номер 5, страница 123 - гдз по английскому языку 11 класс учебник Вербицкая, Каминс Карр

Dialogue of Cultures Four. American Character. Track Five.

Interviewer: Hello, Alexandra.

Interviewer: I know that you recently finished university in the United States. What university was it?

Alexandra: Hi. The university that I went to was Harvard University, which is one of the oldest institutions that we have.

Alexandra: It was founded in sixteen thirty-six in Boston.

Alexandra: Compared to universities in Europe, of course, it's not very old, compared to say Oxford or Cambridge. But for America, it's extremely old. It's older than the country itself, which, as you know, of course, was founded in seventeen seventy-six. So Harvard is really a very special and interesting place.

Interviewer: What makes it so special?

Alexandra: One thing that's very different about Harvard is that it has many traditions that stem from its long history.

Alexandra: In the very beginning, Harvard University was quite different from the university that we see today.

Alexandra: It was for very young children, for boys of about ten or eleven years of age. And they studied the Bible. Basically, they studied Christianity, religion, and not much else. They didn't study mathematics, linguistics, or history, or any subjects that we see in universities today.

Alexandra: Instead, they learned how to be good Christians.

Alexandra: No girls were, of course, allowed to study there, since women at that time were denied formal education. And, interestingly enough, the boys were both the sons of colonizers, as you can imagine, and also the sons of native Indians who lived nearby.

Interviewer: What did you like most at your uni?

Alexandra: For me, the most interesting part in Harvard's history is the founding of its library system.

Alexandra: The library system is absolutely amazing. It's actually the fourth biggest library in the entire world.

Alexandra: So the National Library of America, which is called the Library of Congress, has a bigger collection than the British National Library or the French Bibliothèque Nationale.

Alexandra: But Harvard's library has close to eighteen million books. And as you can imagine, eighteen million is just a vast number. And any subject you want to read about can be found in this library. It's very democratic. It's open to everyone.

Alexandra: The library itself is in a physical building that's absolutely enormous. You can compare it with a building the size of GUM, the department store in Moscow. Only instead of being a few stories high, it's seven stories high and also goes about sixteen stories underground. So it's really one of the biggest buildings I've ever seen. It's absolutely full of books.

Interviewer: I heard that there's a special requirement for applicants to Harvard.

Interviewer: You must do a swimming test. It sounds strange to me.

Interviewer: Is there any special reason behind it?

Alexandra: Ah, yes. It is also connected with the library.

Alexandra: Because the library building itself was given to the university by a very rich woman named Mrs. Widener. And she had a sad reason for giving the money to build this library.

Alexandra: She had a young son, Harry, who was a student at Harvard. He was about twenty, and he was very interested in rare books. He was a collector, and because he came from a wealthy family, he was able to collect these books.

Alexandra: So when he was still a student, he went to Europe to collect these books. He went to auctions and marketplaces all over Europe and found many beautiful and rare volumes. But unfortunately, it was nineteen twelve, and the ship that he chose to return on was the Titanic. And, as you know, of course, the Titanic sank. Thousands of people died, including young Harry, and all of the books were lost too, incidentally.

Interviewer: Oh no.

Interviewer: How tragic.

Alexandra: So his mother was devastated. And in his memory, she decided that the best thing to do would be to give the money to build this library in his name so that his interest in book collecting could be passed down from generation to generation.

Alexandra: But the interesting part of the story for me is that Mrs. Widener was a very eccentric woman as she had several demands attached to this gift.

Alexandra: One of the demands showed her concern for the safety of future Harvard students.

Alexandra: She actually required that every incoming Harvard freshman, every first-year student, had to pass a swimming test before entering the university, before beginning classes.

Alexandra: And this, of course, is because she didn't want anyone else to drown as her son had drowned.

Alexandra: Students still do it today, just to honor the tradition.

Alexandra: When I was a first-year at Harvard, in our first week, we all went trooping down to the swimming pool, swam to the end of the pool and swam back. And then, after that, we were allowed to begin university.

Alexandra: So this is just an example of how Harvard really likes to honor its history, honor its traditions.