Hanover Browsing
Selected Reading List Traces Growth of Democratic Thought in America and Throughout the World
DR. ARTHUR M. WILSON of the Department of Biography heads the course: Components of DemocraticThought wherein is traced the origin and development of democratic ideas and institutions in America and elsewhere. He has compiled a reading list and was good enough to let me use it. I select, because of limited space, some of the more important titles.
Anthologies: The American Tradition, edited by Wright and Swedenberg. Published by Crofts, 1941, with 674 pp. Cheap at $2. This America, edited by Kern and Griggs, Macmillan, 1942. Voices of Liberty, edited by Foster and Watt, Macmillan, 194.1, which contains material on English history and institutions as well as American. We Hold These Truths: Documentsof American Democracy, edited by S. G. Brown and published by Harper. Carl van Doren's The Patriotic Anthology, and A. R. Chandler's excellent source book The Clash of Political Ideals completes this list.
Pamphlets: In general, any one of the Macmillan War Pamphlets or the America in a World at War series is excellent. They are reasoned, objective, with no note of hysteria, and written by fine minds. Mr. Wilson particularly recommends: Benet's A Summons to the Free, Gelber and Gooch's War for Power and Power forFreedom, Walter Millis's The Faith of anAmerican, and C. E. M. Joad's For Civilization.
Excellent books, somewhat longer, for serious study: Charles Merrian: What isDemocracy? (Chicago Univ. Press); Carl Friedrich: The New Belief in the Common Man (Doubleday); Irwin Edman: Fountainheads of Freedom (Reynal); Avery Craven: Democracy in AmericanLife (Univ. of Chicago Press); and Ralph Gabriel's The Course of American Democratic Thought which covers the years from 1815 to the present.
Excellent books, perhaps not quite so adaptable to discussion groups—Carl Becker: The Declaration of Independence; Jacques Barzun: Of Human Freedom; Ralph Barton Perry: On All Fronts (1941); Lynn Harold Hough: The Christian Criticism of Life (1941); and W. T. Stace: The Destiny of Western Man (1942)-
I asked Bill Thayer, a recent newcomer to Hanover, and an old Taft School boy, to review Horace Dutton Taft's Memoriesand Opinions (Macmillan, $3.). He did so and writes: "Whereas the author dedicates his book to 'The Old Boys of the Taft School' his work as founder and principal of this well-known Connecticut school runs as an undercurrent through the book and is used as a background to highlight his broader experiences in matters far afield from mere scholastic problems. Born of rugged New England stock, his parents early moved to Cincinnati where his father, after an illustrious law career, became minister to Austria. The legal tradition was maintained in the family, and the four Taft brothers after graduating from Yale took up their father's profession. Henry and William made it their life work, the latter returning to it as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after serving his country as Governor of the Philippines, Secretary of War, and President. The author's chapters on his 'Brother Will' and Theodore Roosevelt and their controversies are two of the most interesting in the book.
"It is such stimulating relationships, coupled with the experiences of fifty years of teaching and administrative work with boys, plus innumerable parental contacts, that have given Horace Taft an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes which he, frequently uses to illustrate a point or polish an argument. It is this same appreciative sense running through the book that leaves with the reader the reaction that here is a man mellowed with the years 'with malice toward none.' "
Through Freddy Asher '37 his father sent me a copy of his book: Louis E. Asher and Edith Heal: Send No Money (Argus Books, Chicago, 1942). This is the story of R. W. Sears, founder of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and reveals not only an interesting man, but it is also an accurate and exciting account of the mail-order business. All alumni connected with advertising or merchandising will want this book. It is well printed and illustrated and costs $8.75.
For those who like nature books I recommend strongly Alan Devoe's Lives AroundUs '(Creative Age Press, 1942), and Ben Robertson's Red Hills and Cotton (Knopf, 1942). One deals with animals throughout the twelve months and is illustrated with woodcuts; the other is an excellent picture of a South Carolina family.
For readers who like war books: James Aldridge's Signed with Their Honour, a story of the R.A.F. in Greece and Crete, with a fine and restrained love story, is recommended. Also C. G. Grey's Bombers, and British Fighter Planes (Faber). Aloha.
