Another School year ——What for?
The article describes a professor's viewpoint on the purpose of university education.
The writer recalled his encounter with a student of his and stated that technical training was useful and important but it was not the sole purpose of education. Universities were not just for learning job skills, but also knowledge and human civilizations.
Fourteen years later, when giving a speech to the freshmen of the university, the writer restated this view. He stressed that university was not a job-training center, but a storehouse of human experiences and wisdom.
Another School year ——What for?
be fresh out of: to have just come from a particular place, to have just had a particular experience
- students fresh from law school
- He was fresh out of prison.
I had just completed my graduate studies and began teaching at the University of Kansas City.
This shows that the student wasn’t carrying anything, and what’s more, this young man came to challenge his instructor, like a customer questioning the goods or service they have bought.
He didn't take his book with him, so he pointed to my book on the desk.
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 hand 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.
Here implies that in the remaining part of text, the author tells us what he could but did not say to the students. (subjunctive mood)
The author referred to the student as a specimen in a humorous way, meaning he was typical of those students who came to a university just to get training for a career, as if he were typical of a certain species of animal.
mean to do sth.: to intend to do sth.
reach for sth.: to try to obtain sth.
certify v.: to confirm formally as true, accurate, or genuine
to concentrate on a particular activity or product
to produce or create
- to generate electricity / heat / power / interest / hatred / prejudice / idea
- They have a large body of young people who are capable of generating new ideas.
The B. S. certificate would be official proof that the holder had special knowledge of pharmacy, but it would also be proof that he /she had been exposed to some profound ideas of the past.
What is the difference between training and education, according to the writer?
Training is preparation for a job, or a career, such as the training in a certain skill. Education, on the other hand, is learning to develop one’s mental and moral powers.
to be around: to be present in a place; to be available.
matter to sb. : to be important or have an important effect on sb. / sth.
The first is an introductory “it” while the second refers to “whether I told him all this”.
in spite of that, however
put it (adverb phrase): to express, to state.
- put it simply
- put in another way
- how to put it
average (sth.) out (at / to sth. )
— result in an average of sth.; to come to an average or ordinary level or standard, esp. after being higher or lower
- Meals at the university average out to about 10 yuan per day.
- Sometimes I pay, sometimes he pays, and it seems to average out in the end.
- The tax authorities averaged his profit out at 3000 pounds a year over 5 years.
almost; approximately
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.”
assume v.: to suppose
see to it (that): to make sure that
- Will you see to the arrangements for the next committee meeting?
- The parents asked the girl to see to it that her younger brothers behave well at the table.
go to the electric chair: to be punished by being killed in the electric chair.
You have to take responsibility for the work you do. If you’re a pharmacist, you should make sure that aspirin is not mixed with poisonous chemicals. As an engineer, you shouldn’t get things out of control. If you become a lawyer, you should make sure an innocent person is not sentenced to death because you lack adequate legal knowledge and skill to defend your client.
along with: in addition to sb. / sth; in the same way as sb. / sth.
rear v.: to care for (children or a child) during the early stages of life; to bring up, to tend (growing plants or animals)
In addition to all other things these professions offer, they provide you with a living so that you can support a family—wife and children.
suffice for sb. / suffice to do sth.
— be enough for sb. /sth., be adequate.
- One warning sufficed to stop her doing it.
Inverted sentence, used in a blessing.
I hope that your income will always be enough for you to survive.
“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.”
capital ______ capitalize apology ___ apologize
central _____ centralize civil _______ civilize
final _________ finalize fertile _____ fertilize
hospital _____ hospitalize industrial _ industrialize
ideal _________ idealize real ________ realize
2) Turn the following nouns or adjectives into verbs that end with the suffix “–ize” and vice versa.
Example: computer (n.) + -ize --- computerize (v.)
Noun/Adjective --- Verb
2. Complete the sentences with the expressions listed below in their proper forms.
to average out to (a certain number)
to be exposed to
to see to sth./to see to it that clause
to specialize in
At the moment it is being presided over by each member in turn.
- preside at/over
- administer
- direct
- govern
- maintainable adj.;
- maintenance n.
Will you be head of a family who brings up kids in a democratic spirit?
shudder v.:
- shiver violently with cold, fear, etc.;
- make a strong shaking movement, vibrate
without shuddering ----- without being shocked
In the speech, he was so nervous that he was stuck for words in the middle.
have no business doing sth. / to do sth.
— to have no right to do sth., shouldn’t have been / be doing sth.
- You have no business criticizing her about her make-up.
If you don't want to spare some time to broaden your horizon by studying a little literature, philosophy, fine arts and history, you shouldn't be studying here at college.
on the/one's way to doing/n.: on the point of experiencing or achieving
the push-button Neanderthal:
an uneducated, ignorant person who can only use / operate machines by pushing the buttons
You will soon become an uneducated, ignorant person who can only work machines and operate mechanical equipment who doesn’t know anything about literature, music, and fine arts, culture, etc.
used sarcastically, meaning these people are living creatures, but can’t think or reason
A number of such push-button savages get college degrees. But even with their degrees, we can’t say that these people have received a proper college education. It is more accurate to say that they go through college without learning anything.
get to be/do sth.: to reach the point at which you are, feel, know, etc.
No one can grow up to be a civilized person without the help of others or education.
the time during which a person is alive
To become a civilized person, you need to acquire the knowledge and develop the culture a civilized society needs. However, one lifetime is too short to create an environment for you to become civilized.
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.
Here is a completely inverted sentences. Normal one should be “the names of the scientists are cut into the stone there”.
All human knowledge has been accumulated by people living in the past and has been passed on to us. You learn all this before you do any original research, or any research of your own.
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.
be true of: apply to
This is the way we learn and develop the techniques of mankind. This is also how we inherit and advance mankind’s spiritual resources.
He might have added that a person wouldn’t deserve to be called a human being if they hadn’t read about any book about being a man.
I think it was La Rochfoucauld 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.
No matter who you are, a specialist or a common person, if the university cannot make you maintain contact with the best civilization of the history that you should know it cannot be called university, and has no reason to exist.
without giving a clear statement
Part II
(Paras. 9-14)
Part I
(Paras. 1-8)
The writer described his encounter with one of his students. he tried to convince him that a pharmacy major needed to read great writers, but in vain.
The writer restated that the purpose of a university was to put its students in touch with the best civilizations the human race had created.
Basic structure
Paragraph 1
Farmers use poles as a support for beans in vegetable gardens. Here means a tall thin person.
“as if” can be followed by clause, infinitive, adjective and participle
Vocabulary
1. Practice using the rules of word formation.
1) Examine how the words specialize and simplify are formed. Find out the meanings of the suffixes “–ize” and “–fy”.
Suffixes “–ize”, from Greek, is used to form verbs meaning:
(1) to cause to be, to make
(2) to become
(3) to put into the stated place
suffixes “–fy”, from Latin, is used to form verbs meaning: to cause to be, to make.
3) Turn the following nouns or adjectives into verbs that end with the suffix “–fy”.
Example: beauty (n.) + -fy --- beautify
Noun/adjective ---- Verb
clarity ______ clarify
class ________ classify
identity _____ identify
intense _____ intensify
just __________ justify
Main Idea
4) Complete the sentences based on the Chinese given in the brackets.
(1) If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, it is a time for you to fertilize your lawn.
(2) Just enjoy the little things you are doing. When you look back, you will realize they were doing the big things.
(3) Walt Disney summarized how he made his dreams come true in four C’s: curiosity, confidence, courage and constancy.
(4) The plan was criticized as too idealistic and impractical.
(5) The waste water is now purified and then used for irrigation.
(6) The training courses aims to qualify them as teachers of English.
(7) How can you justify your behavior?
(8) The freshmen will first read some simplified stories.
(9) Books can be classified in different ways.
(10) I was really terrified when I was told that 500 million people would watch my performance.
“As” is used after adjective or adverb to introduce a clause of concession. Here means Though I was new…
The usual pattern is
"adj./adv./n. + as + subj. + v."
BRAINSTORM
1) They said that they would see to it that no more trees are cut from now on.
2) Meals at the hotel average out to 20 yuan per day.
3) My father was a historian. He specialized in the history of the Ming Dynasty.
4) Some sociologists argue that the ever-increasing crime rate is due to the fact that people are exposed to too much violence in TV programs.
5) In the first half of the year, Li Fan’s income averaged out to 6,000yuan per month.
6) They promised to see to it that the nuclear power station would be safe.
ELEMENTS
copy and paste as needed and take advantage of an infinite canvas!
Para.6
Para 9
Their distinctive taste does not stem from the kind of potatoes that McDonald's _____, the technology that processes them, or the restaurant equipment that fries them...
A. possesses B. buys C. acquires D. grows
During the reading lesson, the teacher asked students to read a few _____ from the novel.
A. pieces B. essays C. fragments D. extracts
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 book.
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.
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.
“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 maintain 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?”
- mechanize v.: change (a process, factory, etc.) so that it is run by machines rather than people, etc.
- mechanized savage: new type of human who are intellectually simple and not developed and who can only work machines
too anxious to make money
The job enables him to earn enough to maintain a family in comfort.
Para 13
Para 11
para 10
In the 19th century, for example, one theory maintained that a liquid could be 'dissolved' in a vapor without losing its identity...
BRAINSTORM
ELEMENTS
The chances are that...: It is likely that...
copy and paste as needed and take advantage of an infinite canvas!
Will there be a painting in your house that shows some taste?
Para 14
Will there be a painting
(a reasonably sensitive man can look at without shuddering)?
sensitive adj.: (sensible)
- easily hurt or damaged;
- affected greatly or easily by sth.; [to]
- easily offended or emotionally upset;
- able to understand or appreciate art, music or literature
First, we need to find out what his scheme is, and then act _____.
A. sensitively B. imaginatively
C. efficiently D. accordingly
I speak, I’m sure, for the faculty of the literal 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.”
Paragraph 3-4
Para 7-8
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.”
BRAINSTORM
ELEMENTS
Here, the writer says this in a sarcastic tone. He means, if you don't have any goal in life apart from making money to satisfy your desire for material riches, go ahead and make a lot of it.
copy and paste as needed and take advantage of an infinite canvas!
Paragraph 5
BRAINSTORM
ELEMENTS
copy and paste as needed and take advantage of an infinite canvas!