— Just leave it        it is. It doesn't belong to us.

      Florence Nightingale was born in a rich family.When she was young she took lessons in music and drawing，and read a lot of books.She also travelled a great deal with her mother and father.

As a child she felt that visiting sick people was both a duty and a pleasure.She enjoyed helping them.At last her mind was made up.“I'm going to be a nurse，” she decided.“Nursing isn't the right work for a lady，” her father told her.

       “Then I will make it so，” she smiled.And she went to learn nursing in Germany and France.When she returned to England，Florence started a nursing home for women.

      During the Crimean War in 1854 she went with a group of thirty-eight nurses to the front hospitals.What they saw there was terrible.Dirt and death were everywhere to be seen and smelled.The officer there did not want any woman to tell him how to run a hospital，either.But the brave nurses went to work.

      Florence used her own money and some from friends to buy clothes，beds，medicines and food for the men.Her only pay was in smiles from the lips of dying soldiers.But they were more than enough for this kind woman.

      After war she returned to England and was honoured for her services by Queen Victoria.But Florence said that her work had just begun.She raised money to build the Nightingale Home for Nurses in London.She also wrote a book on public health，which was printed in several countries.

Florence Nightingale died at the age of ninety，still trying to serve others through her work as a nurse.Indeed，it is because of her that we honour nurses today.

      There seems never to have been a civilization(文明) without toys, but when and how they developed is unknown. They probably came about just to give children something to do.

      In the ancient world, as is today, most boys play with some kinds of toys and most girls with another. In societies where social roles are strictly determined, boys pattern their play after the activities of their fathers and girls after the tasks of their mothers. This is true because boys and girls are being prepared, even in play, to step into the roles and responsibilities of the adult world.

      What is remarkable about the history of toys is not so much how they changed over the centuries but how much they have remained the same. It is the universality of toys about their development in all parts of the world and their continuing to the present that is amazing. In Egypt, the Americas, China, Japan and among the Arctic peoples, generally the same kinds of toys appeared. Nearly every civilization had dolls, little weapons, toy soldiers, tiny animals and vehicles.

      Because toys can be generally regarded as a kind of art form, they have not been subject to (服从于) technological progress that characterizes inventions for adult use. The progress from the wheel to the oxcart to the automobile is a direct line of advancement. The progress from a rattle (拨浪鼓) used by a baby in 3,000 BC to one used by an infant today, however, is not characterized by inventiveness. Each rattle is the product of the artistic tastes of the times and subject to the limitations of materials then ready for use. (words: 285 ; time : 5ms)