The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means, and the exercise of ordinary qualities. 1. The common life of every day, with its cares, necessities, and duties, affords ample opportunity for acquiring experience of the best kind; and its most beaten paths provide the true worker with abundant scope for effort and room for self-improvement. The road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and Work in the truest spirit, will usually be the most successful.
Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators. In the pursuit of even the highest branches of human inquiry, the commoner qualities are found the most useful—such as common sense, attention, application, and perseverance.
2. Genius may not be necessary, though even genius of the highest sort does not disdain the use of these ordinary qualities. The very greatest men have been among the least believers in the power of genius, and as worldly wise and persevering as successful men of the commoner sort. Some have even defined genius to be only common sense intensified. A distinguished teacher and president of a college spoke of it as the power of making efforts. John Foster held it to be the power of lighting one's own fire. Buffon said of genius "it is patience".
Newton's was unquestionably a mind of the very highest order, and yet, when asked by what means he had worked out his extraordinary discoveries, he modestly answered, "By always thinking unto them." At another time he thus expressed his method of study: "I keep the subject continually before me, and wait till the first dawnings open slowly by little and little into a full and clear light." 3. It was in Newton's case, as in every other, only by diligent application and perseverance that his great reputation was achieved. Even his recreation consisted in change of study, laying down one subject to take up another. To Dr. Bentley he said, "If I have done the public any service, it is due to nothing but industry and patient thought."
4. The extraordinary results effected by dint of sheer industry and perseverance, have led many distinguished men to doubt whether the gift of genius be so exceptional an endowment as it is usually supposed to be. Thus Voltaire held that it is only a very slight line of separation that divides the man of genius from the man of ordinary mould. Beccaria was even of opinion that all men might be poets and orators, and Reynolds that they might be painters and sculptors. If this were really so, that stolid Englishman might not have been so very far wrong after all, who, on Canova's death, inquired of his brother whether it was "his intention to carry on the business".
Locke, Helvetius, and Diderot believed that all men have an equal aptitude for genius, and that what some are able to effect, under the laws which regulate the operations of the intellect, must also be within the reach of others who, under like circumstances, apply themselves to like pursuits. 5. But while admitting to the fullest extent the wonderful achievements of labor, and recognizing the fact that men of the most distinguished genius have invariably been found the most indefatigable workers, it must nevertheless be sufficiently obvious that, without the original endowment of heart and brain, no amount of labor, however well applied, could have produced a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Beethoven, or a Michelangelo.
Dalton, the chemist, repudiated the notion of his being "a genius", attributing everything which he had accomplished to simple industry and accumulation. John Hunter said of himself, "My mind is like a beeh
More Efforts Urged to Empower Women at AIDS Conference
Prevention is a central issue being discussed at the sixteenth International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada. Twenty-four thousand delegates are at the conference which ends Friday.
Bill and Melinda Gates called for faster research to develop preventions like microbicides for women to use when they have sex. (46) Melinda Gates said the way to "change this epidemic" is to put power in the hands of women. In southern Africa, for example, about sixty percent of adults living with HIV are women. Bill Gates said women today often have no choice but to depend on men not to infect them. "A woman should never need her partner's permission to save her own life," he said as the conference opened Sunday. (47)
On Monday, former President Bill Clinton said more people would get tested for HIV if an aggressive effort took place to fight the stigma. But reducing fears of social rejection is not enough. (48)
Researchers at the conference presented the results of a new study of HIV testing. It involved more than one hundred thousand people tested in California last year. Some received a quick test, with results in about twenty minutes. The others received a test that is more commonly used; the results takes two weeks. The researchers say twenty-five percent of the people who had the longer test did not return to learn the results. (49) George Lemp of the University of California led the study. He says quick tests could be especially important in developing countries with limited transportation.
Speakers at the AIDS conference also discussed high rates of new HIV infections among black Americans. Julian Bond is chairman of the NAACP , a leading civil rights group. (50) Public health officials say half of all new HIV infections in the United States are in blacks. African American delegates at the conference said they will prepare a five-year plan to reduce infection rates and increase testing.
A. The chairman said African-Americans must, in his words, "face the fact that AIDS has become a black disease. "
B. Mr. Clinton said people also need a guarantee they would get medicine to suppress the virus.
C. Delegates at the conference have worked out an action with the virus that causes AIDS.
D. They hoped that such products could protect against infection with the virus that causes AIDS.
E. The world's richest man said "stopping AIDS" is the top priority of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
F. But that was true of only two percent of those who had the quick test.
(46)
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
