by E. B. White
A—Yes. The presence anywhere at all of an inquisitive man is cause for alarm. A dog’s curiosity is wholesome; it is essentially selfish and purposeful and therefore harmless. It relates to the chase or to some priceless bit of local havoc, like my experiments in your barnyard with the legs of living sheep. A man’s curiosity, on the other hand, is untinged with immediate mischief; it is pure and therefore very dangerous. The excuse you men give is that you must continually add to the store of human knowledge—a store that already resembles a supermarket and is beginning to hypnotize the customers. Can you imagine a laika sending up a Russian in order to measure the heartbeat of a man? It’s inconceivable. No dog would fritter away his time on earth with such tiresome tricks. A dog’s curiosity leads him into pretty country and toward predictable trouble, such as a porcupine quill in the nose. Man’s curiosity has led finally to outer space where rabbits are as scarce as gravity. Well, you fellows can have outer space. You may eventually get a quill in the nose from some hedgehog of your own manufacture, but I don’t envy you the chase. So long, old Master! Dream your fevered dreams!
9
The Academic Life
NO CRACKPOTS?
9/12/42
WE NOTICED, with some misgivings, that the American Federation of Teachers put out a warning the other day that there would be no “crackpots” admitted to its membership. Only those teachers would be admitted who would be a credit to the Federation and instill in boys and girls an abiding loyalty to the ideals and principles of democracy. But as we understand it, one of the noblest attributes of democracy is that it contains no one who can truthfully say, of two pots, which is the cracked, which is the whole. That is basic. The Federation better welcome all comers, and let pot clink against pot.
Education is such a serious matter, we speak of it with trepidation. We remember, with sober and contrite heart, that our educational system was responsible for (among others) the group of citizens who for two years did everything in their power to prove that the war which was going on did not involve us, that nothing was happening abroad which was of any consequence in our lives, that the earth was not round. Those people—millions of them—were all educated in American schools by non-crackpots. They were brought up on American curricula. They damn near did us in. They are ready again to do us in, as soon as an opening presents itself—which will be immediately after hostilities cease. On the basis of the record, it would seem that we need what crackpots we can muster for education in our new world. We need educators who believe that character is more precious than special knowledge, that vision is not just something arrived at through a well-ground lens, and that a child is the most hopeful (and historically the most neglected) property the Republic boasts.
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
2/26/49
WHEN THE PROFESSORS were dismissed from the University of Washington,* the president remarked that allegiance to the Communist Party unfitted a teacher for the search for truth. The argument, it seemed to us, had a certain merit. To pursue truth, one should not be too deeply entrenched in any hole. It is best to have strong curiosity, weak affiliations. But although it’s easy to dismiss a professor or make him sign an affidavit, it is not so easy to dismiss the issue of academic freedom, which persists on campuses as the smell of wintergreen oil persists in the locker rooms. In this land, an ousted professor is not an island entire of itself; his death diminishes us all.
There is no question but that colleges and universities these days are under pressure from alumni and trustees to clean house and to provide dynamic instruction in the American way of life. Some institutions (notably Washington University and Olivet College) have already taken steps, others are uneasily going over their lists. Professors, meanwhile, adjust their neck-ties a little more conservatively in the morning, qualify their irregular remarks with a bit more care. The head of one small college announced the other day that his institution was through fooling around with fuzzy ideas and was going to buckle down and teach straight Americanism—which, from his description, sounded as simple as the manual of arms. At Cornell, an alumnus recently advocated that the university install a course in “Our Freedoms”—possibly a laudable idea but one that struck us as being full of dynamite. (The trouble here is with the word “our,” which is too constricting and which would tend to associate a university with a national philosophy, as when the German universities felt the cold hand of the Ministry of Propaganda.) President Eisenhower* has come out with a more solid suggestion, and has stated firmly that Columbia, while admiring one idea, will examine all ideas. He seems to us to have the best grasp of where the strength of America lies.
We on this magazine believe in the principle of hiring and firing on the basis of fitness, and we have no opinion as to the fitness or unfitness of the fired professors. We also believe that some of the firings in this country in the last eighteen months have resembled a political purge, rather than a dismissal for individual unfitness, and we think this is bad for everybody. Hollywood fired its writers in a block of ten. The University of Washington stood its professors up in a block of six, fired three for political wrongness, retained three on probation. Regardless of the fitness or unfitness of these men for their jobs, this is not good management; it is nervous management and it suggests pressure. Indirectly, it abets Communism by making millions of highly fit Americans a little cautious, a little fearful of having naughty “thoughts,” a little fearful of believing differently from the next man, a little worried about associating with a group or party or club.
A healthy university in a healthy democracy is a free society in miniature. The pesky nature of democratic life is that it has no comfortable rigidity; it always hangs by a thread, never quite submits to consolidation or solidification, is always being challenged, always being defended. The seeming insubstantiality of this thread is a matter of concern and worry to persons who naturally would prefer a more robust support for the be-loved structure. The thread is particularly worrisome, we think, to men of tidy habits and large affairs, who are accustomed to reinforce themselves at every possible turn and who want to do as much for their alma mater. But they do not always perceive that the elasticity of democracy is its strength—like the web of a spider, which bends but holds. The desire to give the whole thing greater rigidity and a more conventional set of fastenings is almost overwhelming in these times when the strain is great, and it makes professed lovers of liberty propose measures that show little real faith in liberty.
We believe with President Eisenhower that a university can best demonstrate freedom by not closing its doors to antithetical ideas. We believe that teachers should be fired not in blocks of three for political wrongness but in blocks of one for unfitness. A campus is unique. It is above and beyond government. It is on the highest plane of life. Those who live there know the smell of good air, and they always take pains to spell truth with a small “t.” This is its secret strength and its contribution to the web of freedom; this is why the reading room of a college library is the very temple of democracy.
SELECTING SCHOOL BOOKS
10/8/49
THE BOARD OF EDUCATION has twenty-three criteria for selecting textbooks, library books, and magazines for use in the public schools. We learned this by reading a fourteen-page pamphlet published by the Board explaining how it makes its choice. One criterion is: “Is it [the book or magazine] free from subject matter that tends to irreverence for things held sacred?” Another criterion is: “Are both sides of controversial issues presented with fairness?” Another: “Is it free from objectionable slang expressions which will interfere with the building of good language habits?”
These three criteria by themselves are enough to keep a lot of good books from the schools. Irreverence for things held sacred has started many a writer on his way, and will again. An author so little moved by a controversy that he can present both sides fairly is not likely to burn any holes in the paper. We think the way for school children to get both sides of a controversy is to read several books
on the subject, not one. In other words, we think the Board should strive for a well-balanced library, not a well-balanced book. The greatest books are heavily slanted, by the nature of greatness.
As for “the building of good language habits,” we have gone carefully through the pamphlet to see what habits, if any, the Board itself has formed. They appear to be the usual ones—the habit of untidiness, the habit of ambiguity, the habit of saying everything the hard way. The clumsy phrase, the impenetrable sentence, the cliché, the misspelled word. The Board has, we gather, no strong convictions about the use of the serial comma, no grip on “that” and “which,” no opinion about whether a textbook is a “text book,” a “text-book,” or a “textbook.” (The score at the end of the fourteenth was “text book” 5, “textbook” 11, “textbook” 5.) It sees nothing comical, or challenging, in the sentence “Materials should be provided for boys and girls who vary greatly in attitudes, abilities, interests, and mental age.” It sees no need for transposition in “Phrases should not be split in captions under pictures.” It sees no bugs in “The number of lines should be most conducive to readability.” And you should excuse the expression “bugs”—a slang word, interfering with the building of good language habits.
We still have high hopes of getting The New Yorker accepted in the schools, but our hopes are less high than they were when we picked up the pamphlet. We’re bucking some stiff criteria—criteria that are, shall we say, time-tested?
THE LIVING LANGUAGE
2/23/57
BETWEEN BERGEN EVANS on the television and a man named Ellsworth Barnard* in the papers, English usage has become hot news; the rhetorical world is almost as tense, at the moment, as the Middle East. Professor Barnard wrote a piece in the Times a while back thumbing his nose at grammar and advising teachers to quit boring their pupils with the problem of “who” and “whom.” The Professor was immediately ambushed by grammarians and purists in great numbers, and their shafts came zinging from behind every tree in the forest. Meanwhile, Bergen Evans and his panelists were stirring up the masses and egging them on to err. Mr. Evans believes that the language is a living thing and we mustn’t strangle it by slavish attention to the rules. Winston Cigarettes, of course, backs him to the hilt, as a cigarette should.* Our prediction is that along Madison Avenue bad grammar, as an attention-getter, will soon be as popular as mutilation—which started with an eye patch and rapidly spread to arms and legs. As Arthur Godfrey sometimes remarks, in one of his contemplative moments, “Who’s sponsoring this mess?”
The New Yorker has been up to its ears in English usage for thirty-two years (thirty-two years this very week) and has tried to dwell harmoniously in the weird, turbulent region between a handful of sober grammarians, who live in, and an army of high-spirited writers, who live wherever they can get a foot-hold. The writer of this paragraph, who also lives in, has seen with his own eyes the nasty chop that is kicked up when the tide of established usage runs against the winds of creation. We have seen heavy, cluttery pieces, with faults clinging to them like barnacles, lifted out of their trouble by the accurate fire of the grammarian (who has the instincts of a machine gunner), and we have also seen the blush removed from a peach by the same fellow’s shaving it with an electric razor in the hope of drawing blood. Somewhere in the middle of this mess lies editorial peace and goodness, but, like we say, it’s a weird world. Through the turmoil and the whirling waters we have reached a couple of opinions of our own about the language. One is that a schoolchild should be taught grammar—for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and write any damn way he pleases. We knew a countryman once who spoke with wonderful vigor and charm, but ungrammatically. In him the absence of grammar made little difference, because his speech was full of juice. But when a dullard speaks in a slovenly way, his speech suffers not merely from dullness but from ignorance, and his whole life, in a sense, suffers—though he may not feel pain.
The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay in the narrow path she helped make, following the contour of the land, but she often profits by staying with it and she would be handicapped if she didn’t know where it was and where it led to. Children obviously do not depend for communication on a knowledge of grammar; they rely on their ear, mostly, which is sharp and quick. But we have yet to see the child who hasn’t profited from coming face to face with a relative pronoun at an early age, and from reading books, which follow the paths of centuries.
10
Business
DOG EAT DOG
4/1/33
MOST IMPERATIVE OF RECENT MISSIVES was a letter from Forbes, reminding us that we are not a bluebird. “You are not a bluebird,” the letter said, gruffly, and then added, “you are a business man.” There was a kind of finality about this news, and we read on. “Business is a hard, cold-blooded game today. Survival of the fittest. Dog eat dog. Produce or get out. A hundred men are after your job.” If Forbes only knew it, goading of this sort is the wrong treatment for us. We are not, as they say, a bluebird. Nobody who reads the Nation regularly, as we do, can retain his amateur bluebird standing. As for business, we agree that it is a hard, cold-blooded game. Survival of the fittest. Dog eat dog. The fact that about eighty-five per cent of the dogs have recently been eaten by the other dogs perhaps explains what long ago we noticed about business: that it had a strong smell of boloney. If dog continues to eat dog, there will be only one dog left, and he will be sick to his stomach.
STRIKES
8/6/27
AS WE RODE COMFORTABLY in the subway on the day set for the transit strike, the thought came to us that strikes are not what they used to be. We mourn the old days when workers would quit their jobs in a spontaneous burst of rebelliousness and high blood-pressure. Lately, strikes have been produced in the calm manner of musical comedies, with advance announcements of the cast, date of opening, and photographs of the strike-breakers learning their duties from the smiling, expectant strikers. The police are notified in advance that riots will begin at 2:30, the same as any matinée. No wonder labor is disgruntled; it’s as bad as community singing.
PREDATORY
3/19/27
AS PERNICIOUS A PIECE OF chicanery as was ever perpetrated is the inspired work of one H. W. Miller, who gave up his seat on the Stock Exchange recently, and since then has been devoting his time to calling upon friends during office hours, seemingly for no particular reason. He shows up unannounced, relaxes in a chair, talks half an hour about curiously dull subjects, makes it clear that he is in no hurry, and finally makes a vague exit without giving any reason for having dropped in. This has left his friends weak, irritable, and bewildered.
It now turns out that the merry stock merchant, finding himself relieved of work, deliberately armed himself with a sheaf of inanities, stale jokes, and platitudes, and set forth to avenge himself heartily for all the time he had been unnecessarily interrupted during business for the past ten years.
“I am going to do this for two weeks,” he said when cornered, “and then I’m going to the country.”
This, in our judgment, has something of the fine deliberateness of the bored ex-aviator who bought a Ford when the war was over, installed an airplane engine and a very loud horn, took aboard some ballast, and went abroad in the land insultingly showing his dust to every Lincoln and Stutz from here to Yosemite. That is the actual case, although we don’t know the man’s name. We do know that he occupied himself pleasantly that way for more than a year, hiding down lanes and waiting for his prey.
WHAT EVERY ADULT SHOULD KNOW
12/31/27
INSURANCE SALESMEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN glamorous in our eyes, because they go to places we wouldn’t dare go and face odds
that would make us quail. While we were lunching with one of these dare-devils last week (he had been in our psychology class at college) he unexpectedly confessed all. He told us that the reason it is possible to make what seem to be impossible sales is that the average man secretly believes he can argue the hide off any salesman, and likes to hear himself try. Once he starts arguing, he hangs himself.
After listening to our friend’s disclosures, we are in a position to reveal the cardinal principle for insulating oneself against insurance. It is: always make the wrong answer to the salesman’s questions, which are all scientifically designed to bring forth the answer Yes. Your salvation lies in saying No. He will, of course, expect you to take the soundness and the general worthiness of the idea of insurance for granted. This never comes into question. Then he will start off very candidly with some such disarming question as this:
“Now, Mr. Fish, as you know I have come to see you about insurance. I assume, sir, that a man of your business integrity has already made provision against unforeseen circumstances, haven’t you?” (You say Yes.) “Just as a matter of sound business sense you have created an estate for the protection of your wife, haven’t you?” (You say Yes.) “Furthermore, I assume that you wish your son Roger to enjoy the educational advantages in life that he deserves, don’t you?” (Another Yes.)
Well, if you say Yes to all these questions you are a goner because he has a whole string of others calling for affirmative answers which lead inevitably to the execution of a policy. The only safe answer, as we said, is No. If you say No he will still go on trying to sell you insurance but he will be too stunned and dazed to accomplish anything.
A good variation is to say, when the salesman refers to your wife: “I left my wife last week.” When he speaks of your son, who will soon be ready for college, bite your lips and say that unfortunately your marriage was childless.