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  3. The Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently set off a debate when he attacked America’s colleges as "indoctrina

The Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently set off a debate when he attacked America’s colleges as "indoctrina

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问题     The Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently set off a debate when he attacked America’s colleges as "indoctrination mills" from which Americans should keep their distance. Calling President Obama a " snob" for urging all Americans to go to college, he joined a long tradition that runs from Andrew Carnegie, who more than a century ago described colleges as places that prepare students for " life upon another planet," to Newt Gingrich, who has claimed that alumni donations are often used " to subsidize bizarre and destructive visions of reality. "
    Mr. Santorum’s remarks have been widely, and justly,rebutted. Yet defenders of college should do more than respond to its critics with contempt. We should seize the opportunity for introspection. Why does the anti-college mantra still touch a nerve among so many Americans?
    Consider the fact that SAT scores(a big factor in college admissions)correlate closely with family wealth. The total average SAT score of students from families earning more than $ 100,000 per year is more than 100 points higher than for students in the income range of $ 50,000 to $ 60,000. Or consider that a mere 3 percent of students in the top 150 colleges come from families in the bottom income quartile of American society. Only a very dogmatic Social Darwinist would conclude from these facts that intelligence closely tracks how much money one’s parents make. A better explanation is that students from affluent families have many advantages—test-prep tutors, high schools with good college counseling, parents with college savvy and so on.
    Yet once the beneficiaries arrive at college, what do they learn about themselves? It’s a good bet that the dean or president will greet them with congratulations for being the best and brightest ever to walk through the gates. A few years ago, the critic and essayist William Deresiewicz, who went to Columbia and taught at Yale, wrote that his Ivy education taught him to believe that those who didn’t attend " an Ivy League or equivalent school" were "beneath" him.
    Our oldest and most prestigious colleges are losing touch with the spirit in which they were founded. To the stringent Protestants who founded Harvard, Yale and Princeton, the mark of salvation was not high self-esteem but humbling awareness of one’s lowliness in the eyes of God. With such awareness came the recognition that those whom God favors are granted grace not for any worthiness of their own, but by God’s unmerited mercy—as a gift to be converted into working and living on behalf of others. That lesson should always be part of the curriculum.
    Benjamin Franklin, who founded the University of Pennsylvania, once defined true education as " an Inclination join’d with an Ability to serve Mankind, one’s Country, Friends, and Family; which Ability.. . should indeed be the great Aim and End of all Learning. " We would be well served to keep this public-spirited conception of learning squarely in mind.
    Perhaps if our leading colleges encouraged more humility and less hubris, college-bashing would go out of style and we could get on with the urgent business of providing the best education for as many Americans as possible.
In the eyes of Benjamin Franklin, a true education is one that______.
选项 A、cultivates humility rather than self-satisfaction
B、develops the ability to change one’s fate
C、fulfills the commitment to serving mankind
D、brings one’s potential into full play
答案C
解析 根据题干中的人名锁定文章第六段的内容。富兰克林在创立宾夕法尼亚大学时谈到，真正的教育应该“将服务人类，报效祖国、朋友和家庭的理想与能力合二为一，该能力应切实成为一切学习活动的宏伟目标与最终要义。”因此，在他看来教育最终的目标就是要培养人的能力，从而使得人们能够为祖国乃至全人类服务，正确答案应该选[C]。[A]答案张冠李戴，将第五段中提到的清教徒创建哈佛之初的观念说成是本杰明·富兰克林的观点。[B]答案片面，develops the ability是正确的，但是培养能力的目的并不是为了改变个人的命运，而是应该为全人类服务。[D]答案与[B]答案类似，在富兰克林看来，只考虑个人潜能和发展而忘记奉公为民理想的教育应该是失败的教育。
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