To the Editor of the "Norta-Cuina Dairy News."
Sm,—I have often been inclined to write you a protest against one or another of the opinions you have expressed on things Americao, but have usually been held back by the feeling that it would serve good end. An editor, like a woman, convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still. And there is always the chance that one may fail to convince him. Sometimes it has been your choice of laets, sometimes it has been your tone, that have made me wonder how well you really know America and her people. If you have a number of American friends whom about the subjects which you discuss, then we should not so often turn from reading your remarks about us with a feeling of half amusement, half mild irritation.
You are especially fond of quot-jing the "New York Times."
I was glad to read Mr. Lockwood's letter to you on that matter, and I would like to emphasize what he has said.
have been for five years a. resident of New York City, and during those years, I was a "constant reader" of the "Times." Its ability in news gathering is beyond praise, and its editorial page is skilfully written. But it is distinctly the organ of the class called "bourgeois." This class worships some form of material success, and conservative in social and political theory and practice. It is one of the most important and useful classes that we have; a state, organized as France or Great Britain or America are, simply cannot do without it. But we do not look to it for the solution of problems in state or society; it stays by the stuff, while the thinker and the reformer are working at their experiments to make conditions better. Now the "Times" gives itself simply to the task of saying skilfully and vigorously for that class what it is thinking. But the great majority of the people are not bourgeois, and when they become convinced of the need of a reform, it is put through, against the vigorous protests of the "Times" and its group. Hence its opposition to prohibition and to woman's suffrage. As a corrective to the "Times," I recommend to you a course of reading in the "New York Evening Post," which is not the organ of a class, which expresses its own thoughts, and in temperate and sane fashion expresses the heart of the American people—even when they know it not, for it has not a wide circle of readers. But at all events, may we not have less of the "Times" and more of papers which represent the soul of the nation more accurately?
The real cause of this letter to you, is your leaderette to-day, entitled, "The Educated." In it you poke some good-natured fun at the six traits of the educated man, as set forth by Nicholas Murray Butler. You totally ignore the fact (for I judge there is some seriousness behind your fun, or you would not write at all) that most men of commanding genius have either serious gaps in their education or moments when the natural man overcomes the effects of self-discipline. You offer not the slightest argument to show that these six traits are not a good list to put before the student as a norm, or as a goal to which he should work. I think myself that President Butler's No. 2 is not well expressed. But it so happens that I am one of his old students, and know him well enough to feel con-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.