Letters, Dec. 30, 1935

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Now, I'm no one in particular, but it riles me to think that you consider these men—and other men of long-wealthy families—superior to me by birth. . . . The human race hasn't been worked on by professional breeders—yet. It's different with hogs, and guinea pigs. You can mate animals experimentally, and by doing a good job of matchmaking for many, many generations you can arrive at a "wellborn" hog and call it a Poland-China, or what not. But that's never been done with people, so why pretend it has? If a family can name its pappies and grandpappies for 300 years back, we call it an "ancient" family. And yet, 300 years amount to only about 12 generations. What is twelve generations, when it comes to breeding? In twelve generations of careful breeding you couldn't even eliminate the tendency to go to sleep in church. And there's no family under the sun that's had twelve generations of careful breeding. Or even five generations. Take the proudest family in the world and they'd be ashamed to mention the occupations of all 32 of their great-great-great-great-grandfathers. That is, if they knew them. But they don't know them, because they've paid attention only to the particular lines of descent that had the money and the prestige. And 99 times out of 100 those lines of descent got their money and prestige—like the royal families of Europe—by grabbing some swag 300 years ago and holding on for dear life ever since. . . .

You can't name a family, in America or Europe, that doesn't have its feet planted squarely in the mud.

Perhaps what you mean by "wellborn" is "money-in-the-family-for-the-last-three-or-m o r e-generations." If so, Stimson and Phillips and the King of England and the Duke of Duluth are wellborn, and I'm not. But as far as genes and chromosomes are concerned, I rise to announce that I'm just as well-born as any person you've ever mentioned in your excellent magazine. With the possible exception, of course, of Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary.

A. ANDERSON

Minneapolis, Minn.

Bell Buckle, Tenn.

Sirs:

In TIME, Dec. 16, under Education, you quote Headmaster Horace D. Taft as saying: "Why should we teach them to do something which any calf can do better?" with reference to initiating a course in milking in Taft School.

Being an alumnus of Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tenn., I have noticed this with interest since, in the South, this remark has always been attributed to the late William R. ("Old Sawney") Webb who founded Webb School in Culleoka, Tenn., in 1870. Due to the pressure of the local "Wets," "Old Sawney," an ardent Prohibitionist, found it expedient to move. At the request of the townspeople of Bell Buckle, who built him a schoolhouse as an inducement to come, he moved the school there in 1888. In moving, the schoolbody came in spring wagons holding classes on the way. I might add that when Woodrow Wilson was President of Princeton, it was of Webb School that he said: "They defy all the accepted laws of pedagogy, but their boys are the best prepared that we get." Webb School is still carrying the banner of fundamental education high under the leadership of "Son Will," "Old Sawney's" eldest.