Contrast
Sirs:
In your article in TIME, Sept. 28, under Education, you indicated that women were not responding to industrial training offered free by New York colleges. Our experience here in Cleveland has been entirely contrary to this.
To date we have instructed more than 300 women in courses in inspection and mechanical drawing. When these classes started, we had twice as many applications as we could take care of. Beginning Oct. 15 we plan to repeat these courses, instructing a similar number of women. Our applications to date are coming in so fast that once again we will probably be able to take care of only about one half of those interested. . . .
JAMES W. GRISWOLD
Field Director, E.S.M.W.T. Fenn College Cleveland
Sirs:
. . . WHEN LAWRENCE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING COLLEGE FOR MEN ONLY, NOTICED A SEVERE SHORTAGE OF MALE DRAFTSMEN LAST APRIL, A FREE COURSE WAS ANNOUNCED FOR 100 WOMEN WHO HAD AT LEAST A HIGH-SCHOOL EDUCATION. MORE THAN 600 APPLICANTS CROWDED THE HALLWAYS FORCING PRESIDENT E. GEORGE LAWRENCE TO SET UP AN ADDITIONAL CLASS TO ACCOMMODATE 200 WOMEN. . . .
RICHARD O. FREDERICK Director of Public Relations Lawrence Institute of Technology Detroit
Cover Story
Sirs:
I received your letter thanking me for my suggestion about making TIME'S covers bigger. Actually, I was just kidding, but maybe my sense of humor didn't show itself. I have really started on the job of papering my wall with TIME'S men-of-the-week, and it is turning out to be a swell job. To show you how it looks, I am sending you a picture with my best regards.
HARVE FISCHMAN Quiz Kid, age 12 Chicago
Apparently Improved
Sirs:
I've waited long enough for somebody else to ask it, so I will. How many all-time-from-first-issue TIME readers continue to be disappointed at the MARCH or TIME'S change from complete dramatization of events to just another good wartime inspirational radio program?
JOHN F. O'CONNELL
Andover, Mass.
>Apparently an improvement, MARCH OF TIME'S changed program has increased its audience one-third in the last 13 weeks. But TIME would welcome first-hand answers to Reader O'Connell's question.--ED.
"We Like Our Bombers . . ."
Sirs:
ONE OF THOSE GREMLINS MUST HAVE BEEN SITTING ON YOUR WRITER'S SHOULDER WHO TYPED TIME, OCT. 5: "HE (WILLKIE) LANDED AT MOSCOW FROM A FLYING FORTRESS. . . ." NOT THAT WE AT CONSOLIDATED HAVEN'T RESPECT FOR THE 6-17; WE MERELY LIKE OUR BOMBERS TO GET THEIR JUST DUE. YOUR WRITER CORRECTS HIMSELF TOWARD END OF STORY BY SAYING, "AS THE GREAT LIBERATOR ROARED INTO THE CLOUDS. . . ." AND WE APPRECIATE THAT. . . .
PAT STEPHENSON
Public Relations Department Consolidated Aircraft Corp. San Diego
"Curiously Enough . . ."
Sirs:
The reflective survey of William Francis Gibbs's "technological revolution" (TIME, Sept. 28) was, to me, unreflectively marred by a phrase as superficial as a second thumb. . . . "Standing now at the top of his profession, in which, curiously enough, he holds no degree. . . ."
"Curiously enough," William Knudsen holds no degree as a mechanical engineer; "curiously enough," neither does Henry Ford, nor do most of America's industrial revolutionists. "Curiously enough," Arthur E. Morgan (TVA) became a genius of flood control without an engineering degree; still without degree he became a college president (Antioch, 1920) to promote the educational philosophy that a degree in theory hampers the success of many a man by limiting his imagination to the record of accomplishment certified on his roll of parchment: "the textbooks you've digested have told you how things have been done which is how they should be done."
Many a degree holder looks upon his sheepskin as symbol of his success in mastering all the ideas of his profession. "According to the Gibbsian philosophy, 'he gets to thinking he is so goddam bright that it just paralyzes him.'" Franklin, Edison, the Wright Bros, held no degrees [except honorary] in their professions, "curiously enough.". .
ISABEL CURRIER Island Pond, Vt.
Better Position
Sirs:
Professor Marsh's critical letter to the editor (TIME, Sept. 28) on the inadvisability of using rubber panties as a gas mask was very thorough and correct except for one thing. During a gas attack, he advocates staying indoors and lying on the floor with head in arms. Since all war gases are heavier than air they descend to the lowest level possible, and in this case the lowest level in the room is the floor. It would seem that a better position would be to sit or stand in the room. STEPHEN E. ULRICH 1st Lieut., C.W.S. Chicago Chemical Warfare Procurement District War Department Chicago
No Time for Controversy
Sirs:
The Aug. 31 issue of TIME has reached us today [Sept. 19], and the story about "Northwest Passage" is the object of considerable comment.
You are, of course, in good faith and we appreciate your willingness to glorify the enterprise and its components; still we feel that whoever gave you the information for your story must have been moved by a sudden exuberance for dramatization plainly showing that he must be a newcomer. So we take liberty at this time to advise you that what General Hoge is now doing has been done, without drum and trumpet accompaniment, by the Alaska Road Commission for the past 40-odd years; nor has fanfare ever sounded for the Bureau of Public Roads which does exactly the same type of work.
Granting General and Mrs. Hoge so much vision and foresight reminds us all of Joan of Arc's dream before her departure for Chinon. We believe that it is undue, and feel sure that even the General will not like it, as he must be aware that a Fairbanks resident, Donald MacDonald Sr., has worked the project over in every shape and form for 13 years, thus acquiring the flattering title of "Father of the International Highway."
This is, of course, no time to start a controversy--it would be out of place and in bad taste--on the contrary, we beg you to convey our best wishes to the boys, and the best of luck. We need lots of the same while struggling with Jack Frost--building an airport north of the General's boulevard terminus.
PIETRO VIGNA Associate Airways Engineer Somewhere in N.W. Alaska
>To Engineer MacDonald, a great road builder and visionary, all credit for his longtime dream of a U.S. Alaska highway. But MacDonald bitterly protested against the route picked for the Hoge highway, fought for a route nearer the coast. TIME doubts that Engineer MacDonald would belittle General Hoge's part in making the dream of an Alaska highway come true at last.--ED.
Snooty
Sirs:
... In the issue of Sept. 28, you speak of "Boston's snooty Noble and Greenough private day school." My son went to Noble's for several years as did dozens of my friends and my friends' sons; you insult anyone who attended this fine institution by referring to it as "snooty." Anybody who knows anything at all about the school knows that is exactly the contrary, and I am sure that any Noble and Greenough alumnus or friend will boil with indignation. . . .
RUTH S. T. WHIFFLE Cohasset, Mass.
Would Mrs. Whipple prefer the adjective "exclusive?"--ED.
Quantity v. Quality
Sirs:
The much-touted belief in production winning the war may yet prove to be even more hooey than it has so far. Mass can quite easily become mess--if it hasn't done so already. Personally, I have more faith in quality than in quantity, a faith that the showing of two good planes and the oft-mentioned--via Churchill--few good men helped strengthen. Next came the Zero, an unusual plane and a good one, in that it was not constructed according to the orthodox pattern. Then came Rommel and his few, good high-velocity guns. And what will come next? Why, something else possessing quality rather than quantity factors. . . .
Some of the readers of TIME are becoming restive in regard to the brass hats. When we really get going, as the song goes, "There'll be some changes made." You know, at least six people have to be killed at a street crossing before a danger sign is erected. . .
ALBERT E. DANE
Van Nuys, Calif.
Concerning a Lag
Sirs:
... As a member of the committee of four who worked for six weeks this summer in Washington, as consultants to the U.S. Office of Education and the U.S. War Manpower Commission, in attempting to develop a plan by which colleges and universities of this country could be swung really instead of accidentally into the war effort, let me express my very sincere appreciation of the intelligent interpretation of the national picture presented by your magazine.
It is perfectly patent that the Federal Government has lagged in the current war far behind its understanding of the college manpower problem in the first world war, and has quite failed to show the prescience and purpose revealed by U.S. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and those working with him when they established the S.A.T.C. I feel very clearly that TIME'S article [Sept. 28] will have a constructive effect in presenting to Federal authorities, particularly to the War Manpower Commission, the need for swift and intelligent planning and action. J. L. MORRILL
President
University of Wyoming Laramie, Wyo.
Prediction
Sirs:
. . . Congratulations on your better-than-ever issues lately and on December 7: The First 30 Hours which is going to make history classes of 1950 and after far more interesting than they used to be.
ALICE BROWN
Dallas
Surplus Steam
Sirs:
Your issue of Oct. 5 was, in my humble opinion, up to its usual high standard of excellence as to truthfulness, unbiased reporting and wide coverage of subject matter and territory.
I was especially interested in your review of Life on the Atolls, as I think those lads "who only stand and wait" have heretofore been seemingly unappreciated. . . .
However, I beg to take issue with your statement that the three marines observed by the Naval officer playing marbles were "beginning to crack."
I happen to know of a mature registered nurse, now a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, who sent a friend's son (on just such an island) marbles among other things she hoped would amuse him and while away his leisure.
Knowing lads as I do, I would hesitate to say that even the human airplane was doing anything less sane than working off a bit of youthful surplus steam. . . .
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