① Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children: “We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.”
【核心词汇】
restraint n.约束，抑制
recitation n.背诵，朗诵
a bellyful of 一肚子的
【结构分析】
主干是Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought。schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children是that引导的宾语从句，但省略了引导词that，冒号后面的部分起解释说明作用。句中有些单词和词组比较生僻，transcendentalist意为“先验论者”或“先验论的”，schooling等于education“教育”，rigorous book learning“拼命学习”或“死啃书本”，unnatural restraints“非自然的束缚”，college recitation rooms“大学的背诵教室”，a bellyful of words相当于汉语的“一肚子墨水”或“满腹经纶”。
【参考译文】
Ralph Waldo Emerson和其他一些先验主义哲学家认为学校教育和死啃书本抑制了孩子们的天性：“我们被关在中小学和大学的背诵室十年或十五年，最后出来时满腹经纶却什么也不懂。”