The Gloomy Deans
Sir:
I read the Education section, which had to do with speeches to various graduating classes by the heads of Harvard, M.I.T. and Princeton, and my feelings on finishing were those of dismay, disillusionment, disappointment and disgust, with a touch of nausea.
The whining, defeatism, "crybaby" tone common to all these speeches is certainly unbecoming to men of such stature, and surely unworthy in men to whom we have formerly looked for guidance to the young generation.
We would expect such drivel from the beatniks who are said to inhabit the cellars in San Francisco, but we surely are entitled to better ideas from men of this caliber.
R. T. WHITEMAN
Cambridge, Idaho
Sir:
Your quotation from President Goheen's address at Princeton [in which he said "the cheap and tawdry are glorified over achievements of solid worth"] is one demanding grave and immediate consideration. It is indeed a thing of "gloom, doom and disdain" when we hear a scholar today observe foibles recognized some half a century ago by the scholar William James.
In a 1907 lecture, James reminded his listeners: "What [democracy's] critics now affirm is that its preferences are inveterately for the inferior . . . Vulgarity enthroned and institutionalized, elbowing everything superior from the highway, this, they tell us, is our irremediable destiny; and the picture-papers of the European Continent are already drawing Uncle Sam with the hog instead of the eagle for his heraldic emblem."
CHARLES DRAKE-LONG Boston
Sir:
The gloomy deans speak the truth, and have reason to be gloomy.
When those professional men who should be our national leaders because of education and training, and I refer specifically to doctors and lawyers, will prostitute themselves for money or political gain, and men of wealth do in truth own whole districts of slum dwellings, what have the people to follow? It is consoling to know that we have educators who think. But what are they doing about it?
S. CASTLE Los Angeles
Sir:
I am surprised that educated men, who are presumably aware of history, can believe that mankind is able to undergo a basic change in character--for the better or for the worse.
I am sick of hearing that we have all lost our sense of direction, our religion, and our moral code. One 1960 graduate has seen direction and purpose, a concern for religion and for moral values, and self-discipline in so many people that she feels these human qualities are not extinct.
ANN DUDLEY
Colby '60 Topsham, Me.
All's Well That Ends Well
Sir:
All right, I give up! I love Shakespeare, but can't place a few of the cover characters. Who is the one beside Falstaff ? And the two beside Antony and Cleopatra--might they be sweet, gentle Kate and her husband from The Taming of the Shrew?
The others are so clearly drawn that it takes but a glance to recognize them. It is a fascinating cover.
ELIZABETH J. GETTLER Oreland, Pa.
P: Reader Gettler gave up too soon. Here is the list: 1) Falstaff; 2) Richard III; 3) the Shakespearean jester, e.g., Touchstone; 4) Ariel (whose hand, trumpet and feet stuck out behind the cover slash); 5) Caliban; 6) Hamlet (with Yorick); 7) King Lear; 8) & 9) Antony and Cleopatra; 10) & 11) Petruchio and the shrew he tamed, Katharina; 12) Ophelia; 13) & 14) Othello and his ill-fated wife, Desdemona; 15) & 16) Juliet and Romeo; 17) a gravedigger from Hamlet; 18) & 19) Macbeth and Lady Macbeth; 20), 21) & 22) the three witches from Macbeth, stirring their boiling cauldron; 23) & 24) Bottom, the weaver, and Queen Titania under the influence of Puck.:--ED.
Grand Slam
Sir:
The three pictures of Eugene R. Black, taken at Harvard, Princeton and Yale, speak volumes as to normal reactions of an educated person to these communities. The happy expression at Cambridge shows his patent joy at being enfolded by the charm of the Yard. His expression at Princeton is akin to amazed horror at finding such conditions extant in the middle of the 20th century; at New Haven, one of grim determination to go through with a calculated risk.
RICHARD N. FISHER Red Bank, N.J.
P: Reader Fisher is--no surprise--Harvard, '32.--ED.
The Big One
Sir:
Obviously your Press section lads couldn't be expected to see the provincial papers which daily receive the Chicago Daily News service, which is distributed by a 13,000 mile wire. I don't mind (not much!) being ignored, but I do mind TIME saying "chief among" other papers competing with the New York Times wire, etc. and omitting the big one.
If you don't get out here in the Midwest one of these days so I can rescue you from "Eastern isolationism," I'll treat you as you deserve and hire a New York pressagent to bother you until you do.
Despite your ignoring the greatest wire service of them all for editors who still like to do their own selection of news, I still love TIME.
BASIL L. WALTERS
Editor
Chicago Daily News Chicago
Sick, Sickest; Dead
Sir:
What have you done! I casually mentioned on the air the other day that TIME had referred to Ray Peterson's recording of Tell Laura I Love Her as one of the sickest of the current crop of sick songs. Since that moment, I have been swamped with irate letters and postcards, and threatening phone calls. I have been commissioned by the teenagers and the adults of Richmond, Ashland, Highland Springs, and surrounding towns to tell TIME to drop dead.
Therefore, will you please drop dead . . . although I agree with you 100%?
DAVID E. LYMAN Program Director WLEE Richmond, Va.
Battle of the Sexes
Sir:
Your story of Female Theologian V. S. Goldstein and her "feminine complaint against contemporary theologians" reminds one of the story that was current a generation ago about the late Feminist Susan Anthony.
It seems that on one of her many lecture tours advocating women suffrage, Miss Anthony became quite despondent and despaired of ever achieving her goal. Her companion inquired as to the cause of the melancholy, and then replied: "Susan, don't despair, pray to God; she will help you."
MAURICE J. BLOOM The Bronx, N.Y.
Sir:
The conflicts and anxiety described by contemporary theology is frighteningly applicable to the intelligentsia of female society. From the time of early competition in grade school to the end of graduate study, a woman is trained alongside her masculine peers to participate in matters of universal importance. Beyond college, however, a man is encouraged by society to transform reality; but a woman is expected to fulfill her intellectual and creative aspirations in homemaking and community social service. Consequently she practices what Tillich would call "self-reduction," in which she tries to find the whole of reality by participating in society-sanctioned trivia.
ANN SCHWERTFEGER Philadelphia
Americanism All'ltaliana
Sir:
Your sociological analysis of the city we are proud of slipped somewhere, but, on the whole, your writer cleverly grasped the Milanese way of life, its Americanism all'italiana, the hustle and bustle of its business life. Milan, as one of the biggest centers of free enterprise in Europe, had been heretofore nearly ignored by U.S. press correspondents, who generally preferred covering the highly colorful Sweet Life of Rome, and we thank you for so authoritatively filling a gap.
In editing our translation, however, we were tempted, in behalf of the married males, to pencil out that low-hitting reference to Milanese husbands' infidelity; but, alas, many a Milanese wife is also an avid TIME reader.
GIACINTO FURLAN Managing Editor Corriere Lombardo Milan
Class Orator, 1890
Sir:
In the Education section, you described Gregson Davis as "the first Negro so honored," as chosen commencement orator at Harvard.
May I call your attention to "A Negro Student at Harvard," by W.E.B. Du Bois, in the current Massachusetts Review? Du Bois describes the election of Clemens Morgan, a Negro student, as class orator of Harvard, 1890.
Little did the class of 1960 know how long ago fair Harvard had trod those steps!
IRENE M. Gozzi Amherst, Mass.
P: But not quite the same steps. Havardman Clemens Morgan was Class orator, not Commencement orator, delivered his Class Day oration in English, not Latin.--ED.
No Sale
Sir:
The TIME article of June 20, carrying the story on Brazilian lands, stated: "Pan American Airways Vice President Humphrey Toomey bought 105 acres just outside Brasilia for $1,800 six months ago. Now he is selling it in quarter-acre lots, expects to get $156,000." We strongly urge that a correction be made, since we and not Mr. Toomey are in the subdivision business, and we know for a fact that Mr. Toomey has never been in the subdivision business.
M. M. BORMAN President
Texas Ranch Mediadora S.A. Rio de Janeiro
P: TIME erred. Landowner Toomey bought his land for $600, at present says that he has little hope for a spectacular resale.--ED.
Outside the Ghetto
Sir:
Msgr. De Blanc has certainly embarrassed the members of the Catholic Church with his statement ". . . but I wonder if a devout person should bring someone of another faith into his home, into his family surroundings." How can we hope to spread our faith (a command of Jesus Christ) if we cannot show our non-Catholic friends how we live and how we behave in our homes?
JAMES J. PLUNKETT JR. South Orange, N.J.
Sir:
May I correct an impression I am sure was inadvertently made?
I personally believe that devoutly, intellectually strong Catholics can have close associates among those not of their faith, but true Catholic families cannot expect to remain so for any length of time if close family associates--Catholic or non-Catholic--are divorcees by design, and proud public subscribers to artificial birth control.
This convenient cultural pattern, so widely accepted by many non-Catholics, may too easily rub off on less devout and intellectual Catholic families.
Families should associate closely with families they want to imitate.
MONSIGNOR IRVING A. DE BLANC
Director
Catholic Family Life Bureau Washington, D.C.
Sir:
Msgr. Irving A. De Blanc's ghetto proposal, deplorable as it is, should shock few. There is hardly a Christian sect that doesn't practice it, consciously or unconsciously. What is sickening about religious segregation is the effect of such pre-Reformation mouthings as De Blanc's on the immature and uneducated. It would be well to reflect on the historical fact that the Catholic Church, as well as all the other Christian churches, is but a segment of the Jewish faith.
EARL G. TALBOTT New York
The Temperate Irish
Sir:
Re your article on jazz: What's this jazz about the "unlikeliness of an Irishman at a temperance meeting."
Get the facts straight, man! Of a population of 3,000,000, 500,000 are members of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in Ireland. Here in the United States there are branches in Chicago, Boston, New York City and Albany just to name a few. The members are not reformed drinkers but most have never tasted it at all.
Get hip man, before you jabber about others.
KATHLEEN TURLEY Jackson Heights, N.Y.
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