Benjamin West, the father of American painting, showed his talent for art when he was only six years of age. But he did not know about brushes before a visitor told him he needed one. In those days , a brush was made from camel's hair. There were no camels nearby. Benjamin decided that cat hair would work instead. He cut some fur from the family cat to make a brush.

    The brush did not last long. Soon Benjamin needed more fur. Before long, the cat began to look ragged （蓬乱）. His father said that the cat must be sick. Benjamin was forced to admit what he had been doing.

    The cat's lot was about to improve.  That year, one of Benjamin's cousins, Mr.Pennington, came to visit. He was impressed with Benjamin's drawings. When he went home, he sent Benjamin a box of paint and some brushes. He also sent six engravings （版画）by an artist. These were the first pictures and first real paint and brushes Benjamin had ever seen. In 1747，when Benjamin was nine years old，Mr.Pennington retured for another visit .He was amazed at what Benjamin had done with his gift.He asked  Benjamin's parents if he might take the boy to Philadelphia for a visit.

In the city, Mr.Pennington gave Benjamin materials for creating oil paintings.The boy began a landscape (风景) painting.Wiliams ,a well-known painter,came to see him work . Wiliams was impressed with Benjamin and gave him two classic books on painting to take home .The books were long and dull. Benjamin could read only a little,having been a poor student.But he later said,”Those two books were my companions by day,and under my pillow at night.”While it is likely that he understood very little of the books,they were his introduction to classical paintings.The nine-year-old boy decided then that he would be an artist.

    Metro Pocket Guide

Metrorail(地铁)

    Each passenger needs a farecard to enter and go out. Up to two children under five may travel free with a paying customer.

    Farecard machine are in every station, Bring small bills because there are no change machines in the station and farecard machine only provide up to $ 5 in change.

    Get one of unlimited Metrorail rides with a One Day Pass. Buy it from a farecard machine in Metro stations. Use it after 9:30 a.m. until closing on weekdays, and all day on weekends and holidays.

    Hours of Service

    Open: 5 a.m. Mon-Fri           7a.m. Sat—Sun.

    Close midnight Sun—Thur.      3. a.m. Fri— Sat. nights

    Last train times vary. To avoid missing the last train, please check the last train time posted in the station.

Metrobus

    When paying with exact change, the fare is $ 1.35. When paying with a smatTrip CARD the fare is $1.25

    Fares for the Senior /disabled customers

    Senior citizens 65 and older and disabled customers may ride for half the regular fare. On Metrorail and Metrobus, use a senior/disabled farecard or SmarTrip card. For more information about buying senior/disabled farecards, farecard or SmarTripR card and passes, please visit MetroOpenDoors.com or call 202-637-7000 and 202-637-8000.

    Senior citizens and disabled customers can get free guide on how to use proper Metrobus and Metrorail services by calling 202-962-1100

Travel tips

    Avoid riding during weekday rush periods –before 9:30 a.m. and between 4 and 6 p.m.

    If you lose something on a bus or train or in a station, please call Lost & Found at 202-962-1195.

    Getting rid of dirt, in the opinion of most people, is a good thing. However, there is nothing fixed about attitudes to dirt.

    In the early 16th century, people thought that dirt on the skin was a way to block out disease, as medical opinion had it that washing off dirt with hot water could open up the skin and let illnesses in. A particular danger was thought to lie in public baths. By 1538, the French king had closed the bath houses in his kingdom. So did the king of England in 1546. Thus it began a long time when the rich and the poor in Europe lived with dirt in a friendly way. Henry IV, King of France, was famously dirty. Upon learning that a nobleman had taken bath, the king ordered that, to avoid the attack of disease, the nobleman should not go out.

    Though the belief in the merit of dirt was long-lived, dirt has no longer been regarded as a nice neighbor ever since the 18th century. Scientifically speaking, cleaning away dirt is good to health. Clean water supply and hand washing are practical means of preventing disease. Yet, it seems that standards of cleanliness have moved beyond science since World War Ⅱ. Advertisements repeatedly sell the idea: clothes need to be whiter than white, cloths ever softer, surfaces to shine. Has the hate for dirt, however, gone too far?

    Attitudes to dirt still differ hugely nowadays. Many first-time parents nervously try to warn their children of touching dirt, which might be responsible for the spread of disease. On the contrary, Mary Ruebush, an American immunologist(免疫学家), encourages children to play in the dirt to build up a strong immune system. And the latter position is gaining some ground.

    Look and listen, and that concert poster just might be singing. Engineers have designed antennas（天线）that can turn everyday objects, from posters to clothing, into radio stations. Anyone walking or driving by can tune in and hear what's on. The devices use radio waves, but they don't generate their own. They hijack（劫持）the same waves that carry music and news to your smartphone.

    Vikram Iyer co-led the project with Anran Wang, a graduate student in computer science and engineering. The two got the idea for their invention by paying attention to what was already around them. “It's the ideal way to minimize the power consumption for any kind of communication,” notes Iyer. Their research had focused on new types of wireless communications that won't require much energy. They wanted something that would work outdoors in a city. Then they realized the air is already filled with wireless communications in the form of radio stations.

    Radio waves carry energy at the speed of light from tall transmission towers to radios in cars, phones and homes. These waves of the antennas take in existing radio waves and change them slightly. Those changes add new sound information. The changed waves are then sent back out into the world where people can listen in. So the device only needs enough power to change the waves, not to generate them.

    The scientists tested their device with a poster. It advertised a Seattle concert by Simply Three. People standing almost 4 meters away from the poster could use FM receivers on smartphones to listen to all songs of the band's music. Those in cars as far as 18 meters away could use car radios to pick up some parts of the songs

    The technology could even extend to clothes. Iyer, Wang and their team turned the shirt into an antenna. It let the shirt talk to the wearer's smartphone. If a sensor in the shirt tracked a person's heart rate during exercise, for instance, the antenna could transmit those data to the wearer's phone.

    Educators across the US are calling for major changes to the admissions process in higher education. The Harvard school of Greduate Education, along with 80 other schools and organizations, released a report called "Turning the Tide Making Caring Common” in January, 2016. The report argues that the process schools use to choose students causes major problems.

    David Hawkins is the Executive Director for Educational Content and Policy at the National Association for College Admissions Counseling. Hawkins told Voice of America that most colleges and universities require many things from students when they apply. Schools usually ask for an essay describing a student's interests or why they want to study at that school. The schools also ask for letters from teachers or other responsible adults describing why a student is a good candidate. But, Hawkins says, the area that schools are most concerned about is a student's high school grades and standardized test results.

    The report suggests that paying attention to academic success over other qualities works well for some students but hurts others. In addition, academic success is not the most important quality a student should have. More attention should be paid to showing whether or not a student wants to do well in the world, according to the report.

    The report goes on to state that the best way to change the admissions process is by changing college applications. It suggests that schools should ask for evidence that students care about other people. But the report does have its critics. Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, said that every few years, someone makes the same argument for changes, but no real change has happed yet. Even many of the schools that agree with the report still make no changes.

    Lloyd Thacker, Executive Director of the Education Conservancy, said that until a majority of schools agree to make the changes, there will still be problems. However, he said, the admissions process was better in the past. If bad changes can affect the process, so can good ones.

    Why does most of the world travel on the right side today? Theories differ but there's no doubt Napoleon was a major influence. The French have used the right since at least the late 18^th century. Some say that before the French Revolution, noblemen drove their carriages on the left, forcing the peasants to the right. Regardless of the origin, Napoleon brought right-hand traffic to the nations he conquered, including Russia, Switzerland and Germany. Hitler, in turn, ordered right-hand traffic in Czechoslovakia and Austria in the 1930s. Nations that escaped right-hand control, like Great Britain, followed their left-hand tradition.

    The U.S. has not always been a nation of right-hand drivers; earlier in its history, carriage and horse traffic travelled on the left, as it did in England. But by the late 1700s, people driving large wagons pulled by several pairs of horses began promoting a shift (改变) to the right. A driver would sit on the rear (后面的) left horse in order to wave his whip (鞭子) with his right hand; to see opposite traffic clearly, they travelled on the right.

    One of the final moves to firmly standardize traffic directions in the U.S. occurred in the 20^th century, when Henry Ford decided to mass-produce his cars with controls on the left (one reason, stated in 1908: the convenience for passengers exiting directly onto the edge, especially… if there is a lady to be considered). Once these rules were set, many countries eventually adjusted to the right-hand standard, including Canada in the 1920s, Sweden in 1967 and Burma in 1970. The U.K. and former colonies such as Australia and India are among the Western world's few remaining holdouts (坚持不变者). Several Asian nations, including Japan, use the left as well—though many places use both right-hand-drive and left-hand-drive cars.