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Sir:
Please place me in the Amen corner for Mortimer Adler. And for TIME'S superlative description of the Great Books project. Philosophy, indeed, is everybody's business . . . Let us educate the freed citizen for a free life, and give him the knowledge to live it intelligently.
ARTHUR F. NICHOLSON Indiana, Pa.
Sir:
Your publication of John Dewey's photograph with the caption "More dangerous than Hitler?" is an example of cheap journalism ... It is Adler and his allies who are the real Hitlers amongst us. For they are scholastic formalists who are positive that they and they alone know all the answers . . . and since they are incapable of doubt, they are plotting in the most insidious ways to force their interpretation of right & wrong down the throats of the people . . .
AGNES E. MEYER
Washington, B.C.
Sir:
... Is there still time for a renaissance of learning in the U.S., or have we "progressed" with Dewey too far into the educational dark ages? If so, our educators can doubtless console themselves with the thought that advanced bead-stringing will prove functional in a society of cave dwellers.
JOHN H. MclNTYRE
Philadelphia
Sir:
As a quasi-pragmatist I got quite a kick from your Adler article . . . Perhaps education is a racket, but as any high-school lad knows, there is none bigger than selling "Great Books" to hopeful parents, whereupon they collect dust and provide quarters for termites in the parlor.
DAN CRUSE Beaumont, Texas
Sir:
Readers of the early season scrimmage of the Great Ideas may relish this anecdote. Intending to be facetious, I once asked an ardent indexer whether God had been included in the index. His prompt, patronizing and humorless reply stunned me: "Yes, but we've subdivided him."
RICHARD M. KAIN Louisville, Ky.
Sir:
. . .As a social psychologist, I was impressed with Adler's selection of the 102 Great Ideas. How does he logically exclude the idea of "Humility"? Perhaps this is an idea too foreign to such a great and noble mind? . . .
ROBERT M. FRUMKIN Ohio State University Columbus
¶J Humility, which is included in the index-to the Great Ideas, is, according to Dr. Adler, "a virtue attached to Christian charity."—ED.
Sir:
... I consider your article one of the finest pieces I have ever read in any magazine ... As a lawyer, I was particularly interested in the reference to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, around whom a cult of greatness has so unjustly risen. In the history of American courts, no man's influence has been so blatantly evil. Those who have been bewitched by his pungent expressions have failed to note that no figure in the history of the American judiciary has had such a sinister influence. If his legal philosophy were ever fully accepted and translated into operation by our Government and our people, it could only lead to the same type of evil totalitarianism we saw in Germany and are now seeing in Russia . . .
J. NEWMAN TOOMEY Iowa City, Iowa
Sir: