good start by reading my enlightening piece. You're a little smarter already! Now get going, go learn some stuff.

我发现一个人多聪明多有教养跟他在学校呆了多少年没有任何关系。我见过许多大学毕业生连上帝赋予驴子的判断力都不具备（换句话说他们所受的教育超越了他们的智力），而还有不少连高中都没毕业的人却把自己教育得很棒。

我想动机是一个必要的品质。我不知道一个人怎么能读了四年大学毕业的时候还和入学时一样，呃，无知。中学里的十二年也白读。我们提供十二年的义务教育，也许我该说十三年，因为现在大多数州把幼儿园也包括在内了。我猜一个孩子从学校出来不会阅读总会有人指责他的老师们。

下面让我言归正传，谈谈本文的写作目的，那就是告诉你要变得更有修养的捷径。许多人过去因为这样或那样的原因辍学，现在希望自己能回到校园继续他们的学业，但却发现难于登天。

作为一个教育者，我想告诉你，你不必回到学校去一一学习你本该学的东西。事实上大多数人出了校门就把那些东西忘了个精光。要想让自己显得有学问其实是有办法的。在此我想尽可能把这些办法的精髓提取出来：

1.建立起你的词汇

这么说也许不公平，但是大多数人判断一个人有没有教养是看他说话所用的词汇的。一本罗热辞典或者其它词汇书就可以帮你做到这一点。此外，你还得去掉脏话。一个具备丰富词汇的人是不需要粗俗的语言来帮忙的。

学习各种各样的单词可以让你说话时有更多的选择。 多读书的人比不读书的人词汇范围要广很多。你越有学识你的词汇量就越大，这也许就是思想的源头吧。

2. 大声朗读

我第一次听说这个观点的时候也觉得很荒谬。一位朋友说他想去掉他说话时透出来的“土气”，别人让他试试这么做。奇怪的是，这么做真的有效。你不必像个国家级的新闻主持人那样朗读，适可而止就可以了。

3. 买一本名人名言选集.

找一本《巴特雷氏常见名言录》或类似的书来通读一遍。你会发现许多常见的谚语的出处无外乎是：《圣经》，《莎士比亚全集》或是本.富兰克林的《穷查理年鉴》。只消了解一下这些谚语和它们的出处就能让你洋洋得意起来。大多数人是不知道这些的。

4. 找一本介绍莎士比亚所有剧本大纲的书

有一次我要在大学里教一个学习莎士比亚的班级。碰巧手头上就有这样一本书。我没有时间按要求全文阅读这些剧本，所以我只读大纲。于是问题就解决了。熟悉里面的人物和时间就可以了。许多文化参考都是以莎士比亚为基础的。

5. 《圣经》也如法炮制

即使你不信圣经也不妨熟悉一下里面的故事。

6. 找一本GED书来认真地读

人们常常瞧不起GED文凭觉得它是次等的或者觉得它不够好。作为一名GED教师，我想说的是如果你具备通过GED考试的学识，那你就是个有文化的人了。

7. 读一读《克利夫笔记》或者MasterPlots.

熟悉主要文学作品里的人物和情节。

8. 了解时事读报纸，读新闻，阅读所有的国家报纸和杂志。你可以去图书馆，哪里通常订有主要的报纸和杂志。尽管大多数杂志都有所倾向，通常是自由主义倾向，但这也可以教会你以开明的态度去阅读。 只吸取对你有用的部分，抛弃其余的信息。

9. 了解你所在地区的历史

这是生活中的历史。你至少得了解你生活的地方。

10. 表现出一点好奇心

你问的问题越多最终懂的也越多。事实是一个人越聪明就越能意识到自己的无知，于是提出问题来。

读完我这篇的启蒙文章你就有了一个好的开始。你已经变得聪明一些了。现在开始吧，去学点东西。