Text A. The Aims of Education

If at First You Don’t Succeed, Quit

Steven Cahn

The title of this first selection turns away from a familiar adage to characterize a condition which Steven Cahn sees as all too common among students in today’s colleges and universities. Even worse, according to the author, is the willingness of those colleges and universities to contribute to that condition. From these premises, it is only a short step to conclude that any institution that permits students to indulge themselves in the manner outlined here can only contribute ultimately to the decay of our democracy. In laying out his argument, Calm employs a three-part structure, moving from statement of problem to cause to effect. Look for this organizational pattern in your reading.

American higher education stands on the brink of chaos. Never have so many spent so long learning so little.

The present crisis stems from the increasingly widespread acceptance among faculty and administration of the fatal educational principle that a student should not be required to do any academic work that displeases him. If a student prefers not to study science or history or literature, he is allowed to attain his degree without studying any science, history, or literature.

If he prefers not to take examinations, he either makes special arrangements with his instructor or else chooses his courses from among the ever-growing number that involve no examinations. If he prefers that his work not be graded he arranges in most or all of his courses to receive an undifferentiated pass or fail. If he is concerned about obtaining high grades, he selects his teachers from among the many who have yielded to student pressure and now indiscriminately award A’s to virtually everyone. As the dean of Yale’s Morse College recently remarked of his students, “They get a В and they bawl. It takes a man or woman of real integrity to give a B.”

Throughout the country the attempt is being made to provide students with what is advertised as a liberal education without requiring of them the necessary self-discipline and hard work. Students have been led to believe they can achieve without effort that all they need to do in order to obtain a good education is skip blithely down the merry road to learning. Unfortunately, that road is no more than a detour to the dead end of ignorance.

We must realize that becoming an educated person is a difficult, demanding enterprise. Just as anyone who spoke of intense physical training as a continuous source of pleasure and delight would be thought a fool, for we all know how much pain and frustration such training involves, so anyone who speaks of intense mental exertion as a continuous source of joy and ecstasy ought to be thought equally foolish, for such effort also involves pain and frustration. It is painful to have one’s ignorance exposed and frustrating to be baffled by intellectual subtleties. Of course, there can be joy in learning as there can be joy in sport. But in both cases the joy is a result of overcoming genuine challenges and cannot be experienced without toil.

It is not easy to read intelligently and think precisely.-It is not easy to speak fluently and write clearly. It is not easy to study a subject carefully and know it thoroughly. But these abilities are the foundation of a sound education.

If a student is to learn intellectual responsibility, he must be taught to recognize that not every piece of work is a good piece of work. In fact some work is just no good at all. A student may be friendly, cooperative, and sensitive to the needs of mankind, but he may nevertheless turn in a muddled economics paper or an incompetent laboratory report.

And that he means well is no reason why he should not be criticized for an inadequate performance. Such criticism, when well- founded and constructive, is in no way demeaning for the willingness to accept it and learn from it is one mark of a mature individual. Yet criticism of any sort is rare nowadays. As student opinion is given greater and greater weight in the evaluation of faculty, professors are busy trying to ingratiate themselves with the students.

Indeed, college education is gradually coming to resemble the Caucus-race in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” in which everyone begins running whenever he likes and stops running whenever he likes. There are no rules. Still everyone wins, and everyone must receive a prize.

Democracy, however, cannot afford to transform its educational system into a Caucus-race, for the success of a democracy depends in great part upon the understanding and capability of its citizens. And in the complex world in which we live, to acquire sufficient understanding and capability requires a rigorous education. If we fail to provide that education we shall have only ourselves to blame as misguided policies in our universities contribute to the decay of our democracy.

Text B. The Art of Writing

(from The Art of Useful Writing by B. Pitkin N.Y.)

For many years it has been apparent to me that the urge to write cannot be injected into the human nervous system. If it isn’t there it never will be there.

Many able people can think things through only first writing down everything they know or guess or doubt about them. Other people must talk in order to reach conclusions. Very few of us are able to sit down in silence and reflect steadfastly for a long time.

It is no accident that the ablest thinkers almost always write a good deal - and fairly well, too, though not brilliantly. Those who think well, but not write well are almost always keen, voluminous conversationalists.

Now the art of writing can, be taught to many more people than can learn to dash off sonnets or sonants. For it deals with facts and interests far commoner than the little arts. The urge to tell the world a truth is more widespread than the urge to lay bare one’s pain over having been jilted by Amanda Simpkins of Fleet Street. But let this not confuse the issue. If a person has no inner impulse to tell the world anything, waste no time forcing him to do so. You may drill him in certain deceitful tricks. But always he will be a dog walking on his hind legs, a thoroughly unnatural and unhappy animal.

“The ability to write may be acquired”.

Thus a dozen peddlers of correspondence courses and text-books on useful writing say. When moved to explain they sometimes tell you that you can become a good writer very simply. Just learn to be curious and inquisitive. Just learn to think clearly. Just learn to have a lively imagination. Just learn to sympathize with all sorts of people and to see their point of view.

Bear in mind that useful writing must be measured differently from creative writing such as poems and short stories and drama. For the useful writer must devote much time to research. He must find verify and interpret facts. But the creative writer for entertainment spins things out of his head. Useful writers take the world as they find it. They write about anything and everything. Some report dog fights some little girls’ dresses some political wrangles some the ups and downs of May corn some the ins and outs of algebra. The world pays them for the service. Well done good and faithful servants. What’s more all of them gain character and they improve their skills. They become good citizens by and large. Five or six out of a thousand self-centered writers succeed. Often it is because of a devoted wife or an enthusiastic editor. Such was O. Henry. I wish somebody could tell the whole truth about him. But those who could either have died or have lost relish for such tasks.

Poor O. Henry clung to the worst possible rule. “Rule I of story writing” said he solemnly “is to write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule II. In writing forget the public”. By taking himself seriously this blighted half genius became the nightmare of editors. He seldom wrote a story fit to print. Sometimes his editors would rewrite his stories three or four times before they were fit to print. Had O. Henry been allowed to publish his works in the form he wrote them he would have been the laughing-stock of the world. He was a bad writer with some rare gifts. Poor O. Henry had no character – neither good nor bad. He forgot the public. He cared nothing for the Other Fellow. He used words only to please himself. He became an egocentric writer whose manuscripts were so poor that editors had to toil over them more than O. Henry would.

During the past twenty-five years I have helped more four thousand novelists journalists and other writers in their work. More than half of these I have had under virtually continuous observations for from one to three years. Thus I can say that some recommendations can be of help.

Writing helps thinking. Firstly set down any proposition on paper. Eye it. It leads you on to something else doesn’t it? And then on to something further along an unknown path. Secondly you are unsure of your ideas about a matter. All right. Start writing whatever comes to mind on the subject. Read your statements. Then write more. Read again and then write. Now throw all your notes away. Reflect a while. Then start writing afresh. Thirdly If yours is a normal mind you have been thinking all the while. Slowly you have been clearing up dark spots and disentangling mental smarts. Each word becomes a guide a tip a hit a clue. Set down enough words and you reach fresh and better conclusions. Then If I could I’d make you buy several thousand sheets to fit into loose-leaf notebook covers. I’d start you off writing at random on at least four or five unrelated topics picked out of the wanton air. I’d warn you to be untroubled by your lack of interest in most of the topics – yours only to plug along. Lastly I’d command you to comment on each topic after you had written about it. Your views would be attached to your articles slipped into a notebook and filed for several weeks or months. Then you’d haul them out read them again and change your comments in the light of your maturing judgment.

During the past twenty-five years I have helped more than four thousand novelists, journalists, and other writers in their work. More than half of these I have had under virtually continuous observations for from one to three years.

With very few exceptions, the following tendencies emerge:

1. The best writers (whom I define as the upper ten percent of the entire group) spontaneously produce from three to twenty times as much as the average writers (whom I take as the middle thirty per cent of the entire group) and from thirty to fifty times as much as the poor writers (the bottom ten per cent)

2. The best writers think their problems over from start to finish much oftener than the average writers do. And the poor writers are almost all constitutionally unable to repeat the intellectual effort.

3. The best writers keep extensive notes and most of them test out ideas for stories or articles or essays in fairly long rough form before deciding to use them.

4. The best writers tend to change their first ideas extensively, while they potter over them; and the poor writers almost invariably cling tenaciously to the original “inspiration”.

5. The best writers have many ideas and hence hold them cheap, while the poor writers have few ideas and hence cherish them. Odd as it sounds, I have often heard a poor writer say: “But I won’t change this manuscript. It’s too hard to revise it. And I have no other subject that I’d like to work on”.

6. The ideas and first sketches of the best writers show an enormous range of quality. There is more unmitigated rubbish in their notes than in the meager documents of the poor writers.

7. The best writers can accept both criticism and new ideas from other people much more readily than can the poor writers. It is the rarest time in the world to find a first class writer resenting even harsh criticism either of his basic ideas or of his execution. Sensitivity is one of the surest symptoms of inferiority here.

8. Average and poor writers who produce large amounts of writing, finished or experimental, usually do one of two things: either they unconsciously imitate something they have read and admired, or else they grow verbose, saying in a thousand words that might have been telescoped into a hundred properly chosen words.

9. The best writers are almost wholly wrapped up in saying what they have to say. They are absorbed in sheer expression of ideas. The poor writers, together with many average writers whose training has inclined them that way follow a different pattern. They dawdle over words lovingly. They spend an hour over a single sentence, striving for exquisite rhythm, for alliteration, or for poetic figures. Having little or no pressure driving them to give form to a large idea, they slow down. They become engrossed in the parts of the picture which they wish their words to depict. They can neither see nor manage the whole.

NOTES

1. a familiar adage – известное изречение

2. caucus (презрит.) – политика подтасовки выборов, давления на избирателя

3. race – конкуренция

4. a conversationalist – мастер поговорить, интересный собеседник

5. to be jilted by - быть отвергнутым кем-либо

6. Fleet Street – пресса и мир журналистики

7. political wranglings – бурные политические обсуждения, стычки

8. ups and downs of May corn – виды на урожай

9. ins and outs of – сложности в чем-либо

ACTIVE VOCABULARY

1. to yield (v) - производить, приносить, давать, уступать, соглашаться, поддаваться.

~ a point/ground (position)/one’s rights/the championship/one’s opinion/a city/the floor – сделать уступку в споре/сдавать свои позиции, уступать свои права, уступить первенство, отказаться от своего мнения, сдавать (отдавать) город, уступить трибуну (передавать слово другому оратору временно);

~ under pressure – не выдерживать давления;

~ to the advise/ temptation/ demand/ force/ arguments/ nobody/ the times – последовать совету, поддаваться соблазну (искушению), согласиться на требование, поддаваться (уступать) силе, согласиться с доводами, стоять на своем, отказаться от старых привычек (идти в ногу со временем);

~ up a fortress/ one’s life/ a point – сдавать крепость, отдавать жизни за что-либо (жертвовать жизнью), уступать в каком-либо пункте

yield (n) – сбор плодов, урожай, количество произведенного продукта, доход, доходность

2. performance (n) – выполнение, действие, поступок, представление, производительность

to deliver/ give/ put on a~ – совершать действие, давать/ устроить представление

to perform (v) – исполнять, совершать, представлять, играть

~ well/ skillfully/ brilliantly/ publicly – выступать (играть) хорошо, мастерски, блестяще, публично

~ a task/ an obligation/ one’s duty/ a play/ a ceremony - выполнять задание, обязательство, долг, играть (исполнять) пьесу, совершать церемонию

~ one’s part to perfection – блестяще сыграть свою роль

~ before large audiences – выступать перед большой аудиторией

~ one’s work grudgingly – выполнять, делать свою работу неохотно

3. to arrange (v) - приводить в порядок, устраивать дела, систематизировать, договариваться

~ the matters/ one’s own affair – уладить, урегулировать дела

~ for her to give (deliver) a lecture – договориться, чтобы она прочила лекцию

~ a conference for Monday/ a discussion on Thursday’s evening – организовать (устроить) конференцию в понедельник, назначить обсуждение на вечер вторника

~ a time for smth./ everything for the meeting - выделить время для чего-то, обеспечить все для встречи

~ smth. among oneselves/ the terms between the parties – улаживать что-либо между собой, договориться об условиях с каждой стороны

arrangement (n) - приведение в порядок, договоренность классификация, расстановка

make an ~ with - условиться, сговориться

to come to an ~ - прийти к соглашению

by (special) ~ - по договоренности

under an ~ - согласно договоренности

~ of conflict - урегулирование конфликта

make ~s (for) - принимать меры (к), делать приготовления (к)

4. to provide (v) - снабжать, предоставляй, принимать меры, запасать(ся)

~ meals/ transport/ translation/ en excuse - обеспечить питанием, транспортом, предоставить перевод, заранее приготовить (предусмотреть) извинение

~ for one’s family/ children/ oneself - обеспечивать (содержать) семью, детей, себя

~ for old age/ the future/ one’s wants/ the child’s education – обеспечить старость, будущее.ю удовлетворять свои запросы, предоставить средства на образование ребенка

~ for unexpected events/ urgent needs/ some additional expenses – предусмотреть непредвиденный случай, подготовиться на случай экстренной необходимости, предусмотреть дополнительные расходы

~ smb with food/ books/ money/ employment/ education – снабжать (обеспечить) продуктами питания, книгами, деньгами, работой, дать образование

the clause/ the agreement/ the rule ~s that – статья, соглашение, правило предусматривает, что

~this has been ~d for – это было предусмотрено заранее

~d that - при условии, если только, в том случае, если

~d by the rules/ under the laws – предусмотренный правилами, предусмотрено законом

fail to ~ – не дать, не обеспечить

provision (n) – снабжение, обеспечение, положение, условие

agree on the following ~s – прийти к соглашению по следующим пунктам

to make ~s – предусматривать, постановлять

5. blame (n) - порицание, упрек, вина, ответственный

to ascribe/ assign/ attribute (the) ~ to smb. – приписывать вину, признать виновным

to lay/ place/ cast/ put the ~ (for smth.) on smb./ to lay the ~ at smb’s door – возложить вину (за что-л.) на кого – л.

to assume/ take the ~ (for smth.) upon oneself – взять на себя вину

to shift the ~ on smb./ o smb. else - свалить (переложить) вину на кого – либо

to blame (v) – обвинять, порицать, считать виновным

~ smb. for smth. – считать кого – либо виновным за что – либо

~ the professor for negligence - возложить ответственность за халатность на профессора

I have nothing to ~ myself for - быть (очень, совершенно не-) виноватым

Who is to ~? / you are to~ – кто виноват? Вы должны нести ответственность

~ smb. (oneself) for doing smth. – упрекать кого – либо (себя) за то, что …, винить кого - либо (себя) в том, что …

6. urge (n) - побуждение, толчок

~ to travel – стремление (тяга) к странствиям

get/ have/ feel an ~ – иметь, испытать желание

to feel the ~ of ambition – иметь честолюбивые побуждения

to control/ to stifle an ~ - сдерживать порыв

instinctive ~ – подсознательное желание

irresistible/ irrepressible/ uncontrollable ~ – непреодолимое желание

sudden ~ - внезапный порыв

natural ~ – естественное желание

urge (v) – понуждать, убеждать, настаивать, настоятельно просить

~sb on (to sth) – погонять, побуждать

~sth (on/ upon sb/ sth) – убеждать, настаивать

~ forcefully, strongly – сильно убеждать

7. mind (n) – разум, умственные способности, ум, память, мысли, думы, помыслы

a normal ~ – нормальные умственные способности

come/ spring to ~- приходить в голову

make up one’s ~ – принять решение, решиться

to my ~ - по-моему

change one’s ~ – передумать, изменить решение

be in two ~s about sth./ doing sth. – колебаться, находиться в нерешительности

bear/ keep in ~ – иметь что-либо в виду, помнить

give one’s ~ to sth. - обратить свое внимание на, сосредоточиться на

have it in ~ to do sth. - помнить, иметь в виду

to keep one’s ~ on sth. – все время думать о чем – либо

Keep (v)

KEEP has very little meaning on its own, but it is used in many expressions – keep war, keep your job, keep going

~ notes - вести записи

~ in touch with - держать связь, контакт

~ silent – молчать

~ together – оставаться единым

~ to the subject - придерживаться темы

9. cling (v) - цепляться, прилипать, крепко держаться, держаться (берега, дома и т.п.), оставаться верным (друзьям, идеям и т.п.), держаться, удерживаться, не исчезать полностью

reflection (n) - отражение, размышление

on ~ – подумав, поразмыслив

I. GRAMMAR EXERSISES