1. But this was not always the case; before it was legally required for all children to attend school until a certain age, it was widely accepted that some were just not equipped by nature to pursue this kind of education.

【譯文】但是情況并不總是如此。在法律要求所有兒童在一定年齡之前必須上學，人們普遍認為有些兒童天生就不適合接受這種教育。

【析句】全句由兩個分句組成，前后用分號隔開。在第二個分句的主句中，it是形式主語，真正的主語是some were just not equipped by nature to pursue this kind of education。it was widely accepted意為"人們普遍認為"。

【講詞】pursue意為“追趕；追蹤；追擊；繼續(xù)；從事”。She pursued the study of English for five years.（她堅持學了五年英語。）The ship continued to pursue a northern course.（船只繼續(xù)向北航行。

attend意為“出席，參加；照顧；注意；伴隨”。The speech was attended with wild applause.（聽眾對演講報以熱烈的掌聲。）We'll attend to that problem later.（我們稍后會關注那個問題。）

2. Besides, this is unlikely to produce the needed number of every kind of professional in a country as large as ours and where the economy is spread over so many states and involves so many international corporations.

【譯文】此外，在我們這么大的一個國家里，經(jīng)濟延展到這么多的州，涉及這么多的國際公司，因而要培養(yǎng)出所需數(shù)量的各類專業(yè)人員是不太可能的。

【析句】這里的主語this指的是前面所說的professional training，后面不定式短語中動詞produce的賓語是professional，前面的成分是修飾這個詞的短語，接著是地點狀語，其中country帶了兩個修飾成分，前一個是形容詞性的短語as large as ours，后一個是where引導的定語從句，這個從句的主語the economy有兩個謂語動詞：is和involves，后面都用了相似的結構so many，表示強調

【講詞】needed意為"所需的"。Select this link to print a checklist of the documents needed.（選擇這一鏈接，然后打印所需的文件。）另外，注意spread的過去式和過去分詞與原形一樣。

spread除了表示"伸展；展開；傳播"，也可表示"延伸；延長"。This is a prescribed course which spreads over two semesters.（這是一門需要兩個學期才能學完的必修課。）注意spread的過去式和過去分詞都是spread。