亲子趣味英语

The boys shouted and laughed as they ran about in playground. It was near the end of term in a school in Germany about two hundred years ago. Soon school would be over for a few weeks. No wonder （难怪） they felt happy！
Their teacher watched them from the classroom window. He did not feel happy at all. End of term for him meant a lot of work. He thought hard. what could he find for the boys to do that would keep them quiet for a long time？ Then he could deal with （处理） his own work.
All of a sudden he had an idea. when the bell rang for the end of playtime, he was smiling.
One by one the boys came back to the classroom and sat at their desks.
Listen, boys, said the teacher. I want you to take your pencils and write down all the numbers from 1 to 100. When you have done that, add them all up. And no talking,mind（记住了）！”
The teacher smiled as the boys began their work."That should keep them busy for a bit, "he said to himself. But he was wrong Five minutes later the slowest boy was still writing down the date. Most of the other boys had just begun to add the numbers. One boy, however, put his pencil down.
“ What's the matter,Karl？” asked his teacher.“ Can't you do it？”
“Yes,sir，” replied the boy，“ But i have finished. The answer is 5,050.”
Nobody in the room believed him. How could a boy of ten add up all those numbers in such a short time？
Perhaps you had better tell us how you got your answer, 'the teacher told him.
It was easy, said the boy. First of all I added up 1 and 99， and that made 100. Then I kept on adding 3 and 97， 4 and 96， and so on until I got to 49 and 51. Each time the answer was 100， and so I had 49
hundreds in all. That made 4， 900. Then I added on the two numbers I left out, 50 and 100. and i got the answer 5,050.
The teacher groaned. It seemed as if the boy was quite right Now. he would have to find something else for them all to do.
Today we have forgotten the name of the teacher, but not the little boy who was so quick at his sums. His name was Karl Gauss.
Karl Gauss became a famous scientist. One of his great interests was astronomy（天文学）， the study of the stars. Before he died in1855，he had written 155 books.

We all know about Benjamin Franklin, He was a very famous American political leader. He was also the first man to discover electricity. He had strong interest in learning about new things.
One day he heard from a friend that something black in color holds the heat better than something white in color. Franklin wanted to find out if it is true or not by practice.
One winter, he went to the north and found snow on the ground. He put two large pieces of cloth over the snow. One piece of cloth was black in color. the other was white. He waited and waited until the sun began to shine. After several hours，he looked under the piece of cloth and saw that the snow under the white cloth melted （溶化） little while the snow under the black cloth was melted much more. Happily, he got the result of the test and put down the whole course（过程）.

When Albert Einstein was at primary school, he didnt do well. His teachers thought he was stupid and not worth teaching. His mother took him home and tought him a little by herself, for the family was very poor. As a child, playing the vivin was all he was good at.
When he was ten, he met Dr Max. The Dr talked with him and tried to help him. They read books together, and Einstein showed an interest in maths. He understood difficult maths prob lems and ideas. Later on he went to school again. but school work was not easy for him. He could not learn things by heart. He even did not pass his first test to enter college Because of his learning problems, Einstein made few friends. He was shy in groups of people. However, he overcame（克服) many of his shortcomings（缺点）and became a well known scientist in the field of physics. Now he is regaxded as one of the most important thinkers and greatest genius（天才）of 20th century.

James Watt（詹姆期 瓦特） was an English boy. He liked to ask questions and think hard. One day he was sitting in the kitchen with his grand mother, there he saw a kettle on the fire Soon steam began to come out o the kettle（水壶）. The lid was shaking.
"Grandma, what's in the kettle" he asked.
"Water, my boy, nothing but water"
" But I know there is something che. It pushed the lid（盖子）up".
"Oh, thats only steam.”
How did the steam get under the lid comes from the hot water.
The boy said to himself, How strong the steam is！ It can push things. If there is more water, the steam must be much stronger.
For many years, James watt tried to make steam woik for people. He made the first steam engine（蒸气机） for the world.

At one time Einstein traveled all over the United States giving lectures. He traveled by car and soon became quite friendly with the driver.
The driver always listened to Einstein,s lecture, which the great scien tist made again and again. One day, he told einstein he knew the lecture so well that he could talk next time？ Einstein agreed.
That evening both of them went along to the lecture hall. nobody there had seen Einstein before. As the driver took his place on the stage （讲台）,everybody clapped （鼓掌）. Then he began the lecture, while Einstein sat quietly a few steps behind.
After a short lecture, a man stopped them and asked the driver a very difficult question. The driver listened carefully. Certainly he did not under stand a thing but he nodded his head as if he did and said that such question was very interesting but really quite simple. In fact, in order to show how simple it really was, he would ask his driver to answer it.

Mark Twain, a famous writer, was travelling in France. He was going by train. He was very tired and wanted to sleep. He therefore asked the conductor to wake him up when the train came to Dijon. But first he explained that he was a very heavy sleeper..“ I probably will protest（抗议） loudly when you try to wake me up，"he said to the conductor . But do not take any notice, just put me off the train anyway.
Then Mark Twain went to sleep. Later, when he woke up, it was night time and the train had reached Paris already. He realized at once that the conductor had forgotten to wake him up at Dijon. He was very angry. He ran up to the conductor and began to shout at him. I was never so angry in all my life. Mark Twain said.
The condnitor looked at him calmly. You are not half so angry as the American whom i put off the train at dijon. he said.

During the second World War, Churchill was the british prime minister（首相）. One day he had to go to the British Broadcasting Corporation（the BBC）to make an important speech to the nation An hour before the time of his speech, he stopped a taxi in the street and asked the driver to take him to the bbC, but the driver, who did not recognize him said he could not take him anywhere just then, because he wanted to go to his home back at the other end of london to hear churchill make a speech on the radio Churchill was so pleased when he heard this answer that he gave the man a pound, which was worth quite a lot in those days.
"All right, get in, "said the driver happily, opening the door of the taxi. " I'll take you and to hell with（见鬼去吧） Churchill and his speech ."

Mark Twain, the famous American writer, liked to play jokes on others. But once a joke was played on him.
One day Mark Twain was invited to give a talk in a small town. at lunch he met a young man, one of his friends.
The young man said that he had an uncle with him. He told Mark Twain that his uncle never laughed or smiled, and that nobody and nothing was able to make his uncle smile or laugh.
" You bring your uncle to my talk tonight，" said Mark Twain. I am sure I can make him laugh.
That evening the young man and his uncle sat in the front. Mark Twain began to speak. He told several funny stories, but the old man still kept quiet. Mark Twain told his funniest stories. Finally he stopped. He was tired and quite disappointed.
Some days later, Mark Twain told another friend of his about what had happened.
“Oh，” said this friend.“ i know that old man, Hes been deaf（聋）or years."

In the course（过程） of one of his lecture trips, Maik Twain arrived at a small town. Before dinner he went to a barber's shop to be shaved（刮脸）.
Are you a stranger？ asked he barber
“Yes，" Mark Twain replied This is the first time I have been here."
"You chose a good time to come, the barber continued."Mark Twain is going to make a lecture tonight, You'll go, I suppose."
“Oh, I guess so."
“ Have you bought your ticket？”
“ Not yet."
But everything is sold out. You'll have to stand.
“ How annoying（令人生气）！” Maik. Twain said with a sigh（叹息）·“I never saw such luck. I always have to stand when that fellow is giving lectures."

Once there was a king in India. One day he was ill, so he sent for a doctor. The doctor came, looked him over and said, "You will be well a gain in a few days if you take bul！s（公牛的）mik.”
The king was very surprised, for he never heard of a bull that gave mik.“ How is it possible？” he asked.“ Onier（命令）Gubo, the scholar（学者） to get it for you. He can do anything.” The doctor was an enemy to Gulbo and thought this would be a way of making him suffer （受苦难）. when the king told Gulbo what the doctor said, he understood what the doctor was trying to do When he got home, he sat thinking how to get out of the difficul ty. His daughter, seeing him worried, asked what was the matter. On hearing what the king asked for, she said, Don't worry, father, I will help you."
The next day she took some old clothes, went to the bank of the river near the palace （宫殿）， and chose a place below the kings bedroom in the middle of the night when everyone was in bed, she started to do her washing. She made so much noise that the king was very angry and sent a guard to find out what the matter was. The soldier found the girl and led（带着） her to the king.“ Why do you wash your clothes here at night？ asked the king The girl pretended（假装） to be afraid, and said，“ i had to wash clothes at night. This afternoon my father had a bady. I was busy all day because of that then i found there were no clean chothes for the baby so I had to come here and wash them now What？ " cried the king. Are you trying to make fool of me？ Who ever heard of a man having a baby？"
Well, if the king himself orders someone to get bull's milk for him, why can't a man have a baby The king smiled and said, "You must be Gulbo's daughter Go and tell your father that he may keep the bull's milk for his lovely baby."