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.

【译文】但是情况并不总是如此。在法律要求所有儿童在一定年龄之前必须上学，人们普遍认为有些儿童天生就不适合接受这种教育。

【析句】全句由两个分句组成，前后用分号隔开。在第二个分句的主句中，it是形式主语，真正的主语是some were just not equipped by nature to pursue this kind of education。it was widely accepted意为"人们普遍认为"。

【讲词】pursue意为“追赶；追踪；追击；继续；从事”。She pursued the study of English for five years.（她坚持学了五年英语。）The ship continued to pursue a northern course.（船只继续向北航行。

attend意为“出席，参加；照顾；注意；伴随”。The speech was attended with wild applause.（听众对演讲报以热烈的掌声。）We'll attend to that problem later.（我们稍后会关注那个问题。）

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.

【译文】此外，在我们这么大的一个国家里，经济延展到这么多的州，涉及这么多的国际公司，因而要培养出所需数量的各类专业人员是不太可能的。

【析句】这里的主语this指的是前面所说的professional training，后面不定式短语中动词produce的宾语是professional，前面的成分是修饰这个词的短语，接着是地点状语，其中country带了两个修饰成分，前一个是形容词性的短语as large as ours，后一个是where引导的定语从句，这个从句的主语the economy有两个谓语动词：is和involves，后面都用了相似的结构so many，表示强调

【讲词】needed意为"所需的"。Select this link to print a checklist of the documents needed.（选择这一链接，然后打印所需的文件。）另外，注意spread的过去式和过去分词与原形一样。

spread除了表示"伸展；展开；传播"，也可表示"延伸；延长"。This is a prescribed course which spreads over two semesters.（这是一门需要两个学期才能学完的必修课。）注意spread的过去式和过去分词都是spread。