One day in 1926 a husky corn-fed Texan named Anderson Baten retired to his Dallas cottage, opened the first volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and began reading about "AABENRAA, a town of Denmark." Two years later, without having skipped a word between, he came to "ZYGOTE, the biological term for the fertilized egg," closed the last volume, went prayerfully to bed. Next morning he arose at 6 a. m., took a five-mile walk with his wife. After breakfast he sat down at his desk in the centre of a horseshoe of book-stacked tables. When...
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