Scientific Evangelist
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
Scientific Evangelist Up-hill All the Way. By Miriam Allen deFord. Antioch. 255 pp. $4.00. A succession of biographies selected with sufficient care might well serve as the history of this or any...
...A succession of biographies selected with sufficient care might well serve as the history of this or any other country...
...Maynard Shipley had a great love for humanity and practically no common sense...
...During the Twenties, when William Jennings Bryan, John Roach Stratton and the rest of the fundamentalist crowd were attacking the theory of evolution, this unacademic popularizer proved to be the most effective defender of the scientific Reviewed by William E. Bohn faith...
...Shipley himself was moved always by a fervor and devotion that had much in common with religion...
...Coming : Reviews by Roderick Craib, Harry D. Gideonse, James Rorty, George N. Shuster, Harvey Swados...
...Again and again, some university or propaganda organization would offer him a job with a handsome salary...
...Her story has importance because Maynard Shipley was an evangelical, public-spirited American just as typical of America during his period as the go-getter type which we think of as characteristic of this country...
...He never graduated from high school or college, yet he founded an influential scientific association and had the friendship and respect of many leading scientists of his day...
...Invariably— even when his debts were driving him wild—-his conscience would prevent his acceptance...
...One interesting feature of this biography is that it reveals how unchristian, how cheap, how fakirish these so-called religious enemies of science were in their private lives...
...Shipley had the irregularity of the frontiersman...
...When he died, in 1934, the San Francisco News said: "Opposing certain religious groups all his life, Mr...
...He could always figure out some reason why it would be wicked to accept so much money and comfort...
...He lectured and wrote on a great variety of topics in a way that called forth the approbation of the experts in the various fields which he covered...
...Up to the early Twenties, Shipley devoted his considerable talents as speaker and writer to the promotion of socialism...
...Anyone interested in understanding the spirit which inspired the American Socialist movement in the first two decades of this century can do no better than read this book...
...It is a tribute of affection written with deep insight by his widow, who has produced half-a-dozen books under her maiden name, Miriam deFord...
...As one of such a list of volumes to cover the social and intellectual development of America, I would suggest this life story of Maynard Shipley...
Vol. 40 • January 1957 • No. 4
