Communications
COMMUNICATIONS MESSRS. HOOPER AND WINCHELL Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. TO the Editor--I write to thank for the favorable you notice you gave me in The Commonweal of September 24, in the column, Week...
...Rev...
...The faculty faces the duty of creating an in- terest in learning by setting some definite standard upon which degrees can be earned, rather than conferred...
...Whether he mentioned this circumstance in the way of in- nuendo, to hint that I am not a poor man, I do not know...
...Whether that belief has a basis in fact cannot be easily determined...
...It is amazing how cultural teach- ing will broaden one's viewpoint . . . Why disregard the finer points of poetry and prose to torture the mind with terms of syntax...
...VALUES IN LITERATURE Bourbonnais, IU...
...James J. Walsh, your genial polyhistor, to revise his geography of MittelEuropa...
...What about maladjustment between teacher and student...
...Is the question in religion one of being exactly right or merely one of motive and intentlon...
...The very discussion or denial of it assumes private judgment...
...Another of your correspondents justly complains of deficiencies in the Catholic participation in and presentation of literature...
...I really enjoyed it...
...There must he something radically wrong with a system of education which finds it necessary to drop 6o0 freshmen in the middle of the year...
...Prominence might be given to the Catholic interpretation of and contribution toward literature...
...SISTER M. AGATHA, O.S.U...
...It is our private judgment or reasonableness and capacity for making a decision that is appealed to, and necessarily so...
...A suggestion:—I would like to see a feature, run either alternately with Places and Persons or separately, with some such heading as Studies in the Past, which will offer essays on the literature and art, persons, places and periods, attitudes and developments of the past...
...How can we "sell" education if there is no demand for the substitute we are offering...
...I would llke to say that there is grim irony in the fact that Louise Imogen Guiney's works are fetching such prices now, whilst when she was alive there was scarcely a sale for any of her writings, and what is more, scarcely a mention of her in any of our Catholic papers or magazines...
...Is it] lack of ascetic appreciation on the part of the faculty...
...Marlen Pew, editor of Editor and Publisher, after he had published a piece about me on his page, Shop Talk at Thirty...
...In conclusion I ask: Should the students' aspect, as expressed in these fragments of thought, receive some consideration...
...But there is another side to this picture: the students' view- point...
...The "beautiful Tyrolese Alps" in the first sentence of his article on Oberammergau in the August 20 issue of The Commonweal is correctly used...
...The Meiklejohn movement to revise the academic curricu- lum so that students may have two years to demonstrate their ability to absorb what the curriculum offers is still an ex- periment...
...Moreover, private judgement must depend upon our sin- ceritywfor it cannot depend upon our knowledge...
...My poverty is such that I cannot afford to get three full meals a day...
...I agree with you that Negroes are engrossed by their own immediate problems of finding some livable adjustment amid hostile surroundings...
...It would surprise Mr...
...besides, her friends may not have known...
...T O the Editor :--In the September 3 issue of The Com- monweal there is a short communication by Helen E. Price on the soaring value of Louise Imogen Guiney's books...
...Why should a course in English be merely a course in snytax and sentence structure...
...An edition for school use could easily be made of selections of her work for constant use in our lecture rooms...
...it has not been well for religion...
...OBERAMMERGAU Akron, Ohio...
...TO the Editor:—I heartily agree with a recent correspondent to The Commonweal on the excellence and charm of the articles appearing under the feature, Places and Persons...
...But I thank you because you have given me credit for what I feel is not my due--a pure and disin- terested zeal...
...If the various bodies now directing their fire upon these matters will establish this fact, they will enable us to proceed, and themselves to proceed, with some hope of arriving at a proper starting point for the discus- sion at any rate...
...On reading your piece, I saw that by a curious coincidence you actually mentioned in it a "new Franciscanism of the spirit...
...A few quotations from the student organ of a large western university will explain my meaning...
...Romolo Spencer...
...And as for space limitation—brevity is a neglected and refreshing virtue in writing...
...Surely our colleges and universities in their English classes could help keep her name from oblivion...
...If our private judgment prompts us to say that quite evidently we must do as we are told by somebody else, that is Catholicism...
...WHAT THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR Petersborough, Canada...
...T O the Editor :--To John A. Luby's short but provoca- tive letter in The Commonweal for September 24, the writer desires to add a note of assent...
...There's the rub...
...Franz J. Feinler...
...Your piece is calculated to give me this "good name" and "loving favor," and that is why I thank you for it...
...Joseph Holey...
...G. A. ST~WA...
...Discover her to the Catholic youth, at least, of the land, and save her glorious name in Catholic letters...
...Even now, when we hear that she has written "authentic verse" and unsurpassed English, interest in her works seems limited to first editions...
...But your piece was calculated to bring me into the favorable notice of godly and upright people---and I crave the favor of such people rather than the favor of the world...
...CHARLES HOOPER...
...PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD Brooklyn, N. Y. TO the Editor:—Being a reader of The Commonweal, I have read with interest letters in your Communications columns, and would like to see the following therein: I have in my possession a thirty-four page booklet written by and for Protestants in 1889 and published in England...
...T O the Editor:--The Nation has forwarded to me a copy of The Commonweal of October I. I thank you for the magazine and for the very kind and generous comment given by you to an article of mine recently appearing in the Nation...
...If we are to be consulted at all it must be in order that we may think the matter over and thus give out opinions...
...Rev...
...Why not write upon every class- room door 'Freedom of thought and expression here...
...The separation has been ill for poetry...
...As the Holy Scriptures declare: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold...
...It takes its rightful position as the right of every man...
...I enclose the stanzas, and hope you will like them...
...TO the Editor--I write to thank for the favorable you notice you gave me in The Commonweal of September 24, in the column, Week by Week...
...In one of the last letters included in her published corre- spondence, we read of her dire financial distress...
...R. E. Munsch, C.S.V...
...The uhra-practical obsession must give place to the liberal and cultural influences...
...Cer- tainly there is a widespread feeling among them that thought and opinion about Negro life is all that can find its way to the editor's desk...
...But they do think of something else also, and occasionally they generate ideas of general interest...
...May I undertake to make clear the part of the article with which you do not agree, namely, "that the Negro thinker and leader of opinion is restricted in a corresponding and positive way...
...As a matter of fact, I am a poor man...
...It is, of course, not a fact that Negroes are so re- stricted-that is, not an established fact...
...PLACES AND PERSONS San Francisco, Calif...
...But the point is that Negroes believe themselves to be so restricted...
...Before I read your piece I resolved to send you the same stanzas in acknowl- edgment of your favor...
...There is an immense amount of futility in our thoughts and acts which is induced by our utter inability to talk according to the rules of strict reason and common sense...
...Naturally, I cannot write on scraps of paper when I write to my more honorable correspondents, so I use a good grade of letter-head paper for such correspondence, though I can ill afford to buy such paper...
...And all my insistence that she accept my rather full purse at the time, met only this answer: "Bless your heart, Patercule, noF' What irks me is that she did not spare herself to those who came to her for literary help at Longwall Cottage or wrote for aid, and yet they and her friends in the United States did not help her...
...There is, I think, no doubt that a system or way of logical thinking is what we most need, notwithstanding Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes and Neill...
...Pew's piece about me was calculated simply to bring me into public notice...
...J. H. BARNHAM...
...TEACHING SOCIAL SCIENCE Wilmington, DeI...
...NEGRO ARTISTS AND NEGRO THINKERS Columbus, Ohio...
...Whether his remarks need be modified much when applied to our time is hardly debatable...
...I am happy also to find that you agree with me at least in part...
...Why not prepare us to fit into God's plan of living a cultural Catholic life...
...So much so, that when I once ran across her name in some paper and told her of it, she wrote: "It looks strange to anchoritical me to see my name in a paper nowadays...
...But "a little Tyrolese village," "with the Tyrolese mountains" and "the little Tyrolese town" are very incorrect indeed...
...Verily, it is time that the high cost of education be made to deliver some adequate returns in the form of intellectual and moral development...
...We have been encouraging the academic loafer by accept- ing a passing grade as a measure of intellectual acumen...
...Papers could be set, and reading required in Louise Imogen Guiney's Prose and Poetry...
...and yet I believe something could have and should have been done...
...But back in I912, when I knew her so well at Oxford, I saw her myself with a few books under her arm trying to sell them for a few pennies...
...It is a very interesting booklet with arguments favoring prayer for the departed...
...If we find that our private judgment tells us that we know as much about "it" as "they" do, then we shall no doubt govern ourselves accordingly, but it is upon the basis of private judgment that all depends...
...For he simply gave me what was my due--mention of one who for many years has written to improve the state of the American people, but who has received no material rewards, and but scant recog- nition for his work...
...I thank you again for your criticism...
...They must be required to do a minimum of head work...
...I know it would have been difficuh to do so, for Miss Guiney would not ask for anything...
...I am also interested in collecting her first editions, but that is not the point in my letter...
...Bavarian" he should have said...
...I wish to get in touch with parties who are interested in prayers for the dead and would like to join with me in the publishing and distributing of this booklet...
...Our students must be aroused from their mental siesta...
...We must assume at once that social judgment is not a thing to be set aside...
...That is the reason Negroes ask why is it that the type of article I mentioned never comes from the pen of a black man...
...T O the Editor:---The most interesting thing in the world at present is not the crude discussions of the curious forms of force such as navies, armies, prohibitions, etc., but the doubt rising in the minds of the thinking people of today re- garding the basis of thought, that is to say, the authority or rea- son upon which our thoughts are founded...
...Hence there can be no good in flouting it...
...It is entitled, Is It Right To Pray for the Dead...
...But if it is, as in the case of a natural fact or a natural law, a question of being exactly right, or otherwise of being wrong and therefore value- less or worse, the question becomes a difficult one...
...I wrote to Mr...
...The Commonweal's unique standing among periodicals would overrule any objection that such a feature is not strictly journalistic...
...I expressed my appreciation of his piece, but I did not thank him for it, as I thank you...
...TO the Editor:—Please request Dr...
...Our Catholic papers, too, could do much...
...Just before I received the copy of The Commonweal from you containing your piece about me, I had replied to a letter I had received from an English bishop, and sent him two stanzas about Saint Francis that I had written...
...Pew if he knew what a large percentage of my total income is spent upon postage and stationery...
...In his essay on Shelley, Francis Thompson wrote: "The Church . . . during the last two centuries has relinquished to aliens the chief glories of poetry...
...However, the demand for "attitudes" rather than credits would seem to indicate that something besides "grades" will be demanded of undergraduates...
...Pew mentioned the good grade of copy-paper I use...
...If it is not a matter of doing exactly the right thing, but merely a matter of wishing to do it, then what is known as "private judgment" comes at once into count...
...I would go so far as to say that they are too much so occupied...
Vol. 12 • October 1930 • No. 25
