2014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
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859) French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville is best known today for his
penetrating political study
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 that 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 fathers. They love the tranquility that it affords them; they cling to the peaceful habits that they have contracted within its
亚历西斯·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 démocratie en Amérique , 1835）以及
《旧制度与大革命》（L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution ，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）
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 religious 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 converted 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: "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 people 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 describing. 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 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
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 drawn from Chapter 31 of Orwell's 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 agree with Orwell's 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 them. People seem to feel that there is some
乔治·奥威尔（George Orwell ，1903-1950），英国记者、小说家、散文
家和评论家。

乔治·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”。

（内容来自百
度百科网站）
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 beggar 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 beggar's livelihood and that of numberless 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; quite 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 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 different 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 useless, 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 test 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 not, 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 critic 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 originally published in the
British newspaper The Sunday Pictorial in June 1918, as World War I was drawing to
a close. Shaw's 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 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 and 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. 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 encyclopedia 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 child's 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 this?" or shrieking "Don't dare do that"; if I have to be medical officer of health, wardrobe mistress, sanitary inspector, surgeon for minor operations, fountain of justice and general earthly providence for a houseful of children, the effect on my career is the same whether the children are the issue of my own body or of my neighbor's: that is, I shall be so interrupted and molested and hindered and hampered in any business, profession, or adult interest, artistic, philosophic, or intellectual, which I may be naturally qualified to pursue, that I shall have to choose between being a mere domestic convenience and getting rid of my children somehow.
Under these circumstances a modern humane parent who can afford it always does get rid of the children by handing them over in their infancy to servants and later on to schoolmasters. The humane parents who cannot afford it let their children run wild. I insist on the word humane because there is a third alternative open to inhuman people.
By simple cruelty they can tame their children to sit still and ask no questions, to make no noise, not to tear their clothes, not to speak until they are spoken to, to be instantly obedient, and to take extraordinary pains to keep their misdeeds concealed (mostly by lying) from their elders.
Many people are so constituted that an occasional exercise in breaking a child's will, punishing it, and seeing it flinch and scream under the rod or go pale with terror, is pleasurable to them. But this is bad for the child.
Any dog trainer will testify that a spaniel can be spoiled for life by a single of terrorization; and many human beings have been spoiled in this way. It is no doubt desirable that little boys and girls should have sufficient self-control to sit quietly throughout a suitably short religious service once a week, or to hold their breath whilst swimming under water across a bath; but for most of their time they should be as noisy as nightingales, as restless as squirrels, as curious as monkeys, and quite indifferent to the tidiness of their hair, the integrity of their clothes, or the scrupulous cleanliness of their persons.
The humane parent knows this and puts up with it when the children are about; but that is precisely why humane parents are the first to get rid of their children under pretence of "sending them to be educated."
The schoolmaster is the person who takes the children off the parents' hands for a consideration. That is to say, he establishes a child prison, engages a number of employee schoolmasters as turnkeys, and covers up the essential cruelty and unnaturalness of the situation by torturing the children if they do not learn, and calling this process, which is within the capacity of any fool or blackguard, by the sacred name of Teaching.
That is what is wrong with our so-called educational system.
Passage 4
Books 论书籍 ---塞缪尔·约翰逊 by Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
During Samuel
Johnson's lifetime (a period that came to be known as the Age of Johnson), books, pamphlets, newspapers, and journals flourished throughout England. But as Johnson argues in this short essay (originally published in The Idler , No. 85, December 1, 1759), the "multiplication of books" doesn't necessarily lead to the advance of "happiness or knowledge."
One of the peculiarities which distinguish the present age is the multiplication of books. Every day brings new advertisements of literary undertakings, and we are flattered with repeated promises of growing wise on easier terms than our progenitors.
How much either happiness or knowledge is advanced by this multitude of authors, it is not very easy to decide. He that teaches us anything which we knew not before, is undoubtedly to be reverenced as a master. He that conveys knowledge by more pleasing ways, may very properly be loved as a benefactor; and he that supplies life with innocent amusement will be certainly caressed as a pleasing companion. But few of those who fill the world with books have any pretensions to the hope either of pleasing or instructing. They have often no other task than to lay two books before them, out of which they compile a third, without any new materials of their
塞缪尔·约翰逊（英语：Samuel Johnson ，1709年9月7日－1784
年12月3日），常称为约翰逊博士（Dr. Johnson ），英国历史上最有
名的文人之一，集文评家、诗人、散文家、传记家于一身，前半生
名不经传，但他花了九年时间独力编出的《约翰逊字典》，为他赢得
了文名及“博士”的头衔，博斯韦尔后来为他写的传记《约翰逊传》
记录了他后半生的言行，使他成为家喻户晓的人物。

（内容选自维基
百科网站）
own, and with very little application of judgment to those which former authors have supplied.
That all compilations are useless I do not assert. Particles of science are often very widely scattered. Writers of extensive comprehension have incidental remarks upon topics very remote from the principal subject, which are often more valuable than formal treatises, and which yet are not known because they are not promised in the title. He that collects those under proper heads is very laudably employed, for, though he exerts no great abilities in the work, he facilitates the progress of others, and, by making that easy of attainment which is already written, may give some mind, more vigorous or more adventurous than his own, leisure for new thoughts and original designs. But the collections poured lately from the press have been seldom made at any great expense of time or inquiry, and therefore only serve to distract choice without supplying any real want. It is observed that "a corrupt society has many laws," and I know not whether it is not equally true that an ignorant age has many books. When the treasures of ancient knowledge lie unexamined, and original authors are neglected and forgotten, compilers and plagiaries are encouraged, who give us again what we had before, and grow great by setting before us what our own sloth had hidden from our view.
Yet are not even these writers to be indiscriminately censured and rejected. Truth, like beauty, varies its fashions, and is best recommended by different dresses to different minds; and he that recalls the attention of mankind to any part of learning which time has left behind it, may be truly said to advance the literature of his own age. To exact of every man who writes that he should say something new would be to reduce authors to a small number; to oblige the most fertile genius to say only what is new would be to contract his volumes to a few pages. Yet surely there ought to be some bounds to repetition. Libraries ought no more to be heaped forever with the same thoughts differently expressed, than with the same books differently decorated.
The good or evil which these secondary writers produce is seldom of any long duration. As they owe their existence to change of fashion, they commonly disappear when a new fashion becomes prevalent. The authors that in any nation last from age to age are few, because there are very few that have any other claim to notice than that they catch hold on present curiosity, and gratify some accidental desire, or produce some temporary conveniency.
But, however the writers of the day may despair of future fame, they ought at least to forbear any present mischief. Though they cannot arrive at eminent heights of excellence, they might keep themselves harmless. They might take care to inform themselves before they attempt to inform others, and exert the little influence which they have for honest purposes. But such is the present state of our literature, that the ancient sage who thought "a great book a great evil" would now think the multitude of books a multitude of evils. He would consider a bulky writer who engrossed a year, and a swarm of pamphleteers who stole each an hour, as equal wasters of human life, and would make no other difference between them than between a beast of prey and a flight of locusts.
Passage 5
On National Prejudices, by Oliver Goldsmith 关于国家偏见 ---奥立佛·高德史密斯
Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) Irish poet, essayist, and dramatist Oliver Goldsmith is best known for the comic play She Stoops to Conquer , the long
poem The Deserted Village , and the novel The Vicar of Wakefield . In his essay "On National Prejudices," Goldsmith argues that it is possible to love one's own country "without hating the natives of other countries." Compare Goldsmith's thoughts on patriotism with Max Eastman's extended definition in "What Is Patriotism?" and with Alexis de Tocqueville's discussion of patriotism in Democracy in America (1835).
On National Prejudices
by Oliver Goldsmith
As I am one of that sauntering tribe of mortals, who spend the greatest part of their time in taverns, coffee houses, and other places of public resort, I have thereby an opportunity of observing an infinite variety of characters, which, to a person of a contemplative turn, is a much higher entertainment than a view of all the curiosities of art or nature. In one of these, my late rambles, I accidentally fell into the company of half a dozen gentlemen, who were engaged in a warm dispute about some political
奥立佛·高德史密斯（Oliver Goldsmith ，1730年11
月10日－1774年4月4日），是盎格鲁爱尔兰
（Anglo-Irish ）的诗人、作家与医生。

以小说《威克菲德的牧师》(The Vicar of Wakefield )，他因为思念兄弟而创作的诗《废弃的农村》（The Deserted
Village )(1770年)，与他的剧本《The Good-natur'd Man 》
(1768年)和《屈身求爱》(She Stoops to Conquer )(1773年)
闻名。

他同时也被认为创作了经典的童话故事《两只小
好鞋的故事史》（History of little goody two shoes ）。

（内容
选自维基百科网站）
affair; the decision of which, as they were equally divided in their sentiments, they thought proper to refer to me, which naturally drew me in for a share of the conversation.
Amongst a multiplicity of other topics, we took occasion to talk of a different characters of the several nations of Europe; when one of the gentlemen, cocking his hat, and assuming such an air of importance as if he had possessed all the merit of the English nation in his own person, declared that the Dutch were a parcel of avaricious wretches; the French a set of flattering sycophants; that the Germans were drunken sots, and beastly gluttons; and the Spaniards proud, haughty, and surly tyrants; but that in bravery, generosity, clemency, and in every other virtue, the English excelled all the world.
... Perhaps, a more impartial judge would not scruple to affirm that the Dutch were more frugal and industrious, the French more temperate and polite, the Germans more hardy and patient of labour and fatigue, and the Spaniards more staid and sedate, than the English; who, though undoubtedly brave and generous, were at the same time rash, headstrong, and impetuous; too apt to be elated with prosperity, and to despond in adversity.
...Knowing that it was in vain to argue with men who were so very full of themselves, I threw down my reckoning and retired to my own lodgings, reflecting on the absurd and ridiculous nature of national prejudice and prepossession. Among all the famous sayings of antiquity, there is none that does greater honour to the author, or affords greater pleasure to the reader (at least if he be a person of a generous and benevolent heart) than that the philosopher, who, being asked what "countryman he was," replied that he was a citizen of the world. How few there are to be found in modern times who can say the same, or whose conduct is consistent with such a profession! We are now become so much Englishmen, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, or Germans, that we are no longer citizens of the world; so much the natives of one particular spot, or members of one petty society, that we no longer consider ourselves as the general inhabitants of the globe, or members of that grand society which comprehends the whole
human kind.
Did these prejudices prevail only among the meanest and lowest of the people, perhaps they might be excused, as they have few, if any, opportunities of correcting them by reading, traveling, or conversing with foreigners; but the misfortune is, that they infect the minds, and influence the conduct even of our gentlemen; of those, I mean, who have every title to this appellation but an exemption from prejudice, which, however, in my opinion, ought to be regarded as the characteristical mark of a gentleman: for let a man's birth be ever so high, his station ever so exalted, or his fortune ever so large, yet if he is not free from national and other prejudices, I should make bold to tell him, that he had a low and vulgar mind, and had no just claim to the character of a gentleman. And in fact, you will always find that those are most apt to boast of national merit, who have little or no merit of their own to depend on, than which, to be sure, nothing is more natural: the slender vine twists around the sturdy oak for no other reason in the world but because it has not strength sufficient to support itself.
Should it be alleged in defense of national prejudice, that it is the natural and necessary growth of love to our country, and that therefore the former cannot be destroyed without hurting the latter; I answer, that this is a gross fallacy and delusion. That it is the growth and love to our country, I will allow; but that it is the natural and necessary growth of it, I absolutely deny. Superstition and enthusiasm too are the growth of religion; but who ever took it in his head to affirm that they are the necessary growth of this noble principle? They are, if you will, the bastard sprouts of this heavenly plant; but not its natural and genuine branches, and may safely enough be lopped off, without doing any harm to the parent stock; nay, perhaps, till once they are lopped off, this goodly tree can never flourish in perfect health and vigour.
Is it not very possible that I may love my own country, without hating the natives of other countries? that I may exert the most heroic bravery, the most undaunted resolution, in defending its laws and liberty, without despising all the rest of the world as cowards and poltroons? Most certainly it is: and if it were not--But why need I suppose what is absolutely impossible?--but if it were not, I must own, I should prefer the title of the ancient philosopher, namely, a citizen of the world, to that of an Englishman, a Frenchman, a European, or to any other appellation whatever.
(1763)
Passage 6
Why Law Is Indispensable 规则为何是不可或缺的---萧伯纳
萧伯纳（George Bernard Shaw，1856—1950）爱尔兰剧作家，
1925年因为作品具有理想主义和人道主义而获诺贝尔文学奖，
是英国现代杰出的现实主义戏剧作家，是世界著名的擅长幽默
与讽刺的语言大师。

萧伯纳的一生，是和社会主义运动发生密
切关系的一生，他认真研读过《资本论》，公开声言他“是一个
普通的无产者”，“一个社会主义者”。

他主张艺术应当反映迫切
George Bernard Shaw
Dramatist and critic George Bernard Shaw proudly described himself as a journalist, "deliberately cutting out of my works all that is not journalism, convinced that nothing that is not journalism will live long as literature, or be of any use whilst it does live." An active socialist, Shaw believed that art should above all be useful. In his essay "Why Law Is Indispensable" (published in this revised form in 1907), Shaw argues that laws, although necessary, are not "immutable principles of good and evil."
by George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
The truth is, laws, religions, creeds, and systems of ethics, instead of making society better than its best unit, make it worse than its average unit, because they are never up to date. You will ask me: "Why have them at all?" I will tell you. They are made necessary, though we all secretly detest them, by the fact that the number of people who can think out a line of conduct for themselves even on one point is very small, and the number who can afford the time for it still smaller. Nobody can afford the time to do it on all points.
The professional thinker may on occasion make his own morality and philosophy as the cobbler may make his own boots; but the ordinary man
of business must buy at the shop, so to speak, and put up with what he finds on sale there, whether it exactly suits him or not, because he can neither make a morality for himself or do without one.
This typewriter with which I am writing is the best I can get; but it is by no means a perfect instrument; and I have not the smallest doubt that in fifty years time authors will wonder how men could have put up with so clumsy a contrivance. When a better one is invented I shall buy it: until then, not being myself an inventor, I must make the best of it, just as my Protestant and Roman Catholic and Agnostic friends make the best of their imperfect creeds and systems.
Oh, Father Tucker, worshipper of Liberty, where shall we find a land where the thinking and moralizing can be done without division of labor?
Besides, what have deep thinking and moralizing to do with the most necessary and least questionable side of law? Just consider how much we need law in matters which have absolutely no moral bearing at all.
Is there anything more aggravating than to be told, when you are socially promoted, and are not quite sure how to behave yourself in the circles you enter for the first time, that good manners are merely a matter of good sense, and that rank is but the guinea's stamp: the man's the gowd for a' that? Imagine taking the field with an army which knew nothing except that the soldier's duty is to defend his country bravely, and think, not of his own safety, nor of home and beauty, but of England! Or of leaving the traffic of Piccadilly or Broadway to proceed on the understanding that every driver should keep to that side of the road which seemed to him to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number! Or of stage-managing Hamlet by assuring the Ghost that whether he entered from the right or the left could make no difference to the greatness of Shakespear's play, and that all he need concern himself about was holding the mirror up to nature! Law is never so necessary as when it has no ethical significance whatever, and is pure law for the sake of law.。