鏂拌閲庝笁鐗堣鍐?/p>
B2
U2
Text
A
The
humanities:
Out
of
date?
1
When
the
going
gets
tough,
the
tough
take
accounting.
When
the
job
market
worsens,
many
students
calculate
they
can't
major
in
English
or
history.
They
have
to
study
something
that
boosts
their
prospects
of
landing
a
job.
2
The
data
show
that
as
students
have
increasingly
shouldered
the
ever-rising
cost
of
tuition,
they
have
defected
from
the
study
of
the
humanities
and
toward
applied
science
and
"hard"
skills
that
they
bet
will
lead
to
employment.
In
other
words,
a
college
education
is
more
and
more
seen
as
a
means
for
economic
betterment
rather
than
a
means
for
human
betterment.
This
is
a
trend
that
is
likely
to
persist
and
even
accelerate.
3
Over
the
next
few
years,
as
labor
markets
struggle,
the
humanities
will
probably
continue
their
long
slide
in
succession.
There
already
has
been
a
nearly
50
percent
decline
in
the
portion
of
liberal
arts
majors
over
the
past
generation,
and
it
is
logical
to
think
that
the
trend
is
bound
to
continue
or
even
accelerate.
Once
the
dominant
pillars
of
university
life,
the
humanities
now
play
little
roles
when
students
take
their
college
tours.
These
days,
labs
are
more
vivid
and
compelling
than
libraries.
4
Here,
please
allow
me
to
stand
up
for
and
promote
the
true
value
that
the
humanities
add
to
people's
lives.
Since
ancient
times,
people
have
speculated
about
the
mystery
of
those
inner
forces
that
drive
some
people
to
greatness
and
others
to
self-destruction.
This
inner
drive
has
been
called
many
things
over
the
centuries.
The
famous
psychologist,
Sigmund
Freud,
called
it
the
"unconscious
mind"
or,
more
familiarly,
"instinct".
5
From
the
beginning
of
time,
this
inner
aspect
of
our
being,
this
drive
that
can
be
constructive
or
destructive,
has
captured
our
imagination.
The
stories
of
this
amazing
struggle
have
formed
the
basis
of
cultures
the
world
over.
Historians,
architects,
authors,philosophers
and
artists
have
captured
the
words,
images
and
meanings
of
this
inner
struggle
in
the
form
of
story,
music,
myth,
painting,
architecture,
sculpture,
landscape
and
traditions.
These
men
and
women
developed
artistic
"languages"
that
help
us
understand
these
aspirations
and
also
educate
generations.
This
fertile
body
of
work
from
ancient
times,
the
very
foundation
of
civilization,
forms
the
basis
of
study
of
the
humanities.