Задание 5. Прочитайте и переведите текст: Public schools In a very separate stream of their own, often segregated from the age of five or six, are the children at the independent or “public” school...

Задание 5. Прочитайте и переведите текст: Public schools In a very separate stream of their own, often segregated from the age of five or six, are the children at the independent or “public” schools, which for the past three decades have been the cause of mоrе controversy than any other British institution. Most public schools were founded in Victorian times, partly to provide recruits for the empire and the army. Most of the boarding schools were sit up in the railway age, far from the main centres of population, so that the boys spent eight months a year for five years in the exclusive company of other boys. The public schools are nowadays less obviously different from the top grammar schools in their tasks and value-system; they are less obsessed by team-spirit and character building, and more concerned with examinations and universities. But they still give their pupils a very special sense of their mission and confidence. The public schools have certainly, in the last decade, become much less isolated. Some are even going co-educational: they allow girls into the sixth form. Most schools have abolished 3fagging and flogging of younger boys by older ones. The most assured schools are not now fussy over long hair, wild clothes or voices - many public schoolboys now deliberately react against the "public eccent" which used to be one of their chief weapons in the outside world. Art is no longer regarded as pansy and many schools have set up expensive art centres, greatly expanded their science sides - helped by special investment funds from big companies. Business has become respectable and some boys play the chartered accountants business games with computers against other schools. Many British institutions still have great admiration for the public-school values, but their future is much less assured: the public schoolboys' position 4has long since been whitling away because of the larger number of graduates from other schools. As the big grammar schools step up the pressure, so public schools find it harder to beat them in the quality of their teaching, which pushes the fees higher and higher. 1. veneration for authority – преклонение перед властью 2. obsession with tradition – приверженность традиции 3. fagging and flagging of young boys – эксплуатация и наказание младших 4. to whitle away – сходить на нет