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Catholicity & Judgment. As its readers' interests have expanded, the Atlantic has made a conscious effort to keep up. Such nonliterary affairs as archaeology, space, education, psychiatry, travel and even car racing (in 1963 it commissioned an article, Speed and Women, by Stirling Moss) now capture its attention. A 1952 Ford Foundation grant produced a series of Atlantic surveys on the world family of nations. When that grant ran out in 1958, the magazine maintained the series on its own.
But the success of such a catholicity of content depends largely on good editorial judgment, and the Atlantic's judgment has on occasion fallen short. A recent issue devoted to the problem of mental illness in the U.S. drew such a volume of spirited protest that the magazine felt compelled to reprint some of it in a special article in the current issue. Many of the critics objected to the Atlantic's judgment in letting an obviously biased British psychiatrist draw an indictment of psychiatric practice in the U.S.
Engagement & Gentility. One of Executive Editor Manning's assignments will be to refine the Atlantic's judgment. Weekly newsmagazines and the many new journals of opinion have raided the Atlantic's cupboard of readers, until today it must vie more than ever with its slightly senior rival, Harper's, older by seven years. "In a curious way," says Ted Weeks discussing the two monthlies, "people are inclined to buy one of them, read it hard, and look at the other from time to time."
Manning also intends to help preserve the Atlantic from what he calls "lapidity"—hardening of the editorial arteries. "Without making it a fixed necessity," he said last week, "I'm for engaged journalism. There is always a danger in gentility and tranquillity, of having a beautiful tool without any cutting edge."