Ticking Off Teacher

Sir: "To Profess with a Passion" [May 6] dissects the heart of the matter. I was beginning to think that no one but students realized the disappointment, boredom and frustration caused by the disinterested and incompetent teachers we are faced with daily. These teachers rarely see our tests, do not prepare a lecture in advance, refuse to be bothered answering a student's question (and too often cannot answer it anyway), and have no interest in whether or not the students are actually learning. As a result, the saving and sacrificing to finance a college education often seems worthless.

JOSEPH J, CURCI St. Joseph's College Philadelphia

Sir: Thank you very much for including me in your group of teachers. But might I make two further points? 1) I don't believe that there is any conflict between research and teaching. Indeed, there is none of the latter worth anything unless the former continues to flourish. 2) I can't really believe that I ever said that about buildings saying "hello." Despite my admiration for them, no building has ever actually spoken to me. I should be seriously unnerved if one did.

VINCENT SCULLY Professor of the History of Art Yale University New Haven, Conn.

Sir: In the condensation of my views on teaching, I was quoted as not believing in "a libidinous relationship [between teacher and student] such as they have at Sarah Lawrence." I was discussing not sex mores, but teaching ethos. I expressed my belief that it is better for teaching to be problem-centered than, as at Sarah Lawrence, person-centered, and that the basic tie between teacher and student should therefore be intellectual, not libidinal. The discussion focused on how to encourage the love of learning, not on the learning of love. Sarah Lawrence, please excuse!

CARL E. SCHORSKE Professor of History University of California Berkeley

Amendments to the Law

Sir: I am certain that others occupied with defending the indigent join me in commending TIME for its fine coverage of the confessions problem [April 29]. Most criminal convictions in this country are based on confessions obtained from persons with limited education. No educated person would sign a contract disposing of his property without consulting a lawyer; yet hundreds of suspects daily sign away their lives or liberty in confessions, unaware of their right to do otherwise. The educated and wealthy are thus granted an advantage over the ignorant and poor that makes a mockery of the American ideal of equality before the law.

BENNETT G. HORNSTEIN A ssistant Public Defender Omaha

Sir: Your cover piece on confessions was an able and informative account of a tormentingly difficult problem. You seem, however, to make one doubtful assumption: that it is up to the Supreme Court alone to solve the problem. The justices have the responsibility to determine what the Constitution means by the due process of law it guarantees to criminal suspects. But some would think it an unhappy role for the court to read out of that vague constitutional phrase a detailed code of criminal procedure regulating every police practice. That is what the court has apparently been asked to do in the pending cases that you so compellingly described. It seems particularly doubtful that the responsibility for devising fair and effective criminal processes should rest entirely on the court at a time when, as now, so many other expert bodies are grappling with the confession dilemma. The American Law Institute, the President's Crime Commission and other groups are trying to provide the information needed for intelligent decision. There surely is a strong argument against the freezing of any particular formula into the Constitution before this process of research and debate has time to work.

ANTHONY LEWIS Chief London Correspondent The New York Times London

Sir: Few would question that TIME'S story was as factual, unbiased, fair, objective, truthful, unopinionated and impartial as any brief uttered by the mouthpieces and stooges for underworld characters. Even so, I'll bet some of the writer's best friends are policemen.

EDWARD J. ALLEN Chief of Police Santa Ana, Calif.

Guidelines

Sir: Thumbs up to TIME in its wrestling match with the soon-to-be-unlimited number of travel guide authors [April 29]: two points for taking down those foolish ones plotting Europe on a shoestring; two points for reversing those who claim London is dead; and the ultimate five points for pinning my father and his colleagues on the count that there is no guidebook for second-time travelers. But let it be noted that a guide writer thrives on those experienced travelers who do not need his product--for I know of at least one such author who diligently checks out every one of the scores of tips that come to his desk daily.

DODGE T. FIELDING Hamilton College Clinton, N.Y.

Sir: Where is your spirit of adventure? The Mark Twain of today doesn't just follow that crowd to Maxim's or the London Hilton; he makes like Europeans themselves, packs his camping gear in the car, and voila! the whole family are enjoying themselves just as they did back in Yosemite National Park, only now it's less crowded. There are thousands of excellent camp sites from the fjords of Norway to the oases of Morocco, from Ireland to Turkey, in the biggest cities and the smallest villages; and there are many camping guides in English. Between camp sites there is a wealth of scenery and color. And who's to stop a couple from putting on their fancy clothes in camp and shooting off to the local night life?

PETER TANGUAY, M.D. Derby, England

Outside Looking In

Sir: Anyone like me (a 20-year-old student) who does not go to Leslie Caron's house parties could discern at once that your London cover story [April 15] was not about us. And if it was not about us --the city's total population less 200 or so 20th Century-Fox playmates--it was not about London. Cathy McGowan is not "London's favorite dolly," but London's most unloved moron. David Warner's Hamlet is popular not because some jet-set clique has deemed it "In," but because Peter Hall has concentrated on the aspects of the play most meaningful for the 20th century (as distinct from 20th Century-Fox). Those who converse in the "flip jargon" have IQs of 80 or under; it is not the "basic" English for teenagers. For the year's most ridiculous load of generalizations, you deserve to swing indeed. All of you. And not in London either.

G. D. EDGINTON London

Sir: Why go abroad for the city of the decade? Our own Gary, Ind. [April 29], seems to offer all that London does, and it's more accessible to Americans.

ANN AND TOM RYAN South Bend, Ind.

Rocking to Sleep

Sir: It is sad that TIME has joined the ranks of the hoodlums who throw stones at pacifists. For all your sarcastic and biased reportage of Senator Fulbright's remarks about U.S. power and its use [April 29], you cannot obliterate his candid attempt to counsel Americans on the peaceful possibilities that lie open to us.

ARLENE SARDO Springfield, Mass.

Sir: The "arrogance" that Fulbright attributes to U.S. foreign policy better describes the dishonest, anti-intellectual and embittered attitude of the Senator and his liberal coterie. After slumbering in a deep sleep through 20 years of world history, they suddenly awake to find that facts do not adhere to their theories.

LEWIS A. FRANK Washington, D.C.

Perchance to Dream

Sir: It's a shame that a man of Dr. Leary's intelligence and vast experience has to suffer at the hands of a very narrow-minded society. Thanks for giving him [April 29] a pretty fair shake.

PAT JESSEN Brockport, N.Y.

Sir: Leary is wrong: they didn't use to call people like him alchemists or medicine men. They used to call them nuts. They still do. He is a disgrace to the professions of teaching and psychology. Stop publicizing his antics, and let him attain the oblivion he so richly deserves.

RALPH W. WALKER II Professor of Psychology Jacksonville State College Jacksonville, Ala.

This Is Our FBI?

Sir: Our country guarantees us privacy within a legal framework. The Federal Bureau of Investigation [May 6] is one of the agencies that maintains this protection. It is not only ironic but almost criminal that this agency should maintain a policy that is itself an invasion of privacy. The social habits and private lives of FBI men should be of interest to the bureau only in matters of security.

H. J. KELMAN, H. S. MISHKET Tampa, Fla.

Sir: You mean the security of the nation is entrusted to people who are not considered capable of handling their personal affairs at their own discretion?

J. LONDE

Santa Monica, Calif.

Sir: What next? A mandatory celibacy oath for all Government employees?

ANTHONY P. HERTZ

New York City

Backfire

Sir: Now that everyone knows all there is to know about the profit in the automobile business [April 29], are we going to be treated to revelations on other businesses? May I suggest that you tell us how to bargain with the druggist the next time we need a prescription? When is the best time to approach an attorney for his lowest fee? When does one get the best bargain from his family doctor on the next baby or an emergency operation? Better yet, perhaps a breakdown on the publishing business is in order.

JOHN W. WAGNER Wagner Auto Co. Grangeville, Idaho

Another Early Bird

Sir: Reading about the retirement of Airline Pioneer Patterson [May 6], I was amazed that you believe only two pioneers remain active. Without downgrading Trippe and Smith, how about Collett Everman Woolman, who at 76 is still sole boss of Delta Airlines, seventh-largest airline in the world? Woolman pioneered crop dusting in 1925 and inaugurated the first mail-passenger airline on the West Coast of South America in 1928 (this line became Panagra). President of Delta since its founding in 1929, Woolman takes second place to no one for continued, consistent airline management, and he is not about to retire.

WAYNE W. PARRISH, President American Aviation Publications Washington, D.C.

Question of Ethics

Sir: The heart surgery performed by Dr. DeBakey et al. [April 29] was interesting and exciting. However, I believe that the play-by-play news releases went beyond the limits of medical ethics by violating the physician's obligation to keep his patient's problems and therapy to himself. Such experimental medical procedures, though a necessary part of medical advancement, should not be displayed to the public like a baseball game; the dignity of the patient and his family is too important to permit that.

MICHAEL TREISTER

Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis

Frost In Monaco

Sir: I have been deeply hurt by your inaccuracies regarding the meeting in Seville between Mrs. Kennedy and myself at the Red Cross Ball [April 29]. What you call my frostiness and pique was directed at some of the hundreds of photographers who spoiled the evening for many of us, and certainly not at Mrs. Kennedy, for whom I have admiration and respect. And let me add in refute to your snide and unnecessary remarks that I am delighted to be "upstaged" by Mrs. Kennedy at any time.

GRACE KELLY GRIMALDI

Monaco

Helping Hands

Sir: The Count von Luckner Milestone [April 22] failed to mention one of the accomplishments for which he was best known, his astounding physical strength. In the 1930s, as his unofficial host in Panama, I took him to dinner on the carrier Saratoga. He was asked if he could tear any book in half, and he said yes. The officers produced first a Sears, Roebuck catalogue, which he caught in midair; it barely touched his hands and went sailing back, torn crosswise from the back into two pieces. They handed him a 1,700-page dictionary, and he grasped it by the back and slowly tore it into two pieces, the tear going through every page and covers, without once taking his hands off. As an encore, he took a U.S. half dollar and between thumb and fingers, bent it double.

WENDELL S. DOVE, M.D.

Socorro, N. Mex.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.