北京大学外国语学院英语系大学英语教研室

北京大学外国语学院英语系大学英语教研室

“ 高级英语

—

阅读与写作”期中考试

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2002

年

11

月

姓名

________________

学号

________________

系别

________________

Reading Task

Directions:

Read the follow

ing article, and pay special attention to the

words

underlined. You w

ill be asked to explain them after reading.

What Every Y

ale Freshman Should Know

Edmund

S.

Morgan

The world does not much like curiosity. The world says that curiosity killed the cat.

The

world

dismisses

curiosity

by

calling

it

idle,

or

mere

idle,

curiosity

—

even

though

curious

person

are

seldom

idle.

Parents

do

their

best

to

extinguish

curiosity

in

their

children, because it makes life difficult to be faced every day with a string of unanswerable

questions

about

what

makes

fire

hot

or

why

grass

grows,

or

to

have

to

halt

junior’s

investigations before they end in explosion and sudden death. Children whose curiosity

survives parental discipline and who manage to grow up before they blow up are invited to

join the Yale faculty. Within the university they go on asking their questions and trying to

find the answers. In the eyes of a scholar, that is

mainly

what a university is for.

It is a

place where the world’s hostility to curiosity can be defied.

Some

of

the

questions

that

scholars

ask

seem

to

the

world

to

be

scarcely

worth

asking,

let

alone

answering.

They

ask

about

the

behavior

of

protons,

the

dating

of

a

Roman coin, the structure of a poem. They ask questions too minute and specialized for

you and me to understand without years of explanation.

If the world inquires of one of them why he wants to know the answer to a particular

question, he may say, especially if he is a scientist, that the answer will in some obscure

way make possible a new machine or weapon or gadget. He talks that way because he

knows

that

the

world

understands

and

respects

utility

and

that

it

does

not

understand

much else. But to his colleagues and to you he will probably not speak that language. You

are now part of the university, and he will expect you to understand that he wants to know

the

answer

simply

because

he

does

not

know

it,

the

way

a

mountain

climber

wants

to

climb a mountain simply because it is there.

Similarly a historian, when asked by outsiders why he studies history, may come out

with

a

line

of

talk

that

he

has

learned

to

repeat

on

such

occasion,

something

about

knowledge of the past making it possible to understand the present and mold the future. I

am sure you have all heard it at one time or another. But if you really want to know why a

historian studies the past, the answer is much simpler: he wants to know about it because

it is there. Something happened, and he would like to know what.

All this does not mean that the answers which scholars find to their questions have

no consequences. They may have enormous consequences; they may completely alter

the character of human life. But the consequences seldom form the reason for asking the

questions or pursuing the answers. It is true that scholars can be put to work answering

questions for the sake of the consequences, as thousands are working now

, for example,

in search of a cure for cancer. But this is not the primary function of the scholar. For the

scholar the consequences are usually incidental to the satisfaction of curiosity. Even for

the medical scholar, the desire to stamp out a dreaded disease may be a less powerful

motive than the desire to find out about the nature of living matter. Similarly Einstein did

not wish to create an atomic bomb or to harness atomic energy. He simply wanted to find

out about energy and matter.

I

said

that

curiosity

was

a

dangerous

quality.

It

is

dangerous

not only

because

of

incidental effects like the atomic bomb but also because it is really nothing more or less

than

a

desire

for

truth.

For

some

reason

this

phrase

sounds

less

dangerous

than

curiosity.

In

fact,

the

desire

for

truth

sounds

rather

respectable.

Since

so

many

respectable

people

assure

us

that

they

have

found

the

truth,

it

does

not

sound

like

a

dangerous

thing to

look

for.

But

it

is.

The

search

for

it has again

and

again

overturned

institutions and beliefs of long standing, in science, in religion, and in politics. It is easy

enough to see today that these past revolutions brought great benefits to mankind. It was

less easy to see the benefits while the revolutions were taking place, especially when you

happened to be quite satisfied with the way things were before. Similarly it is not always

easy today to see that the satisfaction of a scholar’s curiosity is worth the disruption of

society that may result from it. The search for truth is, and always has been, a sub

versive

activity.

And

scholars

have

learned

that

they

cannot

engage

in

it

without

an

occasional

fight.

You may therefore find them rather belligerent toward any threat to the free pursuit of

curiosity.

They

are

wary

of

committing

themselves

to

institutions

or

beliefs

that

might

impose limitations on them or deliver ready-made answers to their questions. You will find

them

suspicious of

loyalty

oaths, religious

creeds,

or

affiliations

with

political

parties.

In

particular they will try to preserve their university as a sanctuary within those walls

any

question can be asked.

This wariness of commitment can sometimes degenerate into a scholarly vice, a vice

that paralyzes curiosity instead of preserving it. A scholar at his worst sometimes seems to

be simply a man who cannot make up his mind. Every classroom from here to Melbourne

has

echoed

with

the

feeble

phrases of

academic

indecision:

“There

are

two

schools

of

thought on this question, and the truth probably lies halfway between them.” When you

hear this sentence repeated, or when you are tempted to repeat it yourself, remember that

the

truth

may

lie between

two

extremes,

but

it assuredly

does

not

lie

halfway

between

right and wrong. Don’t

short-circuit your curiosity by assuming you have found the answer

when you have only made a tidy list of possible answers.

Dedication

to

curiosity

should

not

end

in

indecision.

It

should,

in

fact,

mean

willingness to follow the mind into difficult decision.

A second quality that makes a scholar has no apparent relation to the first and yet is

inseparably connected to it. It is a compulsion to communicate. A scholar is driven by a

force as strong as his curiosity, that compels him to tell the world the things he has learned.

He

cannot

rest

with

learning

something:

he

has

to

tell

about

it.

Scholarship

begins

in

curiosity, but it ends in communication. And though scholar may in a university take refuge

from

the

world,

they

also

acknowledge

responsibility

to

communicate

freely

and

fully

everything that they discover within the walls of their sanctuary. The search for truth needs

no justification, and when a man thinks he has found any part of it, he cannot and ought

not to be silent. The world may sometimes not care to listen, but the scholar must keep

telling it until he has succeeded in communicating.

Now there are only two methods of communication for scholars, writing and speaking.

The scholar published his discoveries in books and articles and he teaches them in the

classroom. Sometimes one or the other method will satisfy him, but most of us feel the

need for both. The scholar who merely writes books falls into the habit of speaking only to

the experts. If he works at his subject long enough, he reaches the position where there is

no one else quite expert enough to understand him, and he winds up writing to himself.

On the other hand, if he writes not at all, he may become so enamored of his own voice

that he ceases to be a scholar and becomes a mere showman.

Communication is not merely the desire and the responsibility of the scholar; it is his

discipline,

the

proving

ground

where

he

tests

his

findings

against

criticism.

Without

communication his pursuit of truth withers into eccentricity. He necessarily spends much

of his time alone, in the library or the laboratory, looking for the answer to his questions.

But he needs to be rubbing constantly against other minds. He needs to be tested, probed,

and

pushed

around.

He

needs

to

be

made

to

explain

himself.

Only

when

he

has

expressed himself, only when he has communicated his thoughts, can he be sure that he

is thinking clearly.

The

scholar,

in

other

words,

needs

company

to

keep

him

making

sense.

And

in

particular he needs the company of fresh minds, to whom he must explain things from the

beginning. He needs people who will challenge him at every step, who will take nothing for

granted. He needs, in short, you.

You may have various purposes in coming here, and you may fulfill them: you may

play football or tennis or the trombone; you may sing in the glee club, act in plays, and act

up on college weekends. But what the faculty expects of you is four years of scholarship,

and they will be satisfied with nothing less. For four years we expect you to join us in the

pursuit

of

truth,

and

we

will

demand

of

you

the

same

things

we

demand

of

ourselves:

curiosity and communication.

Curiosity,

of

course,

is

not

something

you

get

simply

by

wishing

for

it.

But

it

is

surprisingly contagious. The curiosity we expect is more than a passing interest. We will

not

be

satisfied

by

your

ability

to

ask

an

occasional

bright

question,

nor

yet

by

your

assimilation

of

a

lot

of

predigested

information.

The

accumulation

of

information

is

a

necessary

part

of

scholarship,

and

unfortunately

the

part

most

likely

to

be

tested

on

examinations, especially those wr

etched ones called “objective examinations” where the

truth is always supposed to lie in answer space A, B, C, D, or E, but never apparently in X,

Y

, or Z. But the curiosity we expect of you cannot be satisfied by passing examinations or

by memorizing othe

r people’s answers to other people’s questions. We do not wish to put

you through a mere course of mental gymnastics. We want you to be content with nothing

less than the whole truth about the subject that interests you. Which means that we want