Monday, Jul. 28, 1947

Zoos & Boos

Sir:

Thank you, dear TIME, in the name of Carmen Amalia (3 1/2 years old) and Ursula Cecilia (1 1/2 years old) for your beautiful colored photographs of different animals of the zoo [TIME, July 7].

My daughters loved them so much that I had to cut them out and put them on cardboard for their study and enjoyment. . . .

AUGUSTO SEMSCH TERRY Lima, Peru

Sir:

Thanks for a grand job about a grand person . . . R. Marlin Perkins. Lincoln Park's gain was Buffalo's loss. . . .

NELSON GRISWOLD Kenmore, N.Y.

Sir:

. . . Although I read most of it twice, I was finally forced to conclude with complete amazement that there was no mention of the Toledo Zoological Garden. For several years it has been pretty generally acknowledged that The Bronx, St. Louis, San Diego, Toledo, Cincinnati, Chicago are the top half-dozen zoos in beauty and equipment in America....

Send a Number One man out here to...find out who's zoo in America.

GROVE PATTERSON Editor in Chief The Toledo Blade Toledo

Sir:

. . . Thousands of persons who have in recent years attended the summer opera at the Cincinnati Zoo will find amazement in this quotation: "At the Cincinnati Zoo, over the din of squawking birds and roaring cats, grand opera is performed."

The location of the opera house is so far from the Carnivora Building and the Aviaries that only on rare occasion can an animal sound be heard during the operas. . . .

N. S. HASTINGS Public Relations Zoological Society Cincinnati

P: The truth lies in a fine distinction between TIME'S overstatement and Reader Hastings' understatement--something between a caterwauling fiddle and a muted macaw.--ED.

Sir:

Your issue of July 7 contains an excellent article about the Lincoln Park Zoo, in Chicago, and about its director, R. Marlin Perkins. The members of the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums appreciate the space that you have devoted to American zoos, and feel pleased that you have honored one of our members.

However, there is one statement in the article which is completely untrue. This reads as follows: "Recently, the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums proclaimed Bushman [the gorilla] 'the most outstanding and most valuable single animal of its kind in any zoo in the world.' "

No such action was ever taken. I presided at the meetings in St. Louis last fall where a vote on the subject is alleged to have been recorded. The matter was not even presented. Attempting to determine which animal is the most outstanding would be asinine; all the leading American zoos have one or several animals which, in their opinion as well as in the opinion of others, are entitled to rank with the most valuable or unusual. The statement about Bushman, which originally appeared in the newspapers last fall, caused our organization considerable embarrassment. It apparently was released by a public-relations man who was more interested in press-agentry than he was in the truth. . . .

ROGER CONANT Chairman American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums Philadelphia

P: Let the A.A.Z.P.A. move over; TIME is embarrassed too.--ED.

Twilight Existence

Sir:

As a parent of a feeble-minded child, I feel that euthanasia [TIME, June 30] should be extended legally to cover feeble-minded and hopelessly malformed children. . . . The cretins and mongoloids should not be burdened with life.

At best they live a twilight existence . . . objects of pity or derision, occupying no satisfying place in society. Their lives darken those of their families and place a heavy financial burden upon them which might better be directed towards rearing normal children.

I would be happier to remember my child as the chubby, laughing baby he was, rather than to anticipate the stupid adult he will be. And as I watch him stumbling about, dimly striving to keep up with others, I feel that he would be happier out of this existence. . . .

MOTHER'S NAME WITHHELD Laramie, Wyo.

Chinese Wish

Sir:

It is too cruel a statement to make . . . that "the Chinese were grateful" after the United States Government had turned over 130 million rounds of surplus rifle ammunition to the Chinese Nationalists [TIME, July 7].

The Chinese common man has one and only one wish--that is to stop the internecine civil war at once. Any outside interference from any country would only prolong and intensify his sufferings. . . .

John Moy San Francisco

Educational Absurdity?

Sir:

...What an insult to the educators of the U.S.! So the trustees of Columbia University do not consider any professor in the entire country worthy to be president of that university. They must choose for that office a man [General Eisenhower] who never has had any connection with an educational institution. They must choose one who has no claims to scholarship along any line, one who knows nothing of ancient or modern languages and cultures, nothing about the vast realms of modern science, nothing about the intricacies of research, or even about the qualifications making for success in teaching. If Columbia can commit this absurdity, why not every other university in the land? No longer are educators to strive to grow in breadth and wisdom in order that they may be called to fill the seats of the mighty in education. Theirs is to labor in obscurity at salaries appropriate to obscurity.

What will be the effect of this grotesque choice? It will make more educators Communists than any other event in recent history. . . .

GORDON FERRIE HULL Professor Emeritus of Physics Dartmouth College Hanover, N.H.

Sir:

. . . Let me climb aboard the express which General Ike is riding into the presidency of Columbia University. . . .

If the redoubtable Ike can breathe a little life into scholastic sterility; if he can stem the move toward a return to status-quo "education" (a kind of education for death); if he can further the idea of education for service to humanity: then more power to him, and scallions to his monastic-minded opponents.

I think Ike will measure up to his new job and help education win a lap from its apocalyptic detractors. Would that we had more men like him to help us in our greatest battle: the fight for individual maturity.

LAWRENCE BUTTRICK Denver

Inside Earth

Sir:

NAVARRO'S IDEA UNIVERSE INSIDE EARTH [TIME, JULY 14] HARDLY NOVEL. THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS, FOLLOWERS OF [KORESHANITY'S CYRUS TEED], BELIEVED THIS EVER SINCE 1870. KORESHAN COLONY AT ESTERO, FLORIDA, NOW A MERE PITIFUL REMNANT, HARDLY REPRESENTATIVE OF THE GALLANT EARLY EFFORTS OF HUNDREDS OF AMERICANS WHO COULD HARDLY BE CLASSED AS IGNORANT OR SUPERSTITIOUS.

T. W. LIPPERT Directing Editor The Iron Age Pittsburgh

Sir:

While Amateur Astronomer Antonio Duran Navarro lay on his back and gazed at the heavens, I wonder whether he was reading Edgar Rice Burroughs by lantern-light or moonshine? The idea of a universe contained within the earth's crust was conceived by Mr. Burroughs some 25 years ago in his novel Pellucidar [and its predecessor, At the Earth's Core). . . .

FELIX SUTTON New Canaan, Conn.

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