On the day of Edison‘s funeral, many people silently dimmed their lights. In this way they honored the man who had done more than anyone else to put the great force of electricity at his countrymen’s fingertips.
( )51. People decided to honor Edison when .
A. he made the first electric light.
B. electric power was 100 years old
C. the country realized electricity‘s importance
D. he died in 1931
( )52. The suggestion was to .
A. turn off the lights in factories and schools
B. observe a few minutes of total silence
C. dim all electric lights
D. shut off all electricity for a short time
( )53. Americans fully realized what Edison‘s inventions meant when they .
A. heard of his death B. heard of the plan to honor him
C. first used electric power D. tired to carry out the plan
( )54. The plan was never carried out because .
A. not everyone wanted to honor Edison
B. it was too difficult
C. electric power was too important to the country
D. in honored only one of Edison‘s inventions
B
Education is not an end, but a means to an end. In other words, we do not educate children only for the purpose of educating them. Our purpose is to fit them for life.
In some modern countries it has for some time been fashionable to think that by
free education for all —whether rich or poor, clever or stupid —one can solve all the problems of society and build a perfect nation. But we can already see that free education for all is not enough; we find in such countries a far larger number of people with university degrees; they refuse to do what they think “low” work; and, in fact, work with hands is thought to be dirty and shameful in such countries. But we have only to think a moment to understand that the work of a completely uneducated farmer is far more important than that of a professor; we can live without education, but we die if we have no food.
If no one cleaned our streets and took the rubbish away from our houses, we should get terrible diseases in our towns.
In fact, when we say that all of us must be educated to fit us for life, it means that we must be educated in such a way that, firstly, each of us can do whatever work suited to his brains and ability and, secondly, that we can realize that all jobs are necessary to society, and that is very bad to be ashamed of one‘s work. Only such a type of education can be considered valuable to society.
( )55. The writer of the passage thinks that .
A. education can settle most of the world‘s problems
B. free education for all probably leads to a perfect world
C. free education won‘t help to solve social problems
D. all the social problems can‘t be solved by education