Lesson One

Pre-class Work

Read the text a third time. Learn the new words and expressions listed below.

Glossary

accomplishment
n. the act of finishing sth. completely and successfully; achievement

acquire
v. to gain; to get for oneself by one's own work

arrogantly
adv. behaving in a proud and self-important way

aspirin
n. 阿司匹林（解热镇痛药）

assume
v. to take as a fact; to suppose

available
adj. able to be used or easily found

bachelor
n. ～'s degree: the first university degree

beanpole
n. (infml) a very tall and thin person

bull
n. a male cow

certify
v. to state that sth. is true or correct, esp. after some kind of test

civilized
adj. educated and refined; having an advanced culture

client
n. a person who pays for help or advice from a person or organization

continuity
n. the state of being continuous

cyanide
n. 氰化物

democratic
adj. based on the idea that everyone should have equal rights and should be involved in making important decisions 民主的

disaster
n. a sudden event such as a flood, storm, or accident which causes great damage or suffering. Here: a complete failure

drugstore
n. (AmE) a shop which sells medicine (and a variety of other things)

enroll
v. to officially arrange to join a school or university

expertise
n. skill in a particular field

expose
v. to enable sb. to see or experience new things or learn about new beliefs, ideas, etc.

faculty
n. (AmE) all the teachers of a university or college

fragment
n. a small piece of sth.

generate
v. to produce

grind
v. to crush into small pieces or powder by pressing between hard surfaces

hip
n. the fleshy part of either side of the human body above the legs

humanity
n. the qualities of being human

implicitly
adv. in an implied way 含蓄地

inevitable
adj. certain to happen and impossible to avoid

literal
adj. in the basic meaning of a word

maintain
v. to continue to have as before

Neanderthal
n. an early type of human being who lived in Europe during the Stone Age

nevertheless
adv. in spite of that; yet

peculiar
adj. belonging only to a particular person; special; odd

penetrating
adj. showing the ability to understand things clearly and deeply

pest
n. (infml) an annoying person

pharmacy
n. a shop where medicines are prepared and sold. Here: the study of preparing drugs or medicines

philosophy
n. the study of the nature and meaning of existence, reality, etc. 哲学

pill
n. a small solid piece of medicine that you swallow whole

preside
v. to lead; to be in charge

professional
adj. relating to the work that a person does for an occupation, esp. work that requires special training

pursuit
n. the act of trying to achieve sth. in a determined way

push-button
adj. using computers or electronic equipment rather than traditional methods

qualified
adj. having suitable knowledge or experience for a particular job

rear
v. to care for a person or an animal until they are fully grown

resources
n. possessions in the form of wealth, property, skills, etc. that you have 资源

savage
n. an uncivilized human being

scroll
n. Here: a certificate of an academic degree

semester
n. one of the two periods into which the year is divided in American high schools and universities (=term in BrE)

sensitive
adj. able to understand or appreciate art, music or literature

shudder
v. to shake uncontrollably for a moment

specialize
v. to limit all or most of one's study to particular subjects 专修

species
n. (infml) a type; a sort

specimen
n. Here: a person who is unusual in some way and has a quality of a particular kind

spiritual
adj. related to your spirit rather than to your body or mind

store
v. to keep

suffice
v. to be enough

Proper Names

Aristotle
亚里士多德

Bach
巴赫

Chaucer
乔叟

Dante
但丁

Einstein
爱因斯坦

Hamlet
哈姆雷特
Homer
荷马

La Rochefoucauld
拉罗什富科

Shakespeare
莎士比亚

Virgil
维吉尔

Text A

Another School Year — What For?

John Ciardi

Read the text once for the main idea. Do not refer to the notes, dictionaries or the glossary yet.

Let me tell you one of the earliest disasters in my career as a teacher. It was January of 1940 and I was fresh out of graduate school starting my first semester at the University of Kansas City. Part of the student body was a beanpole with hair on top who came into my class, sat down, folded his arms, and looked at me as if to say "All right, teach me something." Two weeks later we started Hamlet. Three weeks later he came into my office with his hands on his hips. "Look," he said, "I came here to be a pharmacist. Why do I have to read this stuff?" And not having a book of his own to point to, he pointed to mine which was lying on the desk.
New as I was to the faculty, I could have told this specimen a number of things. I could have pointed out that he had enrolled, not in a drugstore-mechanics school, but in a college and that at the end of his course meant to reach for a scroll that read Bachelor of Science. It would not read: Qualified Pill-Grinding Technician. It would certify that he had specialized in pharmacy, but it would further certify that he had been exposed to some of the ideas mankind has generated within its history. That is to say, he had not entered a technical training school but a university and in universities students enroll for both training and education.
I could have told him all this, but it was fairly obvious he wasn't going to be around long enough for it to matter.
Nevertheless, I was young and I had a high sense of duty and I tried to put it this way: "For the rest of your life," I said, "your days are going to average out to about twenty-four hours. They will be a little shorter when you are in love, and a little longer when you are out of love, but the average will tend to hold. For eight of these hours, more or less, you will be asleep."
"Then for about eight hours of each working day you will, I hope, be usefully employed. Assume you have gone through pharmacy school — or engineering, or law school, or whatever — during those eight hours you will be using your professional skills. You will see to it that the cyanide stays out of the aspirin, that the bull doesn't jump the fence, or that your client doesn't go to the electric chair as a result of your incompetence. These are all useful pursuits. They involve skills every man must respect, and they can all bring you basic satisfactions. Along with everything else, they will probably be what puts food on your table, supports your wife, and rears your children. They will be your income, and may it always suffice."
"But having finished the day's work, what do you do with those other eight hours? Let's say you go home to your family. What sort of family are you raising? Will the children ever be exposed to a reasonably penetrating idea at home? Will you be presiding over a family that maintains some contact with the great democratic intellect? Will there be a book in the house? Will there be a painting a reasonably sensitive man can look at without shuddering? Will the kids ever get to hear Bach?"
That is about what I said, but this particular pest was not interested. "Look," he said, "you professors raise your kids your way; I'll take care of my own. Me, I'm out to make money."
"I hope you make a lot of it," I told him, "because you're going to be badly stuck for something to do when you're not signing checks."
Fourteen years later I am still teaching, and I am here to tell you that the business of the college is not only to train you, but to put you in touch with what the best human minds have thought. If you have no time for Shakespeare, for a basic look at philosophy, for the continuity of the fine arts, for that lesson of man's development we call history — then you have no business being in college. You are on your way to being that new species of mechanized savage, the push-button Neanderthal. Our colleges inevitably graduate a number of such life forms, but it cannot be said that they went to college; rather the college went through them — without making contact.
No one gets to be a human being unaided. There is not time enough in a single lifetime to invent for oneself everything one needs to know in order to be a civilized human.
Assume, for example, that you want to be a physicist. You pass the great stone halls of, say, M. I. T., and there cut into the stone are the names of the scientists. The chances are that few, if any, of you will leave your names to be cut into those stones. Yet any of you who managed to stay awake through part of a high school course in physics, knows more about physics than did many of those great scholars of the past. You know more because they left you what they knew, because you can start from what the past learned for you.
And as this is true of the techniques of mankind, so it is true of mankind's spiritual resources. Most of these resources, both technical and spiritual, are stored in books. Books are man's peculiar accomplishment. When you have read a book, you have added to your human experience. Read Homer and your mind includes a piece of Homer's mind. Through books you can acquire at least fragments of the mind and experience of Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare — the list is endless. For a great book is necessarily a gift; it offers you a life you have not the time to live yourself, and it takes you into a world you have not the time to travel in literal time. A civilized mind is, in essence, one that contains many such lives and many such worlds. If you are too much in a hurry, or too arrogantly proud of your own limitations, to accept as a gift to your humanity some pieces of the minds of Aristotle, or Chaucer, or Einstein, you are neither a developed human nor a useful citizen of a democracy.
I think it was La Rochefoucauld who said that most people would never fall in love if they hadn't read about it. He might have said that no one would ever manage to become human if they hadn't read about it.
I speak, I'm sure, for the faculty of the liberal arts college and for the faculties of the specialized schools as well, when I say that a university has no real existence and no real purpose except as it succeeds in putting you in touch, both as specialists and as humans, with those human minds your human mind needs to include. The faculty, by its very existence, says implicitly: "We have been aided by many people, and by many books, in our attempt to make ourselves some sort of storehouse of human experience. We are here to make available to you, as best we can, that expertise."