英语四级听力美文第20篇:Modern American University
Before the 1850s, the United States had a number of small colleges, most of them dating fromcolonial days. They were small, church connected institutions whose primary concern was toshape the moral character of their students. Meanwhile, throughout Europe, institutions ofhigher learning had developed.
In German university was concerned primarily with creating and spreading knowledge, notmorals.
Between mid-century and the end of the 1800s, more than nine thousand young Americans, dissatisfied with their training at home, went to Germany for advanced study. Some of themreturn to become presidents of venerable colleges — Harvard, Yale, Columbia — andtransform them into modern universities. The new presidents broke all ties with the churchesand brought in a new kind of faculty.
Professors were hired for their knowledge of a subject, not because they were of the proper faithand had a strong arm for disciplining students. Drilling and memorizing were replaced by theGerman method of lecturing, in which the professors own research was presented in class. Withthe establishment of the seminar system, graduate student learned to question, analyze, andconduct their own research.
At the same time, the new university greatly expanded in size and course offerings, breakingcompletely out of the old, constricted curriculum of mathematics, classics, rhetoric, andmusic. The president of Harvard pioneered the selective system, by which students were ableto choose their own course of study. The notion of major fields of study emerged. The new goalwas to make the university relevant to the real pursuits of the world. Paying close attention tothe practical needs of society, the new universities trained men and women to work at its tasks, with engineering students being the most characteristic of the new system. Students werealso trained as economists, architects, agriculturalists, social welfare workers, and teachers.
