THOMAS JEFFERSON, the 2nd governor of Virginia, who ranked the education of the common people "above all things," proposed the nation's first public-school system in 1779. Last week James Lindsay Almond, 66th in the line of Virginia's Governors, who ranks segregation of the races above all things, was ready to preside over the dissolution of the school system which Jefferson established. For a close study of the motives that led James Lindsay Almond to the point of ending what Thomas Jefferson started and the complex legal strategy he was using, see NATIONAL AFFAIRS, "The Gravest Crisis."

THE human body creates cancer, and in its mysterious way the body sometimes kills cancer by itself. This phenomenon is so rare that the odds are 99,999 to one. Since 1900 there have been only 120 proven cases in the world. The fact that it does happen gives hope to researchers and new life to a few extraordinarily fortunate cancer victims. For news of one, see MEDICINE, Vanishing Cancer.

WHAT are Christians to make of a document that pronounces a blessing on the act of snatching up a baby and beating its brains out against the pavement? The question is indeed pertinent, because the blessing is offered in the beautiful 137th Psalm. Such provocative questions are raw material for C. S. Lewis, amateur Christian theologian, whose thoughtful books, lectures and articles on the subject (notably The Screwtape Letters) are now supplemented by a brilliant new volume on the psalms. Philosopher Lewis concludes, among other things, that modern man might be better off if, like psalm people, he broke a few more windows and staged a few more moderate riots. See RELIGION, Lewis on the Psalms.

CREDIT, which was once the sign that a person had trouble meeting his bills, has taken on a glamorous new meaning in recent years. Now a man with a credit card can rent a plane or boat or car, live it up in nightclubs, take a safari to Africa and even get a Kelly Girl for temporary office help. Why? Because of the Credit-Card Game, see BUSINESS.

You know what it's like in the Yukon wild when it's sixty-nine below; When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the pale blue snow;

When the pine-trees crack like little guns in the silence of the wood, And the icicles hang down like tusks under the parka hood . . .

--See THE HEMISPHERE, The Yukon Troubadour.

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