SPAN: October 1971

SPAN

Oet~er

1971

The Green Revolution in Perspective

2

by J. George Harrar

Columbia: "The Next America"

8

by Marian Merrill

Healing the Scars ofJndustry

14

by Ron Moxness

Tracking the Stars

16

by V.S. Nanda

To Keep the Planes Flying

THE LONGEST, RICHEST HAUL APOLLO15 was the fourth space voyage in history to put Earthmen on the moon. But it was far more than that. Astronauts David R. Scott and James B. Irwin traversed the lunar surface for over 17 hoursalmost as long as their predecessors of Apollo 11, 12 and 14 combined.

They covered 28 kilometres in the lunar rover, the first car man has ever driven on the moon, and collected an unprecedented 80 kilograms of lunar rocks, including what could be a fragment of the original crust of the 4,600-million-year-old moon. Meanwhile, orbiting above in the command module, Astronaut Alfred M. Worden's battery of instruments and cameras sent Earthward such a stream of invaluable data that, reported Newsweek, "professionally restrained scientists seemed positively moonstruck."

In the big picture at left, Dave Scott works at the lunar rover, parked on the edge of Hadley Rille, a winding 365-metre-deep gorge of mysterious origin. Below, left to right: A distant view of the lunar module on the desolate moonscape; the lunar module, "solar wind" experiment (left background) and Hadley Delta (right background); Jim Irwin using a scoop to dig a trench for a sample of moon soil. Above: Irwin salutes the U.S. flag planted in the moon's dust layer. Lunar module is in centre and lunar rover at right.

20

by Robert Farrell

Disney Wonder World Stella Kramrisch

24

29

by Dr. Moti Chandra

From Mandarins to M'odernity Along th~ Appalachian Trail

The American Library

32 36

42

by Kamla Kapoor

The Americ.an Literary Scene

45

by John K. Hutchens

Front cover: This field of golden wheat symbolizes the promise of the Green Revolution, which is discussedon pages 2:7. Photo: Grant Heilman.

Back cover: U.S. "Maid of Cotton" Pat Perry models at a recent fashion pageant in Delhi. For feature see pages 4O-4J.Photo:¡Avi~ash Pasricha.

CATHERINE SCOTT, Editor; DANIEL P.OLEKSIW, Publisher.

Editorial Staff: Carmen Kagal, Avinash Pasricha, Nirmal K. Sharma, Krishan G. Gabrani. Art Staff: B. Roy Chowdhufy, Nand K. Katyal, Kanti Roy, Kuldip Singh Jus, Gopi Gajwani, Gopal K. Mehra. Production Staff: Awtar S. Marwaha, Mammen Philip. Photographic Services: USIS Photo Lab. Published by the United States Information Service,Bahawal-

pur 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, 18Ballard Estate, Bombay-I. Photographs: 2-Ray Komai. 3-Marc and Evelyne Bernheim, courtesy Rockefeller Foundation. 5-Avinash Pasricha. 8-bottom: Morton Tadder. 38-Barry Blackman.

Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged, except when copyrighted. For permission, write to the Editor. Subscription: One year, rupees five; singlecopy, fifty paise. No new subscriptions can be accepted at this time. For change of address, send old address from a recent SPAN envelope along with new address to the Circulation Manager, USIS, New Delhi. Allow six weeks for change of address to become effective.

The good earth today is yielding many times its former bounty-and bringing prosperity to those who live off the land. But to many, the Green Revolution is unleashing a host of unforeseen economic problems. Dispelling such fears, this article holds that the Revolution can be "an unparalleled catalyst for beneficial change."

The Green Revolution in perspective

by J GEORGE HARRAR

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THE SO-CALLED Green Revolution had its beginnings in Mexico in the early I940s.

For 25 years, a handful of specialists worked closely with officials and scientists of the developing world to structure and put into effect national production programmes that would drastically raise the quantity and quality of food crops available to exploding populations. During this long period of quiet and mostly uphill effort, little was heard from either the world press or the majority of development specialists who might have been expected to share an interest in work designed to ameliorate one of mankind's apocalyptic plagues.

Today all this has changed. Professional interest in, and therefore press coverage of, the Green Revolution is keen and worldwide. Some discern a new age of plenty.

The award in 1970 of the Nobel Peace Prize to Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, who as a staff member of the Rockefeller Foundation has devoted 27 years to the development and adoption of improved varieties of wheat, is one indication of the new hope.

The recent award of the UNESCO Science Prize to two of the four international agricultural institutes founded by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations-the InternationReprinted by permission from the Rockefeller Foundation President's Review & Annual Report, 1970. Mr. Harrar is president of the Rockefeller Foundation.

al Rice Research Institute and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center-is another .

But to some, the Green Revolution appears to be fraught with potential dangers.

This is not difficult to understand. Fundamental change evokes fundamental fears.

But it is also true that such change often leaves behind those whose vested interests lie in the more traditional approaches and in analyses supporting the status quo. .In recent months, several well-known publications with national and international circulations have presented articles dealingwith the possible hazards that the Green Revolution may bring to important parts of the world. This review will attempt to place in perspective some of the more disturbing and potentially misleading impressions that have gained circulation.

The thoughts expounded are different in significant ways, and one would be both unwise and unfair to generalize about them.

Some predict that the Green Revolution will unleash a host of unforeseen economic disasters upon the developing nations and in the long run will create more problems than it solves. Others criticize it for raising false hopes about the world's capacity to feed itself in view of the fact that many national populations are doubling every 20 to 30 years. And still others question whether, in spite of the time, money, effort, and expertise that have been poured into the continued

Green Revolution, it has the capability of making more than a tiny dent in the food/ population problem.

Inasmuch as the purpose of this piece is to attempt to clarify some of the issues now being debated, perhaps at this point I should define the basic term. "The Green Revolution" is the phrase generally used to _describe the spectacular increases that took place during the 1960s and are continuing today in the production of food-grains in several regions of the world, particularly in India, the Philippines, Ceylon, West Pakistan, and Thailand. While a good many farming practices are involved, the basis of the Green Revolution is the development of new high-yielding seed varieties from which a farmer can produce three to four times as much grain on the same land.

Before taking up individually the specific criticisms that are being lodged against the Green Revolution, we should first of all take an unflinching and realistic look at the problem of world hunger, the alleviation of which is the primary objective of the Green Revolution.

The fact is that, according to the Third World Food Survey of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO), there are, in the developing countries today, a billion-and-a-halfhungry people. Some of these simply do not have enough to eat.

Others eat enough, but suffer from hunger because their diet is deficient in protein, minerals, and vitamins. Dr. Richard L. Hall, chairman of the executive board for the Third International Congress of Food Science and Technology, held in Washington in August 1970, has estimated that 10,000people in the world die of malnutrition every day.

Moreover, in some areas of the world the hunger problem is going to get worse rather than better unless the trend is changed, inasmuch as the places where there is not enough food, and where even that food is of low quality, are the very places with the highest birth rates. And this trend is likely to continue until the end of the century, pending the general acceptance by peoples , and their governments of both the desir~ •.ability and the imperative need to stabilize populations.

We cannot be certain what man's mind will invent tomorrow, but thus. far no way . has beeR f-ound to conquer hunger, in any _of its forms, except by providing greater quantities of high-quality' food. Agricultural production at its present rate will not ..acc<:?mm~te all-of .tht wodcfs people

over the next three decades. No authority challenges that statement. Production will have to be three to four times greater than it was in the autumn of 1970 to qo the job.

The Green Revolution has proved beyond a doubt that, with the aid of the new agricultural technologies and other necessary inputs, such vastly increased production can be achieved. Further, it has shown that these achievements are not limited to countries that already are technically advanced, but are possible also where subsistence agriculture has always been the prevailing practice.

Another important point should be made on the subject of hunger. We need not look exclusively to that future date when three to four times more productivity will be needed. Today, there are countries in which the greatest single need of the population is the rapid increase of food supplies. In those countries the issue is not whether feeding the people may cause certain temporary dislocations, but whether people are to have enough food to sustain life. The Green Revolution is now enabling many of these people to eat more.

Some Accomplishments

Let us now proceed to take up one by one the specific criticisms of the Green Revolution. They can be summarized as follows: 1. It is making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

2. It is the cause of severe unemployment in rural areas.

3. It is the primary reason for the mass migration of rural people to overcrowded cities.

4. It is causing oversupplies and gluts on Asian markets and thus causing the price of grain to fall.

5. It is generating within the developing nations a kind of euphoria that encourages leaders to view their soaring population growth rates with complacency.

Probably the most frequently voiced criticism is the first-that the major effect Ofthe Green Revolution has been to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The more prosperous, progressive farmer with a sizable holding of land is usually the first in his village to plant the new seeds and adopt the new farming techniques. He is better educated, more aware of the services that are available to him, and probably has a wider circle of personal contacts extending beyond his own small village. He is ·more likely than his poorer neighbours to be in close communication with government and university extension agents who are knowledgeable about the seeds.

Additionally, he is apt to have readier access to the cash or credit he needs to buy the necessary chemi<;al fertilizers and insecticides. He is more likely to have installed a tube-well to provide the regular supply of water which the improved varieties require. And inevitably, because his holdings are larger, his Green Revolution profits have been greater than those of the smaller farmer.

This does not mean, however, that the Green Revolution has ben~fited only the rich farmer. Even though the new technologies may be first introduced into a community by the larger landowner, the farmers with smaller holdings soon learn about them. It is impossible to hide fields with unusually high-yielding, healthy stands of grain from one's neighbours. The results of planting th.enew seed are there for every-

In India, in 1967-68, only 18 per cent of the wheat acreage was sown to the new dwarf wheats conceived for the Green Revolution-but these varieties produced 40 per cent of India's total wheat crop. In 1968 the national average Indian wheat yield was 1,300 pounds per acre, a 62 per cent increase over the average for 1962-65.

In the state of Bihar, where famines have been endemic for hundreds of years, there are today districts where four-fifths of the wheat grown is of high-yielding varieties and yields per acre have increased from 720 _pounds to over 1,300 pounds.

Figures from Turkey are similarly impressive. During the 1967-68 season, 425,000 acres were planted with the dwarf seed-which produced an average of 52 bushels an acre, compared with 22 bushels from the traditional local wheat varieties.

The new rice varieties have made it possible for Ceylon to increase its rice crop by 34 per cent during the past two years. As for the Philippines, it was a rice-importing country fOTmost of the 20th century. For the past three yeal's, however, it has not had to import any rice. This newly acquired freedom from imp.ortation has saved the Philippine Government millions of dollars · The basis of the Green Revolutlon a year in foreign exchange.

More- food is needed in the world. The is the development of new high-yielding seeds, · such as the rice variety at rigJit. Green Revolution is producing some of it and has demonstrated the potential to produce more of it. No critic can, with logic, attack those truths.

one to see for himself. In this way, fields of the more prosperous farmers often serve as "demonstration plots" that give the poorer farmers an opportunity to observe at first hand the performance of the improved varieties before they themselves risk their own money, land, and time....

A recent unpublished report of USAID's Agricultural Economics Division in New Delhi asks: Are small farmers benefiting from the new technology? Its carefully documented conclusion is that the potential beneficiaries of the new technology would be about half of all of India's farms, or roughly 25 million farms. This can hardly be called a mere handful of farmers. The question remains, however, as to what proportion of beneficiary farms are small ones with less than five acres of land? Available evidence indicates that about 62 per cent of the beneficiary farms are small ones; about six per cent are large farms (with more than 25 acres of land per farm); and about 32 per cent are mediumsized farms. Hence the distribution of the potential beneficiaries of the new technology is weighted heavily in favour of the small farms.

No authority has ever suggested that this transition would be a smooth one, for all authorities recognize the serious economic, social, and political imbalances that characterize rural life in the developing world. We are all aware of the economic inequalities, the ancient bitternesses among various social groups, the deep-rooted prejudices, the political injustices, and the religious animosities. And it is a historical fact that the introduction of technological change often has the effect of bringing long-dormant social ills to the surface and forcing them into greater public awareness.

However, one cannot, in all fairness, place the blame for these ills on the technological innovation itself. The roots of these illsare long and pre-date the Green Revolution by many decades and even centuries.

The most progressive national leaders are beginning to realize this. As they make vigorous efforts to increase food production, they are concurrently striving equally hard to help resolve other social and economic problems and to assure the dispersion of the benefits of the Green Revolution among all groups in the society.

A second criticism, and one we have touched upon in addressing the first, is that

the Green Revolution is causing severe unemployment in rural areas. But rural unemployment can be laid to causes far more widespread and relevant than th~ Green Revolution, which has functioned only in limited areas. The Green Revolution cannot be made the scapegoat for the displacement of agricultural labourers and sharecroppers that has taken place for decades and is continuing in countless villages.

Population growth is a fundamental factor in rural unemployment. Between 1900 and 1960-in a mere 60 years-the rural population of the developing countries doubled. That was not brought about by the Green Revolution. And during that period, land devoted to farming increased only slightly. Unemployment was the inevitable result ....

This is a real problem and actions must be taken to cope with it. Unquestionably it is accentuated in some areas in these transitional times of the Green Revolution.

But it is just as erroneous to suggest that the revolution is the primary cause of rural unemployment as to conclude that it can benefit only the rich. We must avoid the illogical thinking which advises that these vital efforts to supply required food to the world should be slowed, or ended, because of their secondary contribution to the unemployment problem.

A third charge being sounded, and one that is closely related to rural unemployment, is that the Green Revolution is the chief reason for the mass migration to the cities. Again defenders must be careful not to challenge the fact of the migration itself, which is indisputable. What must be disputed, once again, is the implication that the Green Revolution is the major cause.

The lure of the city has been a constant factor in almost all societies since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, and even earlier. Rural unemployment is one factor in that migration; relief from ancient and restrictive social limitations, which always are more oppressive and inflexible in rural societies, is another; a third factor is the desire for better education, wider companionship, and more specialized job opportunities, which are usually not to be found in the traditional life of the villages....

But there is no evidence that the Green Revolution is playing a significant role in the migration. Indeed, a case to the contrary can be made. The revolution in agriculture carries with it at least the potential of creating more jobs in rural areas, and thus helping to slow down the march to the cities. The new crop varieties require considerably more cultivation and care than do the traditional varieties. The land must be suitably prepared in advance. The seeds must be properly spaced when planted. Weeds and pests must be control-

led. Precise amounts of water, fertilizers, and insecticides must be applied at the right time. Because of increased yields, more hands are required at harvest time.

And when double- and multiple-cropping systems are adopted, the need for labour increases proportionately. All these requirements can have the effect of increasing, not diminishing, the need for agricultural workers. In some instances, a farmer may have to employ 10 to 20 per cent more labourers than he did before the new seeds were introduced ....

If it is properly directed, and if the most is made of the opportunities it offers, the Green Revolution can create new jobs of all types. This is one of the challenges of its second phase.

Maldistribution, Yes, Glut, No The fourth complaint cited earlier is that the Green Revolution is responsible for a glut on Asian grain markets. This allegation is simply not based on fact. According to the Third World Food Survey of the FAO, about 30 per cent of the population in less-developed countries-between 300 and 500 million people-receive too few calories and are undernourished. And more than 190 million of them are still living in the countries of Asia where the revolution has had its greatest impact-India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia. There is no Asian grain glut. What does confront us is a maldistribution problem-which, of course, is an entirely different issue..

There is another complaint against the Green Revolution that is closely linked to the one concerning market surpluses. It is said that the increased yields of the new varieties have the effect of depressing grain prices on the international market. This complaint, however, cannot be substantiated any more than the others. Most of the increased grain production is being utilized primarily to feed people in the countries where it is grown. In the case of rice, for example, 96 per cent of the 200

million tons produced annually never enters into international trade; in other words, only four per cent of the world's rice crop is exported. And, in view of the population growth rates of virtually all the rice-growing countries, it will take a great deal of sustained effort to keep rice production going at a rate sufficient to take care of their own population increases during the next several decades.

And finally, some critics have accused the Green Revolution of tending to create complacency in the developing nations regarding their population problems. It is alleged that when national leaders see the dramatic increases in grain yields, they may consider their food/population equation solved and slacken their efforts to reduce national birth rates. But in actual fact, this is not what has happened. Leaders have frequently expressed their conviction that the Green Revolution has bought for them a period of time during which to devise concrete plans to cope with the population explosion. Far from creating complacency, the Green Revolution has driven home with special force the hard truth that at the present rate of population increase, food supplies must increase by 80, per cent by 1985merely to avert famine.

Seven Steps to Stability These difficulties, and others not here cited, are recognized. Most have been recognized from the outset. No sudden qualms have overtaken the Green Revolution; no novel set of circumstances has developed to overwhelm the planners. In all authoritative quarters, we find increased recognition of the supportive measures that must be taken by national governments, local communities, and private groups to sustain and extend the benefits of the agricultural revolution. They include: 1. Increased measures by governments to see that loanable funds are made available to small-scale farmers at interest rates comparable to those received by the large farmers.

2. Greater effort, through extension and research, to determine where and how the new technologies can best be adapted to small-farmer groups.

3. Wider, more intensive use of trained extension agents who know the rural people and can encourage and guide the smaller farmers during the entire season.

4. Positive policies to assure that in the transition from subsistence to market farming, the labour-intensive characteristics of the traditional production methods are retained.

5.

6.

7.

Exertion of greater efforts to set up small industrial enterprises, service centres, and trading depots in towns and villages-thus providjng more new non-agricultural jobs.

Improvement of intensive marketing and distribution facilities so that the increased food supplies will reach the people who need them, whether in rural areas or in cities.

Efforts to assure that the farmer is not penalized for his endeavours to increase production by wide fluctuations in the price he receives for his crop.

I trust it has been established in this brief perspective that the Green Revolution has accomplished its major objective. The Green Revolution has shown that much larger quantities of food can be produced in the very areas of the world where famines, hunger, and malnutrition have been endemic. Food-grain production and per-acre yields have risen to record heights and, for the most part, this food is being consumed by the people living in the countries where it is grown. Again and again, the new seeds have shown that they have the capability of increasing production where other agricultural improvements have either failed or had little effect....

There is now growing and conclusive evidence that the Green Revolution is having a constructive, positive, and long-term influence in ways other than increasing the quantities of food available. Recent surveys made in the state of Uttar Pradesh, * for example, have found that in many of the communities where the new seeds have been generally adopted, there are very obvious indications of expansion of both services and trade-more stores, more machinery distribution centres, etc.

But the point that should be most emphasized about the Green Revolution is that it cfln be an unparalleled catalyst for beneficial change in backward agricultural areas. Some proponents argue that this *"Changing Agriculture and Rural Life in a Region of Northern India, A Study of Progressive Farmers in Northwestern Uttar Pradesh During 1967/8." Research Project, U.P. Agricultural University. Pantnagar. Vols. rand n.

might be its most important result, for it has helped dispel a myth that has historically shaped official agricultural policies.

For decade after decade the myth held that millions of farmers in large areas of the world-farmers steeped in generations of fatalism and apathy-are not and cannot be receptive to new ideas and therefore should be ignored in planning for national development. The myth has been accepted traditionally, not only by sceptical officials but all too often by the excluded farmers themselves.

But government leaders no longer accept the notion that proposals designed to help the poorest farmer are doomed to failure. Now there is proof that enables the farmer to raise his expectations of what agricultural life can offer. Until recently, the agricultural sector and rural populations had long been the poor relations of the industrial sector and urban populations.

Today, largely because of the overwhelming evidence that the adoption and spread of the new agricultural technologies can contribute so advantageously to overall national development, the governments of India, Turkey, and half-a-dozen other countries in Asia have adopted new agricultural policies and are allocating more of their national budget to agriculture.

Instead of giving industry highest priority in national development strategy, the Indian Government has made agricultural development one of its primary goals....

As indicated earlier, the Green Revolution has captured the imagination of the farmer and provided him with an incentive as nothing seems to have been able to do in the past. When he sees for himself the increased harvests that may be his if he uses the new materials, he evinces an unexpected readiness to take chances with the new varieties by investing in the improved seeds, buying the essential chemical fertilizer and pesticides, and perhaps improving his water supply. He begins to experience a sense of involvement with his nation's progress and to participate actively in local programmes ....

In conclusion, it should be pointed out that there is a major, and entirely unpredicted, benefit which has resulted from the debate that is going on over the Green Revolution. It has pinpointed for the general public what the men who created the revolutionary new seeds have always realized: No improved food variety, or no single new technology by itself, can solve the world food problem.

END

II

In the new, made-to-order town of Columbia, Maryland, designers are striving to combine the best of both city and suburban living.

OUTIN THEcountryside where the expanding suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, will soon meet, a new city, named Columbia, is rising. Its builder, James W. Rouse, has set out boldly to solve many of the urban problems that beset America by constructing a complete new town which preserves both the conveniences of the city and the natural open space of the country. He calls it "The Next America."

The slogan is justified, since at Columbia an attempt is being made to improve the way of life common to most Americans. Aware that many families would like to own a home with rural/urban amenities, Rouse provides them with just that-but much more, too. All who work in the city willbe able to live there and no one will be excluded because of race or income level.

There are other things too, he feels, that a new city can and should provide, so he decided to build his city with the best possible environment for the growth of people.

As a builder of offices, shopping centres and apartments, Rouse has long been familiar with the bland or downright ugly sprawl surrounding many American cities.

But unlike some less-concerned builders, he decided to do something about it. As a member of numerous advisory boards

THE NEXT AMERICA"

under Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, he early exhibited an interest in social and housing problems of the city. And so, in the early-'60s, he and his associates asked themselves: "Why not build a new city?

Couldn't all the pieces be arranged in relationship to one another so each would give strength and value to the other? Couldn't all of this be fitted on the land, to dignify and ennoble it, instead of to destroy it?"

Rouse is finding his answers in Columbia. It is a spacious, green community, dotted with trees and walkways and man-made lakes which, by 1980, will house 110,000 people. They will live and many of them will work in an area approximately the size of Manhattan Island (New York)-about 6,000 hectares. The carefully-planned design will eventually consist of seven villages clustered around a town centre that will feature major stores and offices, cultural and recreational facilities. The villages themselves will contain several neighbourhoods or "superblocks" of both singlefamily houses and apartments grouped around a smaller centre of stores, a school and community facilities.

Industry will be located at the periphery CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY, RIGHT, IS A FAMILIAR SIGHT IN COLUMBIA. LEFT, AERIAL PHOTO SHOWS THE BASIC PLAN OF SINGLE-UNIT HOUSING IN VILLAGE OF WILDE LAKE. TREE-SHADED WALKWAYS, OPEN SPACES FOR CHILDREN TO PLAY, ABOVE LEFT, ARE SOME OF THE TOWN'S SALIENT FEATURES.

of the town on three sides and by 1980 is expected to provide some 60,000jobs in the area. A decade from now the project will also have some 50,000 single dwelling units plus 24,000 apartments, if present plans are carried out. Virtually all the houses will be available for private ownership, with some attached townhouses and many apartments for rent. The price of the houses now ranges from $17,000 (Rs. 127,500) for a townhouse up to as much as an individual home-owner cares to pay for a custombuilt home. But more important than the physical and financial facts of Columbia is the whole new way of life it offers residents and its promise as one solution to the urban ills of our time.

But are new towns really new? Columbia, in fact, is much like a number of such projects which have sprung up in Britain, Europe and elsewhere since World War II. The main difference between them is that new towns in other countries have usually been developed by governments; Columbia is one of a handful in the United States continued

Columbia reflects the planners' concern for the impact that environment has on the human spirit. being built by private enterprise.

And so Columbia was born. The area around Washington, D.C., has one of the fastest-growing populations in the country.

Rouse found that there was enough inexpensive farmland about 40 kilometres north of Washington to accommodate 100,000 people. This is the number of residents needed to support the institutions of a real city: a music hall, colleges, department stores, hospitals, etc. Over a ninemonth period, 57 square kilometres of land were assembled through 140 purchases.

Planning for Columbia began in 1963.

Realizing the failures of much city planning in the past, Rouse added to.the ranks of the normal group of planners, engineers and architects, others "who would know about people from a variety of backgrounds and experiences to shed light on how the city might be made to work best for the people who would live there." Specialists in recreation, family life, government, health, sociology, economics, education, psychology, transport and communications met for two days twice each month with the Rouse planners to '~talk about man, his family, his institutions." They were told, "Forget budget limitations for the time being; they will compromise us soon enough. What should be the recreational provisions for 100,000 people? What kind of educational system? What role should the churches play? What size neighbourhoods are best and most comfortable for people?" The search for answers to these questions made possible the continuing co-ordination of physical and social planning that distinguishes Columbia.

The town's layout and architecture for the most part are not radical. Rouse knows that many people shy away from dramatically new design, preferring not to feel as if they are living in a test tube. Where a new idea-such as the clustering of housing to save land for open space, or the use of separate rights-of-way for city transportwas not too unfamiliar, it was used. That is why to some, Columbia may not seem an exciting place to drive through. But the residents love it. They appreciate the planning which called for neighbourhoods just large enough-about 600 to 700 familiesto support a small elementary school. Here, too, are other services needed close to

home-a day-care centre, a neighbourhood store for the daily basic necessitjes, and a meeting-room. The supermarket, speciality stores, churches, etc., serve a larger population: the village, where the best size was determined to be 15,000 or so residents.

In Columbia, children can walk to school on footpaths which never cross a main traffic road. Mothers can push baby carriages to the local convenience store, to the day-care centre, to the swimming pool, or to visit neighbours. They can also walk a bit farther to the village centre with its more specialized stores and services. Of course they can drive there, too, and there's plenty ofparking behind the village square.

Columbia is also different from existing suburbs in the way its residents can get around. Mini-buses, running on their own right-of-way alongside the main roads, circulate through the villages, carry.ing passengers to and from the downtown and industrial sites.

Residents of Columbia enjoy the conveniences of efficient grouping of services and internal transport in a natural setting.

Columbia's planners have preserved the wooded areas of their site and added two small man-made lakes, with plans for three more. They have kept part of the lakefron t untouched to maintain some of the natural ecology and wildlife. Children love to explore it. Other parts of the open space, some 23 per cent of the total land area of the city, will be landscaped for garden and picnic areas. As Rouse explains it: "We invited the land to impose itself as a discipline on the form of the community."

James W. Rouse and his team consider a city to be no better than its institutions: a city's life and vitality come from them.

But they saw that to avoid the stagnation which has occurred in so many older cities, the traditional institutions would have to be encouraged to re-think their role in their new community of Columbia.

Re-thinking by religious groups destined to serve the city resulted in an unprecedented co-operation between 12 Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish congregation. They have come together to form a corporation to build and own all of the religious buildings in the city, each building able to contain several separate simultaneous worship services. This will avoid great duplication in under-utilized buildings.

Some people remark, and withjustification, that Columbia doesn't feel like a city, much less look like one. There will be highrise buildings around the city's central area, but, says Rouse, most people prefer

VARIETY IS THE KEYNOTE IN HOUSING AT COLUMBIARANGING FROM SINGLEUNIT DWEL-

LINGS TO HIGH-RISE TOWERS, FROM TOWNHOUSES TO GARDEN APARTMENT COMPLEXES LIKE THOSE SHOWN AT RIGHT.

ABOVE, COLUMBfA'S MUSIC PAVILION IS THE AREA'S MOST POPULAR OUTDOOR CONCERT MECCA FOR ROCK, CLASSICAL MUSrC, BALLET .

.

Il~

AS COLUMBIA GROWS, SO DO ITS RECREATIONAL FACILITIES, INCLUDING SWIMMING POOLS, BELOW, IN EACH OF ITS VILLAGES.

During leisure hours there is plenty for everybody to do in Columbia-without leaving town. single-family houses and low-rise apartments, so that is what is being built. When the city is completed, about one-third of all housing units will be apartments, most of these two- and three-storey walk-ups.

Houses and apartments will vary in price so that everyone who works in Columbia will be able to afford a home there, be he factory janitor or corporation president. Housing styles also vary, but for the most part the architecture is typical of suburban dwellings.

Now under construction is what James Rouse hopes will be a "real downtown," serving Columbia and the areas around the city as well. More than a suburban shopping centre where a few large stores swim in a sea of parking, Columbia's centre will mix offices, restaurants, a hotel, two colleges, a hospital, and high-rise apartment buildings with the stores. Already in operation since 1967 is the Merriweather Post Pavilion of Music-the region's outstanding outdoor concert hall, which books topflight artists of all the performing arts and draws summer crowds to Columbia from the surrounding cities and towns.

Howard County is the political jurisdiction in which Columbia is located and until Columbia's developers began to make demands, the Howard County Board of Education had made few changes in its school system in anticipation of the population increase and urbanization. The city's original plan was to have about 40 small elementary schools, one in each resiEACH OF COLUMBIA'S SEVEN VILLAGES HAS A COMMUNITY CENTRE WHERE THE CITY'S RECREATION ASSOCIATION SPONSORS CULTURAL AND VARIETY ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMMES, INCLUDING BALLET LESSONS, RIGHT, FOR RESIDENTS.

dential neighbourhood. But the Board said it could not build so many schools in the new town without putting any new ones in the rest of the county and it could not afford to do both. The two elementary schools built so far in Columbia are onehalf again larger than planners had hoped, but they are among the most up-to-date in the whole region. They are based on advanced educational theories which call fOf individual instruction, team teaching, mixed-media teaching materials and ungraded classes. The buildings are beautifully designed, containing large, carpeted and brightly coloured "areas" rather than traditional classrooms.

Three colleges will have homes at Columbia. The Howard County Community College will offer courses in adult continuing education as well as the first two years of liberal arts college instruction. A branch of Antioch College, one of the finest liberal arts schools in the country, has already been established and will soon be moving to a permanent campus. In addition, an experimental school of higher learning, the Dag Hammarskjold College, is scheduled to be opened soon.

Johns Hopkins University Medical School has established a unique, comprehensive health-care insurance programme which is available to residents of Columbia and the surrounding area. The insurance will cost the average family no more than it now pays for commercial insurance, but it will be geared to keeping the family healthy, rather than just providing emergency treatment for the already ill. "Columbia medicine will be working on the possibility that it costs no more to build a healthy community than to treat a sick one," Rouse explains.

There is an atmosphere in Columbia of trying the untried. Residents belong to the

Columbia Association, which does the "housekeeping chores" for the open spaces, held in common by all property owners, and it runs the village community centres. Initiative of the residents has led to co-operative baby-sitting services for young mothers, dancing lessons at the community centre of one village, and even a chauffeuring service set up by a mother of seven.

Probably the most conspicuous happening at Columbia is the establishment of the Friendship Exchange by people who like to practise the art of co-operation.

For those who want to join the Exchange its director will help them put their four hours of volunteer service per month to use doing something for other people. When a new family moves to town it is met with a warm meal, the loan of any item which may have gotten temporarily mislaid in moving, and a visit from a neighbourhood child who stops by to take the new family's youngsters around the village. Other members of the Exchange may read to or walk with an elderly person, or baby-sit for a young mother, or help staff the Exchange telephone 24 hours a day, so that everyone in Columbia knows there is a person to turn to in times of trouble.

James Rouse is pleased with his new city so far. But he doesn't consider his job complete until there is a certain quality in Columbia: community.

"The task is to produce community-community in which a man, his wife and children are important, come first-ahead of buildings, streets and automobiles. Community which they can be proud of and which, in human terms, cares about them; suffers with them; prays for them. This is the only legitimate purpose for our cities or our civilization-to grow better people. More concerned, inspired, fulfilled-more loving people."

END

THE CITY MAINTAINS, OPERATES A CHAIN OF SPORTS FACILITIES LIKE THE TENNIS COURT BELOW.

FOCAL POINT IN EACH OF SEVEN VILLAGES WILL BE A SHOPPING CENTRE LIKE THIS ONE, ABOVE.

VISITOR'S CENTRE, BELOW, REFLECTS EFFICIENCY, SPACIOUSNESS-COLUMBIA'S HALLMARKS.

Restoring the land after surface mining, America's largest coal producer is proving that technology and conservation can coexist.

BLACKMESAis a massive highland in north¡ ern Arizona which rises gently to an elevation of just over 2,440 metres. Most of the Mesa is rocky, rolling country covered with sagebrush, grass and stunted trees. The highland area lies in the heart of a NavajoHopi "reservation" covering 62,400 square kilometres as remote as any American soil south of Alaska.

In the Arizona sunshine, Black Mesa could be the sparse locale for a Hollywood western. Instead it is the scene of a strip coal-mining operation which is expected to demonstrate that land can be mined without leaving behind the ugly scars that surface mining elsewhere in the United States has left on some 800,000 hectares of land -equivalent to a 1,600-metre-wide slash stretching from New York to San Francisco.

The Black Mesa coal operation is also demonstrating that a commercial activity by private interests can provide jobs for the American Indians who live on the reservation, most of whom eke out a meagre livelihood by the grazing of cattle, sheep and goats on the windswept plateau. The mining company not only is employing the

Healinglhe

Fishing"pond surrounded by trees was once the site 0/ a strip coal mille. Below, a hydroseeder sprays water, fertilizer and seed over an area which has recently been mined. reservation Indians in the operation but also has committed itself-by legal agreement with the Bureau of Indian Affairsto restore the land to the condition it was in before giant machines began to rip out the surface soils to bare the coal seams below.

The Peabody Coal Company, the nation's largest coal producer, is mining on Black Mesa under a 35-year lease with the Navajo and Hopi tribal councils. The coal is used by a new electric power plant in southern Nevada.

Environmentalists

unspoiled area would be ruined by a mining process which, at its worst, strips away topsoils, removes minerals and leaves a desolate scene behind. UnrecJaimed surface mining, says the U.S. Department of the I nterior, "affects virtually all resource values: forests, lands, fish and wildlife, clean water, natural beauty."

Indians feared their ancestral homes might be destroyed and their traditional way of life disrupted by the mechanical stripping shovels, which scoop out 14 tons of coal at a bite and operate 24 hours a day.

A few years ago, the mining of Black ,Mesa might have gone unnoticed. Today it has become another test to determine whether technology and environmental

scars Of industry values can coexist-whether economic benerye, Indian rice grass and other hardy fits can be reaped and the natural beauty forms of grass, plant and tree life. The of the land preserved at the same time. reclamation work is part of the comThere is a good chance that both goals pany's "Green Earth" programme, already will be achieved at Black Mesa. The Peaapplied to 34 other surface mines elsewhere body Company has made a practice of in the United States. restoring-re-grading and replanting-the The U.S. Government is in a position to land from which it has extracted minerals. control, wholly or partially, surface mining Royalties for coal produced are expected activities on the approximately 38 per cent to yield $3 million (Rs. 22,500,000) a year of the totai U.S. land area which is federalto the tribal councils. Indians employed as Iy owned. Only nine of the nation's 50 miners and equipment operators-under states directly regulate strip and surface terms of a contract with the United Mine mining. Effectiveness of the laws depends Workers-earn over S 10,000 (Rs. 75,000) a on the degree of enforcement, which varies year apiece. When the mines are in full from careless to strict. The shift to stricter production the work force will increase to control of surface mining is most noticeabout 380 men, of whom some 80 per cent able in mine operations on publicly-owned \\ill be Indian. lands within the United States.

It is estimated that it will take 35 years The various government agencies conto mine the coal in that region at the rate trolling federal lands can, in leases signed of 13 million tons a year. The company permitting mining there, require that cerextracts the coal from 2.6 square kilotain reclamation procedures be observed. metres of land a year, filling one worked,:;, .Provisions of the new Federal Water Qualout area with the rock and soils excavated . ity Act are being applied increasingly to from another. surface-mining operations because soil erosion, acid mine-wastes, ravaged woodlands Alten F. Grandt, director of land reclamation for the company, says reclamation and the loss of natural scenery all are facin its simplest form means restoring land tors in environmental degradation and outthat has been mined "to the best condition right pollution. possible for uses that can be foreseen."

The Interior Department reports that Grandt's company is planting the re¡¡ graded, filled-in mine lands with alfalfa, sweet clover, wheat gr wild

well-directed reclamation programmes can turn a once-ugly surface-mined area into one of new growth, with small lakes and restored bird and animal life. Camp sites, golf courses, playgrounds, pasture lands, and orange groves stand today as evidence of what can be accomplished if federal and state requirements ace applied imaginatively.

Despite progress in some areas, an enormous amount of work remains to be done. Some 13,000 square kilometres have been disturbed by surface mining; only a third have been restored.

But corrective action is planned. President Nixon has asked the Congress to support imposition of stringent standards for the reclamation of both private and public lands damaged by surface mining.

The legislation would require all the U.S. states, within two years, to enact stripmining regulations, with full public participation in the drafting. Should the states fail to act, the Se~retary of the r nterior would be authorized t9 iny:>ose federal regulations. The states In such instances would have to pay the bulk-75 per cent -of the costs of the programme.

END

THE NAINI TAL OBSERVATORY¡ IS ONE OF THE CENTRES OF RESEARCH .FROM WHICH ASTRONOMERS ARE MAKING MAN MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT THE COSMOS, AND OPENING UP HITHERTO UNDREAMT-OF POSSIBILITIES OF STUDY OF EXCITING NEW WORLDS.

THE ROADSIDEASTROLOGER who offers to read your future for a rupee is usually a person brimming with self-confidence. He professes an intimate knowledge of the stars and their movements and will perhaps draw a chart to show how a particular star is going to affect your fortunes. But the astronomer who studies the mysteries of the heavens night after night through his telescope has no pretensions to such profoundness. He will be satisfied if during a lifetime of study and research his efforts have added an iota to the world's knowledge of the universe and lifted a little the veil which hides the vast unknown.

"Isn't it remarkable, and even exciting, that without being able to 'handle' the objects he studies, the astronomer fills you with the reassurance that the universe around us is knowable and that the same laws of physics we study in our Earth-based laboratories find universal application?" With these words Dr. S.D. Sinvhal, Director of the Uttar Pradesh State Observatory at Naini Tal, summed up for me his attitude towards the science of astronomy.

Not laying claim to any spectacular achievements by the observatory, he pointed out how astronomical research in India, as elsewhere, is slowly making man more knowledgeable about the cosmos, defining ~i~relationship with it and opening up hitherto Naini Tal Observatory tracks man-made Earth satellites with BakerNunn camera, left. Camera's film of satellite is matched, above, against sky chart. Smithsonian Observatory has provided Naini Tal with camera and sky atlas. Top: Technician with lens made in optics shop.

undreamt-of possibilities of contact with new, exciting worlds.

In India the study of astronomy may be traced as far back as the Vedic era and seems to have received considerable attention during the Hindu period ranging from the 5th to the 11th century A.D. The early part of the 18th century saw a revival of interest, owing mainly to the efforts of Raja Sawai Jai Singh, whose observatories (Jantar Mantars) in Jaipur, Delhi and a few other places are still extant and attract both scholars and tourists.

The first modern Indian observatory was opened in Madras towards the end of the 19th century and shifted to Kodaikanal a few years later. It was followed by an observatory in Hyderabad in 1908, which did some pioneering astrometric work. The third modern observatory for optical astronomy in India was not established till after independence. It was opened by the Government of Uttar Pradesh in Varanasi in 1954, shifted to Naini Tal a year later and to its present position-IO kilometres south of Naini Tal town-in 1961. A new development in astronomical research is the application of radio technology. Under the aegis of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India's first radioastronomical observatory was set up in Ootacamund about a year ago.

Located on Manora Peak, at an altitude of 1,950 metres and in a region of great silvan beauty, the Naini Tal Observatory occupies an area of 50 hectares of forest land. Besides the main building which houses the offices of the scientific staff, the laboratories, the library and the electronics workshop, there are seven coni iI/lied

THE SAME LAWS OF PHYSICS THAT WE STUDY INc-EARTH'S LABORATORIES APPLY THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE. telescope houses, a workshop, an optics shop, an administrative office and residential quarters.

The total strength of the staif, including 20 scientists, is about 90. Dr. Sinvhal, an astronomer of long standing, has been on the staff of the observatory since it was established in 1954 and its Director since 1960.

Stellar research is the most important of the observatory's present activities but, as Dr. Sinvhal points out, its scope is currently limited by the equipment available to the researchers. Of the five stellar telescopes installed in the observatory at present, the largest is a 56-em reflector. A 102-cm reflector telescope has, however, been acquired recently. Installation is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

With the Hyderabad Observatory already possessing a 120-cm reflector and the Kodaikanal Observatory also planning to install a 102-cm reflector early next year, the telescope capacity of the three Indian observatories will thus be more or less at par. For purposes of comparison it is relevant to note that the largest telescope in Asia is a 184-cm reflector in Tokyo and the largest in the world a 51O-cmreflector at Mount Palomar in the United States.

The Naini Tal Observatory has made studies of some variable stars, aimed at determining such features as their distances, masses and radii and the evolutionary changes constantly occurring in them. Special attention has been given to the study of eclipsing binaries-pairs of stars whose movements in relation to each other cause an occasional eclipse with consequent reduction in the brightness of the system-and of intrinsically variable stars, including short-period Cepheids and stars that emit flares (the last-mentioned project being assisted by a PL-480 grant). In these studies the techniques of photoelectric photometry and spectrophotometry have been used. Solar astronomy has so far been confined to theoretical studies of the formation of molecular lines in the sun. With the recent installation of a solar spectrograph, observational programmes are expected to begin soon.

In the field of space research the Naini Tal Observatory has a unique position as it is the only centre in India for the optical tracking of man~made Earth satellites. In collaboration with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this programme started in the International Geophysical Year 1957-58and has since been continued without interruption.

On loan to Naini Tal by the Smithsonian Observatory is a 79(51-cm Baker-Nunn satellite-tracking camera and ancillary equipment. The camera is capable of photographing an illuminated ball 15 cm in diameter at a height of 4,000 km. The ancillary equipment includes a quartz clock made by the Electronic Engineering Co. of California, which records time accurately up to one millionth of a second, and a set of 125 solar charts making up a complete atlas of the sky up to stars of the ninth magnitude.

PL-480 assistance also is being provided for this project.

Telescope house for Naini Tal's recently acquired l02-cm reflector is seen under construction, right, while an instrument for use with the new telescope is assembled, above, in the electronics workshop. Above right: Dr. Sinvhal (left) and colleague discuss flare-stars study project.

The Smithsonian Observatory sends N:lini Tal advance monthly listings of predicted movements of various satellites which are of scientific interest from the optical-tracking point of view, and the estimated timings of their flights through the Naini Tal observation area. This statement is occasionally supplemented by cabled information. Acting on it, the camera is set after taking into account such factors as azimuth, altitude and angular velocity, and the satellite is filmed during its passage. Exposures are made at a predetermined rate which may vary from one per second to one every 32 seconds. The exact time of each exposureaccurate to 1/10,000 of a second-is automatically recorded on the film by a "slave" clock in the camera controlled by the quartz clock. Photographed against the background of the stars, the satellite appears on the film as a broken line while the stars are seen as pinpoints.

About 35,300 satellite transits have been successfully photographed so far. The camera is in operation every night except in bad weather. The exposed film is processed and carefully studied

and, when required, the data obtained are cabled to the Smithsonian Observatory. But the normal procedure is for films to be dispatched to the United States by sea mail once a month. Naini Tal received flight data on the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 flights.

Both spacecraft were successfully tracked on their return flightsApollo lIon July 23, 1969, from 14:38 to 15:01, and Apollo 12 on November 24, 1969, from 19:29 to 20:19 (timings in Universal or Greenwich mean time).

Over the years this programme has expanded considerably, yielded some spectacular r~sults and corrected some misconceptions. An important discovery, which modified a long-accepted geographical concept, was made through observation of the movements of other satellites; it was that the Earth is pear-shaped rather than an ellipsoid.

Among more recent and tangible benefits of the U.S. satellite programme are accurate weather forecasting and warning of the approach of storms, assisting navigation by defining the positions of ships and aircraft, and-overshadowing all other developments -the revolution in communications which the Intelsat class of satellites is effecting by interlinking the continents in a vast network of radio, television and telephone communication.

The satellite-tracking station at the Naini Tal Observatory is, of course, concerned only with the optical tracking of satellites.

Set up under the supervision of an American technical adviser from the Smithsonian Observatory, it is now operated entirely by Indian scientists and technicians. Mr. B.M. Tripathi, assistant astronomer, who is in immediate charge of the station, spent about six months in the United States familiarizing himself with observatory and satellite-tracking routine. Four other members of the staff besides the Director, Dr. Sinvhal, have also been to the United States on professional visits to observatories and astronomy study centres.

Together with the other astronomical observatories in India, the Naini Tal Observatory is playing a useful, if modest, role in the promotion of scientific research. Recognized as a centre of research by Agra University, Banaras Hindu University and Osmania University, it offers facilities for the study of astrophysics leading to a doctorate in the subject. It also teaches astrophysics to physics students of the local college who are taking a special paper in astrophysics for their master's degree.

Conducted educational tours by groups of students from local and neighbouring colleges are a regular feature of the observatory's activities. It has a well-equipped library which contains valuable reference books on astronomy, mathematics and physics, and subscribes to some 70 scientific journals.

So far, members of the observatory staff have written about 50 research papers which have been published in Indian and foreign scientific journals. Apart from these researches, individual staff members have shown considerable initiative and ingenuity in designing and fabricating some of the instruments needed for their studies. The optical grinding and polishing machine set up in the optics workshop is an example of this constructive effort. It has produced plain mirrors of 45-cm diameter with a high degree of accuracy, and is capable of producing mirrors up to 75 cm in diameter. The staff also designed and made the mounting for the 56-cm reflector and the solar spectrograph.

With able direction, a dedicated staff and expanding facilities for research, the Naini Tal Observatory may be expected to make an increasingly valuable contribution to the country's scientific and technological development.

END

¡

TO KEEP THE PLANES FLYING

ONE OF the first things a traveller does when he decides to make a journey by air is call an airline office for information and a reservation. The journey accomplished, one of his last acts before leaving his destination airport is to make another call, this one to one of the numerous hostelries advertising there to arrange a night's lodging.

Between these two "ordinary" phone calls there took place, perhaps unknown or only partially known to our typical traveller, a vast, intricate communications effort devoted to his safety and comfort and the service given him and his fellow passengers. Hundreds of specialists using telephone land lines, teletypewriters, radio, radar and systems of computers worked continuously on all manner of tasks, from ensuring that there were enough dinners aboard for passengers sitting in armchairs eight kilometres above the earth to seeing that the plane did not collide with the scores of others in the air near its path.

In the United States the air facilities around Denver, Colorado, make the area a good place to explore a part of this communications web. Stapleton Airport is one of the nation's dozen busiest-it supports a lot of private aviation and is served by a number of major airlines. United Air Lines (UAL) has principal facilities there, including its pilot training centre and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has an Air Route Traffic Control Center at nearby Longmont.

"If it weren't for the telephone, we'd be out of business," said Ed Wyant, operating chief of the UAL reservations centre in Denver. "In a peak month we handle over

15,000 calls here, processing reservations for most of the mountain area. A traveller can drop his dime in Des Moines, dial a local number, and actually talk with someone here in Denver. The telephone is our main tool; with it the public reaches us and we reach the public.

"Our staff numbers around 300. We consider the girls salespeople, not just order-takers. It's a thinking job; the fare tariff alone is enough to drive you crazy.

There are individual fares, the family plan, excursion rates, first class and coach-with some fares varying on week-ends and even with the time of day. The girls also have to consider connecting flights-in what cities and with what other airlines." To help ease the complexity, most airlines are installing computers to aid their reservations operations. The clerk types the reservation wanted and its availability is indicated almost immediately. These data links are important: speed and efficiency in handling a caller's request contributes to his impression of the airline's service.

In a small room at VAL's reservation cen!re, teletypewriters help accommodate commercial accounts. "Large companies that do a lot of business with us," a clerk explained, "type us the information fora ticket and we transmit the ticket back through the teletypewriter. The customer doesn't even have to come to a ticket counter."

Once our typical traveller has his reservation he makes a mental note to show up at the check-in counter a few minutes before the plane leaves. An hour-and-a-half before he leaves his home for the airport, though, the planning centre becomes in-

volved with the flight. This is the co-ordination and communications hub linking the airline headquarters, dispatch office, maintenance people and ramp crews. The planning centre ties it all together to get the plane out on time.

"Need windshield washed. Gate 8."

The ramp service manager takes note of the message and arranges for the work to be done. Previously, he had assigned the craft to that gate. He is also the man who will be called on any problem in loading or balancing the plane.

An arriving plane calls in requesting a new generator. The message goes first to ARINC (Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated), an airline-owned communications organization, which routes it to the planning centre. Here specialists alert the proper crew and co-ordinate activity-in this case, getting the generator out of the stockroom and to the right place on time.

Not all incoming calls bear the urgency of malfunctioning equipment. Frequently, when a flight is late, the pilot will call in to tell the planning centre if he has people on board who have connecting flights to make.

The centre may have a station wagon meet the plane to eJllpeditethe transfer of these passengers ....

Once our typical traveller has ensconced continued A hastily abandoned cup of coffee, right, attests to the sudden departure of a supervisor to help a controller, far right above, at the Air Route Traffic Control Center near Denver. Eachflight,Jar right below, is supported by an intricate web of telephones, teletypewriters, radio, radar, computers.

The vast communications network behind air travel

Every half-second around the clock, a plane takes off somewhere in the U.S.A.

himself in his seat, smiled at the stewardess and fastened his seatbelt, he's on his waycarefree, because the care has been assumed by others. Up front, the pilot is given the sequence in which to start his engines by a mechanic speaking to him by phone from just outside the plane. That way the mechanic can have his eye on each unit as it starts and watch for irregularities. Then the flight engages the attention of the specialists in the control tower. The ground controller there is responsible for all aircraft or vehicular traffic in the taxiways; the local departure controller ensures that there is adequate separation before clearing a flight for takeoff. The control tower directs the taxi run, meanwhile contacting by direct line the nearest FAA Air Route Traffic Control Center CARTCC) on the plane's proposed path. The Center's clearance will specify the exact route and altitude to be used after takeoff. Just getting the plane away from the loading ramp and into the air has occupied a staff of controllers and engaged a wide network of communication.

The aircraft now lifting gracefully off the ground, with our typical passenger wondering whether to read or sleep before dinner is served, is never out of touch with the FAA system. The control tower will follow the craft with radar for the first 30to 50 kilometres out, then "hand it over" to the appropriate FAA Center, beginning a series of transfers that keeps it under constant surveillance by the FAA until its journey is over.

George Durand is planning and procedures officer for the FAA Denver ARTCC in Longmont, Colorado. He explained the role of the centre: "We provide a service

to pilots who wish to avail themselves of it. We'll follow a craft on its journey and our controllers will keep it separated from other aircraft. We'll also supply significant data, such as weather and traffic in its immediate area and the area it's heading into."

Our typical passenger would be impressed with the attention lavished on his flight at an FAA Center. The control room is probably one of the largest rQoms he'd have been in-it's 59 metres long, 20 wide and 7 high-and it contains a vast array of electronic gear operated by air traffic control specialists and supervisory personnel.

"It takes about three years to become a controller," Durand explained. "The men train on the job and get homework, too. They have to hit the books. Most of them have pilot experience or college time.

Some have both.

"There are 27 Centers in the United States, each responsible for a specific area.

Ours is 1,130 kilometres long by 885 wide.

Since one man cannot be responsible for all the aircraft in such a large area, we divide it into sectors, then subdivide these into two levels.

"The controller uses direct radio communication with the aircraft. This is very 150high frequency radio-line-of-sight, 250 kilometres, depending on the altitude of the aircraft. Because the area we're responsible for is large and exceeds this lineof-sight range, we have a number of remote stations we call RCAGs, for Remote Center, Air-Ground. The controller is connected to these transmitting and receiving stations by leased lines. Private leased lines also connect the control centre to the terminal towers and to our flight service stations.

"When a flight departing from Denver gets about 50 kilometres Jrom Stapleton, the transferring controller in the tower

Denver's Stapleton Airport, one of the dozen busiest in the United States, serves many major airlines as well as private aviation. there calls us on a hot line and-with each controller looking at a radar presentation -effects a handoff. The pilot is told to change his radio frequency to that of the controller handling his flight at the centre and the transfer of jurisdiction is completed.

Our controller will follow the plane on a a 22-inch (57-centiradarscope-actually metre) TV screen-all the while it's in his sector and keep the pilot apprised of anything significant going on in his area and suggest re-routings if necessary. As the plane passes to another sector there's another handoff. Then, when the aircraft passes through our entire area, we'll transfer it to another centre's jurisdiction. When the plane gets to within 150 kilometres or so of its destination, we'll start it down

from its crUlsll1g altitude and, in due course, hand it over to the terminal controller. It will be cleared to a gate, the passengers will leave the plane and the flight will be accomplished."

Growth is a word encountered frequently when discussing air travel, already a major industry. On the average, every halfsecond around the clock a plane takes off somewhere in the United States. (Twentythree hub airports generate 65 per cent of this traffic.) Yet there will be more, and facilities are expanding. Some $6 billion (Rs. 4,500 crores) will be required to improve the nation's airport system to keep up with this demand. Traffic on U.S. airlines doubled in the late 1960s and is likely to triple in the next decade. Communications will have to keep pace with the air industry and the two groups are working closely together now to make sure the communications needs are identified. The

Air Transport Association has a special committee for developing industry requirements for telephone service and American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) representatives attend many of the committee meetings. Controller calling pilot, or computer talking to computer, the communications role will be bigger and more complex. In the future: At the Air Route Traffic Control Centers, chance for human error will be minim.ized as computers will be able to look at the whole air space and give the controller solutions to local situations in relation to the whole picture.

SSTs (supersonic transports), jf they come into being, will require a new altitude stratum higher than the ones controllers now watch and this will alter the radar setup and affect radio transmission and reception. Because of their speed, the controller will have to give instructions to a supersonic craft 150 kilo metres in advance of the location where the change is needed -meaning that the sectors surveyed will have to be three times larger than those of today. Their speed will make communicating with these planes a problem, too.

One solution would be to have many radio sites on the same frequency; another is to use a satellite relay.

Reservations procedures will be further computerized.

A passenger may be able to insert a plastic card into a vending machine, press a button to transmit information about the flight he wants and have the ticket drop into his hands.

Passengers will be able to place phone calls from aeroplanes. C.H. Elmendorf, AT &T assistant vice president of engineering, has said that during the '70s "airground phone calls by passengers may become commonplace."

Public demand indicates that the air travel and communications industries have a lot of growing to do together. To the end that there is that togetherness as well as growth, air officials supply the latest estimates of their projected needs to the communications industry, which is working to satisfy that demand with the most reliable and sophisticated systems.

END

The magic of Walt Disney lives on-in

California's Disneyland and now in a I

orida project conceived as a vast recreation, amusement and industrial complex.

Above: Touching up a model of "Cinderella's Castle," created to help Disneymen produce the full-scale, 18-storey rersion in intricate detail.

Part of a re-creation of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues ¡Under the Sea will be 16 submarines carrying passengers through a lagoon. Left, artist's conception of submarine.

Garbed as famous Walt Disney cartoon characters, some 50 employees will stroll through the amusement centre, greeting visitors. At right, "Pluto" and orange-shirted "Goofy."

MIDWAYalong Florida's palm-treed Atlantic coastal area, 97 kilometres inland from the U.S. space centre on Cape Kennedy, an army of 7,400 labourers and craftsmen has just completed the initial stage of an enormously complex project which is certain one day to rank among America's greatest tourist attractions. Indeed, after a preview of the progress already made, one is tempted to conclude that even the dramatic blastoffs from Cape Kennedy, the historic monuments of Washington, D.C., the skyscrapers of New York-and, yes, the awesome grandeur of the Grand Canyonwill get some very lively competition from the highly imaginative Walt Disney World.

Phase One opens this month.

Conceived by the late creator of Mickey Mouse as a combination recreation, amusement and industrial centre, the World will dwarf Disneyland, the California monument to his ingenuity which draws 9,300,000 entertainment-seekers each year. It currently covers 1,000 hectares, an area 13 times larger than that occupied by Disneyland, and over the years 9,960 more hectares will be developed. That will make Walt Disney World twice the size of New York's Manhattan Island and roughly the same size as the city of San Francisco.

Florida residents are generally ecstatic over the project, not merely because of the new facilities it will offer but because of the economic boom it is expected to bring.

Already land values in the region have soared, with investors looking forward to new hotels, motels, restaurants and service stations made necessary to accommodate an influx of as many as 65,000 World visitors on peak week-ends. Within ten years, officials estimate, some 70,000 jobs will be created outside Disney World in tourist-related activities, with thousands more employed within the project itself.

"This," says Gordon Wagner, director of the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council, "is as big an event as the developmentofthe spaceport at Cape Kennedy."

There are, of course, those who dissent, notably old-timers in the area-one of the chief agricultural communities in Florida -who fear that the tide of tourists will result in monumental traffic jams, a general increase in prices and loss of privacy. And Disney World will have five resort hotels in as many styles-one of them "contemporary," with mono-rail trains travelling directly through its tall lobby, above. Costumers, right, work on garb for a character from Disney film based on A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh.

some businessmen in and around Miami, one of the nation's most popular winter playgrounds, are unhappy over the prospect of an historic shift in the state's economic and tourist centre from Miami to Orlando, the city closest to Disney World. But civic leaders in Miami and neighbouring Miami Beach profess to welcome their new neighbour to the north.

Spokesmen for the Disney organization estimate that the World will attract 99 million visitors in the first decade. The organization ultimately will spend a total of $300 million (Rs. 225 crores) on the World, with the initial investment coming to $165 million (Rs. 123.75 crores).

Between February 1969 and last month more than 1,300,000 persons visited a preview centre at the site featuring models of the attractions to be offered-eloquent testimony to the level of public interest.

Guests taking part in the continuing round of opening-month ceremonies will find a wide variety of attractions in the Disney World amusement park, and they will learn that more will be added as the years progress. Some of the attractions are identical to those at Disneyland, with the same life-size, animated three-dimensional figures cavorting about. Some are a bit different (the "Haunted Mansion" is similar inside to that at Disneyland, but instead of a Southern-plantation exterior, it has the outward appearance of one of the macabre residences in an Edgar Allan Poe story).

Some are wholly new, such as a "country band" of zany artificial bears singing and playing instruments on-stage in the finest tradition of rustic musical clowns.

As in Disneyland, the amusement centre is called the "Magic Kingdom" and is divided into six sections.

"Main Street U.S.A." re-creates part of the America of 1890-1910, when gas lamps were being replaced by electric lights and horse-drawn vehicles were giving way grudgingly to "horseless carriages."

In "Adventureland," visitors will find exotic, far-off regions of the world in microcosm and will be able to join in a luau (Hawaiian feast) in a Polynesian ceremonial house.

"Frontierland" will show America's West as it was a century ago.

"Liberty Square" seeks to capture the atmosphere of the United States at the time of its founding. Here, too, is located perhaps the most dramatic show in the park-"One Nation Under God," a unique theatre production starring animated likenesses of the 36 men who have been

Presidents of the United States. Three of the Presidents-George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln-speak, electronically. Anyone who has seen and heard the incredi bly lifelike figure of Lincoln at Liberty Square in Disneyland will understand the tremendous amount of ingenuity this venture represents.

In "Fantasyland," guests will re-live the adventures of Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and other fabled characters, and will be able to visit "Cinderella's Castle," an 18-storey structure which for a time will be the tallest in the park. They may board any of 16 submarines for "undersea" voyages to Jules Verne-like "lost worlds."

"Tomorrow land" will be an ongoing preview of exciting new developments in store for the near and distant future. Many of America's leading companies will present shows designed as "living blueprints of tomorrow."

Revolutionary transport

Rivalling America's greatest tourist attractions, Disney World will ultimately be as large as the city of San Francisco. systems and unique space-age communications will be utilized in explorations of new scientific frontiers.

Disneyland's most prominent featurethe craggy, concrete "Matterhorn"-is missing in Florida. Disney planners, however, are at work on an even more spectacular "mountain," 20 storeys high, in which replicas of space-exploration craft will substitute for the "Matterhorn's" wheeled bob-sleighs.

In California, the "Magic Kingdom" is Disneyland, and vice versa. In Florida, it is only one aspect of Disney World, which also boasts complete resort-hotel, camping, and recreational facilities. Later, there will be a "city of tomorrow" in which some 20,000 persons will live. In addition, 2,800 hectares have been set aside for an industrial park, with one factory already built by the United States Steel Corporation and producing prefabricated modular rooms for use in the construction of the hotels.

A mono-rail will whisk visitors to all

parts of the huge installation. The World will also be interlaced with various land and water transport systems.

During Phase One of construction, which will continue for four more years, a total of five resort hotels will be erected, each keyed to a different architectural or cultural style. Two are already available to guests. One is a 16-storey, 1,057-room contemporary high-rise overlooking a large lake rimmed by towering stands of cypress and pine and dotted with natural and manmade lakes. It has a dramatic open-mall lobby, "decorated" by landscape architects.

The lobby rises 90 feet and mono-rail trains travel directly through it.

The second hotel consists of a cluster of low-level Polynesian-style buildings nestled alongside a broad artificial lagoon flowing out of the lake. It has 500 rooms and will offer Tahitian fire-da:"'.ces, Hawaiian luaus, and other entertainment inspired by the Pacific islands. It even has its own "coral reef," where guests can pretend they are pearl-divers.

Of the three hotels that will follow, one will be strongly' Thai in motif, and will be called "The Asian Hotel"; one will be "a veritable Persian palace"; and one will be Venetian-inspired, with a "St. Mark's Square." In the latter, guests will travel to shops by gondolas along "streets of water."

Each hotel will be a complete resort in itself, with its own restaurants, entertainment centre, convention quarters, and recreational facilities.

Unlike Disneyland, where the one nearby "official" hotel is operated by an independent corporation, each of the five hotels at the World will be Disney-managed and run. Each will be staffed by employees wearing the attire of the geographic area imitated. Each, incidentally, will bear the design imprint of the architectural firm of Welton Becket & Associates, which has planned many of the world's leading hotels, including the Nile Hilton in Egypt, the Manila Hilton, the Intercontinental in Auckland, New Zealand, and the Southern Cross in Melbourne, Australia.

In addition to the five "official" hotels, the Disney organization has set aside a special section of its Florida property where major hotel chains have leased sites.

Cleanliness has always been one of the outstanding characteristics of Disneyland.

In Disney World, it has been given special attention through the introduction of a new waste-disposal system. Throughout the "Magic Kingdom," a series of collection continued

Electronically-controlled life-size bears will perform on-stage as members of a "Country Bear Band" at Disney World. Left, an artist's sketch of the Band; .right, engineers use a computer to "programme" Henry, one of the bears.

Below, staffers check some of 300 animated dolls representing lands around the globe. Bottom, a mock-up of the resort area as it wi/! appear when completed.

The 'city of tomorrow' will test new concepts for living and working. stations will automatically dispense refuse into vacuum tubes to be carried away underground to a central disposal plant.

This unseen housekeeper, say Disney representatives, could be a prototype system for large urban areas concerned with environmental planning and living.

Other innovations include a computerbased communications system, with natural gas used for power in some cases and news of Disney World activities broadcast over special television channels into hotel rooms. Eventually, there will also be an "airport of the future," although at the outset its service will be limited pretty much to small private aircraft and "commuter" planes linking Disney World to major airports in the region.

The "city of tomorrow" which will be constructed is labelled an Experimental Prototype Community by Disney officials.

There, they say, residents will be able to "live a life they can't find anywhere else in the world." It will, they explain, be a fully operating community in which new concepts and technologies for living and working will be tested as they are developed over the years. Several of America's largest corporations are co-operating.

A word of warning: If you are thinking of visiting Disney World, bear in mind that it may be difficult to obtain accommodations there for some time. The hotels have capacity bookings for all available convention dates in '1972, with an average of 1,500 guests expected at each get-together.

END

Knowledge of ancient texts~ metaphysical considerations" intiJightinto the miml of the creator-llli th(~se l,'ay a purt in the l,roper appreciation of Indill" art. If this t,pproach is gllining Ilcceptance today, says the author" it is du@ largely to a pioneer in the field and a profound scholur-

Stella I FIRST MET Dr. Stella Kramrisch in March 1934, when she was already making her mark as a scholar of Indian art. The meeting took place in Patna, where she was the guest of Dr. K.P. Jayaswal, the renowned Indologist specializing in history, numismatics and epigraphy. I had just returned from London's School of Oriental Studies, and I had no idea of the kind of person I was about to meet. Somehow I expected a stolid professor deeply immersed in learning, who would look down condescendingly on a novice like me.

To my surprise I found a lady of great charm and wit, who spoke knowledgeably about various aspects of Indian art. Her estimate of some of the Indian art scholars of the time was extremely amusing.

That evening after dinner we passed some happy hours during which Dr. Jayaswal discussed the unsolved riddles of ancient Indian history and his own efforts to solve them. Dr. Kramrisch talked about Indian art history and the lack of interest in its promotion. They also About the Author: Director of tire Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay, Dr. Moti Chandra is a well-knOll'll authority on traditional Indian art.

iseh spoke of Dr. Ananda eoomaraswamy, the doyen of Indian art history, and of how his studies gradually were laying the foundations of a new discipline in which art becomes the mirror of ancient Indian thought and culture, with deep metaphysical implications. That evening I could not fully appreciate her standpoint on art. But with the passage of time I have become fully aware that for a proper understanding of art, outward semblances are not enough; one has to go deep into the minds of its creators.

After that very first meeting I realized that Dr. Kramrisch was not only a competent teacher and research worker but also a profound scholar of the Indian sculpture, terracottas and bronzes lying scattered around our museums. In the years to come she would visit Indian museums assiduously to study the exhibits, and she always encouraged her students to correlate museum objects with their study curriculum.

It is this familiarity with museums that later enabled her to rearrange the Indian section of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and to acquire for it some outstanding pieces.

Dr. Kramrisch has a dynamic

personality and though she is sympathetic towards genuine scholars, she is unable to suffer fools and charlatans. I myself owe her a debt of gratitude. Around 1940,I chanced to meet her in the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay. A year earlier I had published a paper on early Indian costumes, but being uncertain of the utility of this work I had directed my attention elsewhere.

When she learned of this, she pressed me to continue with the subject and also agreed to publish my paper in the prestigious Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art.

Though sculpture is undoubtedly Dr. Kramrisch's favourite subject, her contribution to the history of Indian painting is also considerable. In fact, she has studied almost all the branches of Indian art. As a scholar she is deeply concerned with chronological sequence, proper identification and iconography and she always probes the technical and symbolic aspects of each problem.

For some time, Stella Kramrisch has been studying the mediaeval Hindu temple, and her two-volume work on the subject, published in â&#x20AC;˘ 1947, is considered a pioneering study. To her, Hindu temple archicontinued

Desllite I,er preferellce for classicism~ Stella Kran,riscl, is great1l1 interested ill 'ndia~.fl rllral and trillal art. tecture should not be discussed on the basis of stylistic evolution, regional variations and technical implications alone. For its proper understanding, one has to take into account the working of the Hindu mind, and the philosophical concepts behind the evolution of the form.

One must also consider the Silpa texts which, despite all the exaggeration and the accretion of the centuries, have preserved the true spirit in which the temples were built, the well-ordered pattern in which the Hindu pantheon was associated with temple architecture, and the symbolic interpretation of its various constituents. Her viewpoint is now gaining wide acceptance among scholars of Indian architecture.

Dr. Kramrisch believes that for the proper appreciation of art it is not enough to study its material aspects-sculptures, paintings, terracottas, objects of minor art, archaeological evidence and monuments.

Shefeelsstrongly that attention must also be paid to the technical treatises known as Silpasastras, as they have handed down from generation to generation formulas which formed the bases of architecture, iconography and the techniques of painting.

It was because of this that she translated the art section of Vishnudharmottara Purana, an early text on painting and sculpture. This work is invaluable, she believes, for an understanding of the theory of Indian painting and sculpture during the Gupta Age. In general her knowledge of Vedic, Puranic and philosophical literature is profound; and she always tries to establish a correlation between visual semblances and literary imagery and symbols.

Despite her preference for classicism, Dr. Kramrisch is greatly interested in all the creative activities of the Indian people and in the presentday arts and crafts. To give concrete shape to this interest she recently

arranged an exhibition entitled "The Unknown India: Ritual Art in Tribe and Village." Consisting of more than I00,000 works, the exhibit opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and later toured several other American museums.

S

toll8 Kmmri"h ;, unusually reticent about herself, and it is only due to her kindness that I have been able to learn something about the personal aspect of her life. As a child she was brought up in the Austrian countryside, with few human contacts but with a deep attachment to nature. As she put it to me, in those impassioned and formative years birds and animals were her closest friends and nature reigned supreme. After her tenth year the family moved to Vienna. Here her interest shifted from nature to books, and she read a great deal, particularly the German philosophers.

When she was 15, she came across a German translation of the Bhagavad Gita, and she felt herself irresistibly drawn towards India. In Vienna at that time there was hardly any material available on India, so she enrolled in the Oriental seminar of the University of Vienna. Under the guidance of Professor Strzygowski, who held the university's first chair of Asian Art, Stella Kramrisch learned the many facets of Asian art, particularly that of India.

After obtaining her Ph.D. in Indian art and philosophy, Dr. Kramrisch went to London to study at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

From here, she was invited to lecture at Oxford. Seated in the first row of the audience at that meeting was Rabindranath Tagore. He was so impressed by her grasp of the subject that he immediately invited her to teach the history of art (Indian and

Western) at Santiniketan. In less than a year she waS able to accept his invitation.

While at Santiniketan, Stella Kramrisch was invited by Abanindranath Tagore to deliver the annual lecture on Indian art at the Indian Society of Oriental Art. As a result, she was asked to give a series of lectures at the University of Calcutta by the then Vice-Chancellor Sir Ashutosh Mookerjee. This is believed to be the first time that a serious effort was made to treat the history of Indian art as a separate discipline. Shortly after, she joined the University of Calcutta as a lecturer in Indian art.

Dr. Kramrisch's 28 years' stay at the university was an extremely fruitful period. She trained many brilliant students in the history of Indian art. And she edited the Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art with great distinction. This journal published scholarly research papers and during the period it lasted did incalculable service to the study of Indian art history.

While at the university, Dr. Kramrisch also taught at London University's Court auld Institute, commuting each year between Calcutta and London.

Since 1950, Dr. Kramrisch has been professor of Indian art at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

A lonely person, solely devoted to her work, Dr. Kramrisch shows no signs of slackening in her academic endeavours. Her current work on the Rigveda aims at a re-structuring of its thought. Parts of some chapters have already been published. And she is revising two of her older books for new editions. Despite advancing age, I feel sure that Stella Kramrisch will attain the goal she has set for herself.

"Over the landscape of Indian art tower the great stone temples, the profusion of their sculptures tempered by the elegance of their form. Into the substance itself of the earth, earlier centuries had cut their sanctuaries, had transmuted the living rock into gigantic visions of deity, vibrant in depth."

"The great temples today rise as monuments of the past over a landscape that stayed productive though impoverished in its means, that stayed alive from generation to generation with the course of the years and the seasons, with the waxing and waning of the moon, with sunrise and sunset. All these moments and transitions have their response in innumerable rites and in countless shapes, many of which were not meant to last-moulded in clay or made of wood or cotton-for they will be made again and again with

Weighted with erudition, the language of art scholars run~ too often to pedantry. Not so with Stella Kramrisch, who writes prose that is both eloquent and evocative. The quotes reproduced here are from her introduction ~o the catalogue for the "Unknown India" exhibition.

Among the items displayed in the exhibit was the Asha Danda or staff of hope, below, from the Sundarbans, West Bengal, which bears the double-axe-shaped symbol of Lakshmi, goddess of fortune.

"The unknown art of India is the art created in village and tribe on social levels below and away from the towering temples. The tribal art of the Naga, on the north-eastern frontier of Indi~, and that of tribes in Mid-India remain relatively intact to this day. Apart from these traditions, rural India is a rich ground for cross-fertilization, producing deceptive simplicities of styles in tribe and village."

the rites of spring or autumn, with the daily rites of evocation. They are part of the sacraments of living, invoking an invisible superhuman presence whose reality is contacted and communicated by those shapes. But for them it would remain beyond reach .... "

"The wisdom of India was transmitted orally and visually, written texts were resorted to only when memory had become weakened. Visual transmission was relied upon far more than the written word. The making and beholding of symbols and images were part of living."

Dr. Kramrisch's published works include' Pala Sculpture, Principles of Indian Art, The History of Indian Art, Hindu Sculpture, The Vishnudharmottara; A Survey of Painting in the Deccan, The Hindu Temple, Kerala and Dravida, The Art of India, Indian Sculpture in the Philadelphia Museum and contributions to Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Medical students at Saigon University learn anatomy, right.

Its medical school is the university's pride. Can Tho University agriculture courses include field trips, above.

Vietnamese highschool girls are seen at recess, top, and in class, far right.

The 'suitcase professors,' who commute between campuses by air, are a symbol of the speed with which an emergent people is determined to surmount all hurdles in the race for education.

ASIATODAY,the pace of change is Iincredibly fast, with developments in the N

emergent nations following one another at breathtaking speed. Education is a key factor in this unfolding evolution. The people's thirst for learning is intense, and it is a thirst that must be slaked if the race to modernity is to be won.

One hazard on the race track is a roadblock of accumulated educational traditions and practices that might have been

appropriate in their time but are irrelevant to today's needs. Another hazard-unfortunately present in some areas-is the gunfire in the background. Despite such daunting conditions, however, countries like the Republic of Vietnam are pushing ahead with their programmes for educational progress.

A decade ago a formidable situation faced Vietnam's educators and their advisers when they embarked on the task of forging an entirely new educational system for the country. Facilities were sadly deficient after a century of neglect. The Viet Cong were methodically destroying school and college buildings and terrorizing teachers and students alike. Many teachers were poorly trained, and there were far too few of them. There were not enough educational institutions, and no textbooks.

On the other hand, there was a tradition of respect for education and a quest for knowledge at all levels of society. The Confucian ideal of free education for all was accepted in Vietnam long before the concept reached the Western world. Under Vietnamese imperial dynasties, scholars recognized an obligation to teach the young, and all villages had schools with well-qualified teachers.

The traditional system, however, reserved higher education for an elite. It was designed to produce mandarins, and the learning it imparted was based on memocontinued

rization of the classics. French rule replaced this with a system which, like the Vietnamese imperial system of education, was designed to produce civil servants equally remote from the people. University education was non-existent, and primary education became the privilege of the sons of the gentry. By 1960 it was evident that a complete overhaul of the system was necessary.

To build a broad base of learning, first emphasis was placed on primary education. Hundreds of primary schools were built in villages and hamlets throughout the country. As their dream steadily became reality-82 per cent of the Republic's children now attend primary schoolseducators have turned increasing attention to secondary education. They estimate that within the next decade, enrolment in secondary schools can reach 65 to 70 per cent of the eligiblepopulation. This, of course, calls for more schools, teachers, textbooks and supplies, and a continuation of the present trend of growing security in the countryside. t the higher-education level, new universities are springing up. While understaffed and under-endowed, they.are nevertheless confident of the future. The winds of modernity are beginning to be felt on the campuses, blowing away the old mandarin and colonial approaches to education and sweeping in new vocation-centred programmes, new teaching methods and new, more democratic concepts.

Since the Republic's first university was established barely 15 years ago, college enrolments have multiplied tenfold to 50,000. In the next three to five years that figure may double-if campus space and faculty shortages permit.

That is a big "if," Saigon observers agree. But the projection is feasible because Vietnamese enrolment statistics do not. mean what they mean in wealthier, industrial nations. Like many other developing countries, Vietnam cannot afford the luxury of full-time class attendance and faculties composed exclusively of resident professors. Many students register, collect printed copies of lectures to be given in the coming term, and visit the campus again only for annual examinations based on the printed lectures.

Thus the universities can enrol far more students than they have space for, knowing that only a minority will be using university facilities throughout the term-mainly in specialized fields of study like medicine and pedagogy that are strict in requiring classroom and laboratory attendance.

"A democratic and pragmatic wave has swept thl

A

Vietnamese students work hard at their books, but not all their exertions are mental. These girls are at gym class in a Saigon high school.

Most of the other students will be spending the term back in their home districts, studying in their hours off the job by which they earn a living. Many will not take the annual exams, and of those who do, only a small proportion will pass. ven for the minority of students who remain on campus, the number of permanent staff instructors is insufficient.

The universities must therefore employ "suitcase professors"-scholars who use the national airline to commute between campuses scattered from the Perfume to the Mekong rivers.

In addition to the college-level National Agricultural Centre at Saigon and the degree-granting National Military Academy at Dalat, there are five full-fledged, well-established universities in the Repub-

E

lic, all founded between 1956 and 1966.

Three are government institutions, at Saigon, Hue and Can Tho, and two private, at Saigon and Dalat. An estimated 6,200 students currently are completing their courses at these five universities each year.

Now higher-education facilities are expanding. Two new universities have been opened by private groups with governmental or international assistance in Saigon and Long Xuyen.

The new universities are providing more .classroom seats, but still far from enough to meet the accelerating demand. For immediate staffing needs they depend heavily on the suitcase professors, calling on these overburdened scholars to add more stops to their rounds. But 15 years of sustained effort are paying off. More students graduate every year, and more university lecturers qualify every year.

While much of the historic influences linger in Vietnamese higher education, today's system is moving towards greater

popular imagination."

emphasis on scientific and humanistic principles.However, too many Vietnamese still are studying to be men of letters, lawyers and pharmacists, and too few to be engineers, physicians and semi-professionals. Students do not have enough opportunity to express themselves in class, and the old master/pupil concept is hard to erase. Saigon University still has some classes so large the professors must use loudspeaker systems. But until the professor/student ratio is narrowed, more personalizedteaching methods will be difficult to practise widely. he Republic of Vietnam, while continuing to send promising young scholars abroad for advanced training, is now producing some of its own professors. Most of them are products of the governmentendowedUniversity of Saigon, which was foundedby refugee professors and students fromthe University of Hanoi. Saigon University has some excellent professors by any standards; in March 1971, Cultural

T

and Educational Service Medals for "outstanding" work were presented to 24 Vietnamese, as well as a Belgian and two French, faculty members.

Eighty-three per cent of all college students are enrolled in the three government institutions: Saigon University, Hue University and the five-year-old Can Tho University in the Mekong Delta. The rest are educated in privately-established universities.

Dalat University and the new Minh Duc University in Saigon are Catholic institutions. Van Hanh University in Saigon is endowed by the Buddhists. The new An Giang University in Long Xuyen was founded by members of the Hoa Hao sect; administrative assistance comes froni Brigham Young University in Utah and professors of agriculture, fisheries and animal husbandry from Australia, Japan, Taiwan and West Germany.

Although Minh Duc is described as a Roman Catholic university with other religions participating, its board consists of four Catholics and four Buddhists. Some faculty members from Van Hanh, the neighbouring Buddhist university, teach at Minh Duc. A faculty of Western and Oriental medicine has been opened at Minh Duc under Dr. Hoang Van Duc, a known advocate of regionalism who urges the setting up of an Oriental Studies Institute within the framework of a Southeast Asian Federation University. Minh Duc's medical faculty is the only one giving university status to Oriental medicine.

Besides its existing faculties of theology and philosophy, Minh Duc is considering new ones in economics and business administration, science, living languages and agricultural technology. ocal committees in My Tho and Da Nang are well ahead with plans to open their own institutions-probably community junior colleges. The concept of a community junior college is new to Vietnam. One of its strongest advocates, Dr. Do Ba Khe, says the concept was born in the United States and has spread around the world in the past 25 years. He believes proper application of the idea could be "extremely beneficial" for Vietnam. The Vietnamese Ministry of Education has asked the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for two American consultants to discuss the setting up of community junior colleges.

USAID's Dr. C. Earle Hoshall feels the Republic needs "to develop a truly Vietnamese system of education. A writer once

L

said that in Vietnam 'we have the French system of education, but it is not the French system of today; rather it is the French system of 1890.' " With the establishment of Can Tho University in 1966, Vietnam experienced a good taste of how a locally-oriented university should operate. Can Tho stresses practicality. Situated in the heart of the nation's richest "rice bowl," it has a strong faculty of agriculture. Now plans are being developed for an extensive water-research project, for water is the life-stream of the Delta. Can Tho's faculty of science is planning monthly tests to find out the nature of the local water, the best time for irrigation, and the best locations for dikes.

When the project gets under way, technicians and students will go through the Delta collecting water samples for lab analysis. From these beginnings may grow a multimillion-piastre water-resources centre as an integral part of the university, staff members believe. ost of the nation's young doctors of Western medicine are educated at Saigon University, whose medical college is the institution's pride. Partly accounting for the excellence of the medical college is a unique programme co-ordinated by the American Medical Association and supported by USAID. This programme links each of the 19 departments of the college with corresponding departments at 14 major U.S. medical colleges-links forged by correspondence and intercampus visits.

Saigon University has the country's only dental college, with 14 members of the American Dental Association assisting the faculty as advisers. Saigon University also boasts an Oceanographic Institute, which ultimately may develop into a separate university.

With college and secondary-school enrolments setting new records every year, it is inevitable that the world's "youth revolution" should affect Vietnam too. Despite the upheavals of war, modernization, the youth revolution and economic straits, however, the road to a meaningful and methodical reorganization of higher education is being built in Vietnam. "A democratic and pragmatic wave," as Dr. Khe puts it, has swept the popular imagination, "from parents to teachers, from students to professors, from people to legislators.

All of this converges to make the system open to the best of the world's cultures and receptive to any innovation which is directed towards the service of the people."

M

END

ALONG THE

Meandering across fourteen U.S. states, the 3,300-kilometre-Iong Trail is packed with human, geological and . natural history.

APPALACHIAN TRAIL A RAGGED STRIP of real estate, 1.2 metres wide by 3,300,000 metres long, has come under the protection of the United States Government.

According to a Trails Act passed in 1968,that strip of land, a wilderness footpath running the length of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and known as the Appalachian Trail, is to be saved for all time from the inharmonious improvements of an urban civilization. Thus the nonagenarian who conceived the idea on a mountaintop 71 years ago ("I felt a sort of planetary feeling"),and the outdoorsmen who trampled it into being and who have cleared it of deadfalls and cut away its saplings ever since its completion in 1937, are assured that their descendants, too, may experiencethe bpen-air joys of walking a longwoods trail.

Planned as a skyline route, the AppalachianTrail runs a crooked 3,300 kilometres all the way from Mt. Katahdin, a windswept granite monolith in Maine, to Springer Mountain, in Georgia, roughly northeast to southwest, following a spiny ridgeline of the Appalachians, which are groups of more or less parallel mountain ranges. It crosses throug!! 14 states, two National Parks and eight National Forests; stitches together peaks, 350 of which are abovethe 1,500-metre elevation; and winds past the headwaters of creek after creek, while on either side, whole networks of side trails radiate down from it, exploring the valleys and hollows below.

It crosses six major rivers and carries thefoot traveller through successive changing zones of bird, animal and plant life, from northern forests spangled with ponds to southern meadows aflame with blooming azalea. It reaches such places as Sassafras Gap, Dead Woman Hollow, Buzzards Rock, Blood and Slaughter Mountains, Buttermilk Falls, Six Husbands

Following a spiny ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountain Range, above, the Trail occasionally skirts villages, crosses farmlands and backyards. It is only a short distance from the sleepy town of East Corinth, Vermont, left.

Trail, Bake Oven Lean-to. Sabbath Day Lean-to, Lost Spectacles Creek, Mooselookmeguntic Lake, plus enough places with unprintable names, it's been said, to fill a booklet.

A system of marks painted on trees-or rock cairns, above the tree line-marks the Trail. And open shelters, spaced an easy day's hike apart, offer roof, fireplace and directions to the nearest spring. Sections of the Trail cover rugged boulder-strewn terrain, like Mahoosuc Notch in Maine,

where experienced hikers take three hours to cover a mile. ("It would confuse a mountain goat," said one hiker.) And sections reach heights exposed to violent weather.

Mt. Washington, in New Hampshire, once recorded a wind velocity of 372 kilometres per hour and a snowfall of 246 centimetres another time.

Though its outlook for the most part is unspoiled and the hiker feels he is remote from civilization, the Trail is never more than a day's drivdrom the 120million residents of the most densely populated area of the United States. It occasionally crosses farmlands and backyards, skirts towns and, of necessity, here and there follows paved highways.

Because he shuddered at just such highways and foresaw a catastrophe of urban sprawl, forester Benton MacKaye proposed his open-ended Trail. The idea came to him, he said, on a Green Mountains hike in 1900, when he'd climbed trees "to see peaks hidden by Old Earth's curvature." Twenty-one years later, in an architectural magazine, he published his Appalachian Trail, Project in Regional Planning, in which he proposed the Trail as a sort of backbone of wilderness between the megalopolis along the Eastern Seaboard and the growing population density west of the mountains.

Less than 20 years after the proposal, the Trail was completed. Wherever it could, it incorporated existing trails. Some 560 kilometres of excellent trail were already maintained by hiking clubs in New York and New England. The Appalachian Mountain Club, founded as early as 1876,already had its chain of huts-great stone structures built to withstand heavy snows and accommodating from 40 to 100persons with food and dormitory space. The Trail took advantage of abandoned logging roads, portaging tracks, old animal and wagon continued

ilderness is like a secret. The only way to keep it is to keep it."

More than a million persons are lured by the Appalachian Trail each year. Young hikers at right move along an access path to the Trail while tourists above explore it on horseback, and vacationers below relax in the woods.

, trails. For much of its length, its high route parallels the age-old Great Indian Warpath, which extended in the lowlands from the territory of an American Indian tribe in Alabama north into Pennsylvania.

For the most part, the Trail relied on volunteers who formed clubs to carry out the work. It was an amateur enterprise of enormous proportions, to which the Forest Service and the National Park Service contributed labour where the Trail traverses National Forests and Parks.

From 1937, the portion of the Trail that was on public land won protection extending for 1.6 kilometres on either side, so that no new parallel roads or incompatible development could occur within the zone.

The 1,394 kilometres of the Trail on pri vate lands, though, was subject to changing land use and the whims of owners. It has constantly been threatened by power lines and ski areas, by housing, industrial developments, radar installations and a new vogue for summit restaurants. Only now, with the government's sponsorship, will its right-ofway become secure.

The National Trails System Act of 1968 was designed by the federal government to protect the Appalachian Trail, giving the 14 states it crosses a limited period of time to protect it by buying the land or making agreements with landowners for access.

After that, the national government will step in and begin buying land.

Three states-Virginia, Massachusetts, and Maryland-have moved to protect the Trail through legislation and the others have two years in which to comply. Hopefully, the landowners, the federal government, and the states will be able to come to a fair agreement protecting both the Trail and the landowners' rights of privacy and property. It should be an interesting experiment in environmental protection and good neighbour'liness.

One person who was invited to the White House signing of the Trails Act sent his regrets. Elmer Onstatt, an auto metalfinisher, tasting the fruits of retirement, was hiking the Trail end to end at age 70 and couldn't spare the three days. He would have cut a fine figure with his beard, grown during his six months' expedition, his evergreen staff, his mail-order boots, hand-mended along the way with nylon thread he found in a shelter.

Though by far the greatest use of the Trail is for short hikes of less than 80 kilometres, there is a certain lure in the continuous marked Trail, longest in the world.

End-to-enders, since the first in 1948, now number over four dozen. The full course has been done by a father and 13-year-old son and by a 70-year-old grandmother, who covered the ground in 146 days. Her feet swelled two sizes and she claimed to find her solitary trudge oppressive, but Granny Emma Gatewood repeated the trip two years later and cut four days off her time. It's been done, in 94 days, by two college students, whose only complaint was that their cushion-foot socks failed to live up to the year's guarantee; by a retired husband and wife, accompanied by two sheepdogs; and in spring 1970 by Branley Owen, an ex-paratrooper, in the record time of 73 days.

In the summer of 1968, a year when user visits to the Trail numbered perhaps one

,

million, a gentleman who met four end-toenders in the course of his own 320-kilometre hike wrote in the Trail's bulletin: "GOOD GRIEF! CONGESTION!" One of the four, however, a retired telephone company worker, said he had gone for a three-week stretch without seeing another human being. He was never lonely for he had contact with deer (150 of them), wild turkeys, box turtles, bears, mice, mosquitoes and flies.

In Washington, D.C., the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club of 1,700 dues-paying, working members is one of the most active of the 100 or so clubs maintaining the Trail. Government workers, diplomats, students, secretaries and housewives; economists and engineers head out of the Capital by busloads for day-long hikes or

week-end camping. inety volunteer Trail supervisors (whose jobs are coveted by people on a long waiting list) saw and drag away fallen trees, cut saplings from the Trail, battle weeds and chip anew the trail markers on the trees.

Strung out along the club's 600 kilometres of Trail is a chain of 15 locked cabins. The cabins are simple, most of them one room, made of logs chinked with cement. They are furnished with spartan bunks, wood-burning stoves, kerosene lamps, pots and plates, saw and axe. They are situated nicely in the woods, by dayand-night-running brooks, and offer, thus, a kind of instant camping, or base camp from which families or small groups can explore the nearby trails. Year-round, they are in great demand.

An item of special interest in each cabin is the log, a marbled composition book, in which the cabins' users record weather, walks and the condition of the cabin, incidentally providing good read-aloud matter for those who follow them.

For most Trail users, piling up the mileage is unimportant.

They get to know patches of the Trail well by roaming its side-trails and returning again and again in different seasons.

"Afoot and light hearted, I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me," rhapsoclized 19th-century American poet Walt Whitman-and many modern Americans obviously feel the same way.

In his 90th year, the man whose idea it all was said: "Wilderness is like a secret.

The only way to keep it is to keep it." E D

THE AMERICAN LIBRARY: Free access to books and the availability lof a reference service draw some 18,000 visitors to the American Library in New Delhi each month.

TEXT BY KAMLA KAPOOR PHOTOGRAPHS BY LD. BERI

THEYOUNGSTUDENT hesitated a moment, then went up to the Librarian.

"Would you please give me the second book from the top shelf of the corner book-rack?" he asked. To his surprise he was told that he could take it down himself, that he was free to consult as many books as he liked from anywhere in the collection and leave them on the reading table.

The time was 1946, and the place a small library on Queensway-now Janpath-in New Delhi. The sign

outside it announced: "USIS Library, Open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday." The Library started with a collection of 3,000 books, 2,000 pamphlets, 200 periodical subscriptions, and seating for 24 readers. The staff consisted of two trained librarians, one of whom was always available to offer assistance and guidance.

In the Library's early years, the scene was repeated many, many times, for Indian readers were relatively unfamiliar with the openshelf system. It took even longer for them to realize that the services of the Library were free, particularly the reference service. After a librarian had searched for and found the answer to a question, he was invariably asked, "How much should I pay?" or "What is the fee?" Another common reaction was: "I'm embarrassed that you had to work so hard to provide me with this information."

Indeed, some of the questions required a great deal of effort, for Library visitors were usually o~ a high level of education. As citizens

of a new Iy-independent India they were eager to know more about "the country that produced Lincoln and Washington." They were also interested in acquiring information about the U.S. Government, its political institutions, educational system, scientific and economic development, and cultural life.

Service proved to be the best publicity for the Library. During the first two years, monthly attendance ranged between 7,000 and 8,000 and an average of 1,200 questions was answered each month. In the initial stages, its character was shaped by this service, and it established an excellent reputation as a reference library.

Today, as 25 years ago, the purpose of the American Library is to provide information about the

5 YEARS OF SERVICE United States to the people of India.

America had successfully pioneered with a network of libraries for its ownpublic, so it turned naturally to the use of this medium in the international field, the underlying principle being that the achievement of goodwillrequires understanding not only between governments, but also between people. In India and some 80 other countries, the libraries operate as part of the U.S. Inform",tion Service.

To meet the growing demands of itspatrons, the Library in New Delhi rapidly built up its collection, adding new works by American scholars who were generally unfamiliar to Indian readers. In 1951, when the book collection reached 6,000, a lending system was introduced and free membership extended. Two

years later loan service by mail was offered to those living outside the capital. By 1952 the Library had outgrown its modest quarters and moved over to Curzon Road. For the last two years it has been located in a temporary building on Sikandra Road, but it should return by the end of 1972 to the new building under construction on Curzon Road.

Since 1964, the book collection has touched its high mark of 25,000 volumes, 12,000 pamphlets and gov-

ernment documents, subscriptions to 324 magazines (88 of which are received by air mail), and back files of periodicals. The Library also receives by air five American newspapers, including The New York Times, of which it maintains microfilm files dating back to 1957.

Today, the American Library has 23,000 registered borrowers, monthly attendance of more than 18,000, and a staff of 20 trained librarians.

A total of 1,500 reference questions is answered each month, each of which entails work ranging from five minutes to five hours or more. Over the years the Library has retained its importance as an invaluable reference source, serving leaders in administration, planning, education, business, social and cultural affairs (see box overleaf).

Several years ago, Dr. S.R. Ran'ganathan, then Professor of Library Science at the University of Delhi, arranged with the American

Library to provide training for a few university students. Since requests for professional guidance kept coming from several Indian libraries, a formal programme of internship training was introduced in 1968.

Under this, library-science graduates receive practical training which helps inculcate in them a "spirit of service" in their professional work.

The American Library has close and cordial relations with Indian libraries in the capital and throughout North India. A great number of books are sent out each day on interlibrary loan.

Through its contacts with Indian libraries, its reference service to individuals, and its collection-which represent-s every aspect of American life-the Library has been striving towards the goal of service to the ~ommunity. ( continued)

A whole book of more than 700 pages is transferred onto the transparent plastic card, reproduced same size at right. The card is then read on the microfilm reader shown under it. At bottom, Librarian Mrs. Kamla Kapoor helps a visitor with a query.

QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS ...

At the Library's Reference Desk, the phone rings constantly, and the queries that reach it are many and varied. Here are some examples from the 54 requests handled by the Library on a typical day-June 8, 1971.

A Member of Parliament asked for the text of the U.S. Water Resources Planning Act of 1965-to be provided within 15 minutes.

He also requested material on indirect taxation in developing countries, Other MPs wanted: material on the legal and social aspects of abortion; and the text of the 1971 State of the Union Message.

A research scholar of Delhi University was helped in finding the proceedings of the Houston Conference on Moon Rocks.

Another was provided with material on "symbolism" in American literature. The head of the Department of Political Science of a college in Rajasthan was assisted in selecting books on international law.

A free-lance writer came in to get facts and figures on protein deficiency in developing countries. Ajournalist wanted the text of President Roosevelt's letter to Jawaharlal Nehru in 1952. He found that the letter had been written to Gandhi in 1942, An industrial organization wanted to know whether U.S. industrial firms give cash length-of-sen ice awards. A member of an Tndian trade delegation collected statistics on U.S. "Sugar import quotas. A news commentator of All India Radio was provided with documents on the Olympic Games; and a member of the Delhi Metropolitan Council requested articles on slum clearance.

A lecturer in law telephoned for information on cumulative voting in America.

The Law Commission obtained a copy of a recent judgment of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Lok Sabha Secretariat was provided with information on the rules and regulations in the U.S. Senate for radio broadcasting and telecasting. The director of an economic research bureau found data on the problems of automation.

LITERATURE IN AMERICA,it has often seemed, periodically faces a crossroads at which those involved in it, whether as creators, critics or interested readers, find themselves saying: "Where do we go from here?" This was true as World War I ended, bringing a decisive break with "the genteel tradition." It was true again in the Great Depression of the 1930s and in the aftermath of World War II, and it is so once again. Established writers continue in their customary vein. New, younger writers whose direction and chance of enduring importance are not as yet entirely clear are arriving on the scene, a number of them reflecting, often militantly, the national concern over such issues as war,

race, poverty. It would be a bold prophet who tried to envision the scene five years from now.

However, what has been consistently apparent since the early 1920s, and indeed some years before that, is that American literature has moved into the mainstream of world literature and is now a contributing member of an international family.

Jack London, Upton Sinclair and, later, John Steinbeck have come to be widely read in Russia. Ernest Hemingway shaped a writing generation in England, as he did in his own country. William Faulkner's influence upon young French writers was impressive, and his imagery and his creation of a world of his own appeal strongly

to the new generation of Mexican writers who, now that the era of momentous revolutionary causes in Mexico is ended, are writing more personally and less nationalistically. Truman Capote is widely appreciated in France, quite likely because of the polished precision of his prose.

But literary influence is, historically, a two-way street. Few American writers who have risen to prominence in the postwar years would fail to grant that, like their predecessors of the 1920s and '305, they have learned from the styles and techniques of foreign artists, recent and remote. Saul Bellow had declared the debt of his early novels, Dangling Man and The Victim, to the discipline of Flaubert. Norman Mailer,

MERICAN LITERARY SCENE ONCE AGAIN, AMERICAN LITERATURE HAS REACHED A CROSSROADS-AND THERE ARE NO CLEAR INDICATIONS AS TO THE DIRECTIONS IT WILL TAKE. THIS IS THE VIEW OF A PROMINENT LITERARY CRITIC, WHO GOES ON TO SURVEY THE DOMINANT INFLUENCES, TRENDS AND PERSONALITIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE SINCE THE 'TWENTIES.

ITH THE NEWEST SCHOOL OF AMERICAN WRITERS, MADNESS IS THE PERSONAL NORM; VERBAL INTENSITY MATTERS MORE THAN PLOT, AND PHANTASMAGORIA IS THE ACCEPTED ATMOSPHERE.

whose first long published work, The Naked and the Dead, remains in the judgment of many the most powerful American novel of World War II, has said that he could not have completed his second novel, Barbary Shore, without the inspiration of Jean Malaquais. Writers so dissimilar as William Styron, James Jones, Ralph Ellison and Bellow speak of the effect upon them, in varying degrees, of James Joyce's streamof-consciousness t~chnique and his verbal experimentation.

Even more emphatically evident are the foreign influences upon the newest school of American writers, if it can be said that they are a school, so many of them being still in a formative stage. But quite clearly, among them they share a new tone and new techniques. Their founding fathers, as it were, are Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, and their counterpart in another medium would be the stage's "theatre of the absurd." In their work madness is the personal norm, verbal intensity matters more than plot, and phantasmagoria is the accepted atmosphere. The comedy is usually "black," the humour oblique, as witness Thomas Pynchon's V, John Barth's The Sot- Weed Factor, Joseph Heller's Catch-22, James Purdy's Malcolm, Donald Barthelme's Snow White.

What it comes to is a revolt against realism in which, while they are not alone in this, they have complete freedom in both subject matter and language, and what is significant, as between this freedom and the abuse of it, is the right of such writers to experiment, to let time determine whether they are faddists or artists. A literature's health lies in change and variety, and fiction's house, as Henry James once said, has many doors.

If we are now at another crossroads, it is less forbidding and more hopeful than the one at which American letters stood at the end of World War II, which in turn was quite different from that of postWorld War 1. Where the post-World War I writers of the '20s reacted with a dazzling creativity, too many of the post-World War II writers retreated into little havens

of their own. Excepting the writers who carried over from the pre-war years, there was-briefly and alarmingly-something like a vacuum in our fiction during that time which W.H. Auden called the Age of Anxiety. A new potentially catastrophic force was at large in the world, as it is today. We have learned to live with the thought of it; in its first phase it was capable of paralysing imagination and will, and in retrospect it seems to have done precisely that. Familiar values in art, in education, in political and personal morality, were fragmented, and this fragmentation was reflected in our literature. The novel as a comprehensive mirror of society in the manner of Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis and John Dos Passos, in which whole areas of life were explored, all but vanished. The "escape" fiction-usually an historical romance or a mystery storyflourished, for there was every reason then to feel the urge to escape from the present.

One's image of the new postwar-generation novelist was of a man working in solitude, withdrawn from external affairs, preoccupied with himself.

Besides being the Age of Anxiety-perhaps because it was the Age of Anxiety, disturbed and questioning-the period of the '40s was also the Age of Criticism, much of it of the first order, in the persons of Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, Alfred Kazin, Leqn Edel, Louis Kronenberger.

This is not to say that the '40s were without creative writers of solid merit. Thornton Wilder-who made his name as long ago as 1927 with The Bridge of San Luis Rey and then devoted most of his attention in the '30s to the theatre-returned to the novel with The Ides of March, a witty and learned speculation on the last days of Julius Caesar. A young Southerner, Carson McCullers, established herself with an extraordinary first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. One of the finest and least appreciated American novelists of this century, Conrad Richter, wrote a splendid trilogy of the Ohio frontier, The Trees, The Fields, The Town. Hemingway opened the '40s with For Whom the Bell Tolls, a major departure from his earlier vein and range.

Such recognized major figures as John P. Marquand, John O'Hara, Willa Cather, John Steinbeck, James Gould Cozzens and, of course, Faulkner were carrying on at full strength from the '30s.

As the '40s moved into the '50s one had the disquieting notion that fiction no longer held its old place in our literature, despite the artistry of those whom I have just mentioned, and such vigorous newcomers as Mailer, James A. Michener (Tales of the South Pacific), Irwin Shaw (The Young Lions), James Jones (From Here to Eternity), John Hersey (A Bell for Adano, The Wall). Non-fiction was emphlltically coming to the fore, and the reason was not hard to discern. Mter all, it would be a novelist of Tolstoyan stature who could compete for a reader's attention with William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Still, fiction was not so nearly at dead centre as certain of the critics would have had us believe. Among the most attractive writing was that of shortstory writers, despite the decline in space allotted to fiction by magazines, so long a training ground for novelists.

There were, for instance, the irresistibly comic tales of James Thurber, the delicate ones of Eudora Welty of Mississippi and Peter Taylor of Tennessee, the tough ones of Nelson Algren of Chicago. With his wry stories of the American Catholic clergy, Prince of Darkness and Other Stories and The Presence of Grace, J.F. Powers quietly took his place among such masters of the form as Kay Boyle, Katherine Anne Porter, Walter Van Tilburg Clark and O'Hara. Either as short-story writers or novelists, other new talents came along at an encouraging rate-William Styron with Lie Down in Darkness, J.p. Salinger with Catcher in the Rye, Bernard Malamud with The Natural, Ralph Ellison with Invisible Man, Louis Auchincloss with The Indifferent Children, Bellow with Dangling Man. At least four of these-Bellow, Styron, Malamud, Auchincloss-may well achieve that rarity among modern American novelists, "a body of work," in the footsteps of Hemingway, Faulkner, O'Hara, Cozzens.

This is not to denigrate the skills of writers working in lower-keyed tones, like John Updike, whose intelligence and empathic understanding were everywhere apparent in his first novel, The Poorhouse Fair, or the late Flannery O'Connor, whose mettlesome short stories (A Good Man Is Hard to Find) went beyond the regional context of their Southern setting, just as Mala-

mud's stories of American Jews (The Magic Barrel) and Philip Roth's (Go'odbye, Columbus)are not merely stories of American-Jewish life but relate to us all.

In fact, many American writers are not easily categorized. They move about from one form to another, and frequently are more effective in one form than in another.

Thus, or so it seems to me, Mailer took an unfortunate turn when he forsook the naturalism of his war novel, The Naked and the Dead, and drifted down to the tortured and inadvertently comic sexuality of An American Dream; but as a highly personal reporter he has few equals, as witness his Armies of the Night, the vivid chronicle of the 1967 march on the Pentagon, which won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. James Baldwin's penetrating essays on what it means to be a Negro, at home and abroad (Notes of a Native Son, More Notes of a Native Son) are eloquent, thoughtful and distinctly superior to any fiction he has written since his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain.

After a precocious beginning as a shortstory writer Capote turned, in In Cold Blood, to a kind of reporting he calls the "non-fiction novel," in this case a documentat once literary and sociological that standsby itself in contemporary American writing. In no category whatever is the Russian-born Vladimir Nabokov, who belongsto American literature while remainingcuriously outside it, quizzical, complex, subtlyironic, who sees America as could onlyone who came to it after having one' careerin Europe before launching another onehere: If this sort of virtuosity is exhilarating, another element of any literature's health is the broad ground between the avantgardeand that which is intended primarily as entertainment. I have in mind such books as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Richard Bissell's A Stretch on the River,Edwin O'Connor's The Last Hurrah, Robert Lewis Taylor's The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, A.B. Guthrie's The Big Sky, William Price Fox's Southern

Fried, William Humphrey's Home from the Hill, Gerald Green's The Last Angry Man, John Knowles's A Separate Peacethe merest sampling of novels of the last three decades, each a work of quality with something about it that stays on in the mind. Different as they are from one another, each somewhere struck a chord of response and found its way through one of the house of fiction's many doors.

Non-fiction's house, too, has doors in abundance. While older historians and biographers are still very much in their heyday, younger ones have joined them in re-evaluating and searching out the American past-Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. with his The Age¡ of Roosevelt series, Richard Hofstadter with The American Political Tradition, Margaret Coit with John C. Calhoun, Bruce Catton with two trilogies on the Civil War, Eric Goldman with Rendezvous with Destiny, and the social and political historians: Max Lerner with America as a Civilization, Clinton Rossiter with Conservatism in America. There are the inbetween historians whose interest is,largely regional, like Stephen Birmingham with his scrupulously researched multiple biography of New York's German-Jewish banking families, "Our Crowd"; Carl Carmer, whose province is New York state (The Hudson, Listenfor a Lonesome Drum),. Paul Horgan (Great River: the Rio Grande in North American History) and the late Stewart Holbrook (The Columbia, The Rocky Mountain Revolution), all pleasurable as literature and invaluable as folklore.

Journalists are working with greater thoroughness than most journalists have ever worked before, thanks to new techniques for the acquisition of information, and the result is history immediately rendered and materials indispensable to future historians. William Manchester's The Death of a President, for all the controversy that surrounded it, is a case in point; no biographer of John F. Kennedy, a century hence, could possibly afford to overlook it.

But now, having glanced at the Ameri-

ICTION'S HOUSE, AS HENRY JAMES ONCE SAID, HAS MANY DOORS, AND NON-FICTION'S HOUSE, TOO, HAS DOORS IN ABUNDANCE.

can literary scene of the present and the three decades preceding it, it might be well to return briefly to that point in the past at which those American writers flourished who, directly and indirectly, did much to prepare the way for the writers of today and their readers as well.

The watershed time, literary historians agree, was the dawn of the 1920s, although much of the spadework had been done well before that by the early realists and naturalists-by Frank Norris with McTeague, The Octopus and The Pit, Upton Sinclair with The Jungle, Jack London with Martin Eden, Dreiser with Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt, Sherwood Anderson with Winesburg, Ohio and Edgar Lee Masters with Spoon River Anthology. Critics like H.L. Mencken, James Gibbons Huneker, Van Wyck Brooks, Francis Hackett and Randolph Bourne were welcoming the best of the new European literature and at the same time urging a new, indigenous American literature free of taboos and inhibitions. Little magazines sprouted by the score-The Masses and Seven Arts in New York, Poetry and Little Review in Chicago.

Walter Lippmann was a young socialist writing for the New Republic. Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell were manning the barricades on behalf of Imagist poetry.

Brooks, in The Wine of the Puritans and America's Coming of Age, was calling for an end to materialism and the duality of art and life in our literature. Surely Utopia was imminent.

It was not, of course. The end of World War I brought disillusionment along with the rejection of Wilsonian idealism. But it was an odd, paradoxical disillusionment.

Where Europe lay ravaged and drained, relatively-untouched America teemed with vitality. Sometimes the disenchantment exploded in satire, as in Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt and the short stories of Ring Lardner and Dorothy Parker, sometimes in deterministic naturalism, as in Dreiser's last great book, An American Tragedy, sometimes in a kind of romantic realism, as in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, in its way as searching a commentary as any on the society of his time. The '20s feigned a sophisticated indifference, but were in fact clamorous. Formalist poets feuded with Symbolist and Imagist poets, novelists with critics, critics with other critics. Poets sang lyrically, like Edna St. Vincent Millay, the voice of the newly liberated young, or lustily, like the troubadouring Carl Sandburg and Vachel Lindsay. continued

Dominating the latter half of the literary '20s and at least two decades beyond, there was, of course, Hemingway. Already some of his work seems more likely than other segments of itto hold readers in the future, but that is hardly the most momentous thing about him. What he did, in his very first book, the stories collected as In Ow Time, was to bring to the English-speaking world a new style, lean, hard, dazzling in its concentration. Admittedly his values were not complex: the necessity to endure through personal courage, the pride of craft, and truth observed directly and without cant. Critics had no trouble in pinpointing his limitations, the obsession with the infliction of death, and the mindlessness, often, of his characters. Over and beyond such limitations were his superb narrative gift, his camera-like eye for motion, the sensitivity of his descriptions of the natural world. He will be read, one imagines, as long as English is read.

Quite suddenly the '20s were gone, in a crash of tumbling stocks and forever altered lives. A new literature of social protest impended, and so thoroughly marked the '30s that one tends to overlook the fact that most of the leading writers of the '20s carried on, as we have seen. It somehow seems significant that they were presently joined by a writer who made. his debut in the very month when the curtain came down. on their raucous, productive decade and the Great Depression began.

He was Thomas Wolfe, his first book was Look Homeward, Angel, and together with certain of his contemporaries he was to make it clear that the literary '30s were not all of a piece. They merely seemed so, because the new, militant writers were more strident, if less effective, than the quieter ones. Of what was written in passionate anger against society, an anger rooted in personal experience, astonishingly little proved durable except James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy and Richard Wright's Native Son, a violent if overly contrived revelation of the world of the oppressed Negro.

But the empty, didactic, "proletarian" novel is not to be confused with the novel of social protest in which the old values of individualism, personal freedom and compassion for society's victims are still of the highest importance. Beneath its machinetooled surface, its "camera eye" and "newsreel" techniques, Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy is not only the "collective novel" it has been called but an agonized plea for

HR UGH THE LAST FIVE DECADES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, AN INNATE VITALITY HAS CONTINUED UNDAUNTED BY ECONOMIC ISASTER AND POSTWAR LANGUORS.

people in despair. So, too, is Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, a deeply sympathetic portrait of Americans driven from their drought-ridden land, crawling across the country to a new frontier. In a sense, any novel is a social novel if it makes a statement on the human condition in its timeO'Hara's Appointment in Samarra and Butterfield 8, Marquand's The Late George Apley, Cozzens's The Last Adam and The Just and the Unjust, and above all the books of the greatest American writer to come to full maturity in the 1930s.

He was Faulkner, the Southerner who created his own darkly violent, romantic, decadent, misanthropic home, the mythical Yoknapatawpha County. He was on his way to this gigantic achievement in the '20s with The Sound and the Fury. It began to flower in 1930 with As I Lay Dying, and reached epic proportions with Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! The Unvanquished and Sartoris. Fantasy and realism, love and hate, humour and terror-they mingle bewilderingly until Faulkner's purpose comes clear: he is speaking not simply to his tortured South but to all men in whom those contradictions are inherent.

So the '30s were not, as some resentful survivors of the '20s choose to think, a literary failure in America. It was a decade that brought newly developed artists who ranked with those established ones who kept on writing with power, like Ellen Glasgow in The Sheltered Life, Lewis in It Can't Happen Here, Fitzgerald in Tender Is the Night (which ran afoul of the new era's "socially conscious," unsympathetic critics). The sole novel by a reticent former Atlanta, Georgia, journalist, Margaret Mitchell, became the '30s' best seller, and with reason; Gone With the Wind, a realistically romantic novel of the Civil War, was a return to the timeless narrative tradition of suspense, and its heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, took her place in the gallery of characters who belong to the public memory. Kenneth Roberts arrived as a fine historical novelist of colonial America with Rabble in Arms and Northwest Passage. A new school of American historians was assembling: Marquis James with his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographies of Sam Hous-

ton and Andrew Jackson, Henry Steele Commager with his Theodore Parker, Carl Sandburg with his monumental biography of Abraham Lincoln, begun in 1926 and concluded in 1939, Douglas Southall Freeman with his four-volume Robert E. Lee. Van Wyck Brooks, for so long an inspirational force in criticism, turned literary historian with his haunting and evocative "Finders and Makers" series, The Flowering of New England.

It may be said of the '30s that, whatever their failings in literary artistry as compared with that of the '20s, the writers of the '30s were more deeply engaged with the life around them. The very horrors of the Great Depression made for a bond of communal feeling and understanding.

There was a saving vitality.

Through the last five decades of modern American literature, an innate vitality has continued undaunted by economic disaster and postwar languors.

It has taken many forms, as becomes a pluralistic society, and thus is characteristically American. What we may have lost by the lack of discipline we have gained through adventurous experimentation. The literary climate now is one of waiting, of expectancy. Meanwhile, the general level of competence among our novelists and storytellers is high. In non-fiction it never has been higher. Good writers write, and readers read them with, by and large, discrimination, and in numbers immeasurably higher than in the pre-paperback era.

In a time of bewildering change, as new talents are born and mature, the possibilities are exciting if inscrutable. One must believe that certain values do not change.

One remembers-surely every artist should remember-Faulkner's mighty declaration when he stood in Stockholm in 1950 and received the Nobel Prize in literature: "He [the writer] must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths, lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -love and honour and pity and pride and END compassion and sacrifice."