3 . In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity. Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.

I have taught many children who held the belief that their self­worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life­and­death affairs. In their single­minded pursuit of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.

However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: “I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try.” What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one's self­respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve can we discover a new meaning in competition.

4 . Almost no young people today know who the cartoon character Oswald the Rabbit is, but they certainly recognize his successor, Bugs Bunny.Oswald，Bugs, and hundreds of other characters were created by Walt Disney, perhaps the most famous cartoonist in history.

Born in Chicago in 1901, Walt Disney always wanted to be an artist.After returning from World War Ⅰ, in which he drove an ambulance, Disney worked as a commercial artist.He enjoyed drawing cartoons more than anything else, and decided to try his hand at a technology that was new at the time, moving pictures.

In the 1920’s, he produced several films where he made cartoon characters move as if by magic.The technique Disney used was painstaking. He made hundreds or even thousands of repeated drawings of the same character. In each drawing, the character was changed just a bit.A film was taken of the series of drawings, and when it was shown, the characters appeared to move. The process, called animation, is still used today, although computers have made the process much easier.

In 1928, Disney created his most famous character, Mortimer Mouse, who we know today as Mickey.The mouse starred in a cartoon called Steamboat Willie, which was unusual because it involved the use of a sound track. Within the next few years, Disney invented many of his other characters.

The list of Disney’s animation successes is long and memorable. It includes Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, and Peter Pan.Perhaps his most remarkable animated film is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.Created in 1937, it was an immediate success. Today, more than fifty years later, it is still one of the most popular films for children.