新编英语教程7下课文(ANEWENGLISHCOURSELEVEL7Unit714TextI)

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1、新编英语教程7 (Unit 7-14 Text I) ants05Unit Seven The Aims of Education Alfred North Whitehead1 Culture is activity of thought,and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling.Scraps of information have nothing to do with it.A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on Gods earth.What we should ai

2、m at producing is men who possess both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction.Their expert knowledge will give them the ground to start from,and their culture will lead them as deep as philosophy and as high as art.We have to remember that the valuable intellectual development is sel

3、f-development,and that it mostly takes place between the ages of sixteen and thirty.As to training,the most important part is given by mothers before the age of twelve.A saying due to Archbishop Temple illustrates my meaning .Surprise was expressed at the success in after-life of a man,who as a boy

4、at Rugby had been somewhat undistinguished. He answered,It is not what they are at eighteen,it is what they become afterwards that matters. 2 In training a child to activity of thought,above all things we must beware of what I will call inert ideas-that is to say,ideas that are merely received into

5、the mind without being utilised,or tested,or thrown into fresh combination. 3 In the history of education,the most striking phenomenon is that schools of learning,which,at one epoch are alive with a ferment of genius,in a succeeding generation exhibit merely pedantry and routine.The reason is,that t

6、hey are overladden with inert ideas.Education with inert ideas is not only useless.It is,above all things,harmful-Corruptio Optimi ,Pessima. Except at rare intervals of intellectual ferment,education in the past has been radically infected with inert ideas. That is the reason why uneducated clever w

7、omen,who have seen much of the world,are in middle life so much the most cultured part of the community. They have been saved from this horrible burden of inert ideas. Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against the inert ideas.

8、Then,alas,with pathetic ignorance of human psychology,it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning. 4 Let us now ask how in our system of education we are to guard against this mental dryrot. We enunciate two educational commandments,Do n

9、ot teach too many subjects,and again, What you teach,teach thoroughly. 5 The result of teaching small parts of a large number of subjects is the passive reception of disconnected ideas,not illumined with any spark of vitality. Let the main ideas which are introduced into a childs education be few an

10、d important,and let them be thrown into every combination possible.The child should make them his own,and should understand their application here and now in the circumstances of his actual life. From the very beginning of his education,the child should experience the joy of discovery. The discovery

11、 which he has to make,is that general ideas give an understanding of that stream of events which pours through his life,which is his life.By understanding I mean more than a mere logical analysis,though that is included.I mean understandingin the sense in which it is used in the French proverb,To un

12、derstand all,is to forgive all.Pedants sneer at an education which is useful. But if education is not useful,what is it?Is it a talent,to be hidden away in a napkin? Of course,education should be useful,whatever your aim in life.It was useful to Saint Augustine and it was useful to Napoleon. It is u

13、seful,because understanding is useful. 6 I pass lightly over that understanding which should be given by the literary side of education.Nor do I wish to be supposed to pronounce on the relative merits of a classical or a modern curriculum.I would only remark that the understanding which we want is a

14、n understanding of an insistent present.The only use of knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present.No more deadly harm can be done to young minds than by depreciation of the present.The present contains all that there is.It is holy ground;for it is the past,and it is the future.At the same

15、 time it must be observed that an age is no less past if it existed two hundred years ago than if it existed two thousand years ago.Do not be deceived by the pendantry of dates.The ages of Shakespeare and of Moliere are no less past than are the ages of Sophocles and of Virgil. The communion of sain

16、ts is a great and inspiring assemblage,but it has only one possible hall of meeting,and that is,the present;and the mere lapse of time through which any particular group of saints must travel to reach that meeting-place,makes very little difference. 7 Passing now to the scientific and logical side o

17、f education,we remember that here also ideas which are not utilised are positively harmful.By utilising an idea,I mean relating it to that stream,compounded of sense perceptions,feelings,hopes,desires,and of mental activities adjusting thought to thought,which forms our life.I can imagine a set of b

18、eings which might fortify their souls by passively reviewing disconnected ideas. Humanity is not built that way-except perhaps some editors of newwspapers. 8 In scientific training,the first thing to do with an idea is to prove it.But allow me for one moment to extend the meaning of prove,I mean-to

19、prove its worth.Now an idea is not worth much unless the propositions in which it is embodied are true.Accordingly an essential part of the proof of an idea is the proof,either by experiment or by logic,of the truth of the propositions. But it is not essential that this proof of the truth should con

20、stitute the first introduction to the idea. After all, its assertion by the authority of respectable teachers is sufficient evidence to begin with.In our first contact with a set of propositions,we commence by appreciating their importance.That is what we all do in after-life. We do not attempt,in t

21、he strict sense,to prove or to disprove anything,unless its importance makes it worthy of that honour. These two processes of proof,in the narrow sense,and of appreciation,do not require a rigid separation in time. Both can be proceeded with nearly concurrently. But in so far as either process must

22、have the priority,it should be that of appreciation by use. 9 Furthermore,we should not endeavour to use propositions in isolation.Emphatically I do not mean, a neat little set of experiments to illustrate Proposition 1 and then the proof of Proposition 1,a neat little set of experiments to illustra

23、te Proposition 11 and then the proof of Proposition 11,and so on to the end of the book.Nothing could be more boring. Interrelated truths are utilised en bloc,and the various propositions are employed in any order,and with any reiteration. Choose some important applications of your theoretical subje

24、ct;and study them concurrently with the systematic theoretical exposition. Keep the theoretical exposition short and simple,but let it be strict and rigid so far as it goes. It should not be too long for it to be easily known with thoroughness and accuracy. The consequences of a plethora of half-dig

25、ested theoretical knowledge are deplorable. Also the theory should not be muddle up with the practice. The child should have no doubt when it is proving and when it is utilising. My point is that what is proved should be utilised,and that what is utilised should-so far as is practicable-be proved. I

26、 am far from asserting that proof and utilisation are the same thing. From: L. G. Kirszner and S. R. Mandell, pp.287-289.Unit Eight Fifth Avenue, Uptown: A Letter from Harlem James Baldwin1 The projects in Harlem are hated. They are hated almost as much as policemen, and this is saying a great deal.

27、 And they are hated for the same reason: both reveal, unbearably, the real attitude of the white world, no matter how many liberal speeches are made, no matter how many lofty editorials are written, no matter how many civil rights commissions are set up. 2 The projects are hideous, of course, there

28、being a law, apparently respected throughout the world, that popular housing shall be as cheerless as a prison. They are lumped all over Harlem, colorless, bleak, high, and revolting. The wide windows look out on Harlems invincible and indescribable squalor: the Park Avenue railroad tracks, around w

29、hich, about forty years ago, the present dark community began; the unrehabilitated houses, bowed down, it would seem, under the great weight of frustration and bitterness they contain; the dark, the ominous schoolhouses, from which the child may emerge maimed, blinded, hooked, or enraged for life; a

30、nd the churches, churches, block upon block of churches, niched in the walls like cannon in the walls of a fortress. Even if the administration of the projects were not so insanely humiliating (for example: one must report raises in salary to the management, which will then eat up the profit by rais

31、ing ones rent; the management has the right to know who is staying in your apartment; the management can ask you to leave, at their discretion), the projects would still be hated because they are an insult to the meanest intelligence. 3 Harlem got its first private project, Riverton - which is now,

32、naturally, a slum - about twelve years ago because at that time Negroes were not allowed to live in Stuyvesant Town. Harlem watched Riverton go up, therefore, in the most violent bitterness of spirit, and hated it long before the builders arrived. They began hating it at about the time people began

33、moving out of their condemned houses to make room for this additional proof of how thoroughly the white world despised them. And they had scarcely moved in, naturally, before they began smashing windows, defacing walls, urinating in the elevators, and fornicating in the playgrounds. Liberals, both w

34、hite and black, were appalled at the spectacle. I was appalled by the liberal innocence - or cynicism, which comes out in practice as much the same thing. Other people were delighted to be able to point to proof positive that nothing could be done to better the lot of the colored people. They were,

35、and are, right in one respect: that nothing can be done as long as they are treated like colored people. The people in Harlem know they are living there because white people do not think they are good enough to live anywhere else. No amount of “improvement” can sweeten this fact. Whatever money is n

36、ow being earmarked to improve this, or any other ghetto, might as well be burnt. A ghetto can be improved in one way only: out of existence. 4 Similarly, the only way to police a ghetto is to be oppressive. None of commissioner Kennedys policemen, even with the best will in the world, have any way o

37、f understanding the lives led by the people they swagger about in twos and threes controlling. Their very presence is an insult, and it would be, even if they spent their entire day feeding gumdrops to children. They represent the force of the white world, and that worlds real intentions are, simply

38、, for that worlds criminal profit and ease, to keep the black man corralled up here, in his place. The badge, the gun in the holster, and the swinging club make vivid what will happen should his rebellion become overt. Rare, indeed, is the Harlem citizen, from the most circumspect church member to t

39、he most shiftless adolescent, who does not have a long tale to tell of police incompetence, injustice, or brutality. I myself have witnessed and endured it more than once. The businessman and racketeers also have a story. And so do the prostitutes. (And this is not, perhaps, the place to discuss Har

40、lems very complex attitude towards black policemen, nor the reasons, according to Harlem, that they are nearly all downtown.) 5 It is hard, on the other hand, to blame the policeman, blank, good-natured, thoughtless, and insuperably innocent, for being such a perfect representative of the people he

41、serves. He, too, believes in good intentions and is astounded and offended when they are not taken for the deed. He has never, himself, done anything for which to be hated - which of us has? - and yet he is facing, daily and nightly, people who would gladly see him dead, and he knows it. There is no

42、 way for him not to know it: there are few other things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people. He moves through Harlem, therefore, like an occupying soldier in a bitterly hostile country; which is precisely what, and where, he is, and is the reason

43、 he walks in twos and threes. And he is not the only one who knows why he is always in company: the people who are watching him know why, too. Any street meeting, sacred or secular, which he and his colleagues uneasily cover has as its explicit or implicit burden the cruelty and injustice of the whi

44、te domination. And these days, of course, in terms increasingly vivid and jubilant, it speaks of the end of that domination. The white policeman, standing on a Harlem street corner, finds himself at the very center of the revolution now occurring in the world. He is not prepared for it - naturally,

45、nobody is - and, what is possibly much more to the point, he is exposed, as few white people are, to the anguish of the black people around him. Even if he is gifted with the merest mustard grain of imagination, something must seep in. He cannot avoid observing that some of the children, in spite of

46、 their color, remind him of children he has known and loved, perhaps even of his own children. He knows that he certainly does not want his children living this way. He can retreat from his uneasiness in only one direction: into a callousness which very shortly becomes second nature. He becomes more

47、 callous, the population becomes more hostile, the situation grows more tense, and the police force is increased. One day, to everyones astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up. Before the dust has settled or the blood congealed, editorials, speeches, and civil-r

48、ights commissions are loud in the land, demanding to know what happened. What happened is that Negroes want to be treated like men.From: J. Clifford and R. DiYanni, pp. 45-47Unit Nine Roots of Freedom Edith Hamilton1 Freedoms challenge in the Atomic Age is a sobering topic.We are facing today a stra

49、nge new world and we are all wondering what we are going to do with it.What are we going to do with one of our most precious possessions,freedom?The world we know ,our Western world,began with something as new as the conquest of space.2 Some 2,500 years ago Greece discovered freedom.Before that ther

50、e was no freedom.There were great civilizations,splendid empires,but no freedom anywhere.Egypt,Babylon,Nineveh, were all tyrannies,one immensely powerful man ruling over helpless masses.In Greece,in Athens, a little city in a little country,there were no helpless masses,and a time came when the Athe

51、nians were led by a great man who did not want to be powerful.Absolute obedience to the ruler was what the leaders of the empires insisted on.Athens said no,there must never be absolute obedience to a man except in war.There must be willing obedience to what is good for all.Pericles,the great Atheni

52、an statesman,said:We are a free government,but we obey the laws,more especially those which protect the oppressed,and the unwritten laws which,if broken bring shame.3 Athenians willingly obeyed the written laws which they themselves passed,and the unwritten,which must be obeyed if free men live toge

53、ther.They must show each other kindness and pity and the many qualities without which life would be intolerable except to hermit in the desert.The Athemans never thought that a man was free if he could do what he wanted.A man was free if he was self-controlled.To make yourself obey what you approved

54、 was freedom.They were saved from looking at their lives as their own private affair.Each one felt responsible for the welfare of Athens,not because it was imposed on him from the outside ,but because the city was his pride and his safety.The creed of the first government in the world was liberty fo

55、r all men who could control themselves and would take responsibility for the state.This was the conception that underlay the lofty reach of Greekgenius.4 But discovering freedom is not like discovering atomic bombs.It cannot be discovered once for all.If people do not prize it, and work for it,it wi

56、ll depart.Eternal vigilance is its price.Athens changed.It was a change that took place unnoticed though it was of the utmost importance,a spiritual change which penetrated the whole state.It had been the Athenians pride and joy to give to their city.That they could material benefits from her never

57、entered their minds.There had to be a complete change of attitude before they could look at the city as an employer who paid her citizens for doing her work. Now instead of men giving to the state,the state was to give to them.What the people wanted was a government which would provide a comfortable

58、 life for them,and with this as the foremost object,ideas of freedom and self-reliance and responsibility were obscure to the point of disappearing.Athens was more and more looked on as a cooperative business possessed ofgreat wealth in which all citizens had a right to share.5 She reached the point

59、 when the freedom she really wanted was freedom from responsibility. There could be only one result.If men insisted on being free from the burden of self-dependence and responsibility for the common good,they would cease to be free. Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom.It is to

60、 be had on no other terms. Athens,the Athens of Ancient Greece,refused responsibility,she reached the end of freedom and was never to have it again.6 But,the excellent becomes the permanent,Aristotle said. Athens lost freedom forever,but freedom was not lost forever for the world. A great American s

61、tatesman,James Madison,in or near the year 1776 A.D.referred to:The capacity of mankind for self-government. No doubt he had not an idea that he was speaking Greek.Athens was not in the farthest background of his mind,but once a great and good idea has dawned upon man,it is never completely lost. Th

62、e Atomic Age cannot destroy it.Somehow in this or that mans thought such an idea lives though unconsidered by the world of action. One can never be sure that it is not on the point of breaking out into action,only sure that it will do so sometime.From: E. Klammer, pp. 149-151Unit Ten Fear of Death C

63、arll Tucker1 I hate jogging. Every dawn, as I thud around New York Citys Central Park reservoir, I am reminded of how much I hate it. Its so tedious . Some claim jogging is thought conducive; others insist the scenery relieves the monotony. For me the pace is wrong for contemplation of either ideas

64、or vistas. While jogging, all I can think about is jogging-or nothing. One advantage of jogging around a reservoir is that theres no dry shortcut home. 2 From the listless looks of some fellow trotters, I gather I am not alone in my unenthusiasm: Bill-paying, it seems, would be about as diverting. N

65、onetheless, we continue to jog; more, we continue to choose to jog. From a wide range of opportunities, we select one that we dont enjoy and cant wait to have done with. Why? 3 For any trend, there are as many reasons as there are participants. This person runs to lower his blood pressure. That person runs to escape the telephone or a crankly spouse or a fifthy household .Another person runs to avoid doing anything else, to dodge a decision about how to lead his life or a realization that his life is leading nowhere .Each of us has his carrot and stick .In my case,the stick is my slacken