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8. Campus Life
An Apple for the Teacher
American schoolchildren occasionally present an apple to the teacher. Obviously the custom contains an element of bribery 1 — you offer sweet fruit to authority figures to “sweeten” 2 their disposition 3. In school children's case, the apple is offered to make their grades more favorable. Therefore, the apple has more or less acquired a corrosive4 reputation and maybe for this reason, in slang English “to applepolish” means“to flatter or fawn” and an applepolisher is a flatterer.
But the custom might also be explained as a fair payment for the teacher's instruction. In the early days of public education, school teachers were not always salaried. Often they would be paid in goods and services, offered by either the school, or the pupils or the parents. . .. Therefore, the occasional gift of an apple for the teacher in today's classroom should be a welcome reminder of the era when education was one -to-one and when teaching meant enlightening the students rather than identifying their rankings.
Caps and Gowns
For students, the most exciting moment may be the graduation ceremony 5: parents, relatives and friends are invited to the ceremony; all the graduates are wearing black square flat caps and gowns. They all await the president to announce in the end,“Now, please move your tassels from right to left. ”
The caps and gowns worn by high school and college graduates today are survivors of the everyday dress worn by members of the academic community in medieval Europe. The majority of scholars in the Middle Ages6 were churchmen, or soon to become so, and their dress was often strictly regulated by the universities where they taught and studied. The standard clerical dress throughout Europe was the long black cope. The original preference for black was changed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as such colors as red, violet and purple came into fashion; but by the Renaissance black was back, as the color black symbolized simple and plain, or austere way of life in the sixteenth century. With few exceptions, modern universities keep that ceremonial austerity.
The origin of the square flat cap, or mortarboard7 , is obscure, though it probably derives from the medieval biretta . Such a tufted square cap is considered the badge of the 024 mastership , and is later adopted by undergraduates and schoolboys. The term mortarboard does not appear in English until the 1850 s. The tassel that graduates transfer from one side to another as a signal of their elevation is an outgrowth of the medieval tuft. The tuft still appears on the modern biretta, worn by bishops throughout the Church of Rome .
閱讀自測
Ⅰ. True o r false :
1. Nowadays, American pupils always offer an apple to the teacher in order to get a better grade.
2. In the early days of public education, schoolteachers were paid in money.
3. In America, the caps and gowns are only adopted by college graduates during graduation ceremonies.
4. Before the Renaissance, the standard clerical dress was black.
5. The biretta was considered the mark of scholarship.
6. That the graduates move the tassel from one side to the other is a signal of elevation.
Ⅱ. Questions :
1. According to the passage, when you say somebody is an apple polisher, what do you really mean by saying that?
2. For students, when is the most exciting moment?
3. After graduation, which side should you put your tassel, right or left?
