阅读课精读文章.docx

1、阅读课精读文章Passages of Classic Literature for Intensive Reading经典文学篇章选读Passage 1 Patriotism, by Alexis de Tocqueville 论爱国主义 -托克维尔 Passage 2 Why Are Beggars Despised? 乞丐为何会被鄙视 -乔治奥威尔Passage 3 What Is Wrong With Our System of Education? by George Bernard Shaw 我们的教育体制出了什么问题？ -萧伯纳 Passage 4 Books 论书籍 -塞缪尔约翰

2、逊Passage 5 On National Prejudices, by Oliver Goldsmith 关于国家偏见 -奥立佛高德史密斯 Passage 6 Why Law Is Indispensable 规则为何是不可或缺的 -萧伯纳 Passage 7 Talking About Our Troubles 谈谈我们的麻烦 -马克卢瑟福Passage 8 A Liberal Education, by Thomas Henry Huxley 关于通识教育 -赫胥黎 Passage 1 Patriotism, by Alexis de Tocqueville 论爱国主义 -托克维尔 亚

3、历西斯德托克维尔（Alexis de Tocqueville，1805年7月29日1859年4月16日）是法国的政治思想家和历史学家。他最知名的著作是论美国的民主（De la dmocratie en Amrique, 1835）以及旧制度与大革命（LAncien Rgime et la Rvolution，1856），在这两本书里他探讨了西方社会中民主、平等、与自由之间的关系，并检视平等观念的崛起在个人与社会之间产生的摩擦。在论美国的民主一书里，托克维尔以他游历美国的经验，从古典自由主义的思想传统出发，探索美国的民主制度及其根源，这本书成为社会学的早期重要著作之一。托克维尔提出以私人慈善而非

4、政府来协助贫穷人口的主张，也对于日后的保守主义和自由意志主义有着深远影响。托克维尔曾积极投入法国政治，包括了从七月王朝（1830-1848）至第二共和国（1849-1851），但在1851年的政变后他便退出了政坛，并开始撰写旧制度与大革命，但只完成了全书的第一卷便去世了。（内容来自维基百科网站）Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859)French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville is best known today for his penetrating political study

5、Democracy in America, published in 1835. In this excerpt from that work, de Tocqueville identifies two kinds of patriotism and points out the special characteristics of each. Patriotism by Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859) There is one sort of patriotic attachment which principally arises from tha

6、t instinctive, disinterested, and undefinable feeling which connects the affections of man with his birthplace. This natural fondness is united with a taste for ancient customs and a reverence for traditions of the past; those who cherish it love their country as they love the mansion of their fathe

7、rs. They love the tranquility that it affords them; they cling to the peaceful habits that they have contracted within its bosom; they are attached to the reminiscences that it awakens; and they are even pleased by living there in a state of obedience. This patriotism is sometimes stimulated by reli

8、gious enthusiasm, and then it is capable of making prodigious efforts. It is in itself a kind of religion: it does not reason, but it acts from the impulse of faith and sentiment. In some nations the monarch is regarded as a personification of the country; and, the fervor of patriotism being convert

9、ed into the fervor of loyalty, they take a sympathetic pride in his conquests, and glory in his power. There was a time under the ancient monarchy when the French felt a sort of satisfaction in the sense of their dependence upon the arbitrary will of their king; and they were wont to say with pride:

10、 We live under the most powerful king in the world. But, like all instinctive passions, this kind of patriotism incites great transient exertions, but no continuity of effort. It may save the state in critical circumstances, but often allows it to decline in times of peace. While the manners of a pe

11、ople are simple and its faith unshaken, while society is steadily based upon traditional institutions whose legitimacy has never been contested, this instinctive patriotism is wont to endure. But there is another species of attachment to country which is more rational than the one I have been descri

12、bing. It is perhaps less generous and less ardent, but it is more fruitful and more lasting: it springs from knowledge; it is nurtured by the laws, it grows by the exercise of civil rights; and, in the end, it is confounded with the personal interests of the citizen. A man comprehends the influence

13、which the well-being of his country has upon his own; he is aware that the laws permit him to contribute to that prosperity, and he labors to promote it, first because it benefits him, and secondly because it is in part his own work. (1835) Passage 2 乔治奥威尔（George Orwell，1903-1950），英国记者、小说家、散文家和评论家。乔

14、治奥威尔一生短暂，但其以敏锐的洞察力和犀利的文笔审视和记录着他所生活的那个时代，作出了许多超越时代的预言，被称为 “一代人的冷峻良知”。其代表作有动物庄园和一九八四。英国人生性拘谨，但英国的讽刺文学却一枝独秀，自乔叟以下，斯威夫特、狄更斯、 查米亚丁，代有才人，各领风骚。奥威尔的卓异之处就在于，并非仅仅用小说来影射个别的人与政权，而是直接揭露语言的堕落。在奥威尔眼里，语言是掩盖真实的 幕布，粉饰现实的工具，蛊惑民心的艺术。他坚信，“在一个语言堕落的时代，作家必须保持自己的独立性，在抵抗暴力和承担苦难的意义上做一个永远的抗议 者。” 他因作品中的深刻思想，被称为“一代人的冷峻良知”。 （内容来自

15、XX百科网站）Why Are Beggars Despised? by George Orwell 乞丐为何会被鄙视 -乔治奥威尔George Orwell Best known for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), George Orwell (pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair) was one of the most notable political writers of his day. The following short piece has been dra

16、wn from Chapter 31 of Orwells first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), a semiautobiographical account of living in poverty in both cities. Though the word beggars is rarely heard nowadays, the ordinary human beings he describes are, of course, still with us. Consider whether or not you a

17、gree with Orwells thesis. Why Are Beggars Despised? by George Orwell It is worth saying something about the social position of beggars, for when one has consorted with them, and found that they are ordinary human beings, one cannot help being struck by the curious attitude that society takes towards

18、 them. People seem to feel that there is some essential difference between beggars and ordinary working men. They are a race apart-outcasts, like criminals and prostitutes. Working men work, beggars do not work; they are parasites, worthless in their very nature. It is taken for granted that a begga

19、r does not earn his living, as a bricklayer or a literary critic earns his. He is a mere social excrescence, tolerated because we live in a humane age, but essentially despicable. Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no essential difference between a beggars livelihood and that of numberl

20、ess respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but, then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; qui

21、te useless, of course-but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase

22、 tout-in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering. I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets him in a differ

23、ent class from other people, or gives most modern men the right to despise him. Then the question arises, Why are beggars despised?-for they are despised, universally. I believe it is for the simple reason that they fail to earn a decent living. In practice nobody cares whether work is useful or use

24、less, productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that it shall be profitable. In all the modem talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it? Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this te

25、st beggars fail, and for this they are despised. If one could earn even ten pounds a week at begging, it would become a respectable profession immediately. A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has no

26、t, more than most modern people, sold his honor; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich. (1933) Passage 3 What Is Wrong With Our System of Education? by George Bernard Shaw 我们的教育体制出了什么问题？ -萧伯纳 George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish dramatist and crit

27、ic George Bernard Shaw was an active Socialist who often wrote about moral, political, and economic issues. A severe critic of secondary education, he argued that school should be purely voluntary and conducted only by charitable organizations. What Is Wrong With Our System of Education? was origina

28、lly published in the British newspaper The Sunday Pictorial in June 1918, as World War I was drawing to a close. Shaws essay was reprinted with minor revisions in the collection Doctors Delusions, Crude Criminology and Sham Education (Constable, 1932). What Is Wrong With Our System of Education? by

29、George Bernard Shaw This question unconsciously begs another question, which is, whether our school system is really a system of education at all. I have alleged, and do still allege, that it is not a system of education but a cloak for something else. And that something else is the sequestration an

30、d imprisonment of children so as to prevent them being a continual nuisance to their parents. That children and adults cannot live together comfortably is a simple fact of nature which must be faced before any discussion of their treatment can advance beyond the present stage of sentimental twaddle.

31、 The blood relationship does not matter: if I have to do my work amid noise and disorder, and break it off repeatedly to console the yelling victim of a broken shin or to act as judge, jury, and executioner in a case of assault with violence; if I have to be at call continually as a dictionary and e

32、ncyclopedia for an insatiably curious little questioner to whom everything else in the visible universe requires an immediate explanation; if I cannot discuss the Billing case with an adult friend because there is always a small chaperone within earshot; if I have to talk down to the level of a childs intelligence, and incidentally to humbug it in the interest of my own peace and quietness, for hours every day; if I have to choose between spending my time either answering the question May we do thi