November 1959
In This Issue
Explore the November 1959 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
To a Young Writer
Sex and the College Girl
“I think that the charge that men have become emasculated by the competence of women is both depressing and untrue.”
Calendar of Important European Events for November and December
Homer's Winks and Nods
Poet, novelist, and classical scholar, ROBERT GRAVES resides in Majorca but makes his intellectual home in antiquity. The following essay is drawn from his introduction to a new translation of the ILIAD, which will be published by Doubleday later this month.
Staffing Freedom
Pennsylvania’s senior senator and former mayor of Philadelphia, JOSEPH S. CLARK donated his Bok Award funds, received in 1956, to the American Academy of Political and Social Science for a study of national personnel needs.
From Plato to Max Planck: The Philosophical Problems of Atomic Physics
Professor WERNER HEISENBERG, who was born in Duisburg in 1901, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932 for his work on the quantum theory. A member of the faculty of the University of Göttingen since 1945, he is director there of the Max Planck Research Institute. His recent formulation of what is called the “unified field theorem" has caused a great stir in academic and scientific circles.
Composition at the Barricades
Since 1940, serious changes have occurred in the secondary schools which, as LOUIS ZAHNER says, “have worked against the teaching and learning of effective English.” In this and the following articles we have tried to get at the root of the trouble. Mr. Zahner speaks with authority from his long experience as head of the English department at Groton for the past thirty-eight years.
Teaching Writing Through History
HENRY W. BRAGDON was for six years the chief examiner in social studies for the College Entrance Examination Board. He now leaches history at Phillips Exeter Academy and is co-author, with Samuel P. McCutchen, of HISTORY OF A FREE PEOPLE, one of the leading high school texts in American history.
Japan
The Plight of the English Teacher
An assistant dean at Harvard College from 1929 to 1943, HENRY CHAUNCEY worked on testing for the navy’s V-12 officer-training program during World War II. From 1946 to 1948 he was director of the College Entrance Examination Board and since that time has been president of the Educational Testing Service, which administers entrance examinations for the colleges, the military service schools, the Foreign Service, and other governmental departments.
Teaching Reading
Principal of the three elementary schools in Lincoln, Massachusetts, ROBERT L. FILBIN has also had experience as a classroom teacher. For four years he successfully directed an experimental reading program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and he is currently directing a similar program in the Lincoln schools.
Solomon or Salami
A native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Smith College, HELEN R. LOWE is married and is the mother of two daughters. Over the past twenty years she has worked with nearly one thousand students, of all ages, who are in academic difficulty. She thus has had an excellent opportunity to make the observations which follow.
Merry Christmas!
Accent on Living
The Improbability of Elephants
R. P. LISTERis an English free lance whose poetry and light articles appear frequently in the ATLANTIC.
To a Nightingale
The Virus
Lloyd's View of Me
JAMES A. MAXWELL has been a free-lance writer since his discharge from the army in 1945. This is his first appearance in the ATLANTIC.
A Guide Through Microgrooyes
Journalists Who Make History
English-born but now an American citizen, ALISTAIR COOKEfirst came to this country as a Commonwealth Fellow. Since 1948 he has been chief American correspondent of the MANCHESTER GUARDIANand the most popular commentator on American affairs for BBC. The following essay is a selection from his preface to the annual anthology, THE BEDSIDE GUARDIAN, which is about to be published in this country, for the first time, by Ires Washburn.
The Exuberance of the New Deaf: The Morgen Thau Diaries
Author and journalist, GERALD W . JOHNSON is a Southern Democrat who made his start in North Carolina and who has lived happily in Baltimore ever since the SUNPAPERS catted him to their editorial staff in 1926. He has worked and written with Frank B. Kent, H. L. Mencken, and Hamilton Owens, friends all; he has expressed his admiration for Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson in lively biographies: and he has spoken his hopes for and his belief in this country in such books as LIBERAL’S PROGRESS, THIS AMERICAN PEOPLE, and PATTERN FOR LIBERTY.
The Peripatetic Reviewer
Reader's Choice
East Germany
Chile
The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington
The Fate of a Man
Generally regarded an the foremost novelist in the Soviet Union, MIKHAIL SHOLOKHOV has done most of his writing about the Don River region, where he makes his home. His two big novels, AND QUIET FLOWS THE DON and THE DON FLOWS HOME TO THE SEA, present a picture of the Cossack life and people before, during, and after the 1917 Revolution. He is presently engaged in writing a powerful new trilogy, VIRGIN SOIL UPTURNED, (he second volume of which has raised considerable controversy in the Soviet Union. The short story which follows, and which is so symbolic of Russia’s attitude toward Germany, has just been reproduced in remarkably moving Russian film.
The Saving Grace
In the foreword to JAMES THURBER’S first, slim volume of drawings, Dorothy Parker recounted how hecklers had found the Thurber women to have no sex appeal, to which the artist replied, “ They have for my men.” This certainly applies to the heroine of his new cocktail party, Mrs. Groper. Readers wanting more of Thurber are advised to consult his most recent and popular book, THE YEARS WITH ROSS.
Memories of Woodrow Wilson
With Apples
The Fields of November
The Child at Winter Sunset
A Touch of Autumn in the Air
SEAN O’FAOLAIN, unlike many of the leading Irish writers of this century (including George Bernard Shaw and James Joyce), has elected to remain in Ireland. He is a Dubliner who is generally regarded as one of the very best short-story writers of our time and is a sympathetic yet realistic interpreter of contemporary Irish life.
Morning Dialogue
Three Voices at the Meridian
Snapped String, Broken Tree
Poverty and Population
The alarming rates at which the populations in the underdeveloped countries have been increasing in the past decade have caused worldwide concern. For an appraisal of the situation we turn to FRANK W. NOTESTEIN, who for many years was director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. Mr. Notestein is now President of the Population Council, an organization seeking to foster understanding of the problems of population by supporting research and training in the medical and demographic fields.
The Role of the Musical Conductor
Born in Vienna in 1912, ERICH LEINSDORF studied piano, cello, and composition at the State Academy of Music and at the age of twenty-two became assistant to Dr. Bruno Walter and later lo Toscanini at the Salzburg Festival. After three seasons of opera and concerts in Europe, he came to the United States as assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Since then he has made an international career of conducting opera and symphony orchestras and is now music consultant on the staff of the Metropolitan Opera.
Praise We Great Men
Hunting Hunters
NEWTON F. TOLMANis a New Hampshire resident who writes whenever he ran spare time from the laborious duties involved in rescuing visiting hunters once the season gets into full swing.
