London’s Under Ground

Bands were playing and the gentlemen in hats were preparing to make speeches about their great achievement. They made the first underground railway travel in the world—a distance of almost four miles.

It was the year 1863 and on that first historic day 30,000 Londoners used this new and strange way of travel. Now a hundred years later the London Underground carries two million passengers every day over its 273 stations. Five hundred trains carry a total of 675 million passeng­ers each year.

The deep-level tubes came later, in 1890. Tunnelling a tube through miles of clay, and sometimes sand and gravel, is no easy task, and it was James Henry Greathead who developed the method which was to make most of London's tube tunnels possible.

London transport's experience with tunnels brought them another record. The longest continuous railway tunnel in the world is the 17 1/2 mile tunnel in the Northern line.

There are numerous escalators which help to keep the traffic mov­ing. The first was installed in 1911. Now there are 188 and they can carry 10,000 passengers an hour at a maximum speed. The longest at Leicester Square is over 80 feet in length. On long escalators the speed is changeable. The "up" escalator runs at full speed when carrying passengers, but when empty it runs at half speed.

An entirely automatic driving system is now being tested. The driver will be in charge of starting the trains at stations, but speed and safety signalling will be controlled by coded electrical impulses.

The air in the Underground is changed every quarter of an hour, and the temperature all the year round is maintained at 69-79 degrees by Fahrenheit.

UNICEF

UNICEF, the United Nations International Children's Fund, is an international organization which was established in 1946. Its primary function is to improve the health and living conditions of the children of those countries which ask for UNICEF assistance. It is governed (управлять) by the executive board (совет) of 30 nations and financed entirely by contribution from both governments and individuals. UNI­CEF provides equipment and medicine (лекарство). It provides for chil­dren who are unable to obtain the vital (необходимый) food. It teaches mothers how to care properly for the children.

In 1956 alone, UNICEF assistance was given to over 31,000,000 children and mothers. In 1957, UNICEF gave assistance to 319 differ­ent health and food programs in 102 countries.

School for All

First of all I should like to quote a few figures. This year some 50 million children will go to school, including 5 million first-formers, and 2.6 million tenth-formers, who will receive matriculation certificates at the end of the year. Teaching in schools is conducted in 57 languages.

The schools in Russia are run by the state, and education is free. There are no private educational estab­lishments in our country, nor schools for the privileged. Children are taught in their native tongue, but the cur­riculum is the same for all schoolgoers.

And now, thanks to our enormous successes in eco­nomic and cultural development, we have all that is needed to introduce universal ten-year schooling for our young people.

The 50 million pupils who begin the school year on September 1st, include 4 million attending evening schools. These were formed during the war against German fascism, and were designed for the young people who were forced to cut short their studies and to begin work at factories or on collective farms.

The changes in the existing school curricula attract special attention. Primary education now takes three in place- of the previous four years, and the programme is more sophisticated. Primary school children will be introduced, for example, to certain elements of algebra.

Ключи

К упр. 3 (III).

1. e

2. b

3. d

4. f

5. a

К упр. 5 (III).

Five per cent; the twenty-second of September nineteen fifty nine; an hour and a half; five thousand three hundred and forty-seven km; point thirty seven meters; June, the twenty-third, nineteen forty-three; three fifths tons; twenty four hours; the forty-third President.

УЭ-4