II. Make up a vocabulary of new words.

III. Put questions to the text.

IV. Be ready to speak on the topic.

V. Complete this table with the missing verb forms.

Infinitive	Past Simple	Past Participle	Translation
	had
		gone
be
	grew
		set
choose
	became
		left
teach
		known
	began
find
		taken
	ran
get

TEXT 17

I. Read the text and determine the subtitles of it. Higher Education in the usa

Higher education in the US began when in 1636, a short time after the first colonists came to the territory now called Massachusetts, they founded a college, later to become the famous Harvard University. It is the oldest university in the country, named in honour of John Har­vard who left his library and half property. The College of William and Mary founded in 1693 was the second insti­tution of higher learning established in the colonies. These colonial colleges which later became universities were found­ed to train men for services in the church and civil state. Special emphasis was laid on classical education and only those who knew Latin and Greek were considered educat­ed. By 1776 four more institutions had been opened: Yale University founded in Connecticut in 1701, Princeton University (1746), Washington and Lee University (1749), University of Pennsylvania (1740).

In practically every respect American colleges in those days tried to duplicate the colleges of ancient universities of England. They were residential colleges in the English fashion, but unlike Oxford and Cambridge they were not self-governing.

The American Revolution brought a lot of changes. The independence of the states followed by the creation of the federal government raised new questions about what American higher education should be. The first state uni­versities were founded, though their flowering did not come until after the Civil War, a century later. The technolog­ical needs of agriculture and business stimulated the im­provement of the early nineteen-century universities. Apart from these, agricultural and engineering colleges came into existence to meet the practical needs of industry and agri­culture.

Gradually universities, private or public, became the dominant and most influential structure of higher educa­tion, the position they still hold. Many of the oldest and best known liberal arts colleges, such as Yale, Columbia and Harvard, became universities during this period.

Eventually a peculiarly American structure unlike any other existing university system was produced. In the 1870s graduate school was introduced in the American universi­ty. It was placed structurally on the top of what came to be known as undergraduate school devoted to general edu­cation. Along with this, the practice of majoring in a specific subject became common. By the end of the centu­ry, however, it was beginning to become clear that ‘open curriculum’, allowing the undergraduate to choose most of the courses, had its problems. Efforts were made to recon­stitute in some parts a systematic curriculum in which the courses were strictly prescribed. By 1938 roughly one third of the college courses at Columbia was prescribed. This balance is now typical for many undergraduate programs.