Many people who work in London prefer to live outside it, and to go in to their offices or schools every day by train, car or bus, even though this means they have to get up early in the morning and reach home late in the evening.

    One advantage of living outside London is that houses are cheaper. Even a small flat in London without a garden costs quite a lot to rent (租住). With the same money, one can get a little house in the country with a garden of one's own.

    Then, in the country one can rest from the noise and hurry of the town. Even though one has to get up earlier and spend more time in trains or buses, one can sleep better at night and during weekends and on summer evenings, one can enjoy the fresh, clean air of the country. If one likes gardens, one can spend one's free time digging, planting, watering and doing the hundred and one other jobs which are needed in a garden. Then, when the flowers and vegetables come up, one has the reward of sharing the secret of Nature.

    Some people, however, take no interest in country things：for them, happiness lies in the town, with its cinemas and theatres, beautiful shops and busy streets, dance halls and restaurants. Such people would feel that their life was not worth living if they had to live it outside London. An occasional walk in one of the parks and a fortnight's (two weeks) visit to the sea every summer is all the country they want: the rest they are quite prepared to leave to those who are glad to get away from London every night.

    One of the most important things in the world is friendship. In order to have friends, you have to be a friend. But how can you be a good friend at school?

    Listen — Listen when they are talking. Don't say anything unless they ask you a question. Sometimes it's not necessary for you to have anything to say; they just need someone to talk to about their feelings.

    Help them — If your friend is ever in need of something, be there to help them. You should try to put them first, but make sure you don't do everything they want you to do. Try to take an extra (额外的) pencil or pen with you to classes in case (以防) they forget one. Have a little extra money in your pocket in case they forget something they need.

    Be there for them — Try to make something for your friend to help make them feel better in hard times. Making cards and encouraging them are among the nicest things you can do for a friend. Marilyn Monroe, a famous U.S. actor, once said, “I often make mistakes. Sometimes I am out of control. But if you can't stay with me at my worst, you are sure not to deserve (值得) to be with me at my best.” Always remember this! If you don't want to stay with your friends when they're in hard times, then you don't deserve to be with them when they're having a good time!

    Make plans — Try to make plans with your friends. Go shopping, go for ice cream, have a party, go to a movie and so on. Take time to know each other even better by doing something you both enjoy. By planning things together, you both can have a good time. And you'll remember these things when you're all old!

    Many kids help out around the house with chores(家庭杂务) such as emptying the dishwasher, putting laundry away, and taking out the trash. In exchange, some kids get allowances(补贴) or other rewards such as extra computer time.

    But some people do not think that kids should get rewards for doing chores. Susie Walton, a parenting educator and family coach, believes that by rewarding kids, parents are sending a message that work isn't worth doing unless you get something in return. "Running any kind of household is a team effort," Susie said. "A home is a living space for everyone in the family. It's important for kids to see that we all have responsibilities in the house, and that families decide together how they want their home to look, and how they are going to keep it looking like everyone wants it to look."

    Other people believe that getting a cash allowance or other rewards motivates kids to do chores, and it also teaches them real world lessons about how we need to work to earn money. There are also new applications that give kids points and digital gifts that can be redeemed(兑取) either online or in the real world. With the ChoreMonster app, kids earn digital points by completing chores that they can turn in for real-life rewards such as extra Xbox time or a trip to the mall. "Our goal is to encourage kids to earn rewards," says Chris Bergman, founder of ChoreMonster. "Kids need positive reinforcement(强化) to help motivate them."

    What do you think? Should kids be rewarded for doing chores? Or should kids help out around their homes without getting anything in return?

    Write a 200-word response. Send it to tfkasks4youtimeforkids.com. Your response may be published in a future issue of Time For Kids. Please include your grade and contact information of your parent or teacher if you want your response to be published. The deadline for responding is February 18.

    Nikola Tesla

    Long overshadowed in public memory by his one-time employer, Thomas Edison, Tesla (1856—1943) was a brilliant scientist and engineer who earned more than 700 patents. He is most famous for developing alternating current (交流电), but his work also led to advances in wireless communications, lasers, X-rays, radar, lighting, robotics, and much more.

    Tesla was born to Serbian parents in what is now Croatia, but he emigrated(移民) to the U.S. as a young man, where he eventually became a naturalized citizen. Besides Edison, who later became his bitter rival, Tesla often worked with inventor George Westinghouse. In 1893, the pair demonstrated their advances in lighting and motors in the "White City" at the Chicago World's Fair. In 1895, Tesla and Westinghouse developed the world's first hydroelectric power plant, at Niagara Falls.

    At the turn of the century, Tesla set up a laboratory called Wardenclyffe in the small community of Shoreham, Long Island, where he conducted some of his most ambitious experiments. The building was financed by J. P. Morgan and designed by acclaimed architect Stanford White.

    The most prominent feature was Wardenclyffe Tower, also called Tesla Tower, a 187-foot-tall metal lattice tower topped with a big antenna that was intended to beam communications and even energy across the Atlantic.Tesla ran out of money while building the tower and was foreclosed(取消赎回权) on twice. As with his previous Colorado Springs lab, assets were sold to pay up his debts. In 1917, the U.S. government blew up the tower, fearing that German spies were using it in World War I. The metal was sold for scrap. For decades, the building was used for photo processing.

    "The tower is long gone, but the three-quarter-length statue of Tesla unveiled last week is a fitting memorial," said Alcorn, a retired teacher. "This is the last remaining Tesla laboratory anywhere in the world," she said. "He inspires those who work hard but don't get recognition, and people are starting to recognize how important his contributions are."

    As a sign of that growing appreciation, Elon Musk's start-up electric car company Tesla Motors was named after the visionary inventor in 2003.

    The values of artistic works, according to cultural relativism（相对主义）, are simply reflections of local social and economic conditions. Such a view, however, fails to explain the ability of some works of art to excite the human mind across cultures and through centuries.

    History has witnessed the endless productions of Shakespearean plays in every major language of the world. It is never rare to find that Mozart packs Japanese concert halls, as Japanese painter Hiroshige does Paris galleries. Unique works of this kinds are different from today's popular art, even if they began as works of popular art. They have set themselves apart in their timeless appeal and will probably be enjoyed for centuries into the future.

    In a 1757 essay, the philosopher David Hume argued that because “the general principles of taste are uniform（不变的）in human nature,” the value of some works of art might be essentially permanent. He observed that Homer was still admired after two thousand years. Works of this type, he believed, spoke to deep and unvarying features of human nature and could continue to exist over centuries.

    Now researchers are applying scientific methods to the study of the universality of art. For example, evolutionary psychology is being used by literary scholars to explain the long-lasting themes and plot devices in fiction. The structures of musical pieces are now open to experimental analysis as never before. Research findings seem to indicate that the creation by a great artist is as permanent an achievement as the discovery by a great scientist.

    The saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover, means you should not guess the worth or value of something based on how it looks. That message was clear at a recent event called the Human Library Project. The event took place at the Northern Virginia, or NoVa, Community College, outside of Washington. D. C.

    The Human Library began 19 years ago in Denmark. It grew from a youth organization called "Stop the Violence". Today, it is a worldwide movement. At the NoVa event, students got the chance to learn from a person—a "human book"—instead of a library book.

    Patricia Cooper organized the event. She said that human books celebrate variety by telling their life stories in an easy-going setting. "The goal of the human library is to talk to people in your community who you may otherwise not speak to because you have your own prejudices (偏见) and hopefully to break down some of these barriers."

    This is the third year that NoVa has held such an event. The collection of human books included a civil rights activist, a scientist from the American space agency NASA, and an opera singer.

    Artist Brian Dailey was a human book. He spoke about his travels to 113 countries in seven years. Dailey said that, during his travels, he asked people whom he took pictures of for a one-word answer to a series of other words—such as love, freedom and war. He discovered that people in different countries often had very different reactions to the same word.

    When Dailey asked people in Africa about the word "war" they used words like justice, liberation and peace. When he asked the same question to people in Syrian refugee camps, the answer was: "tears, hunger, fear, destruction".