New-York tribune., 1919-06-27
B o o k S
By Haywood Broun
s. ZzIE gonna teachie itty cutu

Brandish in effect in her book
"Mother Love in Action" (Harper), and
proceeds to protest vigorously against the
practice of bringing up children on baby
talk. 1t is true that parents deserve part
of the blame, but babies ought to be made
to realize that some of the responsibility
is theirs. Often they talk the jargon
themselves without any encouragement
whatever. Indeed, they have been known
to cling to muddled words and phrases in
spite of the soundest reasoning which all
their parents could bring to bear on the
matter. H the third, for instance, has
been told repeatedly that the word is "but-
ton," and yet he goes calling it "bur"
or "but" something like that.
We feel very strongly that he should
get it straight because it is the only
word he knows. He tried "moma" and
"dayday" for while, but abandoned them
when he seemed to sense opposition against
his attempt to use them broadly enough
to include casual friends and total stran-
gers. r. who comes from Virginia, could
not be made to abandon a narrow minded
point of view about HIS conception of his
relation to the ashman.
does not involve the child in questions
of race prejudice and other problems
which he does not fully comprehend as
yet. The round disks on coat are "buts,"
and II. seems satisfied that so are door
knobs and ears anG noses. He is to be
sure, not quite content that all should
be sewn on SO firmly. There seems to be
no limit to his conception of the range
of his one word "but." If he could get
his hands on the Washington Monument
or the peak of the Matterhorn we feel sure
that he would also classify these as buttons
of sort.
Much may be done with one word if it
be used cosmically in this way. For the
sake of H. we have been trying to de-
velop a theory that ali the problems Of
the world may be stated in terms OF but
tons. We intend to point out to him that
if he finds a gentleman with two buttons
on either hip to which suspenders are at
tached, he may safely set him down
conservative. If, in addition, the gentle
man wears another gold buttor tightly
wedged into a starched collar just below
his chin he may be classified as All ex-
ponent of high protective tariff and a
gentlemen with no buttons, either at the
hips the neck, he may expect to hear
about the soviet experiment IL Russia and
the status of free speech in America.
We intend to tell H. that he is not far
wrong in his attempt to limit language
to the one word "but" or 'bur," since all
the world struggles in religion in politics
and in economics are between those who
believe in buttoning up life little tighter
and those who would cut away all fasten-
ings and let gravity do its worst or best.
However, we have told him fairly and
squarely that we will not let him in
this simplifying and comforting short cut
to knowledge until he make the word
come out clearly and distinctly button"
There seems to be an amazingly casual
quality in all creation Take, for instance,
the famous Castle Walk AS described
in Mrs. Vernon Castles book "My Hus-
band," the discovery was entirely acci-
dental.
Zone night at Louis Martins" she
writes, 1--WE had danced good deal and
were rather tired. More as n rest than
anything else, fell into a reverse OF
the usual proceedings. In all dances tn.
weight is thrown down on the foot. For
a change we threw the weight up 1t is
difficult to describe, but easy TO do Elsie
Janis, who was sitting at table. told
US when we came back that it was
thing we couldn't get away with. 1t was
too ridiculous to consider doing again
1t wasn't very graceful, to be sure, but
it did provide variation and great deal
of amusement"
1t may be remembered that the early
reviews of the steamboat and the flying
machine were also distinctly unfavorable.