托福阅读材料：National parks of the united state

　  托福阅读习材料：National parks of the united state。

     The National Park Service (NPS) is the U.S. federal agency that manages allNational Parks, many National Monuments and other conservation and historicalproperties with various title designations.

　　It was created on August 25, 1916, by Congress through the National ParkService Organic Act.

　　It is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior, which is aCabinet Office of the executive branch, overseen by the Secretary of theInterior, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Most of thedirect management of the NPS is delegated by the Secretary to the National ParkService Director, who must now also be confirmed by the Senate.

　　The 21,989 employees NPS oversee over 391 units, of which 58 are designatednational parks.

　　History

　　Main article: History of the National Park Service (United States) Seealso: National Park Service Organic Act National parks and national monuments inthe United States were originally individually managed under the auspices of theDepartment of the Interior. The movement for an independent agency to overseethese federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationistStephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalistRobert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of theInterior. They wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic qualities of theparks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational and recreationalbenefits.[4] This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service.On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that mandated theagency "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects andwildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such mannerand by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of futuregenerations."[5] Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS.

　　On March 3, 1933, President Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933.The act would allow the President to reorganize the Executive Branch of theUnited States Government. It wasn't until later that summer when the newPresident Franklin Roosevelt made use of this power. Deputy Director HoraceAlbright had suggested to President Roosevelt that the historic sites from theAmerican Civil War should be managed by the National Park Service, rather thanthe War Department. President Roosevelt agreed and issued two Executive Ordersto make it happen. These two executive orders not only transferred all the WarDepartment historic sites to the relatively new National Park Service, they alsotransferred the National Monument managed by the Department of Agriculture andthe parks in and around the capital, which had been run by an independentoffice.

　　In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service and wentto work on bringing park facilities up to the standards that the publicexpected. The demand for parks after the end of the Second World War had leftthe parks over burdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, withPresident Eisenhowers support, he began Mission 66 a ten year effort to upgradeand expand park facilities for the 50th Anniversary of the Park Service. Newparks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities wereupgraded and expanded.

　　The National Park System is a term that describes the collection of allunits managed by the National Park Service, and it is not necessary for thetitle or designation of the unit to include the term "park" - indeed most donot. The system encompasses approximately 84.4 million acres (338,000 km2), ofwhich more than 4.3 million acres (17,000 km2) remain in private ownership. Thelargest unit is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. At13,200,000 acres (53,000 km2) it is over 16 percent of the entire system. Thesmallest unit in the system is Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial,Pennsylvania, at 0.02 acre (80 m2).