【Flyer杀G作文组】7.25-Issue221-By CC

师大菜菜UID: 2838404

TOPIC: ISSUE221 - "The chief benefit of the study of history is to break down the illusion that people in one period of time are significantly different from people who lived at any other time in history."
WORDS: 550
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2010/7/21 14:51:53

The speaker asserts that the chief benefit of the study of history is to make us realize that people in one period of time are not significantly different from people who lived at any other time in history.
I agree with the speaker that history does break down the illusion as mentioned above. However, I disagree that the chief benefit of the study of history is only this. As far as I am concerned, history has many other aspects of benefits.

To begin with, admittedly, study of history can help us to realize that we are similar with our ancestors in most aspects even our society has been developed greatly. For one thing, today the most principles of society ethics and customs are not very different with them in history. We can see no further than the standard of a gentleman. Today one of the requirements of social ethics for females is to be polite to ladies which have existed for a long time. We can look at some famous English classic novels such as Three Musketeers and Jane Eyre, in which 'Ladies first' had been used by people. Another example can support the idea is the Christmas, the old festival we enjoy today also has been for a long time. What's more, the problems disturbing us are also very not different with our ancestors. Love, family and career which were the goals of our ancestors' lives are still pursued by us. In short, we don't have significant differences with our ancestors.

What's more, when faced with some difficulties, we can be motivated by some famous figures in the history. We can see no further than the Isaac Newton who was very interested in physics. He thought physical problems day and night even when he enjoyed the cool air under the apple tree. Suddenly, an apple fall down and hit his head which stimulate his idea and resulted in his finding the law of universal gravitation. The story tells us that working hard is how important to success. 'God helps who help himself'. When we faced difficult problems, we can be motivated by the spirit of Newton. We should also persist to survey it so as the apple will also hit you sooner or later.

Last but not least, study of history can help us to avoid the mistakes which were made by our ancestors. A good example supports the idea is that the two times of World War which brought a countless of deaths and ruins. Through learning the tragic results of the two times of wars, we can know how important the peace is. We will also try our best to avoid that wars reoccur. Another example is environment protection, in the Haiti earthquake, deforestation and leading flooding caused a hundreds of thousands of deaths. Form the tragedy, we can know how important environment protection is. All in all, study of the mistakes had been made in history can help us to avoid repeating them by us.

To sum up, making us realize that we are similar with our ancestors is just one of the chief benefits of the study of history. What's more, not only can study of history help us solve the problems that we have never confront to but also help us avoid to repeat the mistakes in history.