Recommended articles for recitation1. Companionship of BooksA man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of books or of men.A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in age.Men often discover their affinity to each other by the love they have each for a book. The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think, feel, and sympathize7 with each other through their favorite author. They live in him together, and he, in them.A good book is often the best urn of a life enshrining the best that life could think out; for the world of a man’s li fe is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are threasuries of good words, the golden thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, become our constant companions and comforters.Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first passed through their authors’ minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividlyas ever from the printed page.Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe.—Samuel Smiles2. PeaceToday we seek a moral basis for peace. It cannot be a real peace if it fails to recognize brotherhood. It cannot be a lasting peace if the fruit of it is oppression or starvation, or cruelty or human life dominated by armed camps. It cannot be a sound peace if small nations must live in fear of powerful neighbors. It cannot be a moral peace if freedom from invasion is sold for tribute. It cannot be an intelligent peace if it denies free passage to that knowledge of those ideals which permit men to find common ground. It cannot be a righteous peace if worship of God is denied.Peace, no less than war, must offer a spirit of comradeship, a spirit of achievement, a spirit of unselfishness, and indomitable will to victory.Peace, no less than war, must offer a spirit of comradeship, a spirit of achievement, a spirit of unselfishness, and indomitable will to victory.Peace can endure only so long as humanity really insists upon it, and is willing to work for it and sacrifice for it.—Franklin D. Roosevelt3．To SpringOh you, sweet Spring, aligh t from cherub’s wing,And put the ugly winter full to flight;And rouse the earth to smile, and larks to sing,With skies so bright and hearts of youth so light.Your gentle and genial breaths each blossom blow,While bees in gardens hum the lullabies.The hills and dales are stripp’d of mantles of snow,And streams and rivers freed from irons of ice.May seasons all be Spring—the pride of years,That all the things would e’er in glories gleam!May men be ever in the prime of years!But dream, however sweet, is but a dream.If happy when you come and sad when gone,Would that you’d never come or never gone!By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow4．NightNight has fallen over the country. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night the coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy see of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles①. The tramp of horses’ hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still save the continuous wind of the summer night. Sometimes I know not if it be the wind or the sounds of the neighboring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.How different it is in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy night as if you folded her garments about you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent darkness the spirit plunges, and floats away some beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him revolving like the sail of a windmill. The iron gates of the park shut with a jangling clang. There are footsteps and loud voices;—a tumult;—a drunken brawl;—an alarm of fire;—then silence again. And now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the opening of the streets—angular like blocks of whit e marble.By Nathanial Hawthorne①the Charles: 美国马萨诸塞州的一条河流5．The Road Not TakenBy Robert FrostTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.6．Smile of the EarthAll over my garden I’ve planted nothing but roses, fragrant and --- If looked at from afar---ablaze with colour like sunset clouds. I would be very happy if any one of my visiting friends should desire to pick and take some for their homes. I trust that any friend of mine carrying the roses would vanish into the distance feeling that his emotion had been rekindled.A close friend came for a visit the other day. I know her to be a lover of flowers and plants, and for that reason I told her at her departure that she should pick a bunch of roses to decorate her boudoir.I promised that the scent of the roses would be wafted far, far away.That girl friend of mine, tiptoeing into the garden in high spirits, sniffed here and smelt there, but in the end she didn’t pick a single rose. I said there were so many of them that she could pick as many as she’d like to; I told her that I was not a florist and didn’t make a living out of them. Whilesaying so I raised the scissors for the sacrifice of the flowers, but she vehemently stopped me, crying no, no, no!To cut such beautiful roses would hurt one, she said. With her hands clutching at my sleeves, she told me that by no means should they be cut. Roses are the smiling face of the earth, and who could be so iron-hearted as to destroy a smile so exhilarating?My mind was thoroughly boggled: the ugly earth, the humble earth, the plain earth--- it is only because of the roses that it reveals an amazing and bright smile, and it is for the sake of that smile that it wins the care and pity of men.Of late a friend of mine invited me to appreciate a Tang Dynasty vase that he was fortunate enough to have bought at an auction. The vase, with its slim neck, plump body, and fine little flowers on a blue and white background, has a noble shape and a rich colouring, elegant, refined, proud, poised, and supercilious, an extreme embodiment of the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty. I was filled with wonder to think that while everyone present was taking great care not to cause the slightest damage to the Tang treasure, it was to me nothing but an object made of clay. It had only become a piece of classic art after being baked in a china kiln.Both the exquisiteness of the boccaro teapots made in south China, and the shockingly beautiful sculptures by Clay Sculptor Zhang of Tianjin---aren’t they all smiles of the earth? They are such exquisite treasures that --- even if they look ugly, humble, plain, or whatever --- they no doubt deserve respect and veneration.Now I understand that no-one, however ordinary, should be condemned to anonymity, and that anyone who adds a dash of colour to life deserves our respect.7．HomeWhat makes a home? Love and sympathy and confidence. It is a place where kindly affections exist among all the members of the family. The parents take good care of their children, and the children are interested in the activities of their parents. Thus all of them are bound together by affection, and they find their home to be the cheeriest place in the world.A home without love is no more a home than a body without a soul is a man. Every civilized person is a social being. No one should live alone. A man may lead a successful and prosperous life, but prosperity alone can by no means insure happiness. Many great personages in the world history had deep affections for their homes.Your home may be poor and humble, but your duty lies there. You should try to make it cheerful and comfortable. The greater the difficulties, the richer will be your reward.A home is more than a family dwelling. It is a school in which people are trained for citizenship.A man will not render good service to his country if he can do nothing good for his home; for in proportion as he loves his home, will he love his country. The home is the birthplace of truepatriotism. It is the secret of social welfare and national greatness. It is the basis and origin of civilization.8．Choice of CompanionsA good companion is better than a fortune, for a fortune cannot purchase those elements of character which make companionship a blessing. The best companion is one who is wiser and better than ourselves, for we are inspired by his wisdom and virtue to nobler deeds.“Keep good company, and you shall be one of the number,” said George Herbert. “A man is know by the company he keeps.” Character makes character in the associations of life faster than anything else. This fact makes the choice of companions in early life more important even than that of teachers and guardians.Companionship is education, good or bad; it develops manhood or womanhood, high or low; it lifts the soul upward or drags it downward; it ministers to virtue or vice. Sow virtue, and the harvest will be virtue. Sow vice, and the harvest will be vice. Good companions help us to sow virtue; evil companions help us to sow vice.—William Makepeace Thayer9．ElectricityThe modern age is an age of electricity. People are so used to electric lights, radio, televisions, and telephones that it is hard to imagine what life would be like without them. When there is a power failure, people grope about in flickering candlelight, cars hesitate in the streets because there are no traffic lights to guide them, and food spoils in silent refrigerators.Yet, people began to understand how electricity works only a little more than two centuries ago. Nature has apparently been experimenting in this field for million of years. Scientists are discovering more and more that the living world may hold many interesting secrets of electricity that could benefit humanity.All living cell send out tiny pulses of electricity. As the heart beats, it sends out pulses of record; they form an electrocardiogram, which a doctor can study to determine how well the heart is working. The brain, too, sends out brain waves of electricity, which can be recorded in an electroencephalogram. The electric currents generated by most living cells are extremely small –often so small that sensitive instruments are needed to record them. But in some animals, certain muscle cells have become so specialized as electrical generators that they do not work as muscle cells at all. When large numbers of these cell are linked together, the effects can be astonishing.The electric eel is an amazing storage battery. It can seed a jolt of as much as eight hundred volts of electricity through the water in which it live. ( An electric house current is only one hundred twenty volts.) As many as four-fifths of all the cells in the electric eel’s body are specialized for generating electricity, and the strength of the shock it can deliver corresponds roughly to length of its body.10．Scientific TheoriesIn science, a theory is a reasonable explanation of observed events that are related. A theory often involves an imaginary model that helps scientists picture the way an observed event could be produced. A good example of this is found in the kinetic molecular theory, in which gases are pictured as being made up of many small particles that are in constant motion.A useful theory, in addition to explaining past observations, helps to predict events that have not as yet been observed. After a theory has been publicized, scientists design experiments to test the theory. If observations confirm the scienti st’s predictions, the theory is supported. If observations do not confirm the predictions, the scientists must search further. There may be a fault in the experiment, or the theory may have to be revised or rejected.Science involves imagination and creative thinking as well as collecting information and performing experiments. Facts by themselves are not science. As the mathematician Jules Henri Poincare said, ―Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection of facts cannot be called science any more than a pile of bricks can be called a house.‖Most scientists start an investigation by finding out what other scientists have learned about a particular problem. After known facts have been gathered, the scientist comes to the part of the investigation that requires considerable imagination. Possible solutions to the problem are formulated. These possible solutions are called hypotheses.。