Summer is over and it is autumn again, beautiful as ever. Even if you are no artist at all you can see its beauty. It is a season when the trees are simply fantastic — yellow, red, green and brown, not just one brown, but browns of all possible shades: light brown, dark brown, yellowish brown and all of a richness that only an artist can see and describe.Victor is back in Vorontsovo. He has just come but his thoughts are still in Kiev where the autumn is so beautiful.This is not his first visit there. He has already been to Kiev and he has learnt its streets, roads, parks, theatres, cinemas and old and new beautiful buildings. He easily recognizes the streets, buildings, buses, parks and the noise. Noise is everywhere.Now he is with his classmates and the usual talk begins."Hallo, Victor!""Hallo, Pete.""I am very glad to see you again. How is everything?""Thank you, fine.""Now tell me, where have you been all the time? I haven't seen you for ages and you haven't written a word. Did you go anywhere?""Certainly, I did. I have just come back from Kiev.""How did you like it? Is it a good place to go to?""Splendid! You must go there some day, too.""I certainly shall. And I shall write letters to you as I know you like to get letters."A hundred years ago people believed that plants and animals had always been as they are now. They thought that all the different sorts of living things, including men and women, were put in this world by some mysterious power a few thousand years ago.It was Charles Darwin, born at Shrewsbury on the 12th of February, 1809, who showed that this was just a legend. As a boy Darwin loved to walk in the countryside, collecting insects, flowers and minerals. He liked to watch his elder brother making chemical experiments. These hobbies interested him imuch more than Greek and Latin, which were his main subjects at school.His father, a doctor, sent Charles to Edinburgh University to study medicine. But Charles did not like this. He spent a lot of time with a zoologist friend, watching birds and other animals, and collecting insects in the countryside.Then his father sent him to Cambridge to be trained as a parson. But Darwin didn't want to be a doctor or a parson. He wanted to be a biologist.In 1831 he set sail in the Beagle for South America to make maps of the coastline there. Darwin went in the ship to see the animals and plants of other lands. On his voyage round the world he looked carefully at thousands of living things in the sea and on land and came to very important conclusions.This is what he came to believe. Once there were only simple jelly-like creatures living in the sea. Very slowly, taking hundreds millions of years, these have developed to produce all the different kinds of animals and plants we know today. But Darwin waited over twenty years before he let the world know his great ideas. During that time he was carefully collecting more information. It showed how right he was that all living things had developed from simpler creatures.He wrote a famous book 'The Origin of Species'.People who knew nothing about living things tried to make fun of Darwin's ideas.The development of science has shown that Darwin's idea of evolution was correct.The British Museum has one of the largest libraries in the world. It has a copy of every book that is printed in the English language, so that there are more than six million books there. They receive nearly two thousand books and papers daily.The British Museum Library has a very big collection of printed books and manuscripts, both old and new. You can see beautifully illustrated old manuscripts which they keep in glass cases.You can also find there some of the first English books printed by Caxton. Caxton was a printer who lived in the fifteenth century. He made the first printing-press in England.In the reading-room of the British Museum many famous men have read and studied.Charles Dickens, a very popular English writer and the author of 'David Copperfield', 'Oliver Twist', 'Dombey and Son' and other books, spent a lot of time in the British Museum Library.The conquest of England by the Normans began in 1066 with the battle of Hastings, where the English fought against the Normans. The conquest was complete in 1086.Who were these Normans who conquered England?They were Vikings or 'Norsemen', men from the North. Some 150 years before the conquest of England they came to a part of France, opposite England, a part which we now call Normandy.What did the Norman Conquest do to England?It gave it French kings and nobles. The Normans also brought with them the French language. After the Norman Conquest there were three languages in England. There was Latin, the language of the church and the language in which all learned men wrote and spoke; the kings wrote their laws in Latin for some time after the Conquest. Then there was French, the language which the kings and nobles spoke and which many people wrote. Finally, there was the English language which remained the language of the masses of the people. Some men might know all these languages; many knew two; but most of the people knew only one. There Were some people who understood the French language though they could not speak it. Rich people who owned land, the landowners, often knew French and Latin. But poor people, the peasants did not understand French or Latin. They understood only English.In time, however, came the general use of the English language. About 1350 English became the language of law; and at that time lived the first teacher who taught his boys to read and write English and to translate, not from Latin into French, but from Latin into English. Then between 1350 and 1400 lived Wyclif who made the first complete translation of the Bible into English, and Chaucer, 'the Father of English poetry'.But the English language when it came into general use was not quite the same as it was before the Conquest. The grammar remained, but many words came into it from the French language.
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Summer is over and it is autumn again, beautiful as ever. Even if you are no artist at all you can see its beauty. It is a season when the trees are simply fantastic — yellow, red, green and brown, not just one brown, but browns of all possible shades: light brown, dark brown, yellowish brown and all of a richness that only an artist can see and describe.Victor is back in Vorontsovo. He has just come but his thoughts are still in Kiev where the autumn is so beautiful.This is not his first visit there. He has already been to Kiev and he has learnt its streets, roads, parks, theatres, cinemas and old and new beautiful buildings. He easily recognizes the streets, buildings, buses, parks and the noise. Noise is everywhere.Now he is with his classmates and the usual talk begins."Hallo, Victor!""Hallo, Pete.""I am very glad to see you again. How is everything?""Thank you, fine.""Now tell me, where have you been all the time? I haven't seen you for ages and you haven't written a word. Did you go anywhere?""Certainly, I did. I have just come back from Kiev.""How did you like it? Is it a good place to go to?""Splendid! You must go there some day, too.""I certainly shall. And I shall write letters to you as I know you like to get letters."A hundred years ago people believed that plants and animals had always been as they are now. They thought that all the different sorts of living things, including men and women, were put in this world by some mysterious power a few thousand years ago.It was Charles Darwin, born at Shrewsbury on the 12th of February, 1809, who showed that this was just a legend. As a boy Darwin loved to walk in the countryside, collecting insects, flowers and minerals. He liked to watch his elder brother making chemical experiments. These hobbies interested him imuch more than Greek and Latin, which were his main subjects at school.His father, a doctor, sent Charles to Edinburgh University to study medicine. But Charles did not like this. He spent a lot of time with a zoologist friend, watching birds and other animals, and collecting insects in the countryside.Then his father sent him to Cambridge to be trained as a parson. But Darwin didn't want to be a doctor or a parson. He wanted to be a biologist.In 1831 he set sail in the Beagle for South America to make maps of the coastline there. Darwin went in the ship to see the animals and plants of other lands. On his voyage round the world he looked carefully at thousands of living things in the sea and on land and came to very important conclusions.This is what he came to believe. Once there were only simple jelly-like creatures living in the sea. Very slowly, taking hundreds millions of years, these have developed to produce all the different kinds of animals and plants we know today. But Darwin waited over twenty years before he let the world know his great ideas. During that time he was carefully collecting more information. It showed how right he was that all living things had developed from simpler creatures.He wrote a famous book 'The Origin of Species'.People who knew nothing about living things tried to make fun of Darwin's ideas.The development of science has shown that Darwin's idea of evolution was correct.The British Museum has one of the largest libraries in the world. It has a copy of every book that is printed in the English language, so that there are more than six million books there. They receive nearly two thousand books and papers daily.The British Museum Library has a very big collection of printed books and manuscripts, both old and new. You can see beautifully illustrated old manuscripts which they keep in glass cases.You can also find there some of the first English books printed by Caxton. Caxton was a printer who lived in the fifteenth century. He made the first printing-press in England.In the reading-room of the British Museum many famous men have read and studied.Charles Dickens, a very popular English writer and the author of 'David Copperfield', 'Oliver Twist', 'Dombey and Son' and other books, spent a lot of time in the British Museum Library.The conquest of England by the Normans began in 1066 with the battle of Hastings, where the English fought against the Normans. The conquest was complete in 1086.Who were these Normans who conquered England?They were Vikings or 'Norsemen', men from the North. Some 150 years before the conquest of England they came to a part of France, opposite England, a part which we now call Normandy.What did the Norman Conquest do to England?It gave it French kings and nobles. The Normans also brought with them the French language. After the Norman Conquest there were three languages in England. There was Latin, the language of the church and the language in which all learned men wrote and spoke; the kings wrote their laws in Latin for some time after the Conquest. Then there was French, the language which the kings and nobles spoke and which many people wrote. Finally, there was the English language which remained the language of the masses of the people. Some men might know all these languages; many knew two; but most of the people knew only one. There Were some people who understood the French language though they could not speak it. Rich people who owned land, the landowners, often knew French and Latin. But poor people, the peasants did not understand French or Latin. They understood only English.In time, however, came the general use of the English language. About 1350 English became the language of law; and at that time lived the first teacher who taught his boys to read and write English and to translate, not from Latin into French, but from Latin into English. Then between 1350 and 1400 lived Wyclif who made the first complete translation of the Bible into English, and Chaucer, 'the Father of English poetry'.But the English language when it came into general use was not quite the same as it was before the Conquest. The grammar remained, but many words came into it from the French language.