（1975年经济奖）TjallingCKoopmans–Autobiography007.doc

Tjalling C. Koopmans – Autobiography I was born in 1910 in s Graveland, the Netherlands, the third son of Sjoerd Koopmans and Wijtske van der Zee. Both my parents had been trained as schoolteachers and my father was principal of the (Protestant) School with the Bible. Our house was squeezed between the two sections of that school. The row of these three buildings was, as almost all houses in the village, sandwiched between one long street and a parallel, straight and narrow canal, marking one of the villages boundaries. Across the street were large wooded estates, each with meadows and a large mansion. The occupants of the mansions kept aloof from the life of the village except for the employment of coachmen, gardeners, servants and contractors. Across the canal was a path for horses and an unpaved, more sparsely-settled road belonging to another village. Small freight boats traveling between Amsterdam and Hilversum were not allowed to use their motors in s Graveland because the buildings abutting on the canal might be damaged by the waves so generated. Instead, men called jagers specialized in making their horses pull the boats for the length of the village.Every weekday morning at nine, our living quarters and the narrow strip of garden in the back were engulfed by the sound of three different hymns sung dutifully, simultaneously, but, independently, in true Charles Ives fashion, by the schoolchildren on both sides.The knowledge imparted by schools and the talent for its acquisition ranked high among the values of the family. Both parents worked to the limits of their strength to provide education fitting the talents of their children. The oldest son, Jan, became a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church and an influential leader in a Protestant student organization. During World War II, he showed great courage in both covertly and openly resisting encroachment on matters of Christian conscience by the racist policies of the occupying power. He died prematurely