Royal Questions

Sir: I am very much interested in ... the 6 foot 2 inch teddy bear to which TIME [Dec. 29] compared former King Michael. ... Is there more than one? And just how long are the legs of Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma? SAMUEL C. MONSON New York City

P: For the Princess' legs, see cut; for teddybear, see King Michael.--ED.

Science Catches Up

Sir: Your article about Alcoholics Anonymous [TIME, Dec. 22] was highly interesting. However, the type of naivete demonstrated in some of its statements is always astounding to those who have the Christian point of view. The doctor wonderingly reported a startling discovery: the cure of an alcoholic was effected by his "surrender to a higher power." For centuries Christians have been witnessing that the surrender "to a higher power" is the only successful approach to all personal problems. And for centuries before Christianity this principle was proclaimed. Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy says that self-surrender "is inculcated ... in the . . . writings of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and most of the other major and minor religions of the world." In recent years in the popular publications, A.A. and many other laymen and churchmen have been advocating this approach to abundant living. It is nice to know that science is at last catching up with the Truth. RUTH HITCHCOCK DAVIS Wakefield, Mass.

Time to Retire?

Sir: I believe Producer Louis G. Cowan's radio show, R.F.D. America [TIME, Jan. 5], is for city folks. Rural America, you'll find, retires before 9:30 p.m. (E.S.T.). J. WALTER DAVIS Wrightstown, NJ.

P: Producer Cowan says he catches plenty of farm folk both east and west of the Alleghenies, but admits he would like to get more.--ED.

The Mechanical Parroting of Sounds

Sir: ... I should like, at the risk of being considered an "old-style language teacher" [TIME, Dec. 29], to point out that opposition to the Army method comes from those of us who accept the Harvard Committee's definition of general education's aims (i.e., "to think effectively, to communicate thought, to make relevant judgments, to discriminate among values"), and who fail to see how the mechanical parroting of sounds contributes to the achievement of these aims. . . . It is to the Army's credit that it saw its objectives clearly and went about accomplishing them in the most direct fashion. It remains to be proved, however, that the Army's objectives are identical with those of our institutions of higher learning. ... It has been said that a speaking knowledge is the most important aspect of a foreign language for university students. As far as I know, no proof of this statement has been advanced, and, if a choice were to be made, reading and writing are the aspects of a language which the overwhelming majority of university students have occasion to use and enjoy. . . . It is reasonable to suppose that a grade-school pupil of average memory and unimpaired hearing would derive as much benefit from the Army method as anyone else, and if a grade-school pupil could do it, it's not university work! ARTHUR S. BATES University of Wyoming Laramie, Wyo.

Mix Well

Sir: My thanks to TIME for permitting me to tell its readers that Upton Sinclair has not "long since relaxed his radical grip." In my reply I compared my work to the mixing and baking of a cake. To this "TIME replies [Jan. 5]: "TIME likes homemade bread better than store cake." . . . It was not my thought to institute any comparison between my wares and those of TIME. Let TIME continue to market its conservative bread and let me market my radical cake, with plenty of icing. UPTON SINCLAIR Monrovia, Calif.

Sir: You missed out in your reply to Upton Sinclair. Why did you not tell him that you liked homebread better than cake, half-baked? C. OSTROM Alexandria, Ont.

Calling More Cars

Sir: Dr. J. P. Hilton, Denver psychiatrist, dreams of "wide highways and no automobiles--no automobiles at all" [TIME, Dec. 15]. Dr. Hilton's dream may be realized any day of the week along certain stretches of the U.S. zone main highway between Frankfurt and Munich (300 miles) as enclosed picture taken near Stuttgart will show (see cut). I dream of highways with automobiles--nothing but automobiles. JOHN VAN STIRUM Stuttgart, Germany

Magnificent Delusions

Sir: . . . Every adverse criticism of Thomas Wolfe you record in your review [TIME, Jan. 5] is true. . . . Yet the power, the depth and the sensitivity of his best writing put him way above most writers who do not have the faults he had. It is not by a man's failures that you judge his work, but by his accomplishments. . . . Wolfe's faults and pretensions as a writer, his weaknesses of character and stupidity of mind do not need to be pointed out by the critics. Wolfe points them out himself, unconsciously, on every page. He must have been an awful pain in the neck, a crackpot with delusions of being the literary Messiah. But his writing is magnificent; and the reason the public accepts him is that his best writing, of which there is plenty, reaches deep into the life and experience of millions of readers. . . . (MRS.) ANNE MOWAT Orangeburg, N.Y.

Sir: I was interested less in your poser "Is Genius Enough?" than in the accompanying photograph. It is the first picture of Wolfe I ever saw that adequately captures his teeming restlessness . . . [and] is the same hungry Wolfe that used to squirm beside us in "Prof" Koch's playwriting class at the University of North Carolina. How well we remember him--his great frame hunched forward, a nervous hand continuously at his black mane, his nostrils sniffing, like those of a charger eager to be off. He was hungering for a playwright's career then. It was something to watch him trying to assemble the old envelopes, pieces of foolscap and whatnot upon which he had scribbled an entire one-act play the night before. . . . Is genius enough? . . . Genius is a light that flashes across our ken, illumines the way, and is gone. It asks no apology, it needs no defense. Only one stupidly blind would say that it has not served its purpose. . . . MOSES ROUNTREE Goldsboro, N.C.

Blagden's Beefsteak

Sir:

I have read with great interest the account of Dr. Craig Taylor's experiments on the effect of high temperatures on the human body [TIME, Dec. 22]. I have wondered since if Dr. Taylor knew of similar experiments which were recorded by Sir David Brewster in his Letters on Natural Magic, written in 1832... . The report, in part, reads as follows:

"Sir Charles Blagden ... went into a room where the heat was 1DEG or 2DEG above 260DEG F., and remained eight minutes in this situation, frequently walking about to all the different parts of the room, but standing still most of the time in the coolest spot where the heat was above 240DEG. ...

"His pulse was then 144, double its ordinary quickness. In order to prove that there was no mistake respecting the degree of heat indicated by the thermometer, and that the air which they breathed was capable of producing all the well-known effects of such a heat on inanimate matter, they placed some eggs and a beefsteak upon a tin frame near the thermometer, but more distant from the furnace than from the wall of the room. In the space of 20 minutes the eggs were roasted quite hard, and in 47 minutes the steak was not only dressed, but almost dry."

L. M. SEBERT Toronto, Ont.

Sir: ... In 1775 Blagden and Fordyce (Philosophical Transactions, London, Volume LXV, Part II) showed that a man in good health can stand for a period of eight minutes an exposure to a temperature of 250DEG F. without suffering any ill effects, and without a serious rise in body temperature, while a beefsteak exposed at the same time to the same environment [and fanned by bellows] was cooked in 13 minutes. . . . WILLIAM B. BEAN, M.D. University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio

Unromantic al

Sir: In your Dec. 29 issue you mention the 16 European nations participating in the Marshall Plan . . . and you begin your enumeration with "Australia." . . . The actual participant in question is 971 years old and was already quite civilized when Australia was not even a convict settlement. . . . The country, sir, is the romantic little Republic of Austria. . . . MICHAEL HAMMER Berkeley, Calif.

Sir: ... I did not expect that a boner like that could get by TIME'S 44 editorial researchers, 32 contributing editors, 12 associate editors and 9 senior editors, just to mention a few. How about getting a good world atlas for the National Affairs Department? FRED R. SALCER The Bronx, N.Y.

P: And a proofreader who prefers subtracting to adding.--ED.

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