Precocity
Sirs: A recent issue of your magazine contained an interesting account of the precocious physical and sexual development of an American boy. Rare as such a condition is, it is not altogether unheard of. There is a Greek description (Plegon. de Mirab. Cap. XXXII) of one who in the space of seven years was an infant, a youth, a mature person, an old man, married a wife, died, and left issue.
Pliny records (Nat. Hist. Lib. vii. -xxvii) a similar instance. A more detailed account of such a phenomenon is given in a curious tract in the Bodleian [Bodl. Pamph. Godw. 87. (4)] which bears the following title: Prodlgium Willingkamense: Or, authentic Memoirs in the Life of a Boy, Born at Willingham, near Cambridge, October 31, 1741; who, before he was Three Years old, was Three Feet, Eight inches high And had the Marks of Puberty. With some Reflections on his Understanding, Strength, Temper, Memory, Genius and Knowledge. By T. Dawkes, Surgeon. London:
Printed for C. Davis, over-against Gray's-Inn, Holbourn.
Price One Shilling (n.d. but apparently printed in 1747).
This remarkable boy was carefully examined and measured by various ingenious gentlemen who made annual reports of his development to the Royal Society, for which they received a vote of thanks from that Learned Body. He was exhibited, particularly the marks of puberty, at market towns and fairs. At the age of three, we are told, his diversion was to throw a blacksmith's hammer weighing 17 lbs., after which he refreshed himself from a runlet of ale holding two gallons. Like others before him, however, he became a prey to strong drink and died, like Gilbert's precocious baby, "an enfeebled old dotard at five." Intellectual precocity though less rare is more interesting. Child wonders have actually performed mental feats which most adults could never hope to achieve. Eminent among them are Baratier, whose life was written by Dr. Johnson.
Heinnecken, Quirino, Scaliger and John Stuart Mill, though the chief place must be accorded to the great Lipsius, of whom we are told that he composed a work the day he was born, concerning which there is the immortal remark of my Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy.* There are many instances of pious precocity-- such as that of the unhappy little puritan girl who (so Cotton Mather in his Magnolia tells us, and with evident approval) spent eight hours a day in a dark closet weeping and praying for the forgiveness of her sins.
Most remarkable, though less authentic, is the refusal of the infant St. Nicholas to take his milk on Fridays, though the palm must be awarded to St. John the Evangelist whose pre-natal obeisance to Christ is a commonplace of medieval legendry.
BERGEN EVANS University College Oxford, England
Advertising
Sirs: Reference: TIME, Dec. 22. Noted: Size of magazine. Pages: 40. Reason: Advertising space reduced. News: Nothing omitted. Comment: I buy TIME for news.
Advice: Let TIME in the future be as TIME was in the beginning.
C. J.
Newport, R. I.
In 1929 TIME, unique, placed limitation upon the amount of advertising it would accept for any one issue. This limit was reached in 18 of the 52 in 1930. The limit is still in force hopes it will be reached in many issue.--ED.
Go-Getteress v. Snob
Sirs: In regard to the article in your Dec. 15 issue with reference to Dr. Flexner and his criticism of American colleges, universities and education and lack of culture, will say that such pedantry makes me mad clear through. Why in the name of progress don't they get a red-blooded go-getter to investigate the colleges and their systems and what they produce and not some European-leaning snob who should have no place in a land where success and not birth is the measure of the man?
What is education or culture or anything else for if it isn't for the purpose of producing successful people? Who is this man derides poultry-raising and wrestling in particular? To us who use food and who like chicken, the poultry-raiser is of far more importance than the man tell us who the ancestors, of the chicken were or the man who can tell us how to hold our knives and forks when we are consuming it. Wrestling also may have its uses. I have never had occasion to learn this art nor had the need to use it but far be it from me to judge them who do. . .
I am the mother of two children whom I am hoping to educate in a way to be able to get the most out of life for themselves and I certainly wouldn't want them to spend their lives acquiring the education which they will need to fit them to make a living, and only feel fit to live when they are ready to die. In my observation the majority of the people in this country do not have years and years to devote to the process of getting an education before they have the need to make a living and it is against the best interests of the people that the young should not be fitted to go into business while they are yet young.
Which of us children to get to the fossil stage before they are able to strike out for themselves even if we are able to provide for them until that time comes? America is far ahead of other countries as a whole and it is the people, these same people who are educated in these unladylike colleges and universities who make America. Down with such snobbery.
GRACE C. Goff
Charleston, W. Va.
Bathing in Crimea
Sirs: In your vivid summary of H. R. Knickerbocker's remarks on the U. S. S. R., you refer to the relaxations enjoyed by tired Proletarian Dictators on the tropical beaches of the Crimea as "nude mixed bathing" (TIME, Dec. 22) This is perhaps partially true. But it would be a mistake to lead the sensitive readers of TIME into believing that a Soviet bathing beach is sort of glorified American bathing beach (with couples all jumbled up together) minus those essential superficialities, such as bathing suits, on which our great civilization is founded. The most popular bathing beaches in the Crimea are at Yalta and at Sevastopol. The undersigned had the honor four months ago to sun himself with "the only Russians who smile" on both of them. "Mixed bathing'' (about the nudity of which Will Rogers is perfectly correct) consists of a segregation of males on one side and of females on the other side of a substantial chinkless, eight-foot board fence. This stops at the water's edge (similar French barricades do not). Such is the force of custom (not costume), however, that there is no commingling even in the water.
What happens when a moon instead of a sun illumines the scene, is, at any rate, what definitely does not happen during the daytime. In this respect it would take a greater than I to distinguish any underirable effects of "nude mixed bathing" not possessed by our own beach customs. As far as the desirable effects of the Soviet style are concerned, I think anyone who has tried it will readily concede them.
E. HARTSHORNE JR. Harvard University Cambridge, Mass.
Broker to Burglar
Sirs: When the deebris of the market-break was cleared last December, I had $2,000 left of an original $7,000. I asked my broker to send me a check for the balance, which was subsequently deposited in the Manufacturers Trust.
Well sir, there was a run on that bank last week. I stood in line seven hours before I got my money--$1,300. Upon entering my home, I was held up in the doorway at the front of two guns (one would have been enough) and the money was taken away.
And so it goes Mr. Editor. What between the brokers, bankers and burglars, what chance has John Citizen got?
ROBERT EDWARD ELLISON Brooklyn, N. Y.
Had Citizen Ellison left his money in the Manufacturers Trust Co. he would still have $1,300. Had he sold and banked in September instead of December 1929, he would have at least $7,000.--ED.
Puukko Knife
Sirs:
On the strength of a letter rgarding the "Keen Edged Puukko Knife" which TIME published last September (TIME, Sept. 29), a very fine gift has come to me.
There came yesterday, by registered and special delivery mail, from Kauhava Puukkotehdas, in Finland--the finest Puukko knife I have ever seen. Hand made, six-inch tainless steel blade, black ebonite handle with my name embossed thereon in gold leaf, and with genuine leather sheath--it is a knife to behold.
That same letter was copied into the column of many Finnish newspapers published in the U. S.
Tell TIME and you tell the world.
WILLIAM F. OST New York Mills, Minn.
Public v. Funeral Directors
Sirs:
On p. 40, TIME, Dec. 1, the note on Funeral Costs is of interest. TIME's charges are essentially sound. I doubt, though, if the funeral director is altogether to blame. He is the offshoot of lavish demands, created by sentiment. . . .
Because death is inevitable the burial business has always been looked upon covetously by those not in it. The result is, there are too many operators in the field. Nationally, the average establishment handles only 55 cases per year. Idle time, insurance, obsolescence, depreciation, taxes go on whether business is done or not. . . .
It is interesting to note that where the funeral costs are higher, i.e., in the South, collection failures ar eteh lowest. Where the charges average the least, as in Oklahoma, Arkansas, north Texas, the collection failures are greatest. Evidently, the desire for more extravagant funerals demonstrates the willingness of bereaved families to pay for what they want. . . .
There is some complaint about elaborate caskets on the part of the laity. . . . In our present society, constructed as it is, the luxuries--and I include fine caskets as such--provide employment for skilled artisans, keep a good portion of industry spinning. If criticism is directed at the use of good caskets I should promptly answer that jewelry, tailor-made clothes, 16-cylinder automobiles are likewise worthless. . . .
Of course, the funeral director gets the blam for the entire funeral bill. Florists, cemetaries, panies, newspapers, and a host of others, often use him as a collection agency. He pays the complete bill, awaits the courts for his due. . . . This is a larger subject than the public realizes. Funeral bills come at awkward times, when finances are low, and, unlike automobiles and radios, are never wanted. Hence, the job of the mortician is often a thankless one, and all of them, perforce, are judged by the scoundrels withing their ranks. I believe that public judgment is more severe toward funeral directors than toward any other business or profession.
FRED WITMAN Editor Mortuary Management San Francisco, Calif.
How to Make $2,500
Sirs: In a recent issue I note a full page of advertisement by the Alexander Hamilton Institute in which theyu purport to possess information, obtainable for a consideration, by which a $5,000-per-year-man can become a $10,000-per-year-man (TIME, Dec. 1).
This is very interesting, but in the interests of the majority of our population, will you kindly urge the Institute to devise a plan whereby a $1,500-per-year-man can, by their assistance and the grace of God, come into the princely salary of $2,500 per year?
This is a most pressing problem for a large number of people, and I am amazed that the Institute or someone else has not recognized its importance.
L. D. Melton Stillwater, Okla.
A nectarine-vender is not obliged to sell apples.--ED.
Scott to Webster
Sirs: I notice on p. 55 of TIME, Dec 15, among the "Websterisms" you include "Sea of upturned faces." I have always associated this expression with Sir Walter Scott, who used it in Roy Roy, chapter XX, of the audience in Glasgow Cathedral. Rob Roy appeared in 1817. Unless there is record of Webster's having used the expression before that date, is it not probable that he was quoting the phrase from Scott's work?
ROGER S. BOARDMAN Bloomfield, N. J.
Scott used the phrase in 1817, Webster in 1842.--ED.
* Chap. ii. Vol. II of Tristam.
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