A Gross of Cheers

Sir: I read your cover story of Dr. Calvin Gross [Nov. 15] with great interest and a deep feeling of pride. My friend and classmate through elementary and high schools has been living up to everyone's expectations. You depict a person of near-infallibility. I must agree with you. When TIME asked me if I could think of one thing that Calvin failed to do well, I honestly could not do so. He epitomizes brilliance.

I am certain that this will not be the last time we shall be reading about Superintendent Gross. He is headed upward. He has successfully reinvigorated the Pittsburgh school system and is on his way toward renovating the New York school system--a most difficult task. But he will overcome ... A real possibility for the future: Calvin Gross, U.S. Commissioner of Education.

MASAKAZU IWATA, PH.D.

Assistant Professor of History

Biola College La

Mirada, Calif.

Sir: It does my heart good to think that my children (ages four and two) may be able to reap the fruits of Dr. Gross's diligence.

MRS. GEORGE S. MEYERS

Brooklyn

Intellectual Productivity

Sir: Your article [Nov. 8] describing the work of Trident Scholars at the U.S. Naval Academy was read with considerable interest and approval by members of the Coast Guard Academy faculty.

Here at the academy of the senior seagoing service, the top 20% of each senior class for the past five years has been participating in a similar undergraduate program of independent investigations. Interdisciplinary in nature and uninhibited in choice, the projects have ranged from analysis and measurements of stresses in hydrofoil struts to operations research in man-machine relationships, from the design of an analog-to-digital converter to the development of statistical predictors of academic success; from feasibility studies of nuclear power plants for isolated loran stations to the synthesis of a steady-state parametric amplifier.

The faculty of the Coast Guard Academy is astounded anew each year at the creative and intellectual productivity of the cadets who rise to the challenge of this program for honor students.

R. W. GOODE

Commander, U.S. Coast Guard

New London, Conn.

Mileage for Miles

Sir-The article entitled "Miles's Mileage" [Nov. 8] is the most significant contribution we have had in my tenure here as president of the college. We have already received scores of letters, many containing financial contributions for the development of the college.

L. H. PITTS President

Miles College

Birmingham

Up the Goldwater Tree

Sir: Senator Goldwater's reactionary plans [Nov. 8], if carried out, would interrupt the natural growth of the American Tree of State. Instead of merely trimming the tree at its edges as the true conservative would do, or grafting on new branches as the liberal would do, Senator Goldwater would tear the tree out by its roots, leaving not the idyllic green pasture of Jeffersonian democracy but the torn black earth of destruction.

ALAN K. HENRIKSON

Balliol College

Oxford, England

Sir: Bravo to Goldwater for speaking the truth! The TV A should be placed in citizen ownership immediately.

To ensure wide ownership, individual and corporate purchases would be permanently limited. Total corporate ownership, depending upon how well individual sales go, could be held to 30% or less. The lower the better! This would create an economic monument to American taxpayers, additional dignity for competent TV A employees, and several measures of in security for the politically oriented, smug, libertine bureaucrats.

EDWIN T. BOHR

Chattanooga, Tenn.

Sir: A very intelligent idea of Senator Margaret Chase Smith's to seek the presidential nomination. After all, she is more intelligent than Barry, more capable than Rocky and more dependable than Richard She is also much easier to look at than all three. It's been said that women control the country--control the spending and buying. Now let's let one try her hand at running this country.

MRS. SHELBY DEATON

Sweeny, Texas

Home-Made Bull Session

Sir: Your article on Britain's ex-Lord Home [Oct. 25] was so interesting and entertaining that it is hard to realize that it was also true. My teen-agers started reading it for laughs, became interested in its factual content, ended up having a "bull-session" with seven of their friends about it. The oldest one decided it could have been titled, "Look Homeward, Anglo."

JUNE TAFT CONWAY

New York City

There's a Limit

Sir: I would fight to the death against Communism for the values upon which the principles of democracy are based, but I swear, if we go to war over how many men can possibly be in a convoy truck [Nov. 15], I will not even go to a bomb shelter.

RICHARD LAYNE

Rome

To the Dogs

Sir: Your bloodcurdling article on hunting [Nov. 1] is a horrifying expose of the so-called "sport," particularly when it describes the extracurricular torture that goes into the training of the dogs who accompany the stonehearted hunters. Not content with killing for the pleasure of useless killing, often leaving wounded birds and animals to die a lingering death, these "sportsmen" must inflict carefully planned refinements of agony on the luckless pooches who are to be their helpers.

KAY CARDIN

Winchester, Mass.

Sir: Having seen the picture of the champion pointer and read the account of how these dogs are trained, I would now like to see a picture of this dog's owner, complete with all his ribs showing, wearing a spiked collar, having a chaw of tobacco thrust down his throat, with his hind end full of buckshot, and eating partridge liberally laced with long sharp needles.

MRS. KENNETH MILLAR

Santa Barbara, Calif.

Curse in Verse

Sir: Whoever wrote that story on the goings on at Puerto Vallarta [Nov. 8] --I love him! That's the funniest story I've ever read.

MEG WHITCOMB

New York City

Sir:

I send you, amigo, this very sad carta

Describing the capers in Puerto Vallarta,

A pueblo of leisure and tropical vistas Well known to the natives but not to touristas,

Where tiempo flowed slowly y placidamente

And nothing disturbed the placer of the gente.

That's how it was m this land of manana

Until we were cursed with this Nocne d'Iguana.

JAMES M. SOMMERVILLE

Dana Point, Calif.

The Word & the Jargon

Sir: Every theologian and scientist should read your report on "The Jargon that Jars" [Nov. 8]. In Bishop Blougram's Apology, Browning's bishop says of the "-ologies" that they are "the Greek endings, the little passing bell that signifies some faith's about to die." (I have wondered whether church unity can survive the frightful word "ecumenicity.") The philosophy of William James was ridiculed largely because he insisted upon short words. What better account of absolute monism could there be than this: "They want the bellyband of the universe to fit tight all the way round"?

But you do well to include the other side. Because of what Christians have done to "charity" and what Hollywood has done to "love," we may need the word agape to describe Christian love, which is not primarily an emotion and enables us to love those we do not like.

(THE REV.) WILBUR L. CASWELL

Patterson, Calif.

Sir: "Ground of Being" knows how I've tried to understand Tillich, but a guy's got only so much Wissenschaft. And Kirchliche Dogmatik? Angst! Angst!

Tillich may speak to our day, but I'll join the crowds who are listening to Billy Graham.

ANDRE BUSTANOBY

Pastor

Arlington Memorial Church

Arlington, Va.

Sir: Protestant theologians may be finally discovering for themselves the insufficiency of the English language regarding theology. Maybe now they can more easily respect Rome's past insistence on the Latin tongue.

EMIL R. PERNSTEINER

San Diego, Calif.

I Whiff Your Hand, Madame

Sir: About your story on the resurgence of hand-kissing [Nov. 8]: In Madrid we do not "smack." We simply "smell" the hand of a married woman.

JUAN LUIS GALATAS

Madrid

Googeous George

Sir: Hooray for men who "want to smell good" [Nov. 15]! But who, in Heaven's name, would want a husband, father or business associate to be running around with tinted eyebrows, dyed hair and powdered face? Pretty soon they'll be curling their eyelashes and dabbing a touch of rouge on their cheeks. At this rate, some day it may be said of an American male: "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?"

(MRS.) HELEN G. MALLOY

Providence

Sir: A hot shower and shave are all I want my husband to have. No lotion, deodorant, cologne or other goo. I want my man to look and smell like a man.

JENNIE CAMMARATA

Pittsburgh, Pa.

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