The Book That Binds

It was just a ten-minute talk at a Rutgers convocation, but long enough for the speaker, Philosopher Houston Peterson, to peddle a provocative thought. Why didn't everyone at Rutgers read one good book a year--the same good book? Added Peterson: "On a university campus, we ought to have more to talk about than football, girls and the Russians."

Last week everybody on the New Jersey campus, from President Robert C. Clothier to the newest freshman (and including secretaries and janitors), was tackling the first "Book of the Year": Anthropologist Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture. The campus Philosophean Society had picked it on Peterson's say-so: he called it "a noble, beautiful, important book." If they get through the first one, he has some more up his sleeve: Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Hamlet, Alice in Wonderland.

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