Letters, May 10, 1943

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2) The growth of "extracurricular activities" in many of our high schools has reached the point where the tail has swallowed the head. Sports, clubs, dances, teas, "pep" sessions, programs, youth movements and every conceivable kind of extracurricular activity . . . now [take] three-fourths of the time and energy of pupils and teachers . . . before they can even begin to think of study and teaching.

3) The years between 15 and 20 are the most difficult years in life. . . . Great biological changes are taking place. . . . Who cares about the dead past, when every fiber of one's body is tingling in a glorious present?

. . . Turn the high schools into charm schools. Teach courtesy and grace, the art of dress, dancing, the development of personality and talents, choral singing and personal relationships. There would be no resistance to this kind of curriculum. And after this, two or three years of concentrated history, English, mathematics and languages for those who want these things. And for the others— well, they would at least be as well educated as they are now, and for all of us life would be far more beautiful. . . .

HELEN H. PRESTON Anderson High School Anderson, Ind.

Sirs:

. . . History is not only condensed for text books, it is dehydrated. They can push mathematics and Latin around and pound it in. Not so history. History is real, living and breathing. ... In the average classroom it dies a death of suffocation.

Let historians, and not educators, write history.

(MRS.) MILDRED ELWELL El Paso

Sirs:

. . . There are many reasons why students have failed so miserably in the past several years to maintain creditable scholastic standing and make sound academic records. . . . The present generation has been weaned on the comic strip. It has absorbed huge, indigestible amounts of outrageously inane (for the most part) Hollywood movie fare. It has been given cheap, miserably lean radio entertainment. In short, the younger generation hasn't been given half a chance to improve itself mentally. . . .

PRIVATE J. A. FALLON Scott Field, III.

Bomb the Brains! Sirs:

Japanese execution of prisoners of war (TIME, May 3) to my mind has changed the whole future policy to be followed in the war. If barbarism is indicated by the enemy, it has to be met with like cruelty. No holds barred! No silly Wilson or Roosevelt idealism. . . .

The bars are down. Our brave fighters have been assassinated for doing their duty. Why not be as realistic as the Japanese? My feeling is that the main target for bombs—or shells—should be the chancellery in Berlin, the Mikado's palace in Tokyo, Hitler's hideout at Berchtesgaden, the government buildings in Berlin and Tokyo . . . where the brains are! To my mind, eradicating the motivating source is more important than destroying the instruments. . . .

LEON H. HASS

Davenport, Iowa

A Vote for Fiorello Sirs: It would have been surprising indeed if Mayor LaGuardia had been appointed to the job for which he was mentioned (TIME, April 19). . . .

For whatever else Fiorello is or is not, he is a stanch antiFascist. And antiFascists, paradoxically, are not in the best of standing with the policy-makers of the officially anti-Fascist forces.

EDWARD SCHINDELER Laguna Beach, Calif.