Graduates and Jobs

Sir: Your graduate [May 24] has the bewildered look typical of the class of '71. He thinks he can't find a job because the big bad Establishment won't let him. The truth is, he has nothing to offer. He has occupied space--educated he is not!

He has busied himself with "relevant" courses like group interaction, and meaningful activities such as sit-ins. He cannot write a correct English sentence, has no idea how capitalism really works, but having bought the myth fostered by the media that his is the "best-educated generation" this country has produced, he expects a good job from the system he has learned to denigrate.

E.V. MANTHEY Rocky River, Ohio

Sir: If society demands that the student pay dearly for his education, it should in turn compensate him with a well-paying job. Failing this, education should be provided free so that all may enjoy its fruits. CHELLIS AUSTIN Encinitas, Calif.

Sir: I worked part-time as a bank teller while attending college, received my B.A. --and am now a full-time teller.

Where, oh where, is that bright, rewarding future my friends, instructors and family told me I would find after graduating from college?

T.B. STRODE JR. Vienna, Va.

Sir: Perhaps you could have given more encouragement to our discouraged B.A.s in the humanities. When Sputnik and its aftermath rate a footnote in the history of ideas, when plastics have been superseded, Sophocles and The Education of Henry Adams will still have a message. To fight pollution is not the solution. More than 2,000 years ago, Terence in one of his comic plays said: "I am a man, and nothing human is foreign to me." Tell our humanities majors to take heart; they will be needed. Their chances may be better than you reported them.

JULIAN G. PLANTE Collegeville, Minn.

Sir: Remember the college graduate of 1968, standing there on commencement day with diploma in one hand and a draft notice in the other? We did not have the chance to find out if the job offers were few or many. I would prefer the plight of the graduate of '71.

GARY W. VAUGHT Altus A.F.B. Altus, Okla.

Sir: The point of a good college education is not to equip the individual to make a financial killing or even get a job in his field immediately upon graduation, but to give him experience through knowledge of the arts, sciences, literature, history and philosophy; this develops a well-rounded man.

If students are going to college today merely to get a job, why not Katie Gibbs for the ladies and a good plumbing course for the gentlemen? There is money and a need in both categories.

(MRS.) PHYLLIS FERN Warwick, R.I.

Sir: I can think of few trends so likely to pump new vitality into the U.S. economy as having Ivy League graduates replaced on Wall Street by students from Fordham and Wichita State. The Yale and Harvard boys have been muffing the job lately in the same manner that Oxford and Cambridge killed off the British Empire. Perhaps the elite graduates can become gentlemen of leisure, albeit somewhat dirtier than their decadent predecessors. ABBOTT FAY Calcutta

Down Under v. Up Over

Sir: Your article on Australia [May 24] was hollow, which is in itself a pretty fair comment on the Aussie way of life. You make no mention of the quiet desperation eating out the heart of our affluent suburbia. No mention of the vast cultural emptiness, the infernal newness, the isolation! I could scream with frustration. Sure, full employment, a house, two cars and a boat. Then what?

Down under may be the place to make money, but up over is the place to spend it!

PATRICIA M. JONES Melbourne, Australia

Sir: TIME perpetuates the myth of Utopia down under. New settlers work their guts out trying to accumulate wealth in a socialist system they do not comprehend. Few immigrants can save the cost of the return trip and write face-saving letters of success to the folks back home. "It'll be all right" becomes the way of life, and the worker who seeks above-average achievement is jealously discouraged.

Truly, Australia has a wonderful future awaiting her--and always will have.

JAMES S. ADAMS Lyndell, Pa.

Sir: My compliments for your comments on the quality of Australia's political leaders and for your superb photographs. However, it is unfortunate and misleading that you did not include shots of the squalor in which we force our aborigines to live, our overcrowded classrooms, our urban decay, the destruction of our environment and wildlife, and the raw sewage on Sydney's beautiful beaches.

PETER McPHEE Eltham North, Australia

Sir: The Americanization of Australian suburbia is in full swing, and instead of beer and pubs, Middle Australians are now turning to Coca-Cola and fried chicken. Young Australians are fighting in Viet Nam to ensure future U.S. protection of our suburbs; but being an extroverted lot, most Aussies still manage to laugh off the thought of Australia's becoming the 51st state.

R.N. WALL Sassafras, Australia

Sir: I spent one year, the most invigorating of my life, in Australia. The sense of discovery and liveliness in that country makes it far more exciting than the U.S. But I'm very alarmed that Australia is becoming so popular, especially with Americans. Soon the uniqueness of Australia is going to fade into the familiar.

BILL BACHMAN Wellsboro, Pa.

Russian Feet in Jewish Shoes

Sir: It must be awful to live in a state of siege, to be afraid to venture put for fear of obscenities and insults. It is cruel to persecute children because of their nationality [May 24]. The Jews in Russia have lived that way and worse for generations. Maybe it will help for Russian feet to be in Jewish shoes for a while.

MRS. R.J. KUPFERMAN

Raleigh, N.C.

Sir: I am a Jew, but I do not see how the harassment of Soviet diplomats can do any good for anyone. They do not decide Russian policy, and even if they did, I cannot see how the Jewish Defense League approach could win Russian understanding and consideration of complaints. If we are ever to find world peace and love, we must begin by treating all men as our brothers, including Russian diplomats.

LINDA SHERMAN Los Angeles

Sir: The most beautiful photograph is that of the Soviet diplomat being followed by J.D.L. members in New York. It is wonderful to give the Red murderers a taste, if slight, of their own medicine.

PHILIP EIBEL, M.D. Montreal

Sir: The overwhelming majority of American Jews want the law to be enforced as fairly for the Jewish Defense League as for the Black Panthers. It can be no other way for a people who have historically suffered from unequal justice.

MONROE S. BROWN, D.D.S. Alexandria, Va.

Sir: Jews have been persecuted for over 2,000 years, and most of us non-Jews have been responsible; however, I fail to see how the J.D.L. hopes to stop Soviet mistreatment of Jews by shouting obscenities at a little girl in New York.

H. GEORGE DECANCQ JR., M.D. Pittsford, N.Y.

Respect for Office and Incumbent

Sir: I was deeply shocked at your attribution to me [May 31] of remarks during the course of a meeting at the White House that could only be interpreted as disrespectful of the President.

I cannot disclaim my age, to which reference is made. But I do disclaim and declare as utterly false the remarks in question. My deep respect for the office of the President and for the present holder of that office completely precludes my having thought, much less expressed, any such sentiment.

JOHN J. MCCLOY New York City

A Second Look

Sir: Your story on soft contact lenses [May 31] states that Griffin Laboratories "only last month received Food and Drug Administration approval to begin testing its product." To the contrary, the clinical testing commenced more than 18 months ago when an Investigational New Drug exemption for the Griffin lens was issued by the FDA. Since that date, the Griffin lens has been exhaustively researched and clinically tested by a number of ophthalmologists and optometrists, including some of the country's foremost authorities on corneal pathology. The lens has been used as a moist corneal soft-protective bandage and splint for various types of corneal disease. It has also been extensively used as a normal contact lens.

ALLAN A. ISEN President

Griffin Laboratories, Inc. Buffalo

Salaries and Scores

Sir: Jack Scott may believe that "you shouldn't feel badly just because you lose" and Dave Meggyesy may bemoan the "incredible racism" and "dehumanizing conditions, violence and sadism" of pro football [May 24], but the overwhelming evidence seems to indicate that the team that is emotionally "up" for the game is the one that wins, not the one whose players' identity crises have been solved and whose civil rights have been observed. Those who opt for a career in professional sports must face the hard fact that their highly inflated salaries are paid for by the people who want to see and back a winner, not a player who (in Scott's words) feels that "the final score should be almost incidental."

GEORGE F. PLATTS Ormond Beach, Fla.

Sir: I think Jack Scott and others may be saying that the time of participatory sports and lifetime sports is at hand, and that the crowd-pleasing spectator sports can be left to the pros and television, or disappear entirely.

Sports such as bowling, golf, tennis, swimming, bike riding, mountain climbing and countless others all have the fun associated with sports and yet everyone can participate. Size alone is not such a determining factor as it is in football or basketball. Handicaps often tend to even the competition and make matches exciting and a much better spirit of individual accomplishment seems to exist.

We in the U.S. may even discover some of the wonderful athletic competitions that other countries have been aware of for years. Perhaps even table tennis will become popular for other than diplomatic reasons!

DICK BURNS Bowling Coach

Western New England College Springfield, Mass.

Volunteers for a Swap

Sir: John Blashill's article "The Island of Not Having" [May 17] makes Gan sound like an ideal spot for the troops here on Shemya to visit for rest and recuperation. Our island is a 2-by-4-mile dot of tundra at the far western end of the Aleutian chain. We are about 1,200 Air Force, Army and civilian men with no females. We do get a chance to ogle the Reeve-Aleutian Airline stewardesses twice weekly. The Gan Island weather, fishing, golf, tennis and volleyball sound like a little bit of heaven compared with Shemya. If any RAF troops would care to swap assignments, I'm sure we could find volunteers.

EDWIN M. BINDER

Colonel, U.S.A.F.

APO Seattle

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