GOD AND EDUCATION
TEAD, ORDWAY
God and Education CRISIS III mCAlfOH, 4r Challenge to American Complacency. By Bern' ard ladings Bell. Whittlesey House, New York, Hfpp. $3.99. *md***4 ft* 0*0*4* had IT Id MOT UNNATURAL to...
...Hemisphere south of the U.S...
...Ordway Tead is chairman of New York City's Board of Higher Education...
...The intent here is, as we say, on the side of the angels...
...255 pp...
...Whether this book offers enough of "First Steps, in Reformation" (the last chapter) to leave the reader with full confidence that valid correctives are at hand, I am not so sure...
...It comes to grips, as its writers point out in supplementary commentaries upon the actual constitutional document, with a number of the principal problems involved in the world state idea...
...Fletcher Piatt is principally a military historian, but it would be ob! vrbusly unfair to him to put undue emphasis on thU side only...
...A ballad is no good unless it possesses poetic values along with the narrative element...
...GO FIGHT CITY HALL...
...University of Chicago Press...
...The genial affability and unique reasonableness remain...
...Pratt, in an excellent introduction, nails a number of fashionable fables concerning the Civil War to the wall and leaves them there to be plainly seen for what they are...
...Robert M. Hutchins and Others...
...An excellent chapter juxtaposes the draft riots of New York against the bread riots of Richmond, .Which were occurring simultaneously...
...For both ere addressing themselves to the implications of a "crisis" situation...
...The ways ahead in education are less unknown than they are unheeded...
...He does a first class job of presenting the entire Civil Waj from a readable und understandable point of view...
...There is also protection so that no region can have the presidency or other high offices to often...
...He has not bogged ,:s down with battles, and the maps by Rafael Palacios are clear and uncluttered...
...Pratt has managed to keep the story of the Civil War flowing at all times...
...A. 8. World State in Outline PRELIMINARY DRAFT OF A WORLD CONSTITUTION...
...Wm, SJoane Associates, m PP...
...The brief biographical sketches are well-presented from the standpoint of clarifying popular misconceptions...
...Assuming interest and curiosity rather than musical knowledge on the part of the reader, he adheres to a lively, non-technical manner as he discusses topics ranging widely from assorted queries submitted by radio listeners to the subject of dodecaphonic music...
...Robert J. Alexander teaches at Rutgers University...
...The question, then, is not shall we have papular education but, rather, what kind...
...James Bernard Kelley is chairman at the Physics Department at Hofsira College...
...8.00...
...It is further gratifying to report that the conception of religion implicit in his discussion is one to which wide adherence would be given...
...Sympathetic, superficial, good for a "hoo-ha" now and again, Go Fight City< Mall might make a trip on the BMT to Coney Island seems almost pleasant...
...After...
...Judging from some theories I have heard, the whole war looked like something which .a little fast psychoanalysis could have nipped in the bud...
...Reviewed 4>y /AMIS ffRNAR* iftuir AT LOMG LAST one finds someone writing of the Civil War as ' though slavery were involved...
...With Bell it is that between an education in which religion is ignored and in which in some way it is infused into the entire educational process as an underlying premise and pervading purpose...
...He is rather urging attention to those universal aspects of human exeprjenee tincfed to whet'Aibert Schwetftor has called "reverence for life...
...And the reader unacquainted with the field will come away from his reading of this book unaware of how much constructive work is already being ad' dressed to all these matters...
...It will disturb complacency of some to the point of annoyance...
...The most ambitious chapters are those which analyze the formal elements of the classic school and trace these elements in modern-music ("modern" here denoting post-romantic and impres-j sionistic composers), Mr...
...in the same way program music that has no validjty without a "story," sooner or later will mean nothing with it...
...By using dialogue where possible, and writing more like a newspaper reporter than.a recorder of history, Mr...
...For example, as a means for overcoming the obviously great numerical superiority of the population of some parts of the world, and the apparently much greater political maturity of other areas, these constitution-writers have proposed the establishment of nine regions consisting of: 1. Europa, the continent of Europe with such overseas possessions of European powers as want to participate, and perhaps with Great Britain 2. Atlantis, to consist of the U.S., Canada, the British, French and Dutch West Indies if they care to affiliate and Britain if it cares to do so 3. Eurasia, to consist of the U.S.S.R., with "such East-Baltic or Slavic or South-Danubian nations as associate with Russia 4. Afrasia, including the Near and Middle East, and Pakistan if it desires to join 5. Africa, south of the Sahara, with or without the Union of South Africa 6. India, with Pakistan if it so decides 7. Asia Major, consisting of Japan, China and the nearby archipelagoes 8. Austrasia, consisting of Indochina, Indonesia, adjacent islands, and if it so desires, Pakistan ' 9. Columbia, or Central and South America...
...If some readers a rs slightly repelled by the author's breezincss, others no qoubt will rejoice that one may coifrt the Muse but not solemnly...
...Bell is somewhat in the mood of "{or gawd's sake let's do something about this...
...Taylor is not an exponent of the most "progressive" musical idioms—you might call him a musical libera!—but all musicians must agree with his conclusions: „ ' "What matters, fundamentally, is not whether a piece of music is ancient or modern, sweet or bitter, but whether it gives a sense of the miracle of creation whereby a composer suddenly discovers a way of saying sosnetbiag that has never been said in quite that way before, and manages to give you the mystery and wonder of that discovery...
...v i A Looks at the War pI&gAL BY FIRE...
...For my part, Orcjeaf By Fire is the best history of the Civil War I have ever read...
...of some, I trust, to the point of action...
...contains an element of snobbery, aleesj with an understandable distaste for "popularization...
...For it is neither sectarian nor similarly limited...
...Vivid analogies help to get Taylor's ideas across...
...Ah, Flatbush...
...Such an attitude, however (further provoJtest here by jacket blurbs, chapter h#adr ings and an annotated table of een» tents* with pseudo-moeieal anelaey...
...I had learned in school that alavesy and: secession were the causes ˆ>f the Civil War, every subsequent boohi-and discussion 1 have come across had-lists of reasons which never included either of these two...
...Some other interesting proposals are embodied in this constitution, such as the suggestion that the President of the World also be the head of the highest juridical body...
...This light comedy, centering on ! a Jewish family in^Jfie borough of churches, is not the worst of such chronicles, but neither is it up to the splenetic offerings of Arthur Kober...
...I only wish he had particularized more on the side of the needed program...
...The total indictment presented it by no means new, yet the reasons for challenging complacency are indeed numerous and insistent...
...The latter is the consist of equal numbers of members from each of the nine regions, plus a certain number chosen at large...
...Taylor's book is based on his radio talks accompanying the CBS broadcasts of the N. Y. Philharmonic Sunday concerts...
...He has shown how straight history can be far more interp estingthan the so-called historical novel...
...One does not have to share Dr...
...Reviewed by HILDA NHSOM TUB PJtOFBSsMOWAL and critkal tnusWiaft may entertain an antipathy towards Deems Taylor's easy-going way with music...
...BROOKLYN, the one word that is a joke in itself, has become a source of curiosity for any number of people, including Bronxites and Ethel Roseni berg...
...In writing simple, "informal history," Mr...
...Hilda Ptosen it a musiesan, podo, gogue, and critic...
...With tenant the crisis is the ideological conflict between Russian and the West...
...Simon and Schuster...
...I find most of his dozen proposals needed and important...
...His affable chats, reworked for publication, read better than they sounded...
...And his entire chapter on "Religion and Higher Education" has some sound and wholesome suggestions which urgently need atention...
...Provision is made for a "Tribune of the People" whose principal job is apparently to be the protection of the democratic lights of individuals and groups throughout the world, against suppression at the hands of local regimes or the Federal government itself...
...For Dr...
...S,00...
...Here, distinction could have been made between mirth-provoking imitative sounds and true musical humor deriving from manipulation/" of material...
...All in all, Ordeal By Fire is a good, short, well-written history of war wo did fight for freedom—a freedom still to be gained...
...Although a Federal Convention of delegates from the whole world is provided for, its only purpose will be tha selection of the World President and the World Parliament...
...By Fletcher rrn£t...
...Pratt has indirectly performed an added service...
...Reviewed by ROBERT J. ALEXANDER THIS THOUGHT PROVOKING LITTLE BOOK is an attempt to work out in detail a draft of a constitution for a proposed world state...
...The South had every reason to believe that its embargo on cotton would do serious damage to the North, and at the same tune give the South tin excellent trading staple to be used in international commerce...
...Bv Deem* Taylor: Simon and Sehusfr...
...and that the Supreme Court be elected by members of the Grand Tribunal, from which all of the federation's high courts are chosen, and who are originally appointed by the President-Chief Justice...
...He recommends the Gettysburg Address to those who would make the Civil War another economic struggle...
...As composer and as writer, Deems Taylor meets folks three-fourths of the way...
...Yet, if we are to accept democracy and industrialization, the concomitant problem of mass cul> ture is not one to be shrugged oil...
...This project, drawn up by a distinguished committee (including among others President Robert Hutchins, G. A. Borgese, Mortimer Adler, Stringfellow Ban-, and Rexford G. Tugwell) is certainly one with which all of those who have any strong feelings about world government should be familiar...
...He also points out that Northern victory was not a foregone conclusion and the usual statistics concerning disparity in men and materials .are likewise wrong...
...Bell's personal theological outlook to agree with the tenor of his theme when he says "our cultural training ought to have been devised so that it pointed us toward religion, as well as toward science and the arts, as a means jf access to the secrets of life...
...3M pp...
...The authors reject the idea of merely establishing a limited world government which would content itself with this power of controlling the military...
...i Strangely enough for Deems Taylor, the chapter on humor in music receives a niggardly and unimaginative treatment...
...Of course, the principal military force is to be in the hands of the Federal Power, with only local "militias"— their size determined by the .central regime—left to nations and regions...
...For example, the atternpt of the earnest German musicologist 1e classify all the harmonic modulations in the ultra-chromatic Prelude to Tristan reminds the author of a chameleon going to pieces on a Persian rug, and the difference between program and absolute music is compared to the difference between a ballad and a sonnet...
...His dim view may not be basically mistaken, yet to have been a trifle less sweeping would have been to enlist the support of his audience more cooperatively and hopefully...
...They feel that what is needed is an all-out world government...
...Northern victory ' 'became a foregone conclusion only after the war had been fought for several years...
...L. A A Sompcon of Music for The Millions MUSIC TO MY BARS...
...But they are mentioned rather than explored...
...By Ethel Rosenberg...
...md***4 ft* 0*0*4* had IT Id MOT UNNATURAL to compare this book with President James B. Conant's recent volume, Education in a Divided World...
...2.50...
...Without doubt both possibilities together justify and give merit to this offering...
Vol. 32 • June 1949 • No. 25
