初一英语美文欣赏

美文的朗读不仅能让学生培养良好的语言表达技能,还能在更深入地理解文本的过程中受到思想品德以及审美的教育。我精心收集了初一英语美文，供大家欣赏学习!

The Historical Significance of American Revolution

The ways of history are so intricate and the motivations of human actions so complex that itis always hazardous to attempt to represent events covering a number of years, a multiplicityof persons, and distant localities as the expression of one intellectual or social movement;yet the historical process which culminated in the ascent of Thomas Jefferson to the presidencycan be regarded as the outstanding example not only of the birth of a new way of life but ofnationalism as a new way of life.The American Revolution represents the link between theseventeenth century, in which modern England became conscious of itself, and the awakeningof modern Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. It may seem strange that the march ofhistory should have had to cross the Atlantic Ocean, but only in the North American coloniescould a struggle for civic liberty lead also to the foundation of a new nation.Here, in thepopular rising against a "tyrannical" government, the fruits were more than the securing of afreer constitution. They included the growth of a nation born in liberty by the will of the people,not from the roots of common descent, a geographic entity, or the ambitions of king ordynasty. With the American nation, for the first time, a nation was born, not in the dim past ofhistory but before the eyes of the whole world.

美国革命的历史意义

历史的进程是如此错综复杂，人类行为的动机是如此令人费解，以至于想把那些时间跨度大，涉及人数多，空间范围广的事件描述成为一个智者或一场社会运动的表现的企图是危险的。 然而以托马斯 ·杰弗逊登上总统宝座为高潮的那一段历史过程可以被视为一个特殊的例子。 在这段历史时期里不仅诞生了新的生活方式，而且民族主义成为了一种新的生活方式。 美国独立战争成为联结 17 世纪现代英格兰的自我意识和 18 世纪末现代欧洲的觉醒的纽带。 历史的行程需要跨越大西洋，这看起来似乎有些奇怪，但却只有在北美殖民地为民权和自由的斗争才能导致新国家的建立。 这里，反对"暴政"的民众起义的成果不仅是获得一个包含更多自由的宪法，还包括了一个依照人民的意愿诞生在自由中的国家的成长。这个国家不是基于血缘、地理、君主或王朝的野心。 由于有了美国，第一次一个国家的诞生不是发生在历史模糊的过去，而是在全世界人们的眼前。

The Early Settlers in North America

The North American frontier changed some of the characteristics of the pioneers of the1750's and intensified others.They were, as a group, semiliterate, proud, and stubborn, asdogged in their insistence on their own way of life as pine roots cracking granite togrow.Perhaps their greatest resource was their capacity to endure. They outlasted recurrentplagues of smallpox and malaria and a steady progression of natural accidents. They wereincredibly prolific. Squire Boone's family of eight children was small by frontier standards.James Roberson, an eventual neighbor of Boone's and the founder of Nashville,had elevenchildren. Twice married John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, fathered eighteen; hislongtime enemy, John Tipton, also twice married, produced seventeen. The entire assets of oneof these huge families often amounted, in the beginning, to little more than an axe, a huntingknife, an auger, a rifle, a horse or two, some cattle and a few pigs, a sack of corn seed andanother of salt, perhaps a crosscut saw, and a loom. Those who moved first into a new regionlived for months at a time on wild meat, Indian maize, and native fruits in season. Yet if theywere poor at the beginning, they confidently expected that soon they would be rich. In a wayalmost impossible to define to urban dwellers, a slice of ground suitable for farmingrepresented not just dollars and cents, but dignity. The obsession brought shiploads ofyearners every week to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charles Towne,andSavannah.It sent them streaming westward into the wilderness after their predecessors toraise still more children who wanted still more land.

北美早期殖民者

北美的边远地区改变了 18 世纪 50 年代拓荒者的一些特点，而强化了他们的另一些特点。 作为一个整体，他们是半文盲，高傲并且顽固。 他们坚持自己的生活方式就象松树根在花岗石中爆缝生长。 也许，他们最大的资源是忍耐能力。 他们熬过了经常性的天花、疟疾等瘟疫及一系列自然灾难。 他们出奇地多育。 依他们的标准，斯夸尔布恩有八个孩子是少的了。 最后成了布恩的邻居并且是那士维的建造者的詹姆士 ·罗伯逊有 11个孩子。 曾结过两次婚的约翰·塞维尔-- 田纳西州的第一位州长，生了18 个孩子，他长期的仇敌，约翰 ·提普敦也结过两次婚并有 17 个孩子。 最初，在这些庞大的家庭中，全部的财产合起来也不过是一把斧头、一把猎刀和一根钻子，一条步枪，一两匹马，牛和猪，一袋玉米种子和一袋盐，或可能还有一把锯子和一台织布机。 那些新到一个地区的人们一连数月靠野味、印第安玉米和季节性野果维持生活。 然而，即使最初很贫穷，他们自信很快就会富起来。 一块适合耕种的土地不仅仅代表着金钱，更意味着尊严。 这一点是无法向城市居民解释的。 这一固执的想法每周都将整船整船的渴望者带往波士顿、纽约、费城、巴尔的摩、查尔斯城和萨瓦那。 跟随着他们的先行者，这些渴望的人们象潮水一般涌向荒野， 去生养更多的子女，而这些子女又将需求更多的土地。

The Revolution in American

Higher Education To produce the upheaval in the United States that changed and modernizedthe domain of higher education from the mid 1860's to the mid 1880's, three primary causesinteracted. The emergence of a half dozen leaders in education provided the personal forcethat was needed. Moreover, an outcry for a fresher, more practical, and more advanced kind ofinstruction arose among the alumni and friends of nearly all of the old colleges and grew into amovement that overrode all conservative opposition. The aggressive "Young Yale"movement appeared, demanding partial alumni control, a more liberal spirit, and a broadercourse of study.

The graduates of Harvard college simultaneously rallied to relieve the college's poverty anddemand new enterprise. Education was pushing toward higher standards in the East bythrowing off church leadership everywhere, and in the West by finding a wider range of studiesand a new sense of public duty. The old style classical education received its most crushing blowin the citadel of Harvard College, where Dr. Charles Eliot, a young captain of thirty five, son of aformer treasurer of Harvard, led the progressive forces. Five revolutionary advances weremade during the first years of Dr. Eliot's administration. They were the elevation andamplification of entrance requirements, the enlargement of the curriculum and thedevelopment of the elective system, the recognition of graduate study in the liberal arts, theraising of professional training in law, medicine, and engineering to a postgraduate level, andthe fostering of greater maturity in students' life. Standards of admission were sharplyadvanced in 1872-1873 and 1876-1877. By the appointment of a dean to take charge ofstudent affairs, and a wise handling of discipline, the undergraduates were led to regardthemselves more as young gentlemen and less as young animals.

One new course of study after another was opened up - science, music, the history of the finearts, advanced Spanish, political economy, physics, classical philology, and international law.

美国高等教育的革命

从 19 世纪 60 年代中期到 19 世纪 80 年代中期，改变了美国高等教育并使其现代化的激变有三个互相作用的因素。 六位教育界领导者的出现保证了所需的人力因素。 除此之外，要求更新、更实用、更高层次的教育呼声在几乎所有老式学院的校友和朋友间升起并发展成压倒所有保守派的一场运动。 咄咄逼人的"青年耶鲁"运动出现了，要求校友具有部分控制，更自由的精神和更广的选课范围。哈佛学院的毕业生同时团结起来缓解学校的贫困状况并要求新的事业。 在东部地区的高等学府抛弃了教堂的领导，西部地区的学校则扩大了学习范围，树立了一种新的社会责任感，由此教育不断地被推向更高的标准。 在哈佛学院的城堡里，旧式的经典教育受到了最毁灭性的打击。 哈佛以前一个财政主管的儿子，35 岁的年轻领袖查尔斯 ·艾略特博士，领导了进步的力量。 在他管理学院的第一年取得了五个革命性的进展。 那就是提高和加强入学要求，扩充课程和发展选修课，承认大学文科的研究生学习，将法学、医学和工程学的职业训练提高到研究生水平和促进学生生活的成熟。 入学标准在 1872～1873 年及 1876 年～1877 年急剧提高。 由于采用了学生事务院长负责制和明智的处理纪律的手段，大学生把自己更多地看作是年轻的绅士，而不是 年轻的动物。学校开设了一个又一个的新课程-- 自然科学、音乐、美术史、高级西班牙语、 政治经济学、物理、古典语言学和国际法。