Hanover Browsing

President Hopkins' Recent Selections and President Cowleys' Both Include Hans Zinsser's Latest Book

IN SPITE OF A BUSY SUMMER President Hopkins read quite a few books and is kind enough to pass on to the alumni some of his findings. Here they are: "It has been a long time since I have read anything that seemed to me more interesting or sweeter in its attitude toward life than Hans Zinsser's As I RememberHim, The Biography of R. S., which was his romantic self.

"Possibly I was more affected in reading it by my knowledge of the fact that he was working against time in order to finish it before the deadly malady (leukemia) with which he was afflicted should get him. However this may be, I find that people who had no knowledge of this fact were affected much in the same way. It is a great book.

"Let me say that it has been a long time since I have had as great a pleasure as in reading Ben Ames Williams' Come Spring. As a matter of fact, this was a re-reading because immediately upon the appearance of the book I ran through it rapidly and dosed it with the consciousness that I wanted to read it much more carefully. It is a grand story, I think.

"For fiction, another book by one of my favorite authors, in which I have taken great pleasure, is When the Whippoorwills by Marjorie K. Rawlings.

"Another book which ought to have wide reading is Mobilizing CivilianAmerica by Tobin and Bidwell. This deals interestingly and illuminatingly with a subject in regard to which most of us have an abysmal ignorance.

"With great profit to myself, likewise, I have been rereading The Aims of Education by Whitehead. This, I think, ought to be required reading for everyone engaged in educational work.

Another work which I think is advantageous to an understanding of world affairs at the present time is The Strategy of Terror by Edmond Taylor, and perhaps I should say the same thing of The AmericanPresidency by Harold Laski.

Thanks to the courtesy of the publishes I had the privilege of reading Lewis umford's forthcoming book Faith forwing. There is a definite stimulus to constructive thought in this book and I hope Wat it may be xvidgly read.

Meanwhile, I am continuing what I began before the close of the College Year, namely a careful reading of Carl Sandburg's Abraham. Lincoln. For me, at least, this book is very muck more profitably read little by little than in attempting to wade rough it continuously. I do not think that I should use the word 'wade' because every sentence of the book is a joy. Moreover, for individuals and for a people rather completely given over to the idea that they live in particularly difficult times, there is constantly in this book the suggestion that other times than our own have been difficult."

Many thanks, Mr. Hopkins.

W. H. Cowley '24, President of Hamilton College, kindly sent me a list of books with his comments, which should be stimulating to the readers of this column.

1. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy: These three novels by James T. Farrell are the best examples of stark naturalism that I know of in American literature. People with a Puritan background will be shocked by them and perhaps shouldn't read them. I found them most stimulating and revealing.

2. As I Remember Him, The Biographyof R. S.: Hans Zinsser, Professor of Bacteriology and Immunity at the Harvard University Medical School, has in this volume written his autobiography. Most reviews have rated it to be a very important book, but it seems to me to be interesting but essentially trivial. I considered it worth reading, but the author's parading of his prejudices annoyed me together with his excessive quotations from French and German.

3. Emotion in the Educative Process, this volume, published two or three years ago by the American Council on Education under the chairmanship of Professor Daniel Prescott, now of the University of Chicago (then of Rutgers University), is essentially a technical book for educators and psychologists. But I found it one of the most thorough-going analyses of the nature and significance of emotion that I have ever read. Laymen who are interested in emotion will find it difficult but invaluable.

4. Life: A Pyschological Survey: This is a textbook in social psychology or for beginning courses in general psychology. It is written by Pressey, Janney, and Kuhlen. The first of whom is a.graduate of Williams and Professor of Psychology at Ohio State University. Professor Pressey is one of the country's leading educational psychologists, and under his direction this fascinating textbook has been written. It is unique as a psychology textbook and might well be read by many laymen and professors in other fields for general orientation in the significance of psychology. As a former professor of psychology, I recommend it enthusiastically.

5. The Philosophy of Rhetoric: Late in May I asked I. A. Richards, Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge and Visiting Professor at Harvard, to recommend to me the best book on semantics. He responded that no good book in this new and important field had yet been written, but he suggested that I might like to read his own writings on the subject. He recommended this book. Frankly, I was disappointed in it because it is much too technical and limited for general reading, and even for my purposes. Someone very badly needs to write a good discussion of semantics which is sounder than Stuart Chase's much-publicized book The Tyranny of Words.

6. A New Design for Woman's Education: President Constance Warren of Sarah Lawrence College has written in this book a popular discussion of progressive education on the college level. As a professional educator, I am critical of the job she has done because it seems to me to be too superficial. She has intended it, however, apparently for laymen, and as such it has significance.

7. Management and the Worker: The authors of this volume are Professor Roethlisberger of the Harvard School of Business Administration and W. J. Dickson, Chief of Personnel Research of the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company. It is a very heavy tome, but I am writing a review of it for a technical journal and am saying that it is a must reading for all executives who are interested in industrial relations. Despite the fact that it is a difficult book, it is the most stimulating book that I have read in many a month. The authors describe the interviewing and counselling programs that have been evolved by the Western Electric Company at Hawthorne. The techniques of interviewing and counselling which have evolved and the generalizations growing therefrom have huge implications which personnel people will be developing for many years to come.

Thank you, Hal.

Taken altogether Mr. Cowley's list is on the heavy side, and it might well be balanced by a touch of Jeeves, a savour of Harry the Horse (Runyon), a portion of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and even a spot of Hamilton College's grand alumnus Alexander Woollcott.

I should, in closing, like to recommend an autobiography by W. J. Jackson called Time Exposure. The author was so years old at the Battle of Gettysburg, rode horseback up to the age of 94, fell down stairs at 96, and is going strong at the moment at 98. He is a man.

Also I have just re-read the whole of Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga, which, perhaps because of the current English scene, was much more moving than the first or second time I read it.

You'll like it. Hasta la Stuka!