With a profound sadness I have just said farewell to one of my best friends who is now lost to me forever. He has bought a television set.
The man who buys a television set departs from the world of living men and enters another word of shadows. I do not blame my friend. The real world, I suppose, is just too much for him as it is for millions of others.
My friend does not realize, of course, that he is in full retreat from actuality. He supposes, on the contrary, that he is boldly advancing into the fierce current of these times by bringing the world, with all its events and human figures, into his living room. That is the great current illusion. The shadows are mistaken for things.
Now, television is a wonderful invention. I have no word to say against it, so long as it is confined to other people's houses where, in my weaker moments, I may see it occasionally free. But it brings no one closer to life. It merely inter- poses a gaudy curtain between lift and the spectator. It is only the latest gadget contrived by thoughtful men to make sure that nobody does any real thinking for himself.
My friend will answer that he will now receive the best thoughts of the ablest minds in the world and see their faces as they deliver them. He will see events as they unfold at first hand, with a time lag of half a second or less.
Of course, he will. But he won't understand anything better. He will understand less than ever. For the grim, inescap- able fact of human understanding is that it must be private, must come from within and cannot be plastered on like stucco from the outside. A man may secure knowledge from others. He will never secure understanding. Though it is presented in a million different versions, the paramount problem of modern man is to find a satisfactory participation in modern life. And it is there that he is most obviously failing.
He can turn a screw on the assembly line, but as the finished automobile comes off at the end, he has no satisfaction in its creation. Or if he works in a white collar he can add up all the figures of business on an adding machine without once touching the realities a life as the country storekeeper touches them. He swarms in his multitudes to watch hockey game but he does not play hockey.
In other words, for the essential purposes of life, modern man is becoming a spectator, not a participant, a customer not a creator, a consumer in the main and only incidentally a producer. Thus by a law as old as Eden he becomes sick under a hectic outward flush. His physical diet is better than ever but he sickens by a secret malnutrition of the soul.
According to the author, his friend has bought a television in order to_____.
A．know the current events
B．entertain himself at leisure time
C．escape from the reality
D．kill time
It is customary for adults to forget how hard and dull and long school is. The learning by memory of all the basic things one must know is a most incredible and unending effort. School is not easy and it is not for the most part very much fun, but then, if you are very lucky, you may find a real teacher. Three teachers in a lifetime are the very best of my luck. My first was a science and math teacher in high school, my second, a professor of creative writing at Stanford, and my third was my friend and partner, ED Rickets.
I have to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that three are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
My three teachers had these things in common: They all loved what they were doing; they did not tell, but stimulated a burning desire to know. Under their influence, the horizons sprang wide and fear went away and the unknown became knowable.
I shall speak only of my first teacher because in addition to the other things, she brought discovery. She aroused us to shouting, book-waving discussions. She had the noisiest class in school and she did not even seem to know it. We could never stick to the subject. Our speculation (思绪) ranged the world. She breathed curiosity into us so that we brought in facts or truths shielded in our hands like captured fireflies (萤火虫).
She was fired, and perhaps rightly so, for failing to teach fundamentals. Such things must be learned. But she left a passion in us for the pure knowable world and she inflamed me with a curiosity which has never left. I have had many teachers who told me soon-forgotten facts but only three who created in me a new attitude a new hunger. What deathless power lies in the hands of such a person？
21. In the writer’s opinion, school life is usually .
A. exciting B. interesting C. tiresome D. challenging
22. We can infer from Paragraph 2 that .
A. it is easy to find great artists as well as great teachers.
B. there are few great teachers but many great artists.
C. the greatest artists are not easy to find; nor are the greatest teachers.
D. being a great teacher is a great art to learn because teachers spread knowledge.
23. In the writer’s opinion, a good teacher should .
A. teach students the fundamental things
B. stick to one subject and be strict with students
C. teach students the knowledge ranging the world
D. arouse students’ curiosity and desire for the world
24. The writer’s first teacher was dismissed mainly because .
A. her class was the noisiest in school
B. she did not teach basic knowledge in class
C. she let students shout and wave books in class
D. she did not know how to teach basic knowledge effectively
25. What is the best title of this article？
A. The Teachers in My Life B. How to Become a Teacher
C. What to Teach at School D. What Makes a Good Teacher
