Letters, May 10, 1943

Bricker for President?

Sirs: Fresh laurels! More bays! Your "Ten Presidential Commandments" anent Mr. Bricker [TIME, April 26] are a veritable Rosetta stone to an understanding of Presidential politics. . . .

ROBERT V. TITUS New York City

Sirs:

TIME's story of the Bricker "boom" and the possibility of a fourth term for Roosevelt leave me both amazed and appalled. How can it be possible that a nation whose every effort must be directed toward winning the war can even contemplate a national election in 1944?

True, we are fighting for just such things as elections, but let's fight for them first and enjoy them second. There is only one solution: national elections, like Sunday afternoon joy rides, three cups of coffee and T-bone steaks, must be out for the duration.

If prematurely jubilant Republicans and disgruntled Democrats fail to see the logic of this, I trust that our men, in the tanks, in the bombers and in the trenches, won't.

MAX HENCY

Champaign, III.

Sirs:

. . . When TIME reports "vigorously uninspired" utterances of Governor Bricker, TIME is venomous (see p. 10) only to those Bricker henchmen who are keen on unthinking democracy. Stir them into thinking with venom if you can—and if you can't, stir us into electing proper men to public office. . . .

J. C. KENNEDY Oberlin, Ohio

Upside-Down Maps

Sirs:

In looking over the last several issues of TIME, I note that of 17 maps published, twelve are set in the traditional manner with north toward the top of the page, while the other five—so help me—are set one each with northeast, east, south, southwest and west toward the top. While I have no particular objection to this policy of twisting your maps around, I think it would be no more than fair for you to furnish simple-minded readers like me with headache tablets with each map that necessitates our standing on our heads, reading upside down, or otherwise making ourselves dizzy. . . .

FOREST WHITCHER Berkeley, Calif.

> Reader Whitcher's headache tablets are in the mail.—ED.

They Expect to Be Learned

Sirs: I have read with interest the discussion aroused by the New York Times history test [TIME, April 12] ... It is no news to us [highschool teachers] that our pupils are not educated. The Times test happened to be a history test, but the results would have been the same had it been a test in English or mathematics or any other high-school subject.

There are some poor teachers, of course.

. . . Textbooks are dull. ... But in my opinion there are other factors of much greater importance. Here are some of them: 1) The tremendous resistance which boys and girls of high-school age put up to the process of education. . . . Brought up on thrills and entertainment, they find even the best of teachers pretty dull stuff as compared with Hedy Lamarr or Robert Taylor. . . They do not expect to learn, they expect to be learned. That is what all their experience has led them to expect.