Relative History

An anonymous columnist* of the history-loving New York Times had fun last week standing Clio on her head. First, he imagined the No. 1 U.S. Communist answering the same history questions both before and after Hitler attacked Russia.

"Q. Characterize briefly the system under which the American people live.

"A. (Browder before June 22, 1941): A system of economic slavery.

"(Browder after June 22, 1941): A democracy, and the hope of mankind.

"Q. What is the Bill of Rights?

"A. (Browder ante-1941): Opiate for the ignorant.

"(Browder post-1941): A shining beacon for all oppressed peoples.

"Q. Why does America always go to war?

"A (Browder ante): To pile up profits for the capitalists and red herrings for the discontented populace.

"(Browder post): To defend the great American heritage of democracy."

The columnist went on to rib U.S. historians and their public in general, said that a citizen "typical of his time" would have responded as follows:

"Q. Who was George Washington?

"A. (1911): He was the Father of his Country.

"(1921): He had false teeth, liked parties, and speculated in Western real estate.

"(1931): He was not, in any real sense, a democrat.

"(1941): He was the Father of his Country and the titan of world history."

Private Problems

A picture of wartime havoc among the prep schools was drawn last week in the new 1942-43 Handbook of Private Schools (Sargent; $6). In this 27th edition of his notably outspoken work, peppery Editor Porter Sargent reported heavy damage:

> "Academic requirements have been thrown to the winds."

> Faculties have been cut to ribbons.

> "Some confusion" exists among schoolmasters, because some government bodies propose that "every school should be a military camp" and dispense with all nonessential education; others stress high standards of general academic work.

The new Handbook is the thinnest in years. A record number of private schools have closed, because of government lease or purchase, loss of teachers,/- students or income, difficulties with food, materials or labor. Many schools have put students to waiting on table, making beds, and cleaning rooms" (as boys at Kent and certain other schools have always done). Especially in New England, students are raising their own farm products. Some schools are lending pupils to nearby farmers (examples: St. Mark's, Hotchkiss).

Curriculums increasingly stress mathematics, science, aeronautics, agriculture, technics, war-area languages. Andover is going into its second summer session. Summer shouts will also ring from other playing fields.

As usual, Editor Sargent sums up his study of the private schools in no uncertain terms: "Each war brings out the weaknesses . . . of our educational system. . . . Opposition to private schools based on the claim that they are not democratic. . . . More careful investigation . . . of our social system has disclosed . . . that not only do men not have equal opportunities in this great democracy, but that there is a well established caste system, in the toils of which we have been so closely enmeshed that we have been unable to see it. . . . The ideals and aims of some of the schools must change."

Bon Vivant. Brooklyn-born Porter Sargent lives in the Boston suburb of Brookline, is a bit of a bon vivant (old cheese, old china), something of a poet (he has published one volume). He attributes his real education to travel rather than Harvard (he sent Porter Jr. to North Carolina's experimental Black Mountain College), but enjoyed his Harvard post-graduate research in botany, zoology, neurology. After eight years of teaching at Cambridge's proper Browne & Nichols School, he spent a decade traveling in Europe and circling the globe five times with pupils of his unique Travel School for Boys.

* For some years the identity of the author of Topics of The Times was a matter for speculation; usually he is Simeon Strunsky, 63-year-old editor, essayist, ex-encyclopedist (New International).

/- Educators estimated last week that by autumn the public school teacher shortage would be 100,000. Half a million children may be locked out of classrooms.

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