Letters: Nov. 24, 1961

Johnny’s Reading

Sir:

Cheers for Professor Trace’s findings on the differences in education in Russia and the U.S. [Nov. 17]. Pressuring many of our bright young minds, before they are ready for tackling reading, and then feeding them a diet of dull, repetitious words, is one very good reason why Johnny can’t read. He doesn’t want to. Give him a cross section of the human body and watch him work.

Why can’t we swallow our pride and learn to adopt some very important facets of the Russian educational system?

SALLY LEONARDI West Barrington, R.I.

Sir:

The clue to their success is tucked unobtrusively into one parenthetic expression that you use: “Russian is more precisely phonetic than English.” The real difficulty is our language itself.

Watch for a new movement toward the development of a more phonetic system in English, support it, and our first-graders, too, will be able to do more than “See Spot run!”

HENRY W. DERUSHA Weston, Mass.

Sir:

A. S. Trace’s censorious tome is eristic and demands further inquiry. His proclivity to comparing U.S.S.R. word count with U.S. vocabulary at the elementary grades is pure gallimaufry.

Regardless of the word count of one company’s basal reader, Johnny is exposed to an average of three to five of these readers, plus additional readers, plus library books—all in the first grade. The average total vocabulary of our six-year-olds is somewhere beyond 4,000 words.

ROBERT G. OANAPrincipal

Grant Elementary School Lakewood, Ohio

Sir:

I am nine years old, and I am in the fourth grade. I feel that your article does not tell the whole truth. Johnny reads all kinds of things, including TIME and LIFE Magazines, Huckleberry Finn, The First Fifteen Years of the U.N.

I wonder if Ivan ever heard of Jesus Christ. I’ve heard of Karl Marx and Ivan can have him! I wonder if Ivan has heard of Lincoln or Dag Hammarskjold? Poor Ivan, Stalin has just hit the dust. What a way to learn history!

If you think all we learn is “See Sally run,” you should meet Mrs. Pugsley,*man !

JOHN CARL SMITH Brewster, N.Y.

Young Husband

Sir:

As usual, your story Nov. 17 on St. Joseph is very timely, but your picture is most un-TIME-like. It makes him look more like Mary’s grandfather than her husband! Thinking Christians now reject the apocryphal fables that represented him as a widower of 80 or 90 when “miraculously” chosen to be the “guardian” of Mary. Such stories may be facile explanations for Mary’s perpetual virginity and the brothers and sisters of Jesus (Matthew: 13:55), but they are unrealistic and unnecessary.

If he were really that old, how could he have done carpentry and made the long journeys recorded in the Gospel—and how could he have been considered the natural father of Jesus (Luke: 3:25)? Virginity comes from virtue and grace, not debilitating senility; and Scripture scholars say that there was no word in Palestine then for “cousins,” so they used “brothers and sisters.”

Perhaps your picture intended to portray Joseph as he is today—about 2,000 years old!

(THE REV.) JAMES J. DAVIS, O.P. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D.C.

Sir:

Many, many thanks in the name of all the friends of St. Joseph for your deeply appreciated article [Nov. 17] calling attention to the forgotten young husband who was, according to custom, probably in his middle teens when he married Mary. Could TIME which sleuthed out my top secret middle name also turn up a picture of the young Joseph so rarely seen?

(THE REV.) FRANCIS L. FILAS, S.J.

Loyola University Chicago

^ See cut.—ED.

Testing

Sir:

Congratulations on your article “The Atom.” The discussion of fallout from nu clear testing was very good, lacking the hysteria of many other public presentations on this subject. Sober discussions like this will help to bring about a solution and quiet the “nothing can be done” people.

DAVID W. JOHNSTON

Washington, D.C.

Sir:

If the “fallout danger point” is hypothetically “10” and we are now at, say, “5,” I believe that Khrushchev will continue to explode nuclear weapons in the atmosphere until the point of “10” is reached. When it is, no other country will dare to test for fear of earthwide contamination.

Is it possible that Russia’s present tests are to force a nuclear weapons test ban on the world? If so, I say let’s jump on the bandwagon and test a few weapons before Russia uses up what’s left of the “fallout margin.”

JOYCE M. REIKES New York City

Sir:

To those who say we should not resume atomic testing because of mutations in future generations, I pose this question: “Which would be worse—a few possible mutants or entire future generations living under Communism?” I would without hesitation resume testing.

JOHN AUSTIN

Palatine, Ill.

Whose Side Is God On?

Sir:

Dean John C. Bennett of Union Theological Seminary [Nov. 10] reveals himself one of those pusillanimous intellectuals who are so addicted to material things that they lose sight of the basic values at stake in the East-West struggle. They attach more importance to the earthly existence of the present generation than to the defense of the 3,000-year economic and religious heritage of Western man. That Bennett, as “one of the leaders of U.S. Protestant thought,” makes a pro-Communist of God borders on blasphemy.

CAPTAIN DAVID H. ZOOK JR.

Assistant Professor of History U.S.A.F. Academy Colorado Springs, Colo.

Sir:

Dr. Bennett, I love you, but I surely hate what you say.

RICHARD S. MAXEY, D.D.S. Coral Gables, Fla.

Sir:

That John Coleman Bennett has the courage to publicly tell the truth about the hypocritical religion of today is both amazing and hopeful. Hopeful in the sense that our self-righteousness might not yet destroy us.

JAMES SINCLAIR Centerville, La.

Sir:

Maybe Dr. Bennett can inform one and all if God is a liberal or a right-winger, a Democrat or a Republican.

WILLIAM SAUL West Palm Beach, Fla.

Sir:

God is the author of liberty, not the father of socialism.

(THE REV.) CARL MCINTIRE Bible Presbyterian Church Collingswood, N.J.

General Talk

Sir:

I was shocked by the report of the treatment of General Walker [Nov. 10].

Certainly the prime necessity in any war, cold or hot, is to know the nature of the enemy. Any military commander who fails to inculcate his troops with this knowledge is guilty of gross dereliction of duty. How can men be expected to fight when they know not what they fight?

JAMES P. OSBOURN

Whitefield, N.H.

Sir:

There are many things to fear in these perilous times—nuclear war, fallout, etc.—but the thing to fear most is the ability of the so-called intellectuals in high governmental positions to silence and ultimately bring about the resignation of a true American like General Walker.

EVELYN ELIE Lewiston, Me.

Sir:

Your juxtaposition of the Walker and Van Fleet stories illustrated a point that the vast majority of the American public seems unable to recognize—namely, that the utterances of military men, on topics outside their specialty, are hardly worth the hot air they are wafted on. Let us be grateful for their service and dedication, but let us be very chary of their message. In all sincerity, they would build a prison around us and call it a fortress.

P. N. NASH

Manhattan, Kans.

Sir:

It makes no sense to gag senior commanders of the U.S. armed forces when the very senior commander of the U.S. armed forces, the President of the U.S., is allowed to make partisan political speeches.

ULDIS KROLLS

Ann Arbor, Mich.

A Matter of Space

Sir:

The Garrett Corp. has been a leader in the aerospace field for more than 20 years and is probably best known for its outstanding contributions in the field of environmental control systems, both for most of the turbine transports flying in the free world today as well as the more advanced integrated life-support systems that will keep men alive in the vacuum of space. It was responsible for the development of the complete life-support system on Project Mercury, and is heavily engaged in the Dyna-Soar program.

It is inconceivable that these facts could have been overlooked by TIME in the Oct. 27 cover story on aerospace.

TED BURKE

Director of Public Relations The Garrett Corp. Los Angeles

>TIME was able to list only relatively few of the 50,000 companies in the aerospace business, intended no slight to the many fine firms that had to be left out,—ED.

Gently But Firmly

Sir:

Your article on the Center of Intercultural Formation in Cuernavaca [Oct. 27] captured much of the spirit of our endeavor. However, lest there be any confusion, I should like to point out that this is not an isolated, independent activity run as an ecclesiastical one-man show but is a project endorsed by the U.S. and Latin American hierarchies, supported by the Conference of Major Religious Superiors and directed by a board headed by the president of Fordham University.

May I also, gently but firmly, correct a few other items: I have never “spoken out” against any bishop of the church; my theology is much better than the condensed and out-of-context quotes at the end of the article would indicate; and never have I been a “Yankee-hater”—even though my mother’s grandfather happens to have been a Texan.

(VERY REV. MSGR.) I. D. ILLICH Executive Director Center of Intercultural Formation Cuernavaca, Mexico

Questions of Taste

Sir:

As proud native Californians with a particular fondness for the nectar of our state’s finer varietal grapes, we were overjoyed upon reading TIME’S all-too-short article on one of California’s oldest industries [Nov. 3].

However, exception must be taken to your comment that “California’s sparkling wines are rarely worth the nose tickling.” A small quaffing of bottle-fermented Korbel champagne brut (or sec), Hanns Kornell champagne third-generation brut, or Weibel champagne Pinot Chardonnay brut will certainly prove the worthiness of California “bubbly.”

GREG DOERSCHLAG

Seal Beach, Calif.

Sir:

TIME’S reportage certainly avoided the standard format “wine article,” and wine drinkers and wine merchants everywhere should be grateful to TIME for shedding some light on one of the more widely misunderstood enjoyments of life.

ANTHONY WOOD Margaux, France

Tip on the Toes

Sir:

Your claim that “the pointed-toe look, still so popular last year that a Texas doctor ‘made a fortune amputating little toes” [Nov. 10] is a ridiculous fabrication. How dim-witted do you think your readers are?

JANICE PRESTON Chicago

^ Let Reader Preston keep her wits about her. Chiropodist Dr. A. U. Johnson of Midland, Texas, has taken the tips off little toes of a couple of hundred people.—ED.

How to Get Credit

Sir:

My friends have written me many angry letters saying that in your otherwise excellent and enthusiastic review of the Broadway musical comedy, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying [Oct. 27], you made no reference to the book from which it sprang, nor to me, its author. I am not angry at TIME, which indeed did more to launch the book originally than any other publication [Aug. 25, 1952].

The musical comedy can and should stand on its own feet. It can safely be seen and immensely enjoyed by everyone, whereas the printed volume by itself is strong meat: immoral, dangerous, and suitable only for the few. Many of these students have indeed become rich by following its precepts, but TIME readers must ask themselves—Do we want to become rich in this way?

SHEPHERD MEAD Weybridge, England

*Mrs. Louis Pugsley, Reader Smith’s teacher at the Garden Street Elementary School.