1994年6月英语四级 - 阅读理解D

Time was—and not so many years ago, either—when the average citizen to ok a pretty dim view of banks and banking. That this was so, it should be said, was to no small extent the fault of banks and bankers themselves. Banks used to be—and a few still are—forbidding structures. Behind the little barred windows were, more often than not, elderly gentlemen w hose expression of friendliness reflected the size of the customer’s account, and nothing less than a few hundred thousand in the bank could have inspired the suggestion of a smile.
当时——不是很多年前——普通公民对银行和银行业的看法相当悲观。应该说，这在很大程度上是银行和银行家自己的错。银行过去是——现在仍然是——令人生畏的机构。在那些带栅栏的小窗户后面，通常都是年长的绅士，他们友好的表情反映了客户账户的大小，银行里只有几十万美元的人不足以引起他们的微笑。

And yet the average bank for many years was, to the average citizen, a fearful, if necessary, instrument for dealing with business—usually big business. But somewhere in the 1930’s banks started to grow human, even pleasant, and started to attract the little man. It is possible that this movement began in medium-sized towns, or in small towns where people know each other by their first names, and spread to big towns. At any rate, the results have be en remarkable.
然而，多年来，对于普通公民来说，普通银行是一个可怕的（如果必要的话）处理业务的工具——通常是大企业。但在20世纪30年代的某个地方，银行开始变得人性化，甚至令人愉快，并开始吸引穷人。这场运动可能开始于中等城镇或人们彼此熟悉的小城镇，并蔓延到大城镇。无论如何，效果很显著。

The movement to “humanize” banks, of course, received a new push during the war, when more and more women were employed to do work previously performed by men. Also more and more “little” people found themselves in need of personal loans, as taxes became heavier and as the practice of installment buying broke down the previously long-held concept that there was something almost morally wrong about being in debt. All sorts of people began to discover that the intelligent use of credit could be extremely helpful.
当然，“人性化”银行的运动在战争期间受到了新的推动，当时越来越多的女性受雇于以前由男性从事的工作。此外，随着税收的增加，以及分期付款购买的做法打破了以前长期存在的观念，即负债几乎在道德上是错误的，越来越多的“穷”人发现自己需要个人贷款。各种各样的人开始发现，明智地使用信贷可能会非常有帮助。