Excerpt 1 The relationship between formal education and economic growth in poor countries is widely misunderstood by economi

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问题 Excerpt 1
    The relationship between formal education and economic growth in poor countries is widely misunderstood by economists and politicians alike.Progress in both area is undoubtedly necessary for the social, political and intellectual development of these and all other societies, however, the conventional view that education should be one of the very highest priorities for promoting rapid economic development in poor countries is wrong.We are fortunate that it is, because new educational systems there and putting enough people through them to improve economic performance would require two or three generations.The findings of a research institution have consistently shown that workers in all countries can be trained on the job to achieve radical higher productivity and, as a result, radically higher standards of living.
Excerpt 2
    The most thoroughly studied in the history of the new world are the ministers and political leaders of seventeenth-century New England.According to the standard history of American philosophy, nowhere else in colonial America was "so much important attached to intellectual pursuits".According to many books and articles, New England’s leaders established the basic themes and preoccupations of an unfolding, dominant Puritan tradition in American intellectual life.
Excerpt 3
    Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children:"We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing." Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellec-tualism.Its hero avoids being civilized—going to school and learning to read—so he can preserve his innate goodness.
Excerpt 4
    While often praised by foreigners for its emphasis on the basics, Japanese education tends to stress test taking and mechanical learning over creativity and self- expression."Those things that do not show up in the test scores personality, ability, courage or humanity are completely ignored," says Toshiki Kaifu, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s education committee."Frustration against this kind of thing leads kids to drop out and run wild." Last year Japan experienced 2,125 incidents of school violence, including 929 assaults on teachers.Amid the outcry, many conservative leaders are seeking a return to the prewar emphasis on moral education.Last year Mitsuo Setoyama, who was then education minister, raised eyebrows when he argued that liberal reforms introduced by the American occupation authorities after World War Ⅱ had weakened the "Japanese morality of respect for parents."
Excerpt 5
    There are some good arguments for a technical education given the right kind of student.Many European schools introduce the concept of professional training early on in order to make sure children are properly equipped for the professions they want to join.It is, however, pre-sumptuous to insist that there will only be so many jobs for so many scientists, so many business-men, so many accountants.Besides, this is unlikely to produce the needed number of every kind of professional in a country as large as ours and where the economy is spread over so many states and involves so many international corporations.Excerpt 6What accounts for the great outburst of major inventions in early America-breakthroughs such as the telegraph, the steamboat and the weaving machine?Among the many shaping factors, I would single out the country’s excellent elementary schools; a labor force that welcomed the new technology; the practice of giving premiums to inventors; and above all the American genius for nonverbal, "spatial" thinking about things technological.Why mention the elementary schools? Because thanks to these schools our early mechanics, especially in the New England and Middle Atlantic states, were generally literate and at home in arithmetic and in some aspects of geometry and trigonometry.Acute foreign observers related American adaptiveness and inventiveness to this educational advantage.As a member of a British commission visiting here in 1853 reported, "With a mind prepared by thorough school discipline, the American boy develops rapidly into the skilled workman."
The author notes that in the seventeenth-century New England______.

选项 A、Puritan tradition dominated political life
B、intellectual interests were encouraged
C、politics benefited much from intellectual endeavors
D、intellectual pursuits enjoyed a liberal environment

答案B

解析 根据Excerpt 2的内容可知,17世纪新英格兰的牧师和政治领导人对新世界的历史研究得最透彻。根据美国标准哲学史的记载,在美洲殖民地的其他地方没有人认为追求知识非常重要。根据一些书籍和文章中所载内容可知,新英格兰的统治者们在美国的精神生活中确定了基本的主题,并且优先发展了逐渐显露出来的,占据主流的清教徒传统。这可表明,作者认为在17世纪的新英格兰知识的重要性得到加强。
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