You may know the song Happy Birthday very well. But do you know about its writer? It was written by an American girl. And she became very rich (富有的) after that.

When she was a child, she was poor (贫穷的). Once, her friends invited (邀请) her to the birthday party. She was excited but sad because she didn’t have enough money to buy a gift for her.

“The party is coming soon, but now I have little money.” She felt very sad. Later that night she was in bed, thinking about the gift when the door opened and her grandma came in.“What happened?” her grandma asked. Hearing the girl’s story, she said, “Don’t worry. I think I can help you. How about singing a song together? Happy birthday to …” What a beautiful song! They sang and sang. Suddenly (突然) she woke up. It was a dream! She decided to write it down at once and sing it to her friends at the party.

When she sang the song at the party the next day, her friends were very happy. “How wonderfully you sing! We haven’t heard such a beautiful song before. Thank you for giving me the special gift.” said her friend. And they learnt to sing it together. Later the girl became famous (出名的) in America.

“Without music, life would be a mistake,” famous German philosopher (哲学家) Friendrich Nietzsche said over a century ago. Music is a big part of our lives. 【小题1】

For example, Chicago public schools hurt arts education when over 1,000 teachers were fired (解雇). Among them, 10 percent of the teachers taught art or music, according to The Washington Times. 【小题2】 In other countries, such as China and the UK, music classes are not thought to be as important as ones like science, math and history. 【小题3】 Many students are busy with schoolwork, so parents and students only pay attention to subjects that are tested more often.

However, learning music is helpful in many ways. 【小题4】 It is not as simple as it looks. For example, when playing the piano, people see music notes and decode (解码) them in their brains. They also use their fingers to make sounds. You need to deal with all these things at the same time.

【小题5】 You can see that many scientists are good at playing music: Einstein played the violin, and German physicist Max Planck was talented in playing the piano.