Wednesday, Nov. 29, 1961 University Daily Kansan
Page 3
By Charley E. Staley Assistant Professor of Economics
A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF AMERICAN ECONOMIC POLICY SINCE 1789, edited by William Letwin, Anchor Books, $1.45.
This handy little four hundred page book contains twenty-nine documents illustrating how the United States felt about important and recurring economic problems at moments when they erupted as major political issues. Documents for Professor Letwin include reports of administrative officials, speeches of members of Congress, Congressional hearings, arguments of lawyers in important cases and Supreme Court decisions, acts of Congress and speeches of private citizens.
THE BOOK IS DIVIDED INTO THREE PARTS CORRESPONDING with Professor Letwin's idea of the major trends of economic policy. Thus, in the period 1789-1862, the major policy concern of both federal and state governments was the promotion of internal growth. Documents such as Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures" and Clay's address on internal improvements are representative items of this period.
During the years 1862-1912 Professor Letwin argues that the major concern changed from subsidy to regulation. To illustrate this trend, he uses (among others) Munn vs. Illinois, the seminal case in public utilities regulation; Northern Securities Co. vs. U.S., an important case in anti-trust litigation; and the conclusions of the Pujo Committee, which had an important influence on the formation of the Federal Reserve System.
After 1912 the major influence was the attempt to formulate some notion of economic equity—note, equity, not equality. The efforts in the 1920s to assist agriculture, culminating in the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, are one of the manifestations of this trend. Others selected by the author include several items dealing with the National Recovery Administration and one of the opinions handed down by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
THE EDITOR'S GENERAL INTRODUCTORY ESSAY AND his short comments on each selection provide a number of ideas and a capsule view of the history of economic policy. I was mildly surprised that he did not include any material on labor problems. I was greatly surprised to read that he considered that not much has been said to justify the notion of progressive taxation; Randolph Paul's "Taxation in the United States" (Little, Brown and Co.: 1954) contains a wealth of material on the debates over the income tax. On reflection, however, most of this material is not in the category considered as documents by Professor Letwin; it is in newspaper editorials and books of both scholars and propagandists rather than governmental sources.
The book should make a convenient, although admittedly incomplete, source of references for students of government, history and economics.
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ANCIENT SEMITIC CIVILIZATIONS, by Sabatino Moscati, Capricorn Books, $1.65.
By Jon Muller Salina junior
THE LIVING PAST, by Ivar Lissner, Capricorn Books, $1.95.
The subject of ancient civilizations is one of great interest to many people, and in recent years there have been many attempts to popularize the vast amount of material available in the journals and technical works in classical and anthropological archaeology. These two books represent two different approaches, neither entirely satisfactory.
"Ancient Semitic Civilizations" is a semi-scholarly work dealing with the history of the Semitic peoples from the earliest times up to the spread of Islam across the Middle East. On the other hand, "The Living Past" attempts to give pocket summaries of the higher world civilizations. The major fault with both of these books is that they try to cover such a broad scope that they accomplish little. The second book is the more guilty here. Mr. Lissner, who is a journalist and nothing more, says:
This book is apparently the result of Lissner's having reached this stage of advanced enlightenment, but because, perhaps, of the broad scope or because of other reasons it falls far short of its announced goal and becomes a sort of catalogue of strange wonders and marvelous occurrences.
"In fact, it took me many years to gain a comprehensive and living picture of this earth, with its diversity of peoples, their driving motives, their failures and successes."
"The Living Past" is a book which might prove of interest to certain people, but it should be read with the greatest of caution. The book is over-popularized, slightly out-of-date and sometimes misleading.
"Ancient Semitic Civilizations," although it has suffered from oversimplification in places, is a much more valuable book and presents a picture of life in ancient times. The most serious objection to this book is its style, and in some places the reader finds it necessary to force himself to read on. Of course, for someone with a deep interest in this area this could be quite different. On the whole, I personally would not recommend these books, but I do believe that it is possible that Moscati's book could be of value to someone looking for information in a "digested" form.
Ye Old and Wondrous Obsolete Readers
It Looks This Way . . .
A community-school hassle over elementary school reading textbooks erupted in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, recently. Parents decidedly ruled out a nostalgic return "to the good old days" in reading instruction, at least.
Some time ago, the school board members of Twin Falls had decided to make the famous McGuffey Readers available in their school. The teachers evidently plied the readers vigorously. A community meeting resulted and everyone was there.
PARENTAL OBJECTION was on the grounds of sectarianism. But there is no particular doctrinaire line in the reading series. The school principal, ever one who smooths ruffled feathers, did his best when he said, "it entails a lot of work for the students to comprehend them."
A FEW SELECTIONS in these readers might just imply a kind of sectarianism that modern parents would object to if the word, sectarianism, is defined loosely enough. There is, for example, the gory description (page 138) of a "Rebellion in Massachusetts State Prison."
The principal was right. A McGuffey fifth grade pupil had to master such words as: languor, bellying, bijou, voluptuary, bon vivant, epicure, expiates, imprecations, precipitancy, devoirs, vindictive, mazy, boon, ignominious, saffron, chapeau, warder and levianth. And these are but a few of such words appearing in lists of up to a dozen each on approximately 100 of the 351 pages of that reader. Such a progression is impossible for any fifth grader.
"Knives, hammars and chisels,
with every variety of such
weapons, were in the hands of
the ferocious spirits, who are
drawn away from their encroachments on society, forming a congregation of strength, vileness, and talent that can hardly be equaled on earth, even among the famed brigands of Italy."
A villain-ess appears in the legend "Faithless Nelly Gray" (pages 143-4). Witness the following opening and closing stanzas:
'Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war's alarms;
But a cannon ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arms!"
Subsequently his darling Nelly Gray didn't love him anymore so Ben hung himself. The details continue in grim humour:
And there he hung till he was dead
As any nail in town; For, though distress had cut him up.
It could not cut him down!" "The Venomous Worm" (pages 77-8) starts with:
"Who has not heard of the rattlesnake or copperhead? An expected sight of either of these reptiles will make even the lords of creation recoil; but there is a species of worm, found in various parts of this country, which conveys a poison of a nature so deadly that, compared with it, even the venom of the rattlesnake is harmless. To guard our readers against this foe of human kind is the object of this lesson."
The "worm" is further involved in six paragraphs of increasing concern over most dire consequences. It finally turns out that the "worm" is the copper coil of a still used in making liquor!
SUCH MORAL CORN does appear to be way out, but the real problem was the impossible vocabulary.
Lest you misjudge the McGuffey readers entirely, let me hasten to add that contents included excerpts from the writings of Cooper, Irving, Hawthorne, Tennyson, Thackeray, Thoreau, Whittier and many other literary giants.
The McGuffey Readers were first developed during the middle of the nineteenth century by William Holmes McGuffey, professor of moral philosophy and political economy at the University of Virginia. Professor McGuffey died in 1873, but the readers continued his name through several reprints, copyrights and revisions, and became a standard for subsequent textbooks. A graded balanced fare of prose and poetry including literature from the masters as well as discussions of current topics was presented and supported with a strong undercurrent of moral teaching. Virtually every selection carried an ethical precept. Although copies of McGuffey's Readers are still available, they are becoming collector's items, and one publisher is attempting modernized versions in a current series.
THE McGUFFEY Readers were excellent in their day but they cannot fill the bill today. Publishers of modern school books go to enormous expense to apply research findings of readability studies and vocabulary control. Countless apparently innocent references to race, creed, color or vocation must be eliminated. The result is the "fluid drive" of the modern reading instruction program—not a perfect program yet, but a lot smoother than anyone realizes. Going back to the horse and buggy reading program won't do. The ride is too bumpy. You can't get there nearly so fast.
—Ervin H. Schmidt
Lawrence Graduate Student
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