The American Mercury

The April issue of The American Mercury has little to recommend it. However, Mr. Mencken manages to be interesting in his editorial especially when he writes on Calvin Coolidge. The anecdote which tells of a man who was willing to bet that President Harding would be assassinated before the end of his term, since he was sure that "Cal" was "the demndest lucky man in the world," will possibly be new to most readers.

The article by Stanley Walker, describing the policemen in New York, deserves attention because of the naivete of the author. According to him some policemen in the overpopulated city are dishonest; some are gentlemen, most are human. Yet the disappointment which the reader hay have, having read this, will be lost in a maelstrom of laughter after completing a letter by someone who was insulted because a freshman at Yale said that his college has produced few great men in this century. This someone has written a biting invective on the lack of merits of Harvard graduates. Although it is slightly childish, is much more interesting than the inane short stories which continue to clutter the pages of this magazine.

Current History

One article in particular, carries on, in the April issue, the reputation of this magazine for sanity and catholicity of ideas. Claude Fuess, acting headmaster of Andover, writes on "The Promise of Progressive Education" with an impartiality and reflectiveness quite unusual in a subject prone to more dogmatism than many legislative programs. The theory of "play, not work" in education, which is most applicable to pre-adolescent children, is shown to be acceptable to the more traditional schools, where there is not as hide-bound an attitude as is usually thought, but where the curriculum of "projects" is often questioned. The ideals of progressive education seem to be as vague and the reforms as necessary as Professor Dewey left them many years ago, but the faults of the system have been largely discovered by now. The dependency of the success of these joyous grammar schools on the personal attributes of the teachers, the ease of loafing, the tendency for children to turn to various forms of artistic self-expression without finishing what they have started, a form of child dilettantism; the need of occasional old-fashioned and naturally irritating bouts with grammar and algebra--all these strains on the system are recorded by Mr. Fuess as dangerous to it. But the game, he says, is definitely worth the candle.