The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-02-23
Public Curiosity
Healthy Sign
Cross Lauds Citizens for
Appetite to Know More
of National Life

New Haven, Conn "The
growth of an intelligent curiosity
in the public mind about national
and international affairs Is among
the most hopeful signs for future
stability in evidence today" Gov
ernor Wilbur l.. Cross, Editor, of
The Yale Review stated today.
1T is automatic that ignorance
is the greatest obstacle to progress,
socially as we'll as Individually,
and the will to know what 1t is
all about, with Which people arc
so obsessed that they will storm
four-thousand strong film ex-
planning. or attempting to ex-
plain, the Einstein theory, Is the
greatest single factor which makes
me hopeful that. once the effects
of the present suspension Of nor
NAL activity throughout the world
are lived down, possibly another
such series of phenomena will be
long delayed in recurring and. If
they do recur, will be more sue
cessfully COPIED with.
"Our emergence from insularity
and the appearance Of an interna-
tional consciousness came to q
marked degree with the war and Its
took deflationary times to bring
about increased thinking among
those who had always, to some ex-
tent, paid but little heed to mat
tiers outside their intimate family
or business environment, and to
induce thinking among q whole
new class which could never, by
any stretch of the Imagination,
have been called "thinkers' before.
While people in general, even In
prosperous times, showed vague.
passing interest in domestic and
international politics, science and
economics and philosophy, when
it Is a case of "easy come 1t is
likewise a case of easy co." and
there was little time, inclination or
urgency to speculate on what 1t
all meant and whittier 1t all led.
Yet of our present state of mind.
q discerning observer has said:
Nothing seems too abstract or
highly specialized for the Ameri-
cans to want to have 1t explained.
So perhaps we owe to the de-
pressed times from which we are
emerging our increased conscious
ness of matters of broad import
and our curiosity about questions
of social significance.
among the voices crying aloud
who have made themselves heard
by a relatively popular audience,
particularly effective for good are
Walter Lippmann, contributor 10
the New York Herald Tribune, and
James Truslow Adams, whose
Epic of America has been so
widely commented on. 1t was in
recognition of the demand for
authoritative guidance on today's
political, social and economic phe-
nomena that The Yale Review re-
Gently invited Messrs Lippmann
and Adams, in addition to Alvin
johnson, Associate Editor of the
Encyclopedia of the Social Sci
ences and Director Of the New
School for Social Research. and
Edgar 8. Furniss. Dean of the
Yale Graduate School, to associate
themselves with The Yale Review
as an Editorial Council.
"Mr Lippmann as editor. Pub
licist and lucid interpreter of pub
lie issues; Mr. Adams as modern
historian with the social. as OPP
posed to the merely factual, stand
point; Mr. johnson as eminent
worker in the social sciences; and
Dean Furniss. as teacher and
economist. will constitute a dis.
tinguished supplementary body
OF contributors to The Yale Re-
view."