THE Chicago School-Teacher whose ’Spasmodic Diary’ is here reproduced might be any one of hundreds. The accuracy with which she describes unprecedented events and conditions cannot be questioned, but political control of the school system is so absolute that the author is compelled to protect herself by withholding her name. In a letter dated September 16, she says: ‘More than 1300 teachers, unpaid for five months, were thrown out of their jobs the other day, and the Board still continues its wrecking programme. The only point on which it has since rescinded its action is in the department of physical education. Under pressure of one sort and another, it has decided to retain the swimming pools. Pandemonium will reign on Monday when we all return to school! There are rumors in the papers that students are planning strikes. The year ahead is likely to be even more dramatic than the last one.’ Roger Burlingame (‘The Counter Attack’) served in the A.E.F. as First Lieutenant in the 308th Machine Gun Battalion, and since the war has engaged in publishing and free-lance writing. He is the author of several novels, the most recent being The Heir.

An interest in Italian art took Elizabeth Wilder to Florence, and it was there that she discovered her delightful ‘Friends in the House.’ Upon the acceptance of her article, she says she dispatched a letter to tell Beppina, Elisa, Gina, and Lina of their success. ‘Beppina, as you can imagine, threw up her hands and almost let the sauce burn, but Gina was not in the least surprised. She writes — to my mingled horror and gratification — that she has exchanged the bicycle for a motor cycle, and is now, as she puts it, a “vera donna del futuro."‘ ▵ In ‘Social Changes in America,’ Andre Siegfried adduces new evidence to support the thesis he advanced in America Comes of Age. More significant still, he indicates the broad lines along which our character as a mature nation is shaping. ▵ Born and bred on the prairies, where her parents were pioneer settlers, Dorothy Thomas (‘Apple Wood ) is a writer whose stories carry the healthy, robust scent of good earth. Early this year, Knopf published her first novel, Ma Jeeter’s Girls.

At home or abroad, A. Edward Newton is always himself. The manuscript of ‘ Budapest and I’ he looks at sub specie æternitatis. ‘It will hardly be worth while for me to read proof,’ he says. ‘The only thing that is likely to go wrong is the spelling of some Hungarian word, and a few letters more or less in a Hungarian word make no difference.’ If anything looks Hungarian but is n’t, treasure it, Reader, as genuine Newtonese. Josephine W. Johnson (‘Final Autumn’) is a young writer of exceptional promise. Readers of the Atlantic are coming to appreciate her marked sense of style, for she has contributed frequently of late in both prose and verse. ▵ As if to account for her nonconformist philosophy, M. Beatrice Blankenship ( ’All Sweet Things’ ) cites this medley of facts about herself: ‘ My mother is a Bostonian, my father an Englishman, the grandson of an Archbishop of Canterbury. I was born and educated in the West, went through the war at Camp Funston, married an ex-moonshiner in 1920, and three years later settled in California, where I have been ever since.’ Max Ascoli (‘Fascism in the Making’) is an intellectual exile from his native Italy, where, until 1931, he was a professor of the Philosophy of Law. He has published half a dozen scholarly works in his special field, and is now engaged in writing a book about the crisis in American democracy. Russell Wilbur (‘A Preface to Catholicism’) is a Roman Catholic priest, Rector of Notre Dame de Lourdes in St. Louis. ▵ ‘ Atlantic Laboratory’ is the first fruit of an extended flying trip which Francis and Katharine Drake made to South America last spring. Mr. Drake was a member of the Royal Flying Corps during the war, and has since maintained his interest in aviation through the ups and downs of a business career in New York. ▵ Active in settlement work, Fonrose Wainwright (‘Bridgy Goes to Heaven’) is a director of the University House Players in Philadelphia. ‘The part of the city where I live,’ she writes, ‘is known to its inhabitants as “Skoocle.” It is a neighborhood where Ireland has become America, and, in doing so, has brought its humor, philosophy, and phraseology to bear on the problems which confront the slum dwellers in an American city.’ Evans Woollen (‘The Insurance of Bank Deposits’) is president of an important bank in Indianapolis. ▵A A British poet, Freda C. Bond (‘Less Than a Ghost’) has been a frequent contributor to the Atlantic. Owen Tweedy (‘A Persian Peepshow’) served through the war as a captain in the British army. He is known as an authority on the Near East, where he has traveled extensively. Indeed, he returned from his Persian expedition to witness his first English spring in eight years — and only an Englishman can know what that means. Ralph E. Flanders (‘Business Looks at the N.R.A.‘) is an engineer who is engaged in the manufacture of machinery. Like other leading members of his profession, he has lately given much thought to economic matters. A prophetic earlier paper of his, ‘The Tariff and Social Control,’ was printed in the Atlantic for September 1931.

Bill Adams makes a trade.

Dear Atlantic, —
Many thanks for your note, with my little story returned. I am ever so much obliged to you. Toby, my dog, is grinning all over his face, and my old pipe is going full blast.
With the proceeds from my little rejected story I had hoped to buy bacon, and tobacco, and this and that. I was out of bacon and tobacco, and Toby had been living on bread crusts for many days. But it’s a funny world, I’m blessed if it is n’t! Just when a fellow is thinking thoughts of gloom, he has to start laughing.
I was ‘down below’ yesterday, as we of the hills say when we go down the mountain. In my pocket I had your letter. I went into the grocery store to price things — though, since I had not the money wherewith to buy them, to price them was of no use. It was the noon hour, and, business being quiet, I sat down on a packing ease and fell to talking with the grocer. We talked of this and that, and after a while it came out that I was a story writer. It came out, too, that the grocer was all eaten up with the desire to be a story writer. ‘ My grammer ain’t what it ought to be, and I don’t spell worth a cuss,’ he told me sadly, and added, with wistful eyes on my lace, ‘ It must be great to be a story writer.’
‘ It must be great to be a grocer,’ said I, looking at the bacon on the counter, the tobacco on the shelves, the cans of dog food in a row close to the floor. ‘Look at this,’ I said, and handed the grocer your kind letter.
‘Gosh,’ exclaimed the grocer, ‘I’d sure like to get me a letter like that from one of them editors!’
‘A man can’t buy bacon or tobacco with it, or even food for his dog,’ said I, and started to crumple up the letter to throw it in the waste bin.
‘Say!’ exclaimed the grocer. ‘That’s from the editor of the Atlantic! That’s a tony magazine, that is. You ain’t goin’ to throw it away, are you? ’
‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘It’s no good to me.’
‘Lock here,’ said the grocer, ‘I’d like awful well to have a letter like that. Supposin’ I was to give you a bit of bacon and a can of tobacco and a couple of cans of dog food in trade — bow’d that be? ’
‘Be all right with the dog and me,’ said I.
So there we are. Never anything to kick about, eh? Thank you very much!
BILL ADAMS
Dutch Flat, California

Scotch Sunday.

Dear Atlantic, —
Never have I enjoyed so delightful a mood of reminiscence as in reading ‘Sunday’ by Philip Curtiss in the May Atlantic. Strange that my recollections should be so nearly identical with his, for I am a Scot and my childhood was spent in Edinburgh. Perhaps Presbyterianism is much the same everywhere, and Scotland was — as it is — Presbyterian to the marrow of its bones.
In only one detail did my experience differ materially from that of Mr. Curtiss — the Sunday dinner. No such thing for us! In England, we knew , people always had a great Sunday dinner, but to us the idea was shocking. Was it not written in the Book, Exodus XX, 10: ‘In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, for . . . thy maidservant . . .’? In the climate of Scotland, nevertheless, some fire and some hot food were absolutely necessary during a great part of the year. The kitchen fire was banked on Saturday night so that a mere stir set it going on Sunday morning. In one other room a fire was laid ready, and the ‘work’ of striking a match to light it was permitted. My grandmother usually did the deed with her own hands. ‘If it is a sin,’ I have heard her say, ‘I will take it upon myself.’
The ‘sins’ of boiling eggs, heating soup or coffee, boiling water to make tea, were, in Scriptural language, ‘winked at,’ but we had cold meat, cold ‘shape’ (ugh!), cold stewed fruit. I do not remember disliking our menu, except the blancmange. It was Sunday — rather a picnicky, amusing day — and there was generally butterscotch, which sweetened all.
H. REID
Fiesole, Italy

An old Brazilian custom,

Dear Atlanic, —
I have just finished reading ‘Sunday,’ and was much impressed by Mr. Curtiss’s idea of restoring America’s peace of mind by bringing back the old-fashioned Sunday. If that plan should fail, he might try obliging all Americans to take tea as the Brazilians do. ‘Tea’ may be anything you please, — black tea, café noir, bitter maté, or guaraná, an élite version of our soda pop, — but one must devote at least half an hour to the taking of it No rushing up to a counter to swallow it at one gulp. One enters a tea room as if he owned it. takes his seat deliberately, and sips languidly, talking in low tones to a companion or just philosophizing to one’s self.
Is n’t the tea habit an art? To the Brazilians it is one that is necessary to sane living. I know there is no panacea for the everlasting busyness of us Americans; perhaps in time we shall learn to cherish leisure.
HELEN HARDY MORELAND
Porto Alegre, Brazil

The first steeplechase.

Dear Atlantic, —
Yes, readers and admirers of ‘the Philadelphia Caliph’ have no difficulty in recognizing him in the new rôle which he assumes as sports writer (‘The Grand National’). He is versatile and always charming; whatever he touches he adorns. It is a delight to read him.
He tells something of the history of steeplechase racing, and he and readers of the Atlantic may be interested to know where and how the name originated. In the County of Cork, Ireland, there are two small towns about three and a half or four miles apart — Buttevant and Doneraile. One evening two officers stationed at the garrison in Buttevant were dining in Doneraile. Each had a well-bred horse, this part of Ireland being noted for its breed of horses. Does not Mr. Newton inform us that the winner of the Grand National was an Irish-bred horse?
Well, the officers were very proud of their mounts, and a challenge to race was given and accepted. ‘How shall we race?’ ‘Across country,’ was the answer. ‘Where shall we start, and where finish?’ On the main street of each town was a church with a steeple. ‘We shall start at the steeple and end at the steeple.’
So the race was run across country, over hedges and ditches. And a line, exciting race it was, giving us the name of steeplechase — a horse race in excelsis, as Mr. Newton justly calls it.
REVEREND MORGAN M. SHEEDY
Cathedral Rectory, Altoona, Pennsylvania

Revolt on the farm.

Dear Atlantic, —
The letters of Evelyn Harris and Caroline Henderson make us city dwellers understand the situation which caused the despairing farmers to demand ‘a new deal,’ thereby putting Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House. The letters are also remarkable for the courage, wit, and beauty of spirit which the writers possess. We wonder how it is with them to-day. Is life any easier under the N.R.A.?
FLORENCE E. STRYKER
Montclair, New Jersey

Postscript.

Dear Atlantic, —
Since the publication of ‘Letters of Two Women Farmers,’ I have had letters from several folks who do not believe we are farming. There may be other skeptical ones who did not bother to write, so perhaps it may be well to print a word reassuring them that Mrs. Henderson and I are real dirt farmers.
Another query came which said, ’If what you say is true and your farms will not support you, why support the farms?’ The answer to that is the same as that given by women who take care of nonsupporting husbands—‘Because we love ’em.’
The fact remains that the most dreadful things are happening right now to farms and farmers. During the past eight years, two and a half million farmers have lost their homes, and this year will see another million added to the number. The newspapers call it ‘farm relief.’
EVELYN HARRIS
Betterton, Maryland

Testimony of a fruit grower.

Dear Atlantic, —
I have just finished reading the ‘ Letters of Two Women Farmers,’ and it encourages me to know that you had the nerve to publish these articles. How little the city folk understand the trials and hardships of the farmer who feeds them! The constant increase of governmental rules and regulations and the burden of excessive freight rates allowed by the Interstate Commerce Commission to cover the sins of mismanagement among the railroads are fast driving the fruit grower to the wall. Conditions have been such during the past two years that we have not deemed it wise to ship or dry a pear, and our harvest pay roll has dwindled from $3000 a month to $300.
In my judgment, the much publicized ‘farm relief’ is but a mirage in the great desert of agriculture. The National Industrial Recovery Act stands very little chance of succeeding until the farmer is able to make enough to pay his taxes, repair his machinery, and cover his bills. This, not on a forty-hour week, but on a sixteenhour day. He should at least be entitled to his ton cents an hour, and many farmers are not getting it.
E. W. MOYER
Shadelands Ranch, Concord, California

The plucky Lucky Lady.

Dear Atlantic, —
Although Miss Margaret Prescott Montague’s story. ‘The Lucky Lady.’ was not intended to influence the accident-prevention movement in the United States, I believe that it will prove definitely helpful to that end. I have to-day sent out one thousand postal cards to the officers, directors, sectional organizations, and leaders in our fifty-one community organizations, asking them to study this article carefully. I even went so far as to send some telegrams to friends who I knew would be particularly interested, including Mr. Lewis D. Carris, Managing Director of the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness.
In 1909 I started the first organized efforts to interest industrial employers in the protection of the eyes of workers. At that time I had to beg the opticians to take interest in developing an appropriate safety goggle. In the first year of my experiment I collected 347 pairs of goggles, all with lenses broken by flying pieces of steel.
There are still hundreds of eyes lost every year because of indifference among employers and workers. But many corporations, like the Pullman Company, have gone so far in the protection of employees that not a single eye accident has occurred among their 40,000 workers.
Miss Montague’s vivid story not only emphasizes the value of modern scientific services in treating defective eyes and ears, but her experience will inspire all of us who are working for the conservation of eyesight and hearing.
W. H. CAMERON
Managing Director, National Safely Council
Chicago, Illinois

Heat without light.

Dear Atlantic, —
To be sure, the Atlantic is not grouped among the so-called household magazines, — it has no page of recipes or fashion plates, — but to my certain knowledge it has recently entered that realm and proved itself truly utilitarian. The evidence was passed on to me by a social worker, and is authentic.
Recently a boy of ten or twelve dashed into the Centre for ‘one of those magazines for Ma.’ ‘Which magazines, Sonny?’
Sonny could not say. Vaguely he tried to describe what he wanted, but without success. Certain magazines were offered him, but they would not do. Finally, the lad was taken into the back room and told to search among the pile of periodicals stored there. Instantly his face lighted up as he seized a copy of the Atlantic.
‘Strange,’ thought the social worker. ‘There is nothing about this child to indicate the presence of the Atlantic in his home environment. I must make a call there,’ she reflected. ‘No doubt a real bit of social service awaits me.‘
Sonny, however, interrupted her reverie — he was in a hurry. ‘Thanks,’he said. ’Ma uses it to put her iron on.’
GRACE V. BRADLEY
Chicago, Illinois

College English in India.

Dear Atlantic, —
I send the enclosed letter as an example of the efficacy of the English tongue when reënforced by the idiom of India’s age-old culture. I am not sure whether the Mahabharata deserves the credit or The Faerie Queene. The letter was written to the Bursar of the College here by a clerk who had been accused of manhandling a student.
E. M. WILSON
Lahore, India

College Bursar:
Mr. Hans Raj is totally wrong in making the allegation that I beat him. Upon my telling him repeatedly to come and speak from the counter, he did not move. I had to walk back with him to an excrutiating extent to show him the way out. I found him in queer juxtaposition and certainly not liked to waste time on him when I was in the middle of totalling. I did exert force in pushing him, but never more than he used in his proud recalcitration. In the vestibule he stood glued to the wall like a protuberance which on severest commotion of storm will not move.
If I ask the intruder to leave the office on my request he thinks it insult, and if I don’t there is sure rating which I get from the officer. It is to live in quandaries when you find yourself between the devil and the deep sea. The student thinks it is his prerogative to promenade, and knows that nothing will permeate him. Again he has the audacity of telling lies to the extent that I beat him. Though I try hard to please but there are no bounds to the fastidiousness of a student.
(Signed) —, Clerk
(and pronounced Clark) Lahore, India