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Book Review: Social Problems by Ezra Thayer Towne (1929)
Title: Social Problems: A Study of Present-Day Social Conditions Author: Ezra Thayer Towne Published: New York: The MacMillan Company, 1929. 406-pages. About the Author[1] [2] Ezra Thayer Towne, an American economist, was born on April 1, 1873 in Waupun, Wisconsin and died February 27, 1952 in Grand Forks County, North Dakota. He was the son of William Hammond and Marion (Kingsbury) Towne. His education and career is as follows: an advanced course at the State Normal School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin (1894); Assistant Principal at De Pere High School in Wisconsin (1894-95); B.L. University of Wisconsin (1897); Graduate work at the University of Wisconsin (1897-99); Studied at the New York School of Philanthropy (1898); Superintendent of Schools in Sharon, Wisconsin (1899-1901); Studied and traveled in Europe (1901-03); earned his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Halle, Germany (1903); acting professor and professor of economics and political science at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota (1903-17); Head of the department of economics and political science, and director of course in commerce at the University of North Dakota (1917-24) and later Dean of School of Commerce (1924-48); Doctor of Humanities, University of North Dakota (1948). He was the author of several works, including: The…
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Review: The Scholar’s Mission
Title: “The Scholar’s Mission” in The Works of Orestes A. Brownson Collected and Arranged by Henry F. Brownson Volume XIX pages 65-87. Author: Orestes Augustus Brownson Published: New York: AMS Press Inc., 1966. An oration pronounced before the Gamma Sigma Society, of Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H., July 26, 1843. Preamble I was introduced to Brownson in The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk. Since then, I bought the twenty-volume collection of his works assembled by his son. I am surprised I had never heard of him before, but what usually happens after I find someone like this, is his name will suddenly start appearing in other works I read. It is just the fact that now I am aware of him. That is true with so many other things in life. Think of many of the great discoveries made throughout history, once they are known, then it is easy to see. It is like the old tale about Christopher Columbus and the egg. Supposedly he was sitting around with some other people after he discovered America and they were saying how it was not really a big deal. He asked for an egg and requested that they each try to…
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Book Review: The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft by George Gissing
Title: The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft Author: George Robert Gissing Published: London: Phoenix House Ltd., 1953 (First published 1903). Forward by Cecil Chisholm. Pages-220. Preamble There are books that help me understand who I am, this book is one of those. Now I cannot identify exactly with the character of Henry Ryecroft, but, there are moments of truth that encapsulate certain aspects of myself that Gissing clarified. Gissing portrays Ryecroft as a humble, contemplative, and very mature Englishman of fifty-three. He himself was only forty-three when he wrote this story and he never lived to be the age of his character, Ryecroft. I am convinced that Gissing did not just happen to stumble on the portrayal of Ryecroft, he has a very well-defined sense of human character. This must have come from many hours of contemplative thought and self-reflection. The character is very humble, knows what he enjoys, recognizes his age, and has on overall very mature look on life. Here is a man who can stop and smell the roses, one who can appreciate what he has done in his youth, and yet knows those days are gone, and accepts it. He does not pine away on the…
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Book Review, English 20th Century, Europe 18th Century, Europe 19th Century, History, My Ramblings, Social Commentary
Book Review: The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot
The cornerstone of Kirk’s essay is that Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was the founder of Modern Conservatism. I have read two of Burke’s works, Speech on Conciliation with America (1775) and Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). I found them both to be profound. Kirk takes up the conservative conversation starting with Burke and expounds upon it. He goes into depth explaining what he feels are the key points that Burke stressed and how these were continued in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
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My Poetry: An Old Woman’s Smile
An Old Woman’s Smile Dreaming dreams of yesterday as sunlight warms her face. Her eyes are closed as she sits still with a cover to embrace. The door is opened suddenly, and a familiar voice cries out, “Hello Grandma! How have you been? What a room! Are they taking good care of you? Do you get enough to eat?” She smiles and tells him she is so happy to see him. He brought a potted plant and puts it on her windowsill, And looking round he plops himself down upon the edge of her bed. “This seems like such a nice place, the staff they are so friendly, They say you’ll have a lot to do with bingo and with cards, And if your feeling up to it they can take you round the yard.” She smiles again and takes it in, and enjoys the moment spent. She asks him how he’s doing, his wife and little ones, “Oh, my job keeps me busy, the wife has hers as well, And the little ones, are all grown up and making plans for college.” She smiles again and thinks about how fast the time did go. He looks around the one…
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Book Review: Justice by John Galsworthy
Title: Justice: A Tragedy in Four Acts Author: John Galsworthy Published: New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910. Pages-109. Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace. Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744) An Essay on Man: Epistle II, Lines 217-220[1] John Galsworthy (1867-1933) was an English novelist and playwright. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932.[2] He studied law and was called to the bar in 1890.[3] Shortly afterwards, with a goal to specialize in marine law, he took a voyage around the world in which he met and befriended Joseph Conrad.[4] The Encyclopedia Britannica calls Galsworthy “A passionate partisan of liberal humanitarianism, he had little sympathy with the modern movement in the arts taking place around him. … He had, in short, no profound understanding of human nature, only a keen emotional feeling for the society in which he had himself been brought up and a sentimental esteem for the underdog.”[5] The article gave most of its attention to Galsworthy’s Forsyth Saga, but did have a short comment on this particular work; “Justice (1910),…
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Charity vs obligation
When there is a right to food, shelter and other items, there is also the duty of everyone to chip in to pay for that right to be guaranteed to the people that need it. When that happens it becomes an obligation. Many people find obligations to be too hard to keep up. They start to resent the people (government) ‘forcing’ them to comply. Charity on the other hand makes people feel good about helping others. If we truly want to help those in need, wouldn’t it be better to have these needs in the hands of charities? The government can help by not taxing the lands used for homeless shelters and other housing for those in need. What about the ‘soup kitchens’? Should they be tax exempt? Should they be located only close to the homeless shelters or should they be spread out so that even those that have a friend putting them up can manage to get to the soup kitchen easily? There are tales from the 1930’s of families sleeping in church pews, little children and grown men alike. This was a terrible time for people in need. We have corrected this issue by giving housing vouchers…
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The New Aristocracy part 1
I think I understood what the conversation was about, but let me put it into words to be certain. Let me know if I made any mistakes in the line of thought. What I understand of your view of the ‘new aristocracy’ is: We are headed back into an age where the aristocrats/nobles rule the land. They own the majority of the land and the burgers/bourgeois own only a small portion of the land. The nobles will then be responsible for the care of the lower class, the serfs and indigent. And the land upon which the serf lives will determine whether he is treated well or not. Other aristocrats will be able to lure serfs of a certain type over to his land if he wishes. And this time the land to which you refer need not necessarily be actual land, but an ID card or credit chit. (Aren’t we already there?) We have gone through a metamorphosis over the last few hundred years, which is leading us right back to where we were in the age of kingdoms. People seem to want someone to tell them what to do and think. We upset the apple cart and upon…
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Writers Prompt: Where Will It Lead
speculative fiction idea: current events as of Aug 29,2013: preface 1.) Syria gassing of men, women, and children…U.S. blames Syrian government, but there is a question of whether the rebels may have done it and claimed the government did it just to get the U.S. involved. Russia and China are vetoing the UN Security Council action vote on the matter, while waiting for more information from the inspectors. 2.) The U.S. still has unemployment problems, or rather, underemployment problems. With a pay rate of $8.15/hr, fast food and other low wage workers are complaining they can’t pay their bills. If full time employment is assumed, this is $16300/yr which is comparable to what an adjunct professor/instructor at a public college makes in a year ($18000), but considerably less than the lowest that full time faculty makes ($50000). The fast food workers would like to be paid $15/hr or $30000/yr. Mind you this is a no/little skill job compared to a 6-8 year college degree position. (Although one must ask how many fast food employees have liberal arts degrees.) Most may think that these two events are unrelated. However, the preponderance of un-under-employed workers in the U.S. may lead to a…
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Should Blue Laws Return?
Should we return to the days when stores were forced to shut down on Sundays so the employees had a chance to attend church and spend time with their families or go to other meeting of a more social nature? One major investment management firm thinks so. What about holidays? With Thanksgiving coming up and an increasing number of retail outlets opening for the day, we must keep in mind that each of those stores is preventing its employees from attending their family feast. Is this the employees’ wishes? Quite possibly, yes. We’ve been lowering the effective minimum wage over the years after adjusting for inflation. We’ve been eliminating the middle class in the meantime, making it more difficult for a family to support itself on only one income and continuing to push the idea of ‘keeping up with the Jones’. Are we doing the right thing? Do all of the employees working on Thanksgiving Day want to be there? Or, would they rather be home watching Dallas and Detroit play their rivals on the television? Or cooking in the kitchen, talking and having fun with family they haven’t seen in months? The answer to these questions is also ‘yes’. …
