SPAN: September 1971

SPAN Can This Be Plastic? 2 From Billiard Balls to Space Stations

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by John Holway

Plastic of the Future

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by A.M. Raja

American Poetry The '60s 8

by Nissim Ezekiel At memorial service fOl::,Armstrong in New OrIeatis,'lO,OOO hear taps played on the firsttrum,pe.towned by the musIcian.

Poems

11

by David Wagoner

Poet's Stew

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by Dom M oraes

LOUISABMSTBOIG 1900-1971

Country Boy 18 The Territorial Imperative

by Robert Ardrey

Blind Boys' Academy Of too many men has it been said, "He was a legend in hisJifetime." But of no one is it more true than of Louis Armstrong-trumpeter, singer, and musician extraordinary. With breezy effortIessnes~, "Satchm'o" indubitably shaped the histori' of jazz, the course of popular music. Pe~l1:aps)¡whathe. will x¡really b; ;~membereQ. for is his large, robu.st, fullthroated affirmation of the joy of living.

2/

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by Arun Ganguly

Apple-Pickin' Autumn.

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by Natalie Levy

Milk: The White Revolution

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by Harbans Singh Noor

Foreign Investment in U.S. Continues to Grow 38 He Teaches Birds 40

by Patricia Marshall

Denver: City with a Past

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by Marshall Sprague Front cover Artist Ted Zeigler's impression of "The Territorial Imperative," which is examined on pp. 21-27

by Robert Ardrey. He concludes that man's love of the land stems from his instinct for survival.

Back cover "Girl With Books" by Frank Gallo is evidence of the ever-growing use of plastics by contemporary sculptors and painters. Several other uses of this versatile material are illustrated on pp. 2-7.

Editorial Staff: Carmen Kagal, Avinash Pasricha, Nirmal K. Sharma, Krishan G. Gabrani, Austen Nazareth. Art Staff: B. Roy Chowdhury, Nand K. Katyal, Kanti Roy, Kuldip Singh Jus, Gopi Gajwani. Production Staff: Awtar S. Marwaha, Mammen Philip. Photographic Services: USIS Photo Lab. Published by the United States Information Service, Bahawalpur House, Sikandra Road, New Delhi, on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. Printed by Arun K. Mehta at Vakil & Sons Private Limited, Vakils House, Sprott Road, 18 Ballard Estate, Bombay-!.

Manuscripts and photographs sent for publication must be accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelope for return. SPAN is not responsible for any loss in transit. Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged except when they are copyrighted. For details, write to the Editor, SPAN. Subscription: One year, rupees five; single copy, fifty paise. Inasmuch as we are currently oversubscribed for SPAN, we regret that it will not be possible to accept any more subscriptions for the time being. For change of address, send old address from a recent SPAN envelope along with new address to A.K. Mitra, Circulation Manager. Allow six weeks for change of address to become effective.

A house. Furniture. Hose pipes. Shoes. You name it-and the chances are that it can be produced in plastic. So many are the uses to which plastics are being put today that they are invading every sphere oflife. Take this stunning display of contemporary classics-proof that a modern home could be completely furnished with plastics. The see-through quality of some of these pieces is achieved by the use of acrylic, a strong rigid plastic marketed under the trade names Plexiglas and Lucite.

1. Grandfather clock of smoked and clear Plexiglas. 2. Inflatable endtable of clear and opaque vinyl. 3. White and smoked sculpture stand.

4. Table lamp with acrylic base, opaque vinyl shade. 5. kight with "fountain" of plastic fibres. 6. See-through game table of heavy plastic. 7. Lucite table lamp on Plexiglas stack cubes. 8. Transparent statuary pedestal. 9. Floor lamp with clear pedestal, opaque shade.

10. Table with black Formica top, transparent base. 11. Clear acrylic bookcase. 12. Heat-formed chair of Plexiglas. 13. Lamp of clear and opaque acrylic. 14. Cartridge roll chair of moulded Plexiglas. 15.

Opaque floor lamp. 16. Transparent acrylic chair, vinyl upholstering.

17. Moulded see-through chair. 18. Coffee table and magazine rack of clear and tinted acrylic. 19. Inflatable hassock-stool of vinyl. 20. Heatformed footstool of Plexiglas. 21. Inflatable pinwheel vinyl hassock.

22. Square Plexiglas lamp. 23. Transparent table wil h circle cutouts.

FROM BilliARD BALLSTO SPACE STATIONS THAS BEEN over a century since John Wesley Hyatt, seeking a synthetic billiard ball, created the modem plastics industry. Now, 103 years later, the plastics chemist has realized the dream of the mediaeval alchemist. Taking such common materials as coal, petroleum-even water-he can, with a wave of his test tube, produce new miracle materials that look like gold but cost far less. Or he can produce other materials as hard as steel or as soft as silk, bendable or carvable, weavable or pourable, breakable or durable, to brighten our homes and offices, make our lives more comfortable and our work lighter.

Indeed, the American plastics industry has grown so sensationally in the last century that plastics usage threatens to pass steel early in this decade. By 1980 it may have surpassed all other materials comhined.

The first human foot to touch the moon was shod in a plastic boot and descended a plastic ladder. Without plastics we not only would have no space programme, we would have no airplanes either. And future astronauts may well circle the earth in plastic space stations.

Plastics are as old as the first green plant to grow on earth. Cellulose is manufactured by the cells of every plant. The ancient Egyptians had used resin, a natural plastic, in their still-secret embalming formulas, and early potters were plastics engineers of a sort when they moulded and heated clay to transform it into rigid vessels. But the first synthetic plastic was born in 1868 when the dwindling supply of elephant tusks threatened the billiard-ball industry and Hyatt, a New York printer, entered the competition to find a substitute.

Accidentally spilling some collodion (nitrocellulose in ether or alcohol), which was used at that time as a liquid bandage, he noticed that

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it solidified in air and he began experimenting with it. When he blended it with solid camphor-eureka!he had his billiard ball. Hyatt called the new substance Celluloid, and it quickly became popular for wipeclean shirt collars, denture plates and eyeglass frames, and even led to the invention of the movie film.

The plastics industry was born.

French and Swiss chemists followed with the discoveries of rayon and cellophane, but it wasn't until 1909 that the first completely synthetic resin was produced. Leo Hendrik Baekeland, a Belgian-born American, seeking a better varnish, mixed phenol and formaldehyde, which combined to form a sticky black substance. He was about to throw it out in disgust when Richard Seabury, a rubber manufacturer, discovered that it could be moulded.

Mixing it with asbestos, Seabury produced what today we call Bakelite, the familiar material used in telephones, pot handles, pipe stems and insulating material.

In the 1930s, industry discovered how to produce Fiberglas commercially by melting glass marbles and spinning them into strands (153 kilometres from a single marble !). The result is a thread finer than human hair yet stronger than steel. It won't burn, stretch, fade, rot, wrinkle or soil and is widely used today for everything from boat hulls to vaulters' poles. orld War II shortages spurred the industry. Polyester resins, strong yet lightweight, were used for airplane petrol tanks: If struck by bullets they quickly resealed themselves. Other wartime chemists came up with polyethylene, a thin, opaque, flexible electrical insulator that made possible the miracles of radar and television.

And now the Space Age has spurred the plastics industry on to even newer miracles. Spacemen wear suits of nylon to protect them from the extreme high temperatures of the

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moon day. Beneath that is a layer of "Dacron," the familiar wash-andwear material worn by earthmen.

The suits are coated with Teflon (tetrafluoroethylene)-the same Teflon that keeps eggs from sticking to earthbound frying pans, though on the moon it wards off everything from extreme temperatures to micrometeoroids. The Lunar Module's front porch is plastic, so is its ladder-even the flag left on the moon is plastic.

In the hospital, doctors are turning to plastics for everything from hypodermic needles to new hearts.

Specialists are presently working on a plastic auxiliary ventricle as a temporary heart for heart attack victims in extreme shock. It would be made of silicone rubber (the same thing that moon walkers wear in their boots) covered with Fiberglas.

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ut of all the areas of American life, the No. I user of plastics is industry, particularly the construction and building industry. Hard plastic flooring now competes with asphalt and cement. One inch of plastic insulation can do the job of four inches of other material. It also cuts cooling and heating costs 10 per cent.

And plastics are decorative. They can be made to look like gold, silver, marble, wood or leather-and can be made much more cheaply. And miles of plastic piping now thread their way through today's modern buildings.

In furniture, of course, only the imagination limits the designer in his forms-for example, the huge, perfectly round spongy ball which one merely sits on, and sinks into, for a chair. An intricately carved piece of wood can be duplicated exactly in plastic for a tenth of the cost.

In sports, plastics have already provided grassless football fields, the so-called Astro Turf that is always green, never wears out, never needs cutting or seeding, and protects players from dangerous knee injuries.

For farmers, the plastics wizards have developed a plastic mulch which retards moisture and increases soil temperature. Strawberry farmers in Italy used it and report that their crop matured two weeks earlier.

Some day farmers may make the desert tillable by bringing water in through plastic pipes and catching the rain in plastic-lined reservoirs to prevent leakage. Farmers are already using plastic greenhouses25,000 in the United States alone.

On the highways, the average U.S. car now uses 36 kilograms of plastic, including plastic windshields, steering columns and instrument panels for safety; plastic brake linings; plastic distributor parts; and plastic petrol tanks.

Taking a look into the future, designers now predict a world in which high-speed plastic trains zip along the countryside and plastic appliances pop out of walls to clean the house, wash the clothes, make the beds and cook the meals. Yes, it sounds fantastic. But that's what plastics are.

Above right: Literally surrounded by plastic, this young lady stands in a house made by spraying polyurethane foam onto fabric draped over plastic water pipes. With Plexiglas spheres as windows, the house was part of a plastics exhibition held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Centre right: A pretty model perches on a chair made from moulded plastic. In the background is an untitled sculpture by Susan WeiI. Below right: Among the hundreds of items at the Washington exhibit were these Plexiglas finger rings.

Photos above right and centre: Tomas Sennet.

Photo right: Ben Rose, reprinted by permission of Esquire magazine. Š t969 by Esquire Incorporated.

PLASTIC T

versatile of man-made materials, plastics playa major role in Indian industry and agriculture. Because of their unique qualities and wide range of applications, they are in constant use in factories and plants, on farms, and inside homes.

Started during the '50s, the Indian plastics industry has made tremendous progress. But supply still falls far short of demand. It is estimated that it will be necessary to more than double existing production capacity during the next three years, and again to double this increased capacity in the following five years, in order to satisfy India's ever-growing plastic requirements.

Ilelping to meet this need is the polyvinyl chloride plant established by Chemicals & Plastics India Ltd. (Chemplast) at Mettur Dam, near Salem.

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is often referred to as "the material of tomorrow." A hard, tough, transparent thermoplastic resin, it is one of the fastest-growing plastics today, constituting 30 per cent of the world's total production of plastics.

The PVC plastic compound can be fabricated into rigid products such as pipes, corrugated sheets, glass-like bottles and floor tiles. Or it can be used for flexible items like cables, shower curtains, table covers, handbags and footwear. It is also used to produce stereo records.

Situated on a 120-acre site, Chemplast's Rs. 6-crore plant was established in 1967

by India Cements Ltd., Madras, and the B.F. Goodrich Company of Cleveland, Ohio. Goodrich is a pioneer in the field of plastics and synthetic rubber and the largest manufacturer of PVC in the world.

The foreign exchange cost of the project was covered by a U.S. Export-Import Bank loan of $3.15 million (Rs. 2.36 crores). A U.S. Government loan of Rs. 32.6 lakhs was provided from PL-480 funds to help meet local costs. Goodrich invested Rs. 36 lakhs and the company raised additional capital from the Indian public.

The U.S. company was associated with the Mettur plant in all phases of construction, including process engineering and design, procurement and installation of HE MOST

At the Chemplast plant, left, the PVC mix is converted into strands, then into pellets.

OF THE FUTURE machinery. Erection of the plant was supervised by both Indian and American engineers, with the engineering work directed by the Badger Company of the United States.

Plant manager P.R. Mahalingam foresees a bright future for PVC products in India. "For example," he noted, "steel production is inadequate, and substitute materials like plastic can release the steel for use in more important areas." Plastics are increasi ngly being used in place of conventional materials like iron, zinc, lead, rubber, asbestos and jute.

At the Mettur plant, Chemplast uses indigenous raw materials-mainly alcohol and chlorine-in the manufacturing processes. Chlorine was formerly disposed of as waste. The production of PVC from a chlorine-alcohol base is considered a major breakthrough and was made possible by the technical know-how provided by Goodrich.

"We exchange information on the operation of our various collaborators all over the world. This helps us to study our own performance and benefit from the experience of other Goodrich plants," said Mr. Mahalingam.

Chemplast produces mostly resins, to which other materials are added before they¡can he transformed into finished products. However, it does manufacture some end-products like pipes, fittings and conduits.

Originally started with an installed production capacity of 6,000 tons of PVC resins a year, Chemplast has set a target of 13,500 tons for 1972. Eventually the Mettur plant will reach its full licensed capacity of 20,000 tons.

Chemplast is now managed entirely

by Indian personnel, although American experts visit it periodically to provide technical advice and guidance. One recent visitor was Charles Waugaman, who came from the Cleveland plant "to help develop new compounds for the expanding Indian market. " Profiting from world-wide experience, Chemplast is contributing to the national economy in terms of import substitution, exports, and the development of ancillary products.

END The PVC compound can be fabricated into products like this attractive plastic screen.

by AM

RAJA

THE FREEDOM AND VITALITY OF AMERICAN POETRY OF THE 'SIXTIES IS ACCOMPANIED BY AN ABSENCE OF STRIDENCY, AN EASY, CONTROLLED LYRICISM, A POETIC REASONABLENESS. in the '60s offers an embarrassment of riches.

A Its quality is impressive, its variety and unity are convincing, MERICAN POETRY

and its sheer bulk formidable without being oppressive. Though there is no major poet on the scene, in the conventional sense, who dominates it and dwarfs the others, the vitality of this poetry is unquestionable. The absence of a major poet does not diminish its impact. Even the comparatively small talents of the time display an awareness of their art's resources and an attempt to explore them. Young, middle-aged or old, men or women, in the early stages of their career or continuing from the '50s, modern American poets are hardly ever stilted or sterile. They are immenselyproductive; they speak out boldly and clearly. Their confidence and seriousness are beyond dispute. Any reader, -however critical, can sense their professionalism, their typically American exuberance and determination.

The poetic situation of a decade cannot be described exclu, sivelyin terms of those who achieved recognition or prominence in that period, even less so by considering only those whose voices were first heard then. It is expedient to focus on some aspects of the scene and to define the context. An anthology published in 1962 may serve as a convenient starting point, since it reveals what things were like poetically before the decade was well under way. I refer to Contemporary American Poetry, edited by Donald Hall, which begins with William Stafford (b. 1914) and represents the verse of 25 poets, ending with Robert Mezey (b. 1935).

Everyone of these remained a part of the period with which we are concerned, though few could be called really young.

Among the oldest, Robert Lowell, Robert Duncan and Richard Wilbur attained a very special status in critical assessment, while several others commanded respect, without escaping a variety of reservations: William Stafford, Robert Bly, James Merrill, W.S. Merwin, Reed Whittemore, Louis Simpson, Robert Creeley, John Ashberry and Howard Nemerov. I venture to refer the reader to Mr. Hall's introduction to his anthology, which describes the work of these poets with precision and sympathy.

The editor of Contemporary American Poetry left out poets who had published books before 1946.This meant excluding American poets who were important for the time covered by this anthology, one of them being Karl Shapiro. He figured significantly in the poetic and critical cross-currents of the '60s. More About the Author: Poet, playwright, professor of English and author of five books of verse including The Exact Name, Nissim Ezekiel has also edited A Martin Luther King Reader and An Emerson Reader.

controversially, the editor did not make room for the Beats on the ground, as he hints, that they had failed to produce anything very substantial, despite the excitement they had created and the publicity which their lives and scandals attracted.

The Beat movement in poetry belongs to the '50s but was quite alive for at least five or six years of the following decade. I think very little Beat poetry is likely to survive. On the other hand, whatever little does survive will probably be judged as not inferior to the verse selected by Mr. Hall. It is difficult to imagine Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, to mention only two names, shut out from any truly representative anthology of twentiethcentury American poetry. Though sales cannot be mentioned as a criterion of poetic value, it is of some interest to note that the books of Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti were more in demand than those of any other American poets between 1950 and 1970. Their extensive public readings, too, were enormously popular and extended the audience for poetry in America in the way Sandburg and Lindsay had done during an earlier period. ince we have spoken of the Beats, .it may be appropriate to Srefer at this point to a group of New York poets who have something of the Beat spirit. Their work is less sensational but not less Bohemian than that of Ginsberg and his tribe. It is in an American tradition that can be traced back to Whitman. Its peculiar qualities belong to its time and place, a poetry of the utmost freedom, informality and freshness which expresses directly its own independent sensibility. No organized theory, no moral or social doctrine, no mask of reason or respectability, no imagist, symbolist or other technical imperative shapes the consciousness that secretes this verse. "You just go on your nerve," as Frank O'Hara said in 1959, a statement claimed as speaking for all the poets in An Anthology of New York Poets edited by Ron Padgett and David Shapiro (1960). I quote from a poem, "Release," by Peter Schjeldahl (b. 1942) which seems to me suggestive of the collective poetic personality evoked by the book: "My life has been tedious Confused and occasionally quite nasty And hysterical But I have never deliberately said anything Without a lot of sincerity I

My disagreements with myself are misunderstandings Counterbalanced by a numbed optimism

In addition to the editors, whose brilliant poetry in the same vein as Schjeldahl's is represented in the New York Anthology, and who are both in their twenties, there are several good poets here whose best work is well ahead of them. James Brodey, James Coravolo, Tom Clark, Lewis MacAdams-these are hardly wellknown names, but the names don't matter in this case. The poetry continued

matters. We don't know or remember the names of the Chinese poets we admire in translation: we respond to the unique Chinese traditional poetic sensibility, functioning within its culturallimitations. I feel the same way about these young New York poets.

Peter Schjeldahl ought to be, in theory, very different from the dignified and masterful poets who proliferate in the American universities. Yet, one striking feature of the poetry by the academic poets in the '60s is its marked affinity with the New York school. It is considerably less intellectual than the tradition of such poetry as exemplified by John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Yvor Winters, Randall Jarrell, the early Karl Shapiro, Robert Penn Warren, Delmore' Schwartz, Theodore Roethke, Howard Nemerov and Richard Eberhart. It prefers simplicity to complexity, loose, amiable statement to involved compactness and tension, humour to wit, love and compassion to moral severity. I quote the first stanza of a poem, "In Place of a Curse," by one of these professor-poets: "At the next vacancy for God, if I am elected, I shall forgive last the delicately wounded Who, having been slugged no harder than anyone else Never got up again, neither to fight back Nor to finger their jaws in painful admiration."

The tone and, in particular, the idiom of this suggest various reflections on a particular stream of American poetry in the '60s.

The linguistic sternness, the power-packed and thick-textured formality and the profound imagery which constitute the favoured techniques of modern American poetry are wholly absent: the rebellion against Victorian and Georgian prolixity and discursiveness is over, and its stridency is no longer necessary. What we h:;tvenow is another kind of lyricism, an easy, controlled flow, not a surrealistic eruption, nor a trance-like aesthetic dexterity but poetic reasonableness. The new professors, too, have a collective personality in the sense that they express a milieu and its culture. he finding of such sameness within two different segments of American poetry in the '60s, together with an affinity between the segments, may seem to nullify the claim that there is great poetic variety in this period. Yet the claim holds, because the poems are modern American and are therefore by definition distinctive, individual creations, with so many themes, moods, attitudes and styles that monotony and anonymity are avoided.

The American women poets of the '60s cannot be grouped together merely because they are women. I do so here partly because their poetry is often strongly feminine and also because it is a reminder of the large number of remarkable women poets America has produced: Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Amy Lowell, Elinor Wylie, Marianne Moore, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Louise Bogan, Leonie Adams, Denise Levertov, Elizabeth Bishop, Muriel Rukeyser, Josephine Miles, Adrienne Rich and Vassar Millar. I quote the first two stanzas of a poem, "Trimming the Sails," by Vassar Millar, who received the Poetry Award for 1957 and 1961:

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"I move among my pots and pans That have no life except my own.

Nor warmth save from my flesh and bone That serve my tastes and not a man.

I'm Jealous of each plate and cup, Frail symbol of my womanhood.

Creator-like, I call it good And vow I will not give it up."

Marianne Moore is of course too well known to require comment or quotation. Elizabeth Bishop's Complete Poems were published in 1969 but most of her poetry had been written 15 or 20 years before that event. The women poets of the '60s are Carolyn Kizer, Sylvia Plath (who died in 1963), Anne Sexton and May Swenson. Unlike the academics and the New York poets, these cannot be quoted for their representative quality. They are wholly individualistic and rooted in intensely personal experience.

All I need say of them, for the purposes of this survey, is that they use in their poetry their awareness of themselves as poets, as women and as Americans, with some of the permutations that accompany these roles. They sometimes rely on their womanhood and exploit its American context. A dark, dense forest of nearhysterical imagery is to be found in the verse of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, which sometimes obscures the poetry. In their best work, however, poetry triumphs. I quote part of a poem by May Swenson: "Something caught me in its net took me from the deep book of the ocean, weaned¡ me¡;: put fin and wing to sleep, made me stand and made me face the sun's dry eye.

On the shore of intellect I forgot how to fly... " And I have no space for Bly, Creeley, Dickey, Dugan, Feldman, Field, Justice, Kinnel, Holloway and many others whose contribution to the poetry of the last twenty years or so is surveyed in Richard Howard's Alone with America. Of the 41 poets discussed in that monumental work of criticism, 10 or more published their first books in the '60s and developed sufficiently to justify a critical argument about their poetry.

A keen awareness that "what can be said has been said before" does not prevent one of these young poets, David Wagoner, from striking new notes of wisdom and adventure. Starting from observations of natural phenomena, transparently imaged and lyrically brought alive, his poems move through his moral preoccupations and return to the landscape he loves. The self, though no ma,skor persona, is subdued to the dominant tone of impersonal seeking and objective vision.

In his early verse, as in his novels, Wagoner creates a few characters who are as real as those in the drama of Chekhov or the fiction of Tolstoy, though the idiom in which they exist is far from realistic. The later poetry places the poet at the centre of his enterprise which is asserted with an engaging confidence: "All our distance Has ended in the light. We climb to the light in spirals, And look, between us we have come all the way, And it never ends In the ocean, the spit and image of our guided travels.

These are called ships. We are called lovers."

END

A CRITiC ONCE DESCRIBED DAVID WAGONER AS A POET WITH "A CURIOUS, SARDONIC IMAGINATION"-A QUALITY REVEALED IN THE POEMS THAT FOLLOW. WAGONER WILL ARRIVE IN INDIA MID-OCTOBER ON A MONTH-LONG VISIT.

David

PLAINSONG FOR EVERYONE WHO WAS KILLED YESTERDAY You haven't missed anything yet: One dawn, one breakfast, and a little weather, The clamor of birds whose names You didn't know, perhaps some housework, Homework, or a quick sale.

The trees are still the same color, And the Mayor is still the mayor, and we're not Having anything unusual for lunch.

No one has kissed her yet Or slept with him. Our humdrum lives Have gone on humming and drumming Through one more morning.

But for a while, we must consider What you might have wished To do or look like. So far, Thinking of you, no one has forgotten Anything he wanted to remember.

Your death is fresh as a prize Vegetable-familiar but amazing, Admirable but not yet usefulAnd you're in a class By yourself. We don't know Quite what to make of you.

You've noticed you don't die All at once. Some people like me Still offer you our songs Because we don't know any better And because you might believe

At last whatever we sing About you, since no one else is dreaming Of singing: Remember that time When you were wrong? Well, you were right.

And here's more comfort: all fires burn out As quickly as they burn. They're over Before we know it, like accidents.

You may feel you were interrupted Rudely, cut off in the middle Of something crucial, And you may even be right Today, but tomorrow No one will think so.

Today consists of millions Of newsless current events Like the millions of sticks and stones From here to the horizon. What are you Going to miss? The calendar Is our only program.

Next week or next year Is soon enough to consider Those brief occasions you might rather Not have lost: the strange ones You might go so far As to say you could have died for: Love, for example, or all The other inflammations of the cerebral Cortex, the astounding, irreversible Moments you kept promising yourself To honor, which are as far away Now as they ever were.

The wind has twisted the roof from an old house And thrown it away, And no one's going to live there anymore.

It tempts me: Why not have weather falling in every room? .

Isn't the sky As easy to keep up as any ceiling?

Less flat and steady?

Rain is no heavier, soaking heavy heads, Than a long party.

Imagine moonlight for a chandelier, Sun through the laundry, The snow on conversation, leaves in the bed, Fog in the library, Or yourself in a bathtub hoping for the best As the clouds go by, Dressing for dinner according to what comes down And not how many.

And at night, to sit indoors would be to lose Nothing but privacy As the crossing stars took time to mark their flight Over the mind's eye.

Staying alive in the woods is a matter of calming down At first and deciding whether to wait for rescue, Trusting to others, Or simply to start walking and walking in one direction Till you come out-or something happens to stop you.

By far the safer choice Is to settle down where you are, and try to make a living Off the land, camping near water, away from shadows.

Eat no white berries; Spit out all bitterness. Shooting at anything Means hiking further and further every day To hunt survivors; It may be best to learn what you have to learn without a gun, Not killing but watching birds and animals go In and out of shelter At will. Following their example, build for a whole season: Facing across the wind in your lean-to, You may feel wilder, But nothing, not even you, will have to stay in hiding.

If you have no matches, a stick and a fire-bow Will keep you warmer, Or the crystal of your watch, filled with water, held up to the sun Will do the same in time. In case of snow Drifting toward winter, Don't try to stay awake through the night, afraid of freezingThe bottom of your mind knows all about zero; It will turn you over And shake you till you 'vVaken.If you have trouble sleeping

Even in the best of weather, jumping to follow With eyes strained to their corners The unidentifiable noises of the night and feeling Bears and packs of wolves nuzzling your elbow, Remember the trappers Who treated them indifferently and were left alone.

If you hurt yourself, no one will comfort you Or take your temperature, So stumbling, wading, and climbing are as dangerous as flying.

But if you decide, at last, you must break through In spite of all danger, Think of yourself by time and not by distance, counting Wherever you're going by how long it takes you; No other measure Will bring you safe to nightfall. Follow no streams: they run Under the ground or fall into wilder country.

Remember the stars And moss when your mind runs into circles. If it should rain Or the fog should roll the horizon in around you, Hold still for hours Or days if you must, or weeks, for seeing is believing In the wilderness. And if you find a pathway, Wheel-rut, or fence-wire, Retrace it left or right: someone knew where he was going Once upon a time, and you can follow Hopefully, somewhere, Just in case. There may even come, on some uncanny evening, A time when you're warm and dry, well fed, not thirsty, Uninjured, without fear, When nothing, either good or bad, is happening.

This is called staying alive. It's temporary.

What occurs after Is doubtful. You must always be ready for something to come bursting Through the far edge of a clearing, running toward you, Grinning from ear to ear And hoarse with welcome. Or something crossing and hovering Overhead, as light as air, like a break in the sky, Wondering what you are.

Here you are face to face with the problem of recognition.

Having no time to make smoke, too much to say, You should have a mirror With a tiny hole in the back for better aiming, for reflecting Whatever disaster you can think of, to show The way you suffer.

These body signals have universal meaning: If you are lying Flat on your back with arms outstretched behind you, You say you require Emergency treatment; if you are standing erect and holding Arms horizontal, you mean you are not ready; If you hold them over Your head, you want to be picked up. Three of anything Is a sign of distress. Mterward, if you see No ropes, no ladders, No maps or messages falling, no searchlights or trails blazing, Then, chances are, you should be prepared to burrow Deep for a deep winter.

Wagoner at a pot'try reading, left. A lover of the great outdoors,. below, the poet has a close identification with nature.

POElOSSTEW Being a pot ..pourri of memories of the writer's encounters with A merican

IT IS INEVITABLE, I suppose, that the best friends a writer has are usually other writers. It's not that all writers have the same temperament, any more than all plumbers have. But they have a vocation in common, and a vocation is completely different from a profession, even though it may become one. A plumber may blunder into his profession by accident, but it is the vocation that blunders into the writer. Words come to him like bailiffs, demanding attention and full payment from his talent; if he is lucky they leave like obedient servitors.

The wrestle with words is common to all writers, even though the words may be in different languages. Jacob, after he wrestled with the angel, would probably have been delighted to meet someone else who had done the same. Even if the other man came from a hostile tribe, they would have had an unusual (to say the least) experience in common. The experience of a writer, similarly, even though it is by its very nature Ll...tlique, is shared with other writers. Over the 15 years during which I have pursued my vocation, I have been friendly with a variety of writers, different in nationality and language.

Beyond their common fight with words, they are classifiable, as a rule, according to which country they come from. The About the Author: A well-known poet, Dom Moraes has published four volumes of verse, a book of travel, an autobiography, and articles in a number of magazines, including Span.

writers of England, my adopted country, tend to be more gossipy and relaxed than any others. The French are high-flown and metaphysical. The Russians are cynical and idealistic at the same time-a perplexing combination. The German writers are sulky and temperamental. But the Americans are an exception. Perhaps because they are so diverse, their ancestral roots pulled up from so many different soils, they are utterly unclassifiable.

I was already at Oxford when I befriended my first American writers. At that time, in 1959, the poets Richard Aldridge and Kenneth Pitchford, and the novelists Reynolds Price and Jonathan Kozal. were all up at the UniverSIty. I didn't know the novelists particularly well, but I did know the poets. The literary milieu at Oxford then was typical of the literary milieu that has existed there always. Our year produced some of the best young writers of contemporary British fiction and poetry: Julian Mitchell, David Pryce-Jones, Peter Levi, S.J., and John Fuller. ll of us were to be professionals, but we all persisted in a pose of being amateurs. This was partly through an English shyness, which should not really have a place in the make-up of a writer. We gossiped a great deal, but though we met nearly every day we never spoke of our own work to each other. When we talked of literature, we only did so to condemn the latest books by established writers. The

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same thing goes on in Oxford today, except that now the established writers are us. The Americans, however, introduced a new quality into university writing. hey had all previously been at'American universities, and were therefore slightly older than us. They had all been published widely, and already thought of themselves as professional writers. They would read their poems and stories aloud to us, and insist that we criticize them. Even worse, they insisted that we should do the same, and then-a far cry from the mild adulation we gave each other-they would dower us with detailed criticism which we didn't want. Looking back, I think this criticism, imposed upon us though it was, was of immense value to us all.

However, we could not fail to take a certain malicious pleasure in the fate that once befell Ken Pitchford. Pitchford, a gifted poet, was very amenable to the influence of atmosphere. Thus, after some time spent in London, he returned to the University with a bowler hat, a pin-stripe suit, and an umbrella. A holiday on the Left Bank in Paris produced even more dramatic results. Pitchford came back unprepossessingly adorned with a beret and a Hemingway-type beard. It was a change of which all of us heartily disapproved, . but Pitchford wouldn't listen.

He was in the habit of constantly reciting his latest compositions to anyone who was around. At night, when nobody was

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around, he tended to walk in the deer park at Magdalen, and recite them aloud to himself. He was,thus occupied one night when the sound of his voice disturbed an owl. The bird swooped down on Pitchford, and tore away half his beard with its claws. He appeared next day, much scarred and anxious Jor sympathy, and was very annoyed when Peter Levi told him that the owl, accoJding to the Greeks, is the bird of Minerva, and hence one of the guardians of poetry. tilI, Pitchford was a great influence on us. Even more qf an influence were some older American poets who were at the University at that time. Wystan Auden was Professor of Poetry, but 1 hesitate to describe him as an American poet, despite his nationality. For as he himself has said, there exists today so complete a split in the pitch and pace and vocabulary of the English spoken in England and the English spoken in the United States that they can be considered as two different though related languages. Auden, though he overlays his Oxford accent with flat American a's, is a very English poet.

Similarly Eliot, whom 1 also knew, though he retained a Boston accent throughout his 50 years of residence in England, was more in an English and classicist than in the American and romantic tradition. But at the University in our time was the great American poet and critic, Allen Tate. He was a small, dryly witty man in his 60s, with a midget moustache which he often caressed, lips twitching in an ironic smile. The slow drawl of Kentucky was in his voice. He fascinated us all with stories of his dead friend, the poet Hart Crane, and of Laura Riding and John Crowe Ransom.

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t this time Julian Mitchell and 1 used

A to throw lunch parties every Sunday.

Julian and I each did the cooking for alternate parties, and when Allen first came to lunch it was one of my days. My repertoire was not what Ctle would call varied.

Indeed, I only ever cooked one dish, which I had invented myself, and though this article is not supposed to be on food, I cannot resist appending the recipe. It has not been immortalized anywhere else and, since it was exceedingly delicious, I feel that it should be. For the purposes of nomenclature, it was called Poet's Stew.

The ingredients for 10 people were: 6 lb. of chopped veal (or any other meat), one

pint cream, one pound butter, one bottle dry white wine (I used a Montrachet), one pound fresh asparagus, one tin of artichoke hearts, one pound of seeded green grapes, half a cup grated cheese, quantities of crushed garlic, sea salt, black pepper, peppercorns, thyme, mint, and bay leaves, and roughly a quarter of a bottle of Benedictine. Melt the butter in a large casserole, then put in all the ingredients except the cream and the liqueur. When the meat has simmered to tenderness, and the stock has reduced by half, add the cream. Stir in the cream, and leave the whole thing to simmer for about 15 minutes more. Counting these 15 minutes, the entire process should take around three hours. Set the brandy on fire, and pour it over the stew.

Sprinkle with fresh parsley, then serve. dish, and when, Thisafterwasthreea demanding hours of sweat and oaths, I had it done, I sprinkled the parsley and served. Tate then said he'd forgotten to tell us that he had stomach ulcers and could eat nothing but boiled eggs. It was Sunday, the shops were shut, and there were no eggs in the flat. The lunch was a disaster.

This, however, was the only occasion on which Tate was anything but helpful to us.

He gave me some of the finest advice 1 have ever had, both on life and literature.

1 once asked him if he thought 1 would develop a lot as a poet. Tate fingered his moustache with his small dry smile. "You are much too intelligent a person to ask that," he said. "It's the kind of question an amateur would ask, some young woman dabbling delicately in every branch of the arts. But you're a professional. You have to answer these questions in your own work. You don't have to ask anyone else."

Some time later, I showed him a new poem which included the lines, "We lay together in the mist/On clods the colour of wet bread." Tate said, "Firstly, wet bread has no real colour. Secondly, you seem to have no consideration whatever for your lady friend. Couldn't you find somewhere more comfortable for the poor girl-if not the nearest hotel, then at least a dry macadam road?" Later in the same poem came the phrase "as blinding as a mist of tears." His reaction to this was purely physical. He closed his eyes, and pressed his hands to his head as though in intense pain.

The virtue of his criticism was that he made one so intensely, professionally aware not only that a piece of work was

defective, but why it was defective. His mind was hard, trained, and alert, an example to any very young man. When I asked Tate for advice he always said something that was intelligent and practical.

When I once, in considerable personal difficulty, asked an elderly English writer for advice, he replied, "What advice can anyone give a young poet? Go, suffer and sing." I didn't think this was very helpful. nother notable visitor to the University was the late Robert Frost. He arrived trailed by a Life photographer and his granddaughter accompanied him as well. Nevill Coghill, then Professor of English at Merton, threw a party for him.

All the young literati were asked, or anyway came. I was clutching a drink in a corner when Frost's granddaughter came up. "Gee," she said, "these parties are hell, huh? Always full of eggheads. You know what I mean? Writers and poets and people like that. And my grandfather can't stand eggheads. He says writers and poets make him sick."

This remark lingered disquietingly in my memory when, later, I was introduced to Frost. He was very kind and affable, however, though he had recently had a stroke, and the left side of his face was twisted and paralysed. He assumed, to my dismay, that 1 must be a close friend of his own old friend Tagore, who had died when 1 was three years old. But despite the occasional obscurity of his conversation-at this time he was over 80-1 sensed in him the same tough and hard-bitten clarity of purpose I had found in Tate. I started to feel this was the distinguishing characteristic of American writers.

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ut, as I have already said, a distinguishBing characteristic is one thing American writers as a species do not have. I discovered this shortly after I met Frost, when in a Paris bar I was introduced to two leading Beat poets, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. Ginsberg had not then acquired the quantity of foliage which nowadays conceals his face from the world.

He was thin, intense, bespectacled, and as a rule very silent. Corso was like a small satyr, with curly black hair above a broad, mobile face that veered constantly between depression and elation.

On the first occasion that we met, Ginsberg described to me a vision he said he had had in his room in Harlem. According to him, the spectre of William Blake had continued

come in and told him that he was a great poet. I inquired what clothes Blake had worn to this meeting. "Like he was in a toga, man," Ginsberg said. "Like all the people wore in those days." Though not convinced by this, I liked them, and offered to arrange for them to read their poems at Oxford. Later, I met them at Paddington station, and we took the train to Oxford.

As soon as we were established in a compartment, both Ginsberg and Corso rolled and lit marijuana cigarettes. I implored them to desist, since the ticket collector would be along soon. They wouldn't, and when the ticket collector did come, he sniffed the air suspiciously. "Funny smell here," he said. Frantically, I riposted, "These gentlemen are Americans. They're smoking American cigarettes." Corso said, "Yeah, these cigarettes are the most popular ones in America now. Try one." To my horror the ticket collector accepted, and went off puffing thoughtfully.

Their first reading in Oxford was at my own college.

Shelley. They wanted Theto seeBeatsthe idolized rooms he had occupied at U niversity College, though neither I nor anybody at the University had any idea where Shelley's rooms had been. The Beats, however, were not to be denied. After an hour of walking round and round the college, I gave up. Pointing to the nearest doorway, I said, "Shelley lived there." The Beats burst in, threw themselves on the floor and began crawling round the carpet, kissing it reverently as they did so. The occupant of the rooms, who had been engaged in brewing tea, stood with the kettle in his hand, watching them with an expression of catatonic shock.

American writers, as I have said before, are less identifiable as a group than British or French writers. But they are identifiably different from other writers. It's impossible to say a writer is American by his style, but you can tell it by the feel of his work.

Sometimes American writing is traditional, sometimes experimental, but its nativity is obvious. British experimental writing, for instance, which is influenced by Americans, is always second-hand and unreal. The American original, even if one doesn't like it, is real always, first-hand as a news report, recognizable as handwriting.

Left, clockwise from bottom: Dom Moraes, Allen Tate, Allen Ginsberg, T.S. Eliot, Rohert Frost, and Wystan Hugh Auden.

Americans also differ from most other writers in their social behaviour. I remember a literary party at the Dorchester which came to an abrupt end when Norman Mailer and Gregory Corso came to blows over some imagined insult proffered by one to the other. British writers do not usually do that sort of thing. When they do, it is something which is talked about for months thereafter. But both Mailer and Corso, when they were eventually separated, seemed a little perplexed by all the fuss. The British writers present were delighted. There is a lot of rapport, really, between the Americans and us. annoys British writers about their WhatAmerican colleagues is usually a certain intellectual pretentiousness, an absence of humour. But even that has its charm.

Theodore Roethke, that very fine American poet, now dead, was guest of honour at a party in London when an Irish poet staggered up to Mrs. Roethke, and, trying to embarrass her, asked, "What's it like to be married to the greatest poet in the world?" Mrs. Roethke, having thought deeply, said in all seriousness, and in sainted simplicity, "It is a very great responsibility." The Irishman, utterly taken aback, staggered off once more.

But even that party ended well. David Wright, a South African poet who is completely deaf, Ted Roethke and myself formed a quorum that did not dissolve till 4 a.m. At that hour, we were later told, Wright and I were sitting on the floor with our arms round each other. Roethke was lying on the floor with his head in Wright's lap. Wright, beating time with one hand on Roethke's bald patch, was singing a song which he alleged he had learnt at deaf school, the refrain of which was, "We are deaf, we are deaf, we are deaf together." At that point of time, it is quite likely that we were.

I have forgotten the moral of this story, except that, to end, like Mr. Eliot, where I began, writers have a natural affinity for each other which transcends national frontiers. Liquor, though it may be a help, is not an essential for the creation of this affinity. After all, there were we, a man born in South Africa, a man born in America of German parents, and a man born in India, all together in a room in England, and all in what could be called close spiritual harmony. I do not think the concept of international solidarity could really go very much further.

END

'OOOITay

BOY

Outside the hours he spends in school or on farm chores, Jim savours the pleasures of growing up in the country.

He fords creeks, above; scans the out-of-doors with his telescope, left; romps with a frisky calf, below: and relaxes contentedly under the friendly eye of his dog Teddy, right.

To YOUNG Jim Price, 100 years is not so long ago. Much of what he does for fun and adventure on his father's Wisconsin dairy farm is exactly what his ancestors did when they first came from Wales to settle this land in 1867. There are the same wide, rapid creeks to ford, gently sloping hills to explore, and strong sense of belonging that few city children ever experience. Jim is the youngest in his family, and like the Price men before him, he is learning to make the land grow and the animals prosper. But between his farm chores and the hours spent in school, Jim is left to

seek his own special kind of experiences.

Just as a child in town explores the streets and shops that mark his place, Jim appreciates the soft pastureland beneath his feet, watches the cedars grow in the uplands and eyes the Guernsey cows grazing in the fields. What the future holds for him, hedoes not know. But what the past has brought him, he loves with the full capacity of his J 2 maturing years. The first $20 note that Jim Price ever earned, he didn't want. It was payment for a bull calf he had raised and his father made him sell when auction time came around. SeIling his pet animal was a heart-tugging

experience for the young farm boy.

In his growing years, Jim spends nearly as much time tending animals as he does being around people. His constant companion is his dog Teddy, an amiable mixture of collie and German shepherd.

Others under his care are a coterie of cats, kittens, nursing calves, and show calves that he trains himself. He has had a string of five so far, each carefully prepared for the big day of showing at the summer state fair. Jim explains: "You have to groom them, brush them a lot of times and bathe them. And if their hair sticks up, you have to use some hairdressing. Every day,

Increasingly, the world comes to the Price family farm. Homelands of recent visitors have included India.

Below: with his parents at the state fair, where Jim Price and his show CG((, Dora, won awards. At right, Jim practises basketball.

Monday through Saturday, you have to lead them around a half-hour at a time. You have to train them to take their time and walk graceful, teach them to stop when you put your hand on their shoulder, make them stand straight with front feet even."

For both boy and calf, such decorum is hard to maintain during training sessions.

Besides his animals, Jim enjoys running the family tractor, studying the out-ofdoors through his telescope, and playing basketball behind the big yellow barn. Says ~--~

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family turned out to cheer for Jim's calf, Dora, who was going to be shown to the judges. They were rewarded when Dora, nervous at first, settled down to win a blue ribbon and Jim won one for showmanship. That evening, they strolled through the amusement centre at the fair to celebrate the end of a successful day.

The fundamental routines of the Price family have not changed much since the days of great-great-grandfather Price.

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neighbours and their church, where they often get together for outdoor picnic sup~ pel's. For Jim, each day brings chores. But

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milking is now automated, conservation preserves the land, and breeding of cattle is scientifically regulated. Jim's mother sees other changes: "There's less isolation now.

The world comes to the farm-not just the milk hauler, the cattle buyer and the inseminator, but school groups, Peace Corps trainees and everybody imaginable. We have had a week-end visitor from Egypt and a dinner guest from India."

At the local school, Jim is getting a good education. Still, it is the time not measured rii' nzrii'ures or flOUrs tliat a

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turning loose his imagination that will make Jim into the kind of man he beWhatever he decides to do. his

Robert Ardrey studied natural sciences at ' than had been traditionally believed. In The the University of Chicago before going on Territorial Imperative, Ardrey, leaning on to establish himself as a playwright and the work of such scientists as Konrad Lorenz screenwriter. Some years ago, he returned and Niko Tinbergen, advances the thesis to his first love and has since generated that man's relationship to territory is deepconsiderable thought and controversy in the rooted in his biological past. In the first sciences dealing with what makes man be- chapter of his book, which is excerpted have as he does. His first book in this field, here, Ardrey begins to lay the foundation African Genesis, publicized new findings in of his thesis by skipping, as he says, ÂŤlike anthropology which suggested that man is a water bug across the surface of the new descendedfrom a more aggressive forebear biology's still, deep pools."

The territorial imperative ofterntory as a genetically determined form of behaviour in many species is today accepted beyond question in the bio~ logical sciences.But so recently have our observations been made and our conclusionsformed that we have yet to ex-. plore the implications of territory in our estimates of man. Is Homo sapiens a territorial species?

Do we stake out property, chase off trespassers, defend our countries because we are sapient, or because we are animals?

Because we choose, or because we must?

Do certain laws of territorial behaviour apply as rigorously in the affairs of men as in the affairs of chipmunks? That is the principal concern of this inquiry, and it is a matter of considerable concern, I believe, to any valid understanding of our nature. But it is a problem to be weighed in terms of present knowledge, not past.

If, as I believe, a man's innumerable territorial expressions are human responses to an imperative lying with equal force on mockingbirds and men, then human selfestimate is due for radical revision. We acknowledge a few such almighty forces, but very few: the will survive; the HE CONCEPT

to

continued

Excerpt Robert Ardrey.

Sons &

from The Territorial Imperative by Ardrey. Copyright Š 1966 by -Robert Used by permission of William Collins, Company Ltd.

sexual impulse; the tie, perhaps, between mother and infant. It has been our inadequate knowledge of the natural world, I suggest, that has led us to look no further.

And it may come to us as the strangest of thoughts that the bond between a man and the soil he 'Yalks on should be more powerful than his bond with the woman he sleeps with. Even so, in a rough, preliminary way we may test the supposition with a single question: How many men have you known of, in your lifetime, who died for their country? And how many for a woman?

ny force which may command us to act in opposition to the will to survive is a force to be inspected, at such a moment of history as ours, with the benefit of other than obsolete information. That I believe this force to be a portion of our evolutionary nature, a behaviour pattern of such survival value to the emerging human being that it became fixed in our genetic endowment, just as the shape of our feet and the musculature of our buttocks became fixed, is the premise of this inquiry. Even as that behaviour pattern called sex evolved in many organisms as nature's most effective answer to the problem of reproduction, so that behaviour pattern called territory evolved in many organis'ms as a kind of defence mechanism, as nature's

most effective answer to a variety of problems of survival.

I regard,the territorial imperative as no less essential to' the existence 6f contemporaryman than it was to those bands of small-brained proto-men on the high African savannah millions of years ago. I see it as a force shaping our lives in countless unexpected ways, threatening our existence only to the degree that we fail to understand it. We can neither accept nor reject my premise, however, or even begin to explore its consequences, on any basis other than science's new knowledge of the animal in a state of nature. Before we inspect the behaviour of the animal, let us inspect the behaviour of that equally intriguing being, the scientist.

A bird does not fly because it has wings; it has wings because it flies.

Such a statement may seem, from a variety of viewpoints, to be a triumph of obviousness, of absurdity, or of unimportance. But reflect' on it for a moment and something in the statement will begin to nag at you. Just what is the relationship 0f body to behaviour? Do we think because we have brains, or do we have brains because we think? It may not matter too :much if you are late for an appointment and trying to catch a taxi on a rainy afternoon. But it has mattered mightily to evolutionary thought in the past 30 years, and it must matter to us.

In this period during which most of us have had our minds on other things, three questions have disturbed not a few scientific disciplines. What is the relationship of behaviour to body-of how we act to what we act with? What is the relationship of learning to instinct-of what we acquire in the experience of a lifetime to what we were born with, assuming that we were born with anything?

And, finally, what is the dominant influence in our daily lives: the compulsions of our immediate environment or the inner dictates of our evolutionary past? The last two might be considered re-phrasings of the same question, but they db not come out quite that way. In any event, each of these three questions concerning the roles of behaviour, of instinct, and of heredity on the evolutionary stage has received a giant body of inquiry in our time; each has induced giant cases of apoplexy in its more dedicated partisans; and each not only is central to our newer concepts of evolution but is essential to any approach to our story of territory. And while it is true that the qliestion of instinct and learning is most sharply related to conclusions which we may draw concerning man, let us turn first to the question of body and behaviour as more nearly settled and withdrawn from the field of controversy.

hat truly leads the evolutionary procession is behaviour. Let us say that some tiny . rodent species has lived for a million years deep in the shelter and the succulence of a prevailing grassland. Then comes a change of climate. For decade after decade and for century after century remorseless drought burns away the grasses and reduces the land to unending desert. The little rodent must change his entire way of life or perish. He must eat new foods and discover, 'perhaps, a means of hoarding and storing what in his meadows had never suffered scarcity. Through hundreds of generations of selection, those who hoard tend to raise offspring successfully, those who live for today tend to fail. A hoarding behaviour pattern becomes established, and with it arises a necessity for storage places. The little rodent must dig. And with his new burrowing way comes selective pressure to favour those who by chance have paws best adapted to digging, coats best adapted to underground life.

The dainty-footed, soft-coated meadowdweller becomes a brand-new species; rough-coated, heavy of paw and claw.

Rodent and burrow have become one.

A way of life impossible in the meadow's tightly rooted land has encouraged such changes of body and bodily process that he can never return to his former way. The burrow is his castle, his exclusive domain, and he will permit none of his kind to come near it. Even at the risk of exposing himself to the hawk, he will chase away any intruder who either through designs on his burrow or by simple accident comes near.

This new territorial pattern of behaviour may have bodily consequences, too, one day. Through the infinite span of generations, chance will present one little rodent or another with a special pungency of urine or faecal matter, or a gland with a particularly lasting secretion. Within the

species a differential rate of survival will be set up. Those old-fashioned members who lack means of warning and who must chase away every intruder will have one set of odds with the watchful hawk.

But for the new sort, the smelly sort, the sort who on their territorial boundaries may substitute warning signals for their vulnerable selves, a more favour- Our brain; through its enlargement, may able mathematics will invest the desert. have achieved a qualitative breakthrough And a more invulnerable species will as- into spheres of activity which neither the semble its genes. australopithecjne nor his Miocene ancesIt has been demonstrated that the hu- tor, the Proconsul family, could have man brain came into existence like any within their limitations foreseen. But to .' other evolving structure-like the night .deny the formative influences of an animal heron's lovely bluish crest or the wolf's past on our human mentality is to deny less lovely scentglands~the more ad- all present understanding of the evoequately to deal with pre-existing be- lutionary process. We may, with or withhavioural demands or opportunities. Are out happiness, accept such a denial, as a we, then, to conclude that those earlier portion of our children's education. We modes of proto-human behaviour have had cannot, however, in such an adult inquiry no hand in shaping our brain's form and as this, accept the probability that those structure? That the behavioural patterns animal patterns of behaviour which have which were so essential to survival half-a- shaped our minds have entirely vanished million or so years ago, and which forced from our being. the enlargement of our brains to their present dimension and complexity, left no mark upon them? Without doubt the enlarged human brain, with its capacities for memory, for foresight, for self-aware. ness, for conceptmil thought, brought something new to the natural world which had existed previously merely as hints. But if our brain exists as something new in an old, old world, it remains likewise something quite old in a new one.

he anatomical arrangements of the human brain recall its behavioural necessities at ~he time of the brain's final enlargement some hundreds of thousands of years ago. If we are to believe otherwise, then we must deny that the form of a hummingbird's wing has been adjusted, through selective pressure, to other than its function in flight.

hat in the actions of any individual, man or other animal, can be attributedto instinct? What to learning? The question, stated or unstated, lies at the heart of some of our most heated controversies. It is difficult to discuss any contemporary issue~rime or race, techniques of education, aid to underdeveloped countries, or ways to bring up baby-without finding oneself in the presence, sooner or later, of this ambiguous monster which seems always proceeding in two opposite directions at once. In many a parlour of contemporary discussion the word instinct is banned more severely than some of its fellows boasting only four letters. To such subjective depths has an essentially objective problem been reduced that Abraham Maslow, the astute chairman of Brandeis University's psychology department, has suggested a political explanation. To refer to human instincts is to damn oneself as a reactionary, probably of the most fascist-minded sort. Total devotion to learning, on the other hand, is to

label oneself as liberal, progressive, securely democratic. . Did we reject instinct because we could not understand 'it? The human mind is capable of its own wonders, and this may in some cases have been true. On the whole, however, I believe that the rejection carne about through more reasonable processes.

The kind of instinct observed in the insect world-a total programming. in which learning plays no"part-occurs rarely in the world of the vertebrate, and never in the world of man. If one's understanding of the word is limited to insect example, then one is apt to reject instinct as a factor in human motivation.

The great rejection took place in the 1920s, headed in America by a scientific cult, brief of glory, called behaviourism.

J.B. Watson, treading hard on the heels of Pavlov's salivating dog, demonstrated that the human being consists of nothing but a few striped muscles and some conditioned reflexes, Today, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his earlier but equally extreme views concerning the natural goodness of IIlan, Watson musters few defenders. Both, nevertheless, left deep scars on the face of human thought. The primacy of the conditioned reflex contributed lasting damage to American psychology and, like some great wave which gathers fury and greater destructive power the farther it moves from the storm centre, brought to other departments of American learning devastation typical of a disaster area. We do not know -we Americans-how unquestioning is our devotion to the conditioned reflex as we search for human explanations. In but one other nation, the Soviet Union, can one witness a dedication so profound and so unanimous.

It was in the 1920s" then, that we rejected instinct and the demands of the past as of any great relevance to, human behaviour and turned to the immediate present and that conditioned reflex called experience for all final answers as to why men today are the way they are, or as to what they will be tomorrow. Our premature conclusions concerning animal instinct had been drawn from the termitary, the beehive, the ant-hill. Not until the following decade would biology's focus' shift to the vertebrate. (continued)

thology is a new science, pioneered by Austria's Konrad Lorenz and Holland's Niko Tinbergen in the 1930s. Some of its leading contributors today are Americans, but its work is best known in Europe.

In its short career ethology has touched many a facet of the central problem of instinct. The one to engage us at this moment, however, is the reality of inherited, genetically determined behaviour based on open as well as closed programmes. The larva of the Capricorn beetle may execute his entire life cycle instructed by none but his inward computer. The weaver bird may build his most complex of nests after four generations of removal from nestbuilding materials or opportunities. These are closed patterns to which nothing need be added by experience to serve perfectly the needs of the species....

When we discuss behaviour patterns, such as the territorial, we deal with open programmes of instinct. The disposition to possess a territory is innate. The command to defend it is likewise innate. But its position and borders will be learned.

And if one shares it with a mate or a group, one learns likewise whom to tolerate, whom to expel. To the human eye all herring gulls look alike. The male herring gull, however, will allow none on his little territory but his mate, and he will rec" ognize her coming 45 metres away in a crowded colony of thousands.

This capacity to fib out with learning a behavioural pattern of innate design seems in itself somehow to be related to instinct.

It is not simple experience, for example, that teaches an animal territorial boundaries which he will cross at his peri!. Eskimo dogs in east Greenland live in packs, each pack defending rigorously a social territory. At an early stage of his career, the Dutch scientist Niko Tinbergen observed that immature males wander about, violating boundaries and continually taking severe punishment in consequence. Yet they seem unable to learn, despite the most bitter experience, where to go and where not to. Then, however, they mature sexually and immediately learn all boundaries.

Tinbergen recorded two cases in which first copulation, first territorial defence, and first avoidance of the next pack's territory all occurred in the course of one week.

The open instinct, a combination in varying portion of genetic design and relevant experience, is the common sort in all higher animal forms. As, beginning with the digger wasp, we proceed higher and higher in the animal orders, the closed instinct all but vanishes, the open instinct incorporates more and more a learned portion. In man it reaches a maximum of learning, a minimum of design. The same pattern, filled out by a thousand different tracks of experience by a thousand different men, yields a richness which has made man, in a famous phrase, the most variable of all wild species. And we may understand why natural selection has permitted man, at least temporarily, to come out on top: in human behaviour those patterns common to the animate world have been permitted the widest latitude of adaptation to circumstance. We retain genetic resolve while obtaining the diversity of experience. But what the sophisticated man in our time tends to ignore is that, no matter how open the instinct, no matter how much learning is incorporated into the completed pattern, the total influence on individual behaviour will proceed with very nearly the form of a closed programme directing an insect in the heart of an oak. It remains an instinct.

There are many American psychologists, such as Harry Harlow, J.B. Calhoun and Jay Boyd Best, deeply engaged in laboratory study of the relation of instinct to learning. In general, however, American psychologists pursue their studies of learning almost as if instinct did not exist, while on the Continent ethology observes the behaviour patterns of animals in the wild, with rare excursions into the problems of learning. Beyond some shining exceptions, neither side is well informed as to what the other side is up to. And without exception whatsoever, none has found the secret link between organism and -orgaoization, between body and behaviour. It is a widely held hope, however, that the infant science

of molecular biology will bring us suggestions that both learning and instinct, like 'the genetic code itself, may be based on the molecule within the cell. Then at least we shall have some fresh hypotheses to work with, whereas now we have only spooks.

Under the conditions of present scientific ignorance, one cannot blame too severely the student of man who tends to place instinct somewhere between the angels of mediaeval schoolmen and the heads of the pins they danced on. Nevertheless, instinct exists and we cannot dismiss it from our doorstep just because we do not know where it lives.

Briefly we skip likea water bug across the surface of the new biology's still, deep pools.

We may say that behaviour-the frame of possibilities available to any animal's actions-is as characteristic of species and subspecies as is length of claw or shape of shoulder-bone. Body and behaviour form an organic' unit, subject within a species to normal variation in individuals and populations, which will be tested in the field of worth by natural selection.

seen that instinct-the genetically-determined pattern which informs an animal as to how to act in a given situation-has tended in the evolution of vertebrates to become increasingly of an open sort. As ways of life have become more complex, it has become of selective value to support instincts which make use of experience and learning. One can no more say that the kind of instinct motivating man is qualitatively different from the kind of instinct motivating higher animals than one can inspect the fossil record of the gradual human emergence and say: Here, here at, this anatomical moment" animals ended and men began.

ow finally we come to the general problem of heredity and environment. And my best advice is to refresh one's drink, sit deep in one's chair, and hold fast. It is at this dangerous corner that the natural and social sciences collide.

In America, and to a lesser degree elsewhere, the dominant school of thought in the study of man for the last 30 years has been cultural anthropology. It was founded

by Franz Boas and a brilliant group of students at Columbia University. One of those students was Margaret Mead, today our most distinguished anthropologist, and in a recent work she has described her field more concisely and more persuasively than can I: In the central' concept of culture as it was developed by Boas and his students, human beings were viewed as dependent neither on instinct nor on genetically transmitted specific capabilities but on learned ways of life that accumulated slowly through endless borrowing, re-adaptation, and innovation. . . . The vast panorama which Boas sketched out in 1932in his discussion of the aims of anthropological research is still the heritage of American anthropology.

I mentioned in the last section that Watson and his striped muscles did not last long in psychology and would find, like Rousseau, few defenders today, but that the work of the behaviourists brought lasting effects on other areas of thought.

It was Watson who reduced the human endowment to two instinctive fears: of falling and. of loud noises. Perhaps we should regard it as less than surprising that cultural anthropology leans with various degrees of frankness on the work of the other rejected master and tends at least

implicitly to accept Rousseau's concept of original goodness. In a book published in 1962, The Humanization of Man, M.F. Ashley Montagu, another one-time student of Boas, is both frank and explicit: "Evil is not inherent in human nature, it is learned ....

Aggressiveness is taught, as are all forms of violence which human beings exhibit."

In fairness to anthropology, it should be recorded that not all of its authorities have remained so aloof to contemporary developments in evolutionary thought. A. Irving Hallowell is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.

He comments: Whereas opponents of human¡ evolution in the 19th century were those who naturally stressed evidence that implied discontinuity between man and his primate precursors, anthropologists of the 20th century, while giving lip-service to morphological evolution, have, by the special emphasis laid upon culture as the prime human differential, implied what is in effect an unbridged behavioural gap between ourselves and our closest relatives.

As divine intervention, in other words, was the last century's means of disavowing evolution's relationship to man, so the primacy of culture is this century's: evolution is all right for animals, but it has nothing to do with men. And the layman must ask: how in the world did the sciences-in which, if nowhere else, reason must be presumed to rule-ever develop such a split personality?

It is the influence of heredity, of course, which is denied just as the influence of environment is exalted. But the denial is impossible, since the two are in balance.

Through the shufflings and sortings of heredity, through normal variation of individuals and populations, through sexual combination and recombination, through novel mutation and sleeping with strangers, an infinite variety of living possibilities is and always has been continually created, just as worth is being eternally tested on the field of environment.

Such fields are many. Environment exists within your body, where physiological combinations will face germs and parasites from the outside world; some combinations will succeed and others will fail, and the survivors in a population after sufficient generations will perfect a heritable genetic arrangement to provide a degree of immunity for descendants ....

Or environment may be social. If you are an adolescent chacma baboon of overly bellicose nature and your aggressions lead you to pick quarrels again and again with fellow members of your troop, then the

chances are that someday you will get hurt. And you will not be able to keep up with your troop as it moves about its range seeking food. And you will fall behind and the leopard will eat you. Your troop will be the better for it, since baboons simply cannot survive without their highly organized co-operative societies.

This capacity to form disciplined societies is the baboon's most valuable genetic endowment. You were a variant, but happily you will leave no offspring, since the leopard has eaten you.

ultural traditions are also a part of our environment. If there is a tradition, as in almost all African tribes, to kill twins as soon as they are born, then you will not find many twins around, and if you pursue the tradition through a sufficient number of generations the genetic potentiality to twin should be considerably reduced. In this sense the cultural anthropologist is correct: variations between the cultural traditions of human populations must, if pursued for a sufficient number of generations, have a selective effect on the quality of a population's gene pool. The capacity for a human population to form cultural traditions which become a significant selective force in a particular environment has probably contributed to the rapid rate of human evolution. To underrate the long-term genetic consequences of a cultural tradition is as dangerous as to overrate the short-term conclusiveness of cultural determination.

Environment tests us in many ways, and continued

ones who could recognize a changing environment when they saw one and incorporate new information into the programme of their instincts-these were the ones to assemble, ever so slowly, a new and most remarkable genetic package: ourselves.

As a layman I can understand an acatime itself may be a factor. There have been demic position which accepts my descripepochs like the Pliocene, when times were tion but says: "You have forgotten路 two so changeless that time itself seemed- things. First, that a time came when these scarcely to move. Such periods test the open instincts, under selective pressure, conservatism of beings, since the probabilvanished entirely, to be supplanted by ity is high that if one acts today as one unencumbered intelligence. And, second, acted yesterday, one will survive. But there you have forgotten that man came at last have also been epochs of an opposite so thoroughly to control his environment nature. Such has been the_ Pleistocene in that it ceased to have selective force." which we yet live, when climates changed, To the first reminder I can only reply, and changed again, and the great cold "Am I truly expected to believe that the would come to consume a continent or history of man, to this date, has been rains would change desert to forest and written by unencumbered intelligence? then drought would return it to sand.

And even. if, for the sake of argument, I Through such unending panoramas of were to accept a proposition so outrageous, shifting, changing times there passed, like there is this matter of how we came to be. figures in a fragmented dream, those little Every living creature, man or mosquito, bands of struggling beings who some day has an unbroken ancestry going back at would be men. They survived by courage least two billion years to the first chemical in the face of adversity, endurance in the stirrings of life. No responsible authority face of extremity; they survived, like would dare to maintain that longer ago baboons, through recognition of a need, than, at the most, 10,000 years, when man one for another; they survived through first secured control of his food supply enormous selective pressure encouraging through domestication of grains and anithe expansion of normal. primate wit. mals, our human ancestors were exempt Above all, however, they survived through from the natural processes that I have plasticity, through a broadening power to described. Are we seriously to believe that incorporate experience路 into the iron of in 10,000 years, without divine intervenold behavioural patterns, through a growtion, we have repealed those natural ing capacity to recognize, in changing laws that prevailed for the previous times, that today is different from yester1,999,990,000 years, and that brought us day, and tomorrow from today: into being?"

I am entirely willing to grant that anything is possible, but to me the statistics seem against it. And to the s.econd reminder concerning the control we exert over our environment, I must reply, "You are thinking of environment in terms of physical arrangements.

You are thinking of drainage ditches and antibiotics and slum clearance and hybrid corn. You are forgetting something-that the most important element in the human environment is man himself. And so long as we live in a time when a few human beings, by pressing an arrangement of buttons, can in a few hours so alter our physical environment as to make life all but insupportable on this planet, then I am unany-most, impressed by the argument that we have gained control of any part of it." without doubt-were conservative creaOne must brood. For a man in the street tures. These died by dry, unanticipated to be compelled to present such childlike stream beds, or numbed and froze in unlogic to the professional thinker is little anticipated storms. These quite obviousiy were not your ancestors. It was the others . less than embarrassing. What ails us? What is this inhibition afflicting so many of our -the witty, the sensitive, the flexible, the finest minds which renders them incapable of adding two and two? I' believe that I know, although it will require a subjective

digression to explore it. And it will be useful, also, if we recall Maslow's hint that to refer to instinct or heredity in our time is to expose oneself as a political reactionary. I believe that it goes beyond that, however, into an area as much moral as politicaL

any established leaders of contemporary thought today spent all or most of their formative years, as did I, in the 1930s. It was a decade, as any of us old enough will recall, at once splendid in its creativity and all but annihilating in environmental hardship. Poverty was the normal condition. As the decade opened I emerged from the University of Chicago with a Phi Beta Kappa key and a degree with honours, of which neither raised my wages as a lecturer in anthropology above 50 cents an hour.

After seven or eight years I managed somehow to achieve an income of $1,800 a year.

In any event, the 1930s were impressive times. If you were an American', there was unending unemployment at home and Adolf Hitler across the seas. If you were a European, there was unending unemployment at home and Adolf Hitler next door.

This was our environment. So encompassing was it, so wholeheartedly inimical to human hopes, so wonderfully varied in its gambits of disaster, that if you were young and impressionable there路 was no conclusion which you were likely to reach路 other than that environment is responsible for human fault .... How could we know that in the end there would come a changed. environment and a prosperity such as no man had ever seen? And that such an

age of affluence and material sepurity would witness a level and degree of juvenile delinquency that did not exist in the Depression years; racial conflict and bitterness that we had never known; and a crime rate beyond our most monstrous imaginings? Crime could not even have been described as a major problem when poverty was king.

A changed environment \demonstrated that our environmentalist conclusions were inadequate. Perhaps some of us sensed it at an early date. The Theatre of Social Protes! vanished in the 1940s, to be replaced by the Theatre of Self-pity, which . yet commands.' But we had done our mighty bit to make fashionable the Age of the Alibi, to make acceptable an attitude which seeks fault anywhere but in oneself, and damns it as immoral to do otherwise.

In July 1934, to have said to an unemployed British workingman, "You have none but yourself to blame," would have been to commit an outrage both moral and intellectual. In July 1964, when for the first time in Britain there existed more jobs than job-seekers, to make the same proposal would carry a reasonable degree of intellectual merit; at least as a hypothesis; yet it would meet the same moral rejection now as before.

Is it possible that the environmental severityof the 1930sinduced-particularly in the most aware, alert, and compassion. ate of men-a morality which makes no sense today? Is it. possible that some of us were somehow imprinted with an attitude which was reasonable then, but which clingsnow as nothing but a moral posture?

Is this the inhibition. that prevents many of those who, while exalting intelligence and environment, are incapable of recognizing the nature of the new environment in which they themselves \low li~e?

Should this be the case, then again we may witness scenes of natural selection resembling the immense panoramas of the Pleistocene. As in another fragmented dream, we shall behold small bands of struggling beings against backgrounds of shifting climates. Again we watch while unsentimental forces select or reject, accept or discard, encouraging the plastic, the flexible, those with instincts open enough to. accommodate today's information, those beings genetically capable of reading

clues in the sky when clues appear and or recognizing a novel environment when they see one. Having myself been science's witness for many years, I am convihced that we shall all witness in the near future a resumption of those passionate controversies of almost a century ago, in the time of T.H. Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce, which followed the publication of Origin of Species. Biology had not the resources in Darwin's day to carry the logic of natural selection beyond the evolution of man's bodily being. It has the resources now. And I cannot see our appointment with the deferred debate as anything but inevitable.

o far as my own position is concerned, I should like to believe that it can be found somewhere in the neighbourhood of a statement

by Harvard's beloved biologist George Gaylord Simpson which he wrote in the introduction to one of his books: "I am trying to pursue a science that is beginning to have a good many practitioners but that has no name: the science of fourdimensional biology or of time and life."

That is about it. I do not believe that we are towns without histories, ships without compasses, moments without memories.

We carry in that region known as the unconscious certain patterns inherited from ancient days. They are patterns of survival value, or we should not be here. And they are a legacy of all that life which has come before us, assuring us that we are not alone.

I believe, furthermore, that what we call the age of anxiety is in truth a transitional time, an uncertain moment in the adolescence of a species, when the superstitions and imaginary identifications of childhood are no longer enough but the larger com-

prehensions of maturity are yet unavailable. In such an awkward emotional age. we lose faith in fathers, divine or domestic, and yearn for more suitable stars to steer by. We lose confidence. We feel ourselves children of inconspicuous circumstance, dry leaves tumbling before unimportant winds, victims of worlds not of our making, will-less trespassers on dubious pastures. Yet self-knowledge cannot be denied.

Maturity must come.

It was only a generation or so ago that the physical sciences' added the dimension of time to their three-dimensional calculations of matter and energy, and with a single mathematical leap plunged us into the world of the atom.

It is the turn-now of biology, I believe, to extend our calculation of man by the addition of that same fourth dimension, time. It will be a leap, I believe, of not incomparable consequence. There will be terror of a sort in losing, once and for all, this comfortable, pupa-like, three~dimensional chamber of human uniqueness, the only world we have ever known. And there will be hazard, most particular hazard, in the chance that we may discover ourselves the pale prisoners of a determinate past, whereas before we were at 'worst the nervous victims of an indeterminate future. But it is a chance I believe worth taking: in part, because I have reason to suspect that this will not be biology's answer; in part, because I believe that the winning of self-knowledge is worth every risk; and in part, because I have no choice, for truth is peering in my window and I cannot ask him to go away.

One of the 19th-century thinkers most influenced by Darwin, most despised by fashionable thought today, was Herbert Spencer. And in a minor, forgotten work he once recorded a'major, everlasting thought: "The profoundest of all infidelities is the fear that the truth will be bad."

I may quake in my boots, I may shake in my bed. But I do not have the courage to live a life so dangerous as that of a gambler against the truth.

The protozoan (or is it the egg that once I was?) has his eye on me. And he knows all about me, all my secrets, for he was there when I began, and he knows when I . am lying, and he is watching me, right END now, just as he watches you.

Students listen to records, top, in the Academy's Talking Book Library. Above, geography comes alive through a globe specially prepared with relief boundaries.

Below, a music class in session.

Students return to the Academy, right, after the midday break.

An unusual institution near Calcutta has had marked success in leading the blind from despair to complete physical and economic independence.

SCENEis Belgharia, a pocket in the industrial belt girdling Calcutta. As the work -day ends a young man, Hemen Chaudhury, steps out of the factory premises of Beni Ltd. and joins the stream of thousands of homeward-bound workers. But Hemen is unlike his companions: he is blind.

The fifth son of his family, Hemen came down with cholera at the age of 7. One effect of this illness, as he remembers, was that he could not see properly during the night. At the age of 12 he had double pneumonia, and when he was 16, as bad luck would have it, he again had an attack of cholera. By the time he was 17, the optic nerves were no longer working and slowly but inexorably, young Hemen Chaudhury drifted from the world of the sighted to the despairing world of the blind.

Fourteen years later Hemen Chaudhury swung the pendulum of fate in his favour and achieved the . dream of any person suffering from . physical disabilities. He is now economically independent. On February 13,1967, he joinedBeni Ltd. as a machine operator, an engineering firm which produces goods for defence and the railways. At his modest home behind the Kali Temple in Kalighat, south Calcutta, he shares full responsibilities as an adult member of the family. At the factory where he works, his skill and productivity bring good remuneration and he was commended for not being absent for a day during a whole year. At home he looks after himself as well as doing domestic chores, like bringing foodgrains from the ration shop, and takes care of the , education of his nephews and nieces.

Week-ends he visits friends and THE

relatives. Occasionally he play.s the tabla, supporting one of his close friends who sings folk songs. He is worried about his future just like any seeing citizen.

The one single factor that helped most in Hemen Chaudhury's transition from the life of a blind person groping for his rightful place in society to that of a responsible person in his family, at his place of work and in his circle of friends was a piece of advice given by a kindly official in the maze of offices in the West Bengal Secretariat, where he had gone to seek help. Hemen was told to enrol as a student in the Blind Boys' Academy, N arendra pur, one of the chain of educational institutions run by the Ramakrishna Mission. But Hemen had grown too old to be admitted in any school

tinued to go to the Academy and beg for help. The authorities finally relented and admitted him as an experimental case. Year 1966-first foot forward to a "new world" for Hemen Chaudhury. And one more achievement for the Blind Boys' Academy when a year later, in 1967, he was placed for full-time employment as a machine operator in Beni Ltd. "Hemen's was an exceptionally complex case," said Shri Gopinath Dan, the Principal of the Academy, "but we decided to take up the challenge, and now we are glad that we did."

The Blind Boys' Academy is on the southern outskirts of Calcutta.

It was started in 1957 for the education and rehabilitation of the blind. Prior to this, the Rama-

Above, a confident Hemen Chaudhury faces the future. Like his colleague at right, Hemen can operate a hand saw, and several types of lathes, presses and drills.

for the blind. Even the authorities at the Blind Boys' Academy were at a loss. Sympathetic though they were, it was very difficult for them to accommodate an adult sightless person who had no prior schooling in any institution for the blind.

Seemingly this was a hopeless case.

On the other hand, after years of running after anybody who could offer a flicker of hope, Hemen Chaudhury was at the end of his tether.

But somewhere in his subconscious mind a voice continued to tell him that he would find his salvation at the Blind Boys' Academy. He con-

krishna Mission was operating a hostel named Students' Home for the Blind at Pathuriaghata in north Calcutta. When the Mission opened its centre for educating the younger generation at Narendrapur, the Pathuriaghata hostel was shifted to the present site, buildings were constructed to house the classrooms, hostel and administrative offices. In 1957, the Academy started to function as a full-fledged institution for educating the blind with regular classes in general education aimed at preparing the students for higher studies. Later, music classes were continued

In terms of India's blind, the Academy's work is minor. But the men who run it believe that "a small deed done is better than a big deed planned."

also started and in 1964 the Light Engineering Workshop was commissioned.

The first Principal of the Academy was the late Shri Bhabani Prasad Chanda, once a resident of the Students' Home for the Blind at Pathuriaghata.

Perhaps exhausted by his efforts to build up the Blind Boys' Academy, he died following a heart attack in 1966; but by this time, with encouragement and help from the Ashrama authorities, he had already constructed a solid base for the future development of this institution. On his death the administration was entrusted to Shri Gopinath Dan, who had joined the Academy as a part-time teacher in 1960 when Bhabani Prasad went to Manila for special training in educating the blind.

Today, the Blind Boys' Academy is one of the finest institutions for educating the blind in India. Twice a year, in May and December, the Academy takes in new students. The newcomers are from the age group of7 to 14 and they are either totally blind or with very low vision and without any other physical or mental defect. Parentless boys are not admitted, as this is not a "home" or an "asylum."

Mter admission, all students attend classes, and general education up to class VIII is compulsory. The boys are taught to read and write in Braille and the teachers keep careful notes on their aptitude and liking for vocational training. Mter reaching class VIII, boys who are found to be doing well in their studies are sent to the Multipurpose School on the same campus, also run by the Ramakrishna Mission, where the blind boys study and live along with their seeing classmates. Students

with less aptitude for picking up higher education are taught to operate machines at the Light Engineering Workshop or given higher education in music.

To receive vocational training a boy should be 17 years old. The students are also taught homecrafts, industrial art and music as part of their general education. They are taught crafts such as cane work, basketry and bookbinding as hobbies and boys from classes VI to VII are also taught to use simple and useful hand tools. All students are encouraged to learn music and specially-gifted boys are prepared for examinations of the Rabindra Bharati University.

Any educational institution needs books not only for studies, but also for reference. The library at the Blind Boys' Academy is well-stocked and contains all textbooks which the students require for their studies.

Unlike normal schoolchildren, the students of the Academy do not have personal books but they can always borrow from the library.

Some of these books are printed at the Braille Press of the Academy, which was built up with help from the Government ofIndia and UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) and started embossing books in 1968. Incidentally, this press also meets the needs of blind students and other institutions for educating the blind in West Bengal, Assam and Orissa.

The Academy also has a "TalkingBook Library," with record players, tape recorders, radio and recorded tapes and discs on educational topics, music and verse.

Since teaching the blind is a specialized job, one of the obstacles that impede the running of a blind school is an acute shortage of trained personnel for teaching assignments. To overcome this, the Blind Boys' Academy holds training courses for teachers. Started in January 1965 in collaboration with the Department of Social Welfare, Government of India, this training

is also available to teachers from other regions of India. Apart from this, the Academy is having some of its own personnel trained in advanced and specialized techniques of teaching the blind in the United States and Malaysia.

Education at the Blind Boys' Academy is rehabilitation-oriented.

When a student completes his term at the Academy, every effort is made to place him in some employment.In the Subcontract Workshop of the Academy, students who have just completed their vocational training or who have been laid off or retrenched because of economic reasons are provided with work.

Thus, upon completion of their studies, the students fan out as trained, disciplined, competent and willing workers and responsible citizens. What is most impressive is the strong bond that exists between the students and their centre of education and teachers even after they have left. The Academy also responds and through its Rehabilitation and Followup Service keeps a check on their problems.

According to the findings of a sample survey during a Trachoma Control Project undertaken in 196061 by the Government of India in collaboration with WHO (World Health Organization), there were at that time at least 4.5 million blind in India. This figure included the totally blind as well as those who were unable to earn any livelihood because of impaired vision.

In this context, the rehabilitation work done by the Blind Boys' Academy, Narendrapur, with its capacity to accommodate only about 100 students may appear to be a small one. The men who run the Academy know it; but they believe in the dictum that a small deed done is better than a big deed planned. As I listened to Hemen Chaudhury's animated views on his own transformation, it was apparent that the Blind Boys' Academy is not only doing its job but doing it exceedingly well.

END

APPLE-PICKIN' AUTUMN

Do-it-yourself orchards hold out the prospect of a delightful impromptu feast, with American growers inviting members of the public to gather as many baskets of fruit as they can-for a modest charge.

CRRRRAAAAACKK!

That delectable little explosion is your first bite into a cold, crisp apple. Your mouth tingles with the succulent juice-sometimes sweet, sometimes tart. In fact, you can have almost any taste sensation you crave from the 4,000 known varieties of apples, though most apple-eating Americans choose from about 13 major kinds. One way they can guarantee that the apples they eat this year are truly gourmet specials is to pick their own.

Housewife, executive, craftsman, schoolchild-anyone can harvest as many bushels of shapely, perfectly ripe, richly red fruit as they have the ti me, energy and use for.

And they can do their picking rigl1t in the middle of someone else's orchard. In many of the 37 states where apples are a commercial crop, growers plant, raise, water, mulch, prune, spray and thin acres and acres of low-slung, heavily laden trees-and then invite the apple-hungry public to gather their fill for a modest charge per basket.

Most apple men still bring in the bulk of their crop professionally, concentrating on the tall upper limbs or specific sections of orchard and leaving the easier pickin's for the amateurs. With labour scarce and costly, many orchard owners have found that welcoming picnic-pickers cleans off the lavishly burdened trees quickly. The recreational harvesters have a delightful autumn outing and heaps of delicious fruit for future feasting-to say nothing of all they can eat while "working."

It's easy to spot a good apple-smooth, free of bruises, with bright red skin (yellow with a pink blush in the case of Golden Delicious). An apple that is still too green is apt to be hard and starchy; overripe ones tend to be mealy with poor flavour. That's all the public needs to know before driving out to a friendly neighbourhood orchard. At the entrance one is directed where to pick and the type of apples to be found that day.

Once inside the orchard, a picker parks beside a likelylooking grove where apples hang in blazing red cIumpsand where ,there are not too many competitors.

Sturdy, broad-based ladders for reaching middle limbs and stacks of empty baskets are scattered handily along the rows.

Everyone, from toddlers to totterers, has a good time in a do-it-yourself orchard. Toting empties is a good job for small children. Teens gleefully scale the made-for-climbing limbs of apple trees. The less athletic generations can handle lower limbs from ground level or inspect and sort the lus-

cious array handed down from atop the ladders.

Pickers come in all persuasions. Some revel in spending the whole day out-of-doors.

Between sporadic bouts of harvesting, they sink into the warm, dry grass in the autumn sunshine with a picnic lunch or drowse beneath the thick shade of a fragrant tree. Sandwiches and coffee from home or cider and doughnuts purchased at the orchard store are supplemented with apples, available at the mere twist of the wrist.

Many pickers are briskly businesslike and thoroughly organized. They send out youthful scouts along the rows to zero in on trees full of choice specimens. With plastic buckets or rubberized shopping bags slung about their waists, they deftly lift each rosy globe up, then turn it back towards the centre of the tree so it comes away easily. One of the group examines the haul closely, transferring it carefully from portable container to bushel basket. Once a container is full, it takes two to move it to the car.

Impulsive "grass-is-greener-elsewhere" types select one or two apples from a tree then dash off to another more promising stand. By the end of an apple-picking day, these rovers have had a lot more exercise for the same number of apples than the more systematic fellows.

Often neighbours join forces and double their fun by picking several bushels to share. An average family harvests two or three bushels apiece. Orchard hours are generally from about 9 a.m. to sunset. As with anything else that is fun to do, apple-picking draws good-sized crowds on fine autumn Saturdays and Sundays. Many mothers pick up children right after school, and they are able to get all the fruit they need in the hours before dinnertime. Retired people and women's groups turn up early on weekday mornings.

There is nothing arduous about picking, though there is certainly a rewarding blend of fatigue and genuine accomplishment after climbing a few ladders and reaching for a few apples. As pickers leave, the gate attendant checks the bulging cornucopia and charges for apples picked. Prices vary with locale and type of fruit.

Those growers who welcome amateur pickers usually publicize the fact in ads and listings and the National Apple Institute in Washington, D.C., can furnish the names and addresses of state council members who in turn have local information. Address in hand the picker has a fruitful day ahead of him!

END

Modern plant and an efficient collection and refrigeration network are helping create in Punjab a land flowing with milk and money.

WITH THE Green Revolution already in full swing, Punjab is steadily marching towards a White Revolution.

If anywhere in India there could be a land flowing with milk, it is the milkshed area of the districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur. The tahsil of Patti in Amritsar district was the home tract of the best-known breed of buffalo in the world-the Neeli.

With a high water table, the area was better suited to growing fodder than cash crops.

The climate favoured the raising of both summer and winter fodder crops. Animal tending had been the occupation of the people for ages.

And yet they were poor. They lacked steady demand for their buffalo milk. Till 1947 vendors from Amritsar were supplying milk as far afield as Lahore, but the profits did not return to the farmers who reared the buffaloes.

The area's milk production per capita was 26 ounces-more than four times the national average. That was why, of the first two milk plants that the Punjab government set up under India's Third Five-

year Plan, one was in this area-at Verka, 10 kilometres from Amritsar. The other was in the new capital city of Chandigarh.

For the Verka plant and its three affiliated milk-chilling centres at Patti, Mehta and Fatehgarh Churian the United States donated some $420,000 (Rs. 31.5 lakhs) worth of equipment, including refrigerator vans to transport chilled milk.

The farmers had previously raised milch cattle primarily to provide their families with milk, curds, tassi, butter and ghee.

With milk collection centres spreading all over the area, they started taking a new interest in their cattle. They were now finding it easy to market their surplus milk to a steady buyer from whom they were assured of a year-round price more than double that which the milk vendors used to pay them.

This helped the farmers' economy. On the buyer's end of the market, too, the consumer was assured of regular supplies at reasonable prices. Hospitals and other institutions no longer had difficulty in getting wholesome, pasteurized milk.

All this, of course, covered only one asText continued on page 36

One of the first two milk plants that the Punjab government set up under India's Third Five-year Plan was at Verka, above.

At Fatehgarh Churian, top right, and two other places are milk-chilling centres.

A Farmer's Story Verka is one of seven dairy projects established with u.s. assistance in India early in the last decade. The other six were set up at Aligarh, Barauni, Bhopal, Calcutta, Junagadh and Trivandrum. , Typical of the farmers who supply the Verka milk plant is Narain Singh, of the village of Chowdhrywala in Gurdaspur district.

He settled here in 1947with four acres of land.

Narain Singh was young and ambitious.

To supplement his farm income he bought four buffaloes, but to deliver the milk he had to cycle 32 kilometres daily between his house and Batala, the nearest market.

"Milk is a perishable commodity; come rain or storm you have to deliver it," observed Narain Singh. "In winter there was no go but to brave the cold winds.

"I immediately started supplying milk to the chilling centre when it opened here at Mehta."

Mehta, one of the three milk-chilling centres attached to the Verka plant, when opened in May 1962, eased his task somewhat, as it was 10 kilometres from his house. Real relief came to him in July 1963 when a collection centre opened right in his village. "Now I have to walk only a few paces to deliver the milk," he added.

"Has it made any difference to you in terms of money?" I asked.

"Oh yes. Now I am assured of a reasonable price," replied Narain Singh. "Also, cash payment every ten days. In the old days we were at the mercy of the traders, and collecting the arrears was so difficult that at times we had to give up."

"Don't you find crop raising more profitable than dairy farming?" I asked.

"No. This is more profitable. Only, if my kids were slightly older, I would have gone in for at least 15 buffaloes instead of the eight I now keep," replied Narain Singh. "Of the four acres of land that I have, I devote two to cereals and the other two to fodder. From the two crops of wheat and rice every year I get enough cereals for the family, and I also sell about a thousand rupees' worth. But the other two acres devoted to fodder and these buffaloes give me at least Rs. 5,000 a year in cash, apart from all the milk, curds, lassi, butter and ghee we need."

ecognition of the importance of high-yielding milch cows is increasing in Punjab, where Holstein-Friesians and other breeds new in India are being introduced.

pect: improvement in the ecoqomics of milk production. The other important aspect was improvement of the productivity of dairy cattle, which had long been neglected.

The quality of milch animals had been steadily deteriorating. Grade A buffaloes from Punjab, at a rate of some 30,000 a year, were finding their way to metropolises like Bombay-where there was great demand for them, and where they were later killed. Grade B buffaloes went to big towns like Amritsar, Jullundur and Ludhiana. Only Grade C animals were left in the rural areaS for the farmers to look after and depend upon.

Meanwhile, along came the Green Revolution. With higher returns from cash

crops, the farmer was now better off. He had little incentive to sell the small quantities of milk which he had previously considered surplus. With the days of distress selling over, there was every possibility of milk production being neglected-unless dairying itself became an attractive proposition for the farmer.

To show that it could, the Punjab Dairy Development Corporation, which operates the Verka and other milk plants in the state, set up six demonstration centres-at Bassi Pathana, Bija, Dasuya, Machhike, Mehta and Raikot. Each occupies a plot of five acres, four of which are devoted to fodder crops for the dairy animals.

The quality of buffaloes is being raised through selective breeding and artificial in-

semination. Males of proven quality only are used. The Neeli and Murrah breeds and a Neeli/Murrah crossbreed are preferred; nondescript animals are being weeded out.

Punjabis used to prefer keeping buffaloes to cows because of the high fat content of buffalo milk, and because the yields of most Indian breeds of cows were so low that rearing them for milk was uneconomic. Cows were kept only for the sake of their male offspring, which filled an important farm role as draught animals. But this role has shrunk in India and particularly in .Punjab, where tractor power is increasingly replacing bullock power.

Milk is brought by bicycle to chilling centre, above, at Fatehgarh Churian. Right, milk is analysed for fats and other solids. High milk yields are expected to result from crossbreeding with Holstein-Friesian cattle; a Holstein bull is seen below and a cow at left.

However, the importance of high-yielding milch cows is now being realized.

Exotic breeds are being introduced in Punjab: Jersey, Holstein-Friesian, Red Danish, Brown Swiss.

A dozen Holstein-Friesians presented by the United States-IO cows and two bulls -are housed at the demonstration centres at Bija and Dasuya. Each bull serves 300 to 400 cows a month.

With the first calves from the American cows expected within this year, and new ones approximately every 12 months, the stock will soon. increase. From. these parental lines and by crossbreeding, Punjab soon will have a number of cows with, it is hoped, Holstein-Friesian characteristics (large size, and clearly defined black and white markings), giving such high yields that farmers may have to milk them three or four times-instead of the standard twice-a day.

In the words of Punjab's Milk Commissioner Gurbhagwant Singh, "a White Revolution is not only possible; it is END already in sight."

P EIOI IIVErMEIT II FOREIGNDIRECTINVESTMENT in the United States is expected to continue growing, as corporations abroad seek to enlarge their production and develop the organizational and financial strength needed to participate directly in the competitive but highly profitable U.S. market.

By the end of 1969, such investment had readied an $11,800 million (Rs. 88,500 million) total and for the first time had increased more than $1,000 million (Rs. 7,500 million) in a single year-after being only moderately short of this figure in 1968. This expansion of foreign investment in the United States underscores the importance of unrestricted transfers of capital-the freedom to invest. Such investment is evidence of the movement towards a global market economy. nvestment from abroad was largely responsible for the early development of infrastructure and manufacturing in the United States. It was not until World War I that the United States became a net capital ,exporter, able to send its capital and industrial entrepreneurship in sizable amounts to other countries.

A figure of nearly $12,000 million (Rs. 90,000 million) in foreign investment in the United States today, however, compares with a book value of more than $70,000 million (Rs. 525,000 million) for U.S. private direct investment abroad. But foreign investment in the United States is growing at a considerably faster pace now than U.S. investment overseas. These figures apply only to direct investments in manufacturing enterprises, and do not include portfolio or real-estate investment.

Reprinted by permission from Commerce Today, published by the United States Department of Commerce.

Today, more than 700 U.S. manufacturing enterprises are owned wholly or in part by almost 500 foreign companies. Many of them have been in the United States for generations and their prod ucts are a familiar part of the American scene. The majority, however, came in on the more recent wave of investment that began in the late 1950s.

Foreign investments cover a wide spectrum ofindustriallines-frQm small consumer items such as name tapes and shoe polish to enormous investments in aluminium-reduction and chemical plants. Particularly prominent is the chemical and pharmaceutical industry that has attracted large-scale Swiss and German investments.

Historically, the largest aggregate investment has come from Britain, which accounts for about $3,500 million (Rs. 26,250 million) of the total and for about 107 enterprises in the United States.

Canada is next, with $2,600 million (Rs. 19,500 million) and 114 firms. The Netherlands follows, with $1,900 million (Rs. 14,250 million) and the distinction of having a greater investment position in the United States than American firms have in The Netherlands. Still relatively modest in aggregate terms, investment from Japan and the Federal Republic of Germany is increasing rapidly. Investment from Japan to date has been principally in developing sources of raw materials for its own industry and is mainly in Alaska.

Recent surveys by the U.S. CornmetTe Department and by commercial banks active in the investment areasuch as Chase Manhattan and Morgan

Guaranty-found that foreign firms invest in the United States for the same reasons that U.S. companies invest in Europe and other areas: to participate directly in a major and growing market that cannot be adequately served by exports from abroad.

Implicit in this general motivation are a variety of considerations that bear on marketing ability, servicing, and, ultimately, profitability such as tariff and ocean freight costs, proximity to the market, more responsive customer service, main-line distribution channels, sensitivity to change in tastes and styles, and-by no means the least-direct access to American development and marketing techniques.

Some smaller companies have come at the demand of their major customers, others because their new products were not available in the United States, and still others have developed a product for which no significant market existed in their own country. In every case, though, the decision to invest in U.S. production involves a highly specialized and detailed evaluation of markets, finance, competition, and the capabilities of the firm to marshal the needed technical and executive forces.

Today, more than 700 U.S. manufacturing enterprises are owned wholly or in part by some 500 foreign companies. here is no exact pattern of events leading to investment.

Most companies have gained a knowledge of the American market and the acceptability of their product through exports and concluded that their share of the market would be larger and more secure through domestic production. As part of their investment decision, they have carefully studied the market and potential locations, often with the assistance of the

Commerce Department, various state development organizations, utilities, or private consultants.

The following examples illustrate the variety of recent investing firms and some of their motivations: Bekaert Steel Wire Corporation, subsidiary of a Belgian steel producer, after four decades of direct export sales to U.S. customers, opened a plant in 1970 in Rome, Georgia. This move was dictated by a need for closer liaison with U.S. customers 'and thecompany'sdesireto shorten the delivery "pipeline." The Georgia plant will soon be producing at the rate of 1,000 tonnes a month and expects by 1975 to employ about 500 persons.

Steel wire for tyres and other products of the new plant, generally in short supply, were previously exported from the parent plant to the United States.

Courtaulds (North America) Inc., a subsidiary of the large British chemical and fibre manufacturer, since 1952 has opened-and expanded-two plants in Mobile, Alabama, for the manufacture of rayon staple and nylon filament. Together these plants employ about 1,100 workers and represent a multi-milliondollar investment, all financed from abroad. Last year the company announced the purchase of a site in South Carolina for a third plant to produce acrylic fibre which, currently, is being imported from Britain.

Georgetown Steel Corporation of Georgetown in South Carolina is a "mini" steel mill operating in a field dominated by giant producers who are, nevertheless, faced with lower-cost imports of wire rods and bars which account for about 50 per cent of the U.S. market. Georgetown Steel, the second

U.S. plant of Korf Industrie and Handel GmbJ:i. opened in June 1970. It employs 600 people and is currently producing at the rate of 20,000 tonnes per month. By concentrating on limited lines, using modern efficient processes and locating in an area affording substantial operating economies, the owners are confident of their ability to operate successfully.

International Disposables Corporation, a subsidiary of Agache-Willot of France, is building a $2,500,000 (Rs. 18,750,000) plant for the manufacture of non-woven disposable products such as diapers and surgical gowns. The plant is in South Carolina, a source of the basic raw material (high-grade sulphated paper pulp), and affords access to major markets for the finished products.

Benefits of foreign investment include introduction of new technology, generation of new jobs, and import substitution. oreign investments are, of course, undertaken with the prospect of earning a return, and the resultant dividends and repatriated profits will, in the longer term, result in U.S. balanceof-payments outflows. Typically, however, the economic and balance-of-payments benefits associated with such investment far outweigh such outflows.

Among these favourable factors are the initial inflow of equity capital; introduction of new technology, with concomitant benefits for U.S. productivity and prices; employment of American labour and the generation of new jobs and income; broadening of the tax base; use of American raw materials, power, transport and other services; and the possible displacement of prior imports, as well as new exports to other

countries. As most foreign firms are exporters of parent-plant products to the United States before they decide to establish manufacturing facilities, the import-savings possibility is strong and significant for the U.S. balance of payments.

International investment is one of the economic freedoms that have been cited by Commerce Secretary Maurice H. Stans, and the U.S. Government favours, and in ¡fact encourages, foreign investment in the United States. The Department of Commerce provides advice and assistance both in the United States and abroad to foreign finns interested in establishing manufacturing facilities in America. Many states actively promote foreign investment and, with help from the Commerce Department, send investment missions to industrialized countries for direct consultation with potential investors. In the next few months, 17 state missions are expected to go abroad in search of foreign direct investment.

There are signs that the current trend of multi-nationalization of industry will continue, and U.S. firms concerned with the entry of foreign companies may minimize the impact on their own businesses. An American company, more familiar with its home market than a foreign firm, can often perceive a new market in the United States for foreign products or technology before it can be fully evaluated from abroad.

Such companies are in a good position to negotiate a joint venture or licence arrangement with the appropriate foreign partner. That the American company can offer its immediate knowledge of American labour and its marketing and distribution network can mean, to the foreign partner, an earlier start, fewer worries, and elimination of the laborious and costly process of setting up parallel facilities.

END

HE TEACHE~ F

John Trott's own love of birds is reflected in the eyes of this pupil. Below, a youngster removes a bird from the net for banding.

In the classroom, all attention is riveted on Trott, opposite page.

OR SEVENTH-GRADE teacher John Trott, the great out-of-doors is an ideal textbook and birds are among its most intriguing subject matter. From his own expertise in ornithology and an infectious enthusiasm for his work, Trott has fashioned a philosophy and style of teaching based on the joy and wonder of nature. "I feel so strongly about enjoying the natural world," he says. And his classroom in the Burgundy Farm Country Day School near Washington, D.C., proves it.

Through two glass walls, students and teacher look outdoors on feeders set up to attract birds and on several wire traps, rigged to encourage birds to enter them.

Inside the room is evidence that such standard subjects as English, history, mathematics and foreign languages are taught.

But in the main, the books, magazines, charts, news clippings, pictures and birdbanding apparatus make it clear that the best-loved subject taught here is The Bird: its biology, its species, its behaviour, its habitat, its beauty and its place in nature.

All day, birds swoop down to the feeders to eat. Some wander into the traps and are brought into the classroom by a student

to have their weight and measurements taken, to be banded and then quickly released. The bands are small numbered rings of aluminium, which are fastened around the bird's leg. They do not harm the bird but help man to learn such things as where birds go on their migrations and the times of day and year they choose for travelling.

The banding programme is a scientific project of the u.s. Fish and Wildlife Service, which sets high and exacting standards for those doing the work. Ordinarily, only carefully selected adults are permitted to carry out the delicate task. "I remember when I started the bird-banding," Trott recalls. "Some people were outraged. I was told this was serious work that only adults could do. That made me mad. So we got the programme going anyhow and it has worked. Properly inspired, children can be as serious and as careful and as systematic as adults. They know that a mistake can harm a bird and that a sloppily recorded observation can spoil the work of others."

As a result, Trott teaches banding in a careful, step-by-step enlargement of skills with a constant emphasis on the responsibility each person bears. If students make errors, they must stop banding until they prove that the mistakes will not be made again.

For most of the year, birds are caught in traps. But in the spring, the students learn to set up cobwebby mist nets and to carry out the sometimes complicated job of removing birds that fly into them. Many of the birds are migrants, returning north from a winter in the tropics. In a typical year, the class catches and bands nearly 1,000 birds of 30 to 40 different species.

If all this sounds like an unordinary classroom in an unordinary school, it is.

Burgundy Farm is a private co-operative school owned by the parents whose children attend it and by the professional educators who are its teachers. Compared to public schools, its classes are small, flexible, responsive to individual needs and freer to experiment with teaching and learning processes.

The school, now 25 years old, is pacing

a current trend in U.S. education. Along with the rapid growth of public education systems and increasing standardization of curricula across the country-for the most part, necessary and good-a counter-reaction has also developed. Tills has fed upon the needs of students who do not fit standard patterns. It aims at greater diversity in curriculum content and more individuality in methods of teaching.

Burgundy is located on nine hectares of a varied, rural habitat about 16 kilometres from Washington, D.C. It is well-populated with such appurtenances of rural life as goats, chickens, pigs, a cow and its calf, turkeys and ducks. Dress of students is casual-blue jeans, sweaters and rubbersoled sports shoes are common. he co-operati vecharacter of the school' creates a special atmosphere. Parents share most of the non-teaching jobs: they wash the windows, repair the driveways, paint the schoolrooms, act as library aides and teachers' helpers. In off-hours, the students work at these tasks, too. In a number of ways, the life at Burgundy is somewhat like that in a large family where each member contributes what he can for the good of the whole. There is a scholarship programme that draws into Burgundy some very poor children who live in urban slums.

Many youngsters attend the co-operative because their record of academic achievement in public school was below their known potential. On the whole, Burgundy students score higher than average in national achievement tests and come from families with above-average education. An important school task is to awaken interest and achievement in studies and, at the same time, meet standard educational requirements.

The challenge was just perfect for John Trott. "Boys and girls coming into my class find there are so many ways to learn," he says. "They have to have all their senses plugged in." He remembers his own school days as "a box of seven hours switched on

T

continued

"Children don't see adults excited often enough. They find it impressive, I think, when they see m

at 8 a.m. and off at 3 p.m. I existed in it with great boredom and loneliness." What went on inside the box failed to touch upon his life outside it.

Then one day, quite by chance, as he was building a fort in an orchard near his home, he came upon a cardinal sitting in its nest. "The bird scolded," be recalls.

"I wanted to find out what it was. I got hold of the book Birds of North Carolina.

It was a new world to me." From then on, he was caught up in a loving study of the natural world. When he went on to college, he took botany as his major subject and earned an advanced degree of Master of Education. e was determined that he would teach in different ways than he had been taught in school. "There are many ways to learn," he says, "but most education generally uses only one of themlistening." In his classroom, he has freedom to search for and discover other ways. He uses ornithology and other natural sciences to build in his students an excitement for learning. When he uses them in this way, the natural sciences fortify all the teaching that takes place in his classroom. They open the door to an understanding of what learning is all about and the many processes by which it is accomplished.

He eagerly wants each child to succeed.

He works hard to bring this about, sometimes by making soft demands so that success can be had in small but regular steps, sometimes by making great demands when lesser ones arc too easily met. Whatcver the curriculum or the pace, he sees the cardinal classroom sin as boredom. "I despise boredom," he says. "The teacher must have a spark. If there's no spark, there's no response from the class."

Trott shares with his students an effervescent joy in picking out of the universe some small, living part. What a magic and memorable moment it was when, together, they happened to sight a majestic bald eagle soaring high overhead! Or the time they reported finding a rose-breasted grosbeak in November and ornithologists and bird-lovers said it was impossible to do during autumn in the Washington, D.C., area. llut they persisted, were proven right, and relished being the centre of a scientific controversy. "Children don't see adults

H

excited often enough," sums up John Trott.

"They find it impressive, I think, when they see me in the excitement of discovery. A single experience can have a powerful impression. " The groundwork of such discoveries and such excitement is laid in the classroom.

Each new class remains indoors for a few days in the autumn for introduction to the entire studies programme and to begin learning bird identification by size, distinctive markings and song. Students leaf through field guides and life histories of the birds and other research materials.

Through binoculars, they scan neighbouring meadows, thickets and woods. Therc are, sometimes, one or two students who begin the year with an evident hope that this class will be a great frolic, all play and no work. . But John-he and the other teachers at Burgundy Farm are addressed by their first names-is formidable. This year will, after all, not be one of gay abandon, deserted schoolbooks and running about wildly outdoors. He establishes in each pupil's mind some hard facts: His expectations for students are high; he will brook no nonsense and has, upon occasion, permitted a hot

temper to break loose; students must be competent in all subjects (you cannot get around him by achieving only in his weIlknown favouritc); ornithology requires careful observation, the drawing of valid conclusions from evidence, accuracy in record-keeping, and an ability to organize time, energy and data well. t the same time, he communicates a sense of excitement about the year.

Like a captain readying his crew and supplies for a long voyage, he makes it clear that the requirements are steep because they are all about to embark on a great adventure. They are off on a trip to another world from which, once the delicious fruits are tasted, they may never again be able to return to where they are now.

The journey is begun simply enough with a visit to a bird caught in a newly-set trap outside the schoolroom. The boys and girls touch its beak and feathers, learn about the relation of these to the way the bird lives, and detect fine markings that may go unnoticed at a distance. They learn how to hold a wild bird so that it will not be harmed.

A

In late winter, Trott takes the class on says Trott, "it can be the beginning of a a week's excursion to the 20,000-hectare lifetime of interest-indeed, a profession.

Lake Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Re- You'd be surprised to see how many of fuge in North Carolina. Here, one is rarely our kids go on to related work in conservaout of range of the wild, melancholy calls tion and the natural sciences."

In the summer, Trott keeps on teaching. of Canada geese and the sonorous honking of whistling swans. For once, regular Regular school is out, but he moves to studies are abandoned. All attention is on Burgundy Wildlife Camp in the West VirgiThe Bird in his natural habitat, where haIf- nia mountains. He is director of the schoola-million of them winter under the protec- owned camp and his wife, Lee, assists him. tion of the U.S. Government. .He has a staff of young counsellors, most By year'send, many of the students will of them former students now in high school have become dedicated ornithologists and or college. They supervise campers who some will also be well on their way to be- are from 11 to 15 years old. coming skilled nature photographers. In the half-dozen years that Trott has taught he camp owns 105 hectares of open ornithology as part of seventh-grade studmeadows, pine thickets, deciduous ies, few of his pupils have been able to woodland and natural balds where resist his addiction to birds and their na- the tops of the old Appalachian mountural surroundings. "When they catch fire," tains have been worn down during past centuries. Surrounding the camp are another 80 hectares owned by conservatianminded families.

Trott releases bird from hand, On long, leisurely walks, the ecological below left, in an atmosphere that is approach to nature-the relation each part both spontaneous and disciplined. bears to its environment-is emphasized.

Below, students take long, leisurely There is constant questioning by Trott: walks during the summer camp held How did this plant come to be here? in the West Virginia mountains.

How has man affected this place? What did

T

he do wrong? Why are there so many thistles in this field? Why are goldfinches and indigo buntings common here?

Afternoons are different. Trott encourages each camper to follow pursuits of his own. Some erect mist nets to capture birds for banding; others classify plants collected on the morning trip. Some wait in a blind at a field-sparrow nest for the adult to return and feed its young .

More than 300 youngsters from the Washington, D.C., area have benefited from the camp programme since its beginning. Trott hopes many of them will keep alive the awareness and love of their natural surroundings that they first discovered in the West Virginia mountains.

He remembers his own meeting with a bird in a North Carolina orchard. It changed his world. Some campers found a rare Bewick's wren nest one July day in the old sheep barn at the wildlife camp. He hopes it was,. for some of them, a vivid flash of experience somewhat like his own.

Trott says that he is developing some hard-core conservationists both at the camp and at the Burgundy Farm Country Day School. He calls it "my small plan for the future."

END

City with a past Mter more than a hundred years Denver is still the lively, colourful capital of the mountain west, and the city's special blend of high spirits, western charm and spectacular surroundings make it one of America's most beautiful and friendly cities.

YEARS AGO, long before white men came to the western wilds of North America, there was a spot about a kilometre-and-ahalf high on the Great Plains that the trailmaking buffalo and the American Indians were careful to avoid. The arid, almost treelessspot was at the foot of the Continental Divide near its most rugged point along the whole stretch of the Rocky Mountains. The Divide-the great ridge of mountain summits which separates eastward-flowing waters from westward-flowing waters-ran north and south as far as the eye could see. It blocked the buffalo's westward way to forage and the American Indians' way to hunting grounds. It was never lower than 3,300 metres above sea leveland often rose to snow-covered peaks more than 4,200 metres high. No trails crossed that tremendous barrier. One had to pass around it-a detour of several hundred kilometres.

It was at this dead end of nowhere, 960 kilometres west of the nearest outpost of civilization on the Missouri River that, in the autumn of 1858, a handful of greenhorn miners and traders from Kansas laid out a town site among the cottonwoods at the junction of the South Platte River and a rivulet called Cherry Creek. They laid out the town by accident, acting on a rumour that somebody had panned gold in the sands of the South Platte, or maybe Cherry Creek, or both.

Here the impetuous greenhorns and traders built their log cabins, saloons, gambling rooms and even dance hallsthough at first they lacked women and had to dance with each other. They found no

struck it even richer in the same rugged area having discovered 'beds of spangle gold in a fabulous ravine that was soon known as Gregory Gulch. Unfortunately, a rival gold camp, Central City, sprang up at the head of Gregory Gulch almost overnight. It drained Denver of hundreds of its pioneers and made the stay-behinds wonder how long before their metropolis would become a ghost town.

Somehow, Denver stayed alive out there on its jack-rabbit plain in front of the peaks, and even grew slowly through the 1860sand 1870sfrom some hundred people to 35,000. Men found more gold at hundreds of places along that highest crest of Cliff dwellings, above, of American the Continental Divide. Although most of Indians in Mesa Verde National Park conthese diggings were exhausted in a few trast dramatically with modern Denver's weeks, miners had to go to Denver for their neon-bright Colfax Avenue, left, at sunset. supplies, their mail and an occasional fling gold that autumn at Cherry Creek, but at the Elephant Corral or some other pleathere they were at their dead end, against sure palace on Blake Street. Trees were the Continental Divide, with a town site . planted around town by the tens of thouon their hands. They kept pretending that sands, softening the glare of the sun-baked the gold would turn up. One of them, a plain. The town's public school system was Kansas politician, General William Lari- enlarged steadily and the University of mer, thought of naming the town site in Denver opened its doors in 1864.

As the town grew, trouble followed honour of General James W. Denver who, as Governor of Kansas Territory, might trouble. In 1864, the trickle of Cherry favour the budding metropolis with a mail Creek became a torrent that washed away route, or a stage line from some Missouri half the town and cost 20 lives. During the River town. The name enjoyed wide use Civil War, troops guarding roads from the before word came that General Denver Missouri River to Denver against Amerhad resigned the governorship weeks be- ican Indian bandits were withdrawn, and fore and had returned to his home in the town was cut off for weeks from conOhio. The general never set foot in Denver. tact with the east. Through two decades the ups and downs of gold mining were a But the name remained.

Before that first unhappy winter of 1858- constant worry, and so was the scarcity of 59 ended, many Denver gold seekers had water. The Denver area had an average anspent their "grubstakes"-sums advanced nual rainfall of only 50 centimetres. This to them by stay-at-home friends for a share water shortage limited the town's developof the golden profits, if any. They were ment severely and made it dependent on ready to forsake their shantytown and markets hundreds of kilometres away for talked of hanging whoever it was that had most of its food.

And always there was that confounded started the gold hoax. But when spring came to soften the Rockies' chill a bit, the Continental Divide, blocking direct paspicture changed. An experienced miner, sage from Denver by road or rail to the George Jackson, had found buckets of booming cities of California. Though gold nuggets in the sands of Chicago Governor John Evans, David Moffat and other business leaders worked hard to perCree~ deep in the folds of the Continental Divide, 64 kilo metres west of Denver. A suade the Union Pacific Railroad (V.P.) second argonaut, John H. Gregory, had engineers to put their transcontinental railText continued on page 48

E

ver since the gold- and silver-mining days of a century ago, Denver has enjoyed a vigorous, surging history of diversification and growth. Today the city is the jet-age industrial hub of a region embracing about one-third of the continental U.S. It is served by six railroads, major highways and 13 commercial airlines. Since World War II some 1,400 new industries have been set up there, and the metropolitan area's population has increased from half a million to more than 1.1 million.

Denver, however, still retains much of the breezy, gay and happy-go-lucky spirit of its pioneers, and the city has hammered out a leisure-time life-style of its own that is a blend of eastern sophistication and western informality.

Here the arts flourish side-by-side with professional sports teams and the west's traditional competition, the rodeo.

But one of the city's biggest selling points for business and individuals alike is its natural surroundings and its proximity to vast recreational areas.

Selected to host the 1976 Winter Olympics, Denver boasts some 100 parks within the city limits and, in addition, 10,000 hectares owned by the city and open to the public just a few kilometres away in the foothills of the Rockies.

About 80 to 100 kilometres farther out lie some of the country's-and the world's-best skiing resorts such as Aspen, Vail and Winter Park.

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One 01 Denver's major tourist attrac/ions is the U.S. Mint, which produces 3,500 mil/ion coins a year. Lelt, officials weigh "sample" bars of gold while, below, copper coins pour out 01 chutes after being stamped.

Once a great barrier to the city's growth, the Continental Divide,far le.li, and its picturesque surroundings today are among Denver's major natural assets.

Denverites are great patrons 01 the arts. B:,low, Camelot is one 01 a series 01 musicals presented IreI.' during slimmer months at outdoor theatre in Cheesman Park.

Transportation and tourism are two of Denver's economic mainstays. L(di, storage elevator helps solve parking problems by mechanically "stacking" cars on Ferris-wheel-like device.

Downtown skylin:- of Denver, far le.li.

The city is the busin:-ss and cultural centre of the section of the United States known as the "Rocky Mountain Empire."

A determined people, fighting against great odds, refused to let their city die. Today Denver has the sheen of Space-Age prosperity about it.

road through Denver, they could offer no crossing of the Divide lower than Berthoud Pass at 3,449 metres. Such a climb was impossible, of course. The V.P. was built through the then grubby little town of Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1869, and on over the Divide at a mere 2,286 metres. Some disloyal residents moved their businesses to Cheyenne. But Evans and Moffat took their disappointment in stride and swore that some day rails would crack those heights due west of Denver.

The year 1878 started off peacefully enough along Cherry Creek. Denver's oldtimers nodded wisely as they read that precious metal of great richness had been found at a gone-to-seed gold camp named Oro City, near Mount Elbert, the highest peak in the Rockies, only some 160 kilometres away. The metal was silver, not gold. Oro City had been renamed Leadville and already it had 200 citizens. Its mayor and postmaster was a garrulous grocer named Horace A.W. Tabor, who had been telling tall tales about his area in Denver saloons for nearly 20 years.

Old Horace was still at it. But, in the months ahead, the doubters watched the silver yarn turn into the indisputable, incredible fact that Leadville was the greatest silver camp the world had ever known.

Marshall Field, a Chicago merchant, had gambled on a prospect hole, the Iron Silver, and was shipping his second million dollars back to Chicago. A Philadelphia silk importer, Meyer Guggenheim, was taking a thousand dollars a day out of his Minnie Mine, later the basis of the Guggenheim financial empire. One railroad, the Denver and Rio Grande, arrived at Leadville in 1880. Another line was on its way there. A roustabout, Jimmy Brown, sold his Leadville mine for $100,000 cash, and hid the money in the kitchen stove of his cabin. His wife Molly burned the money up by accident while getting breakfast. Mayor Tabor grubstaked two miners with $17 worth of groceries and later deposited half a million dollars in Dave Moffat's Denver bank-dividends from that very same grubstake.

Leadville's torrential wealth flowed down and engulfed Denver. The silver camp was more than 3,000 metres above

sea level. No one stayed up there gasping for breath any longer than he had to.

Denver, accustomed to growing slowly, could not begin to keep up with all the demands. Between 1880 and 1890, the population tripled to 110,000, and so did the dollar investment in smelters, foundries, banks, mining machinery and stores.

Horace Tabor expressed thanks to his State of Colorado by building the million-dollar Tabor Grand Opera House. The architect hung a portrait of Shakespeare in the lobby, but Tabor replaced it with a portrait of himself, saying, "What did Shakespeare ever do for Colorado?"

Modern Denver has the sheen of SpaceAge prosperity about it, but its underlying character can be traced back to habits formed during the IS years of the Leadville boom-habits of good nature, respect for pioneer families, a reverence for anything European, love of comfort and gaiety, admiration for wealth and ostentation even while striving for culture and spiritual values, and a healthy ability to laugh at one's own foibles. Silver barons, cattle kings and bankers vied in the magnificence of their homes on Capitol Hill near the Tabor palace. Dave Moffat's many-columned manor had a stained-glass stairway window that he bought at Tiffany's in London for $25,000. The Walter Cheesman home, now the Governor's Mansion, contained a Palm Room 21 metres long, and two Gobelin tapestries purchased for S50,000 from the Tsar of Russia.

But it was not just the gilded few who could afford the good life. Wages in general were not bad, beer was cheap and people from all walks of life enjoyed a variety of entertainments, including the immensely popular amusement park, Elitch Gardens.

And then, during the summer of 1893, the terrible blow fell. First, the V.S. Government went on the gold standard and removed Leadville's silver from its currency. India, a big silver buyer, followed suit. As the price of silver fell to half its former value, practically all of Colorado's silver mines were shut down, unable to pay wages to their miners. The nationwide panic of 1893 ensued. Denver had more than its share of bankruptcies, bank failures, bread lines and millionaires stripped of their last dime, including Horace Tabor.

For some weeks the community was stunned, its residents wishing the accident of Denver had never happened back there in 1858. But a few leaders began to take stock of the town's assets-something they had been too busy to do during the plush Leadville era. They saw the vitality of the

many thriving businesses that had nothing to do with mining-stockyards, ironworks, fireclay and brick plants, greenhouses and others. Mining itself was merely in the doldrums. It was far from dead and Denver's smelters were the best in the land.

Eight major railr.oads now served the city.

Some 80 trains daily brought passengers into town. In summer, most of the passengers were tourists who came from everywhere to see the scenic beauties of the Continental Divide that had plagued Denver so in its early years. When they figured it out, the leaders discovered that the 1893 tourist business was bringing in almost as much income as mining before the crash!

Something else had been changing, too.

The city's annual rainfall was still only 50 centimetres. But the huge amounts of water that piled up in the deep snows of the Continental Divide and which had formerly flowed off to the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California during the spring run-off, were being converted to use.

The pure snow water that one drinks from any Denver tap today arrives in town by pipeline and tunnel from dozens of reservoirs high up on both sides of the Continental Divide more than 160 kilometres away.

Having taken stock, those leaders of 1893 restored confidence, and attracted new money and adventurous souls. Denver, resuming its growth in area, population and wealth, steadily strengthened the position it had claimed from gold rush days as "Queen City of the Rockies."

But the pioneers John Evans and Dave Moffat did not live to see the triumph of their dream of cracking the Continental Divide with a direct rail route to California.

Moffat got his heroic Moffat line over Corona Pass and halfway across the Colorado Rockies before his fortune of $11 million was exhausted, and he died in 1911.

Then John Evans' son, William, took up the cause. After years of manoeuvring, he got a railroad bill through the Colorado legislature and the 9.6-kilometre Moffat Tunnel was blasted through the Divide under James Peak at a cost of $18 million.

In 1935, the first Denver and Rio Grande train roared through the tunnel on its way to Salt Lake City and San Francisco.

The former shantytown at the junction of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek was a dead end no longer.

END Winter Park, right, is one of the many ski resorts in the Denver area where each season thousands of ski enthusiasts from all over the country come to enjoy the sport.