The idea of the youth hostel(旅社)started with one man: Richard Schirrmann(1874—1961), a German school teacher, who felt that there was a need for overnight accommodation for his students in order that they could see new things and have new experiences outside the     1     .

He felt that one learns by observing, and tried to make his dream come true in the year 1909, when he started providing accommodation for his students in inns, farmhouses and the like.

The first youth hostel was opened in Schirrmann’s own school in Altena, after which it was     2     by a permanent hostel in Altena Castle. Schirrmann went on to     3     the German Youth Hostel Association in the year 1919. By this time, the idea of the youth hostel had     4     far and wide, all over the lands of Europe and further.

And then, in the year 1932, a(n)     5     organization called the International Youth Hostel was founded in Amsterdam, which consisted of youth hostels from Switzerland, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, Britain, Ireland, France, Czechoslovakia, Denmark and Belgium. Richard Schirrmann became its chairman in 1933.

The idea of the youth hostel is for young people who are on nature trips to get     6     accommodation in exchange for some money and a helping hand with the domestic chores(家务活). These hostels were said to build character and a sense of independence, as the youth who stayed in them got the     7     to see how other people lived as well as to help to do work.

Youth hostels are also places to meet and make new friends. They have no class     8     and everyone has to do their share. Here, wealth and position does not help you gain     9     , but friendliness does. The friendlier you are, the more you learn from the     10     of staying in a youth hostel.

3 . According to a report from the Ministry of Public Security. Yichen (奕辰) and Yinuo (一诺) are the most popular names for newborns in 2020. More than 14,000 boys were named Yichen while over 24,000 girls were given the name Yinuo.

More and more parents are giving their babies longer names to make their names stand out. There are around 3 percent of people with four or more characters in their names.

To help avoid too common names, new parents are able to check how many people are using a certain name on the website of the Ministry of Public Security.

As to the ranking of surnames (姓), the largest group of newborns shared the surname Li, with 726,000 new babies have this surname. Wang, Li, Zhang, Liu and Chen are the top five common surnames in China in 2020, the same as in 2019. 30.8 percent of the total population in China has these five surnames.

Although the common practice is to adopt (采用) the surnames of their fathers, more children have taken their mothers’ surnames because of the country’s second child policy. In 2020, about 7.7 percent of the 10 million newborn babies used their mothers’ surnames.

6 . Age has its privileges (特权) in America, and one of the most important of them is the senior citizen discount. Anyone who has reached a certain age — in some cases as low as 55 — is automatically entitled to a dazzling array of price reductions at nearly every level of commercial life. Eligibility (资格) is determined not by one’s need but by the date on one’s birth certificate. Practically unheard of a generation ago, the discounts have become a routine part of many businesses — as common as color televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners.

People with gray hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them; yet, millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent (有支付能力的). Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older Americans. The practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that “elderly” and “needy” are synonymous. Perhaps that once was true, but today elderly Americans as a group have a lower poverty rate than the rest of the population. To be sure, there is economic diversity within the elderly, and many older Americans are poor. But most of them aren’t.

It is impossible to determine the impact of the discounts on individual companies. For many firms, they are a stimulus to revenue. But in other cases the discounts are given at the expense, directly or indirectly, of younger Americans. Moreover, they are a direct irritant (刺激物) in what some politicians and scholars see as a coming conflict between the generations.

Generational tensions are being fueled by continuing debate over Social Security benefits, which mostly involve a transfer of resources from the young to the old. Employment is another sore point. Supported by laws and court decisions, more and more older Americans are declining the retirement dinner in favor of staying on the job — thereby reducing employment and promotion opportunities for younger workers.

Far from a kind of charity they once were, senior citizen discounts have become an economic privilege to a group with millions of members who don’t need them. It no longer makes sense to treat the elderly as a single group whose economic needs deserve priority over those of others. Senior citizen discounts only enhance the myth that older people can’t take care of themselves and need special treatment; and they threaten the creation of a new myth, that the elderly are ungrateful and taking for themselves at the expense of children and other age groups. Senior citizen discounts are the essence of the very thing older Americans are fighting against — discrimination by age.

8 . Kids and science seem to be made for each other!

The basic science is a combination of thought and experiment called the scientific method. It’s where you start with an idea, create a way to prove or disprove your idea, and show what you learned based on facts. Learning to follow this process helps you think logically and carefully. These important thinking skills can be used in many areas of study. To give a child practice with these thinking skills is like giving vitamins (维生素) to a developing mind.

One of the greatest things we can teach our children is to love learning. Learning science is a great way to do so. Children are easy to be interested in science. Because much of science is hands-on (实践), it attracts most children. Nothing makes a child sit up and take notice like the “WOW!” of a great science showing.

Science opens doors to many subjects at school. Building love for science can be helpful in other areas of study. For example, one cannot love science for very long without becoming good at its language-math! So science encourages children to study math. An interest in science is an interest in how things were once understood compared to how they are understood now. Thus studying science lends itself easily to studying history. And after you do an experiment, you need to write a lab report. Therefore, writing becomes an important part of science.

Science is the basic thing for much of our life. The science of farming shows how our food is produced; biomedical science keeps us healthy; even our beds these days are designed according to scientific facts. We almost eat, sleep and breathe with the help of science! When we prepare the next generation of voters, creators and policy makers, it is important to make sure they are not only comfortable but also good at science.

10 . Libraries

The first public library in Britain opened in Manchester in 1852. Its first librarian was a man called Edward Edwards. Edwards attended the library’s opening ceremony and two famous writers called Charles Dickens and William Thackeray were there too.

To join a library, go to your local library and fill in a form. You’ll receive a library card which is needed when using library services.

Modern public libraries have something for everyone. Most of them have audio books, CDs, newspapers and DVDs as well as books to borrow.

A school in London didn’t have space for a library inside the building. However, everybody agreed that it was still important to have a school library. So, the head of the school, Graham Blake, decided to park an old bus in the school parking area and change it into a library. Pupils helped to paint the bus, and after eight months, the new library was ready.