고등학교 영어Ⅰ (NE능률 오선영) 연계 글

Jane Goodall was born in London in 1934, and from her earliest years she was fascinated by animals. As a small child, she once hid in a henhouse for so long that her parents grew worried; she had simply been waiting to see a hen lay an egg. Later, books about wild creatures gave her a dream that never left her: she would go to Africa, live among the animals there, and write about them. Her mother supported this dream and encouraged her to work hard, to seize every opportunity, and never to give up.

After school, however, Goodall did not go to college; instead, she trained as a secretary and took office jobs in England. Office work seemed to have little to do with her dream, yet her skills would later prove valuable in a way that no one could have predicted. Then a school friend whose family had a farm in Kenya invited her to visit. Unable to afford the long sea voyage, she worked as a waitress, saving her wages until she had enough for the fare. In 1957, at the age of 23, she finally sailed for Kenya.

In Kenya, Goodall was advised to meet Louis Leakey, a famous scientist who searched for the fossils of early humans. Leakey hired her as his secretary, and she later dug for fossils with him and his wife, Mary, at Olduvai Gorge. He had long been looking for someone to study wild chimpanzees, whose behavior, he believed, might offer clues about the distant ancestors of humans. At Olduvai, he was so impressed by her patience that he asked her to take on the study, although she had no college degree.

One obstacle remained: the authorities would not allow a young woman to stay in the forest by herself. Her mother therefore offered to go with her, and in the summer of 1960 they arrived at Gombe, a reserve on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. For months, the chimpanzees kept their distance, but Goodall went on watching them patiently.

That fall, she saw a male chimpanzee strip the leaves from a twig and use it to fish termites out of their mound. Her report was so surprising that scientists, who had believed that only humans made tools, had to rethink what made humans unique. With little money and no degree, Goodall had pursued her childhood dream one practical step at a time until it came true.