THE HARD-FISTED EDUCATOR

...In spite of this, however, the novel has more integrity, and, in its own way is more revealing, than probably ninety percent of the slickly written books published today, which say much less, but say it better...

...Education in America, therefore, must revolve around two objectives: first, the study of American democratic society and its historic goals—to deepen the convictions and loyalties of our own people—and second, the dissection of the Soviet philosophy — to be in a better position, by knowing your opponent, to exppse his methods...

...Technological and philosophical warfaro between contending churches and rival groups often obscures the essential moral unity of our American culture...

...Ideals in an open society like ours," Conant writes wisely, "represent goals toward which men and women may move by concerted action...

...This does not mean shooting war, but as Conant puts it, "we who believe that war is not the answer to the Russian ambition must base our hopes on the eventual disintegration of the Iron Curtain...

...Those who are wary about radicalism In our schools aad coMoges...

...Conant says, U intimately connected with tho success or faUuas of our system of public education...

...are often either reactionaries who themselves do not bow allegiance to the tradtttonel American principles or deesafbts .who despair of the success of our own philosophy in an open competition...

...Yet he fulfils an important position in American writing...

...His Studs Lonigan Trilogy and Danny O'Neill Tetralogy stand up on rereading and with his other novels form a revelation of a period...

...And the viewpoint appears to be limited to the author's experiences...

...The basic issue in the world today Is the division between East and West...

...It is heartening to see a person of the position and status of President Conant lash out at • these tendencies most vigorously...

...is sufflcent reason to condemn American democracy as sham and hypocrisy...

...On this belief in man's capacity to cope with his problem, Conant builds his hopes for the future of education...

...Next to study of American ideals and institutions, "the number one educational need of the present moment" is study of Soviet philosophy...

...It would be easy indeed to devote an entire review to this book's faults, and many reviewers have done sp, gleefully sinking their harpoons into it, as they have done to so many of Farrell's earlier works...

...We must analyze our problem," says Conant, "not only as economic questions but in terms of human mo. fives, of social ideals, and the relation of these ideals to a well-formed picture of the future of the nation...

...The strength of this republic...

...The failure to grasp the true relationship between the ideal and the real has done much to create confusion and cynicism among intellectuals of the left, and has furnished a most formidable weapon to totalitarian propaganda...

...Conant is convinced that "when we are dealing with the followers of the MarxEngels-Lenin-Stalin line, we are dealing with dangerously sincere people...

...Motivations are oversimplified...

...I seek to answer the question: what happens to people...

...Very few novelists achieve that much...

...By James T. Farrell...

...Although he thinks the United States should be militarily prepared and "our balanced strength should be equally ready to strike," the real cleavage, he holds, is between two ideologies...

...EVER - INCREASING and ever more vigorous democracy is the only answer to the communist challenge...

...Conant calls our educational planners "to enter the twilight zone that seperates philosophy from theology far enough to' come to grips With the question of the basis for our ethics...

...Like many of his earlier books, The Road Between has faults which seem to be inherent in Farrell's writing: The stilted speech of the characters occasionally is jarring...

...Conant believes "we must assume at best an armed truce until at least the middle of the fifties and a divided world for a long time to come...

...But he is quick to add: "Good fortune and disaster go hand in hand...

...If the analysis of Boris Shub, In his two remarkable articles "The Russians Can Be Had" in recent issues of The New Leader, is correct, the period of the armed truce may be shortened considerably...

...Significantly the foundation for Cananrs entire thesis is his view of "education as a social problem...

...His novels do portray significant aspects of present-day society...

...This does not mean, however, that the existence of Jim Crow ism and anti-semitism in the U.S...

...In the last, and most forceful part of the book, on the death of his father, he examines and resolves his conflicts with his family...

...Conant's book should help to develop both...

...I have an unshakable conviction that I have a true and a representative story to tell of how people have lived, suffered, and enjoyed, striven and forged meais, lovea ana naiea, ana aiea in my time...

...463 pp...

...Reviewed by KOPPEL S. PINSON HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT James Bryant Conant has not written the conventional blueprint ot an educational administrator, but rather a treatise for the times, more important for the average citizen and legislator than for the educator...

...The Road Be...

...It is interesting to speculate whether 'these stores, whatever their reasons may be, are not more correct than the glib and easy verdicts of Farrell's detractors, Koppel S. Pinsea Is professor of history at Queens College...

...writes Conant...

...American intellectuals, he rightly observes, oscillate between the extremes of negative Toryism and radical utopianism...

...Rejecting the notion of inevitable progress, he realistically admits that "tragedy has always been, and for centuries to come is likely to be, a constant aspect of the human drama...

...tween, continues the story of .Bernard Carr, previously known as Bernard Clare...

...He combines the hard-fisted realism of the scientist with a view he calls "almost fanatically humanitarian, tolerant and individualistic...

...COfVAMT CALLS HIMSELF a "tough-minded idealist," a word which indicates the profound influence of Royce and William James...

...This is at one and the same time a simple and a most difficult undertaking in this period when naturalism has been superseded by the political novel, the novel of psychological insights, and the glib rendition of the patinal aspects of America...

...Although Dr...

...Conant arrives at, what to this reviewer serves the only sound conclusion, that our ideals of a free society rests essentially on the Judeo-Christian view of human nature with the three postulates of (1) the sacrosanct nature of the individual, (2) the-individual's obligation to other individuals, and (3) a high degree of personal liberty...

...HIS LATEST BOOK...

...And , it is equally significant that the president of the university in which T. N. Carver used to sing the praises of rugged individualism, premises his entire discussion on the welfare economics of J. A. Hobson...

...to the ideals he has stated and the method he determined for himself in his novels...

...Too many educators and legislators identify the mere study of communism and Soviet culture with being a communist Too many in our midst wish to take advantage of the "cold war to stifle and limit all forms of progressive thinking in this country...

...m , The universalism of this tradition finds its secular expression in ^internationalism...

...In the second-hand book and magazine stores along Sixth Avenue, in New York City's middle Forties, Farrell's works occupy a prominent position in the section under the sign Classics...

...We can be both intensely American and yet .international-minded, both loyal to the unique manifestations of democracy in the United States and staunch friends of free societies of all types wherever they may be found...

...Sam Kreislor la a free-lanes writer living ia New York...

...The Vanguard Press...

...The Last Naturalist THE ROAD BETWEEN...

...A nation with equal educational opportunities for all, filled with a deep and' abiding conviction in the values on which our society is based, and armed with a sound comprehension of the ideology and institutions of our opponents, can look forward Confidently to ultimate victory...

...Conant is a natural scientist by training, he has more understanding of and sympathy for the humanistic point of view than a goad many professors of language and literature, and his broad social conception leaves many a professor of sociology, economics or* history far behind...

...Equality of opportunity and social democracy are tho goals of our systsm...

...In order to maintain literary integrity, he rebuffs the attempts made by Communist party hacks to.harness him for their purposes...

...They never can be reached in practice . . . but we can readily recognise whether we are moving toward them or retracting..To the degree that the American people are united in their definition of their objectives we can count on the solidarity of the nation...

...And, too, Farrell, as an individual, compels admiration, not only for the integrity manifested in his non-fiction writing, but also for his rigorous adherence, at whatever cost...

...Conant admits ruefully that "in competition with the Soviet philosophy, our present social mores [on Negroes and Jews] axe perhaps the most vulnerable spots in our armor...

...Conant steers a safe course between the two...

...One wonders, however, to what" extent these judgments have been motivated by political opinions and obligations which in many cases are notorious...

...clearly not by retreating in fear from the communist doctrine but by going out vigorously to meet it...

...The best way to deal with them, he says, is "clearly not by destroying our basic ideas but by strengthening them...

...At their best, his writings serve as forceful reminders of the virtues of naturalism, of portraying people operating and reacting, free of the superficial coloration of the author's political and social beliefs...

...For all this, however, we need competent and wise public servants and courageous educators...

...To Conant, education involves the entire nexus of cultural ideals which bind together the members of a society and which each generation transmits to its successor...

...Carr, a young writer from Chicago, comes to New York in the early Thirties, on the publication of his first novel, a financial failure, supports himself by writing reviews, and completes his second book...

...3.50, Reviewed fry SAM KREISLER JAMES T. FARRELL has summarized his literary purpose as follows: "In my Action, I seek to recreate a precise, detailed, and objective picture of certain features of the so-called American Way of Life...

...Within fifty years, Conant hopes, "the deep cleavages now dividing the world will become only a relatively shallow ditch...

...FARRELL IS very much the last of the pure naturalists...

...There is no room for chauvinism, complacency or isolationism in our thinking...