The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-03-06

Q nave liiy lHOlA-
 ing coffee and toast. Shifted the chair, looked sad, and began each day a new mourning period he has been showing off to me ever since l returned, tearing up pasteboard boxes, capering all over the house, barking and laughing :. Already, glimpsing the mail, I began to plan the next few trips away from New York :. including an early flight to Florida, an address to high school journalists in North Carolina, talk to business men in Reading, and commencement speech at Boys Town, Nebraska, in June .. Thus does one avoid becoming too New Yorkish in this kind of job.
 On the way home from the West, 1 stopped from midnight to midnight in Wichita, determined to let nobody but relatives know I was in town, for was tired and had missed much sleep during the busy days and nights. But my good friends at the Beacon learned of my being in town very early in the day. Interview, photo- graphs, then, as soon as the paper was out, flood of telephone calls, and the hectic day was on. In the evening, group of interesting folk gathered at the home of MT. and Mrs. T. L. Givens, newspaper folk so talked away the eve- ming until tmie to drive to New ton to catch the Chief, eastbound.
 Wichita, at the Givens home, I had the good luck to meet Dr. John Duncan Spaeth, Shakespear can scholar, professor of English at the University of Wichita, late ly retired from a professorship at Princeton. He is, among other things, a brother of the renowned Sigmund Spaeth of New York, who became popular on the air as The Tune Detective few years ago.
 When Dr. Spaeth learned that I knew his famous brother, we be-. came fast friends. I have a con- genital weakness for lovers of Shakespeare. That's one reason why like lawyers. I've never met a good lawyer who didn't know his Hamlet, Othello, Merchant of Venice and Macbeth, at least.
 I boasted to the good Doctor about how much my daughter is getting out of her Shakespeare course under Ben Brown, at Penn course under Ben Brown, at Penn broke. Said he, "There is only one influence know of that can transform a student, and that's Shakespeare. If the subject is competently taught, it opens the eyes of students to cultural values they may never have dreamed of. Many a person in this country today owes his intellectual stand- ing to a course in Shakespeare, whether he knows it or not"
 I said to my host and hostess, and to other guests, How fortu- nate is my home town to have suh a scholar teaching its sons and daughters!" And they replied. with one accord, Don't think we don't appreciate it! We know how lucky we are, and we're going to hold on to him."
 It's not important, but Spaeth is past 70. He could be living on 8 nice pension from Princeton, doing nothing. Instead, he accepts less income, and works. Well, with so much to give, which of us wouldn't be giving, rather than loafing? Endowment of so much talent imposes an obligation upon the usual man, such as Dr. Spaeth, and I have never seen any such person shirk his obl- gation. That's one of the cheer ing aspects of this interesting world.
 Or course, there are other in f1uences besides Shakespeare that transform the lives of students, despite the enthusiasm of the good Doctor. I've seen boys literally made over into a new mould by study of the Bible, in college. But so much depends upon the teach CT! If only boards of trustees realized how much!
 Personal: This is the first column I have written since re- turning from my Western trip. Altitude doesn't agree with me, and I crossed some high moun- tain ranges, going and coming. At the high spots, had nosebleed, not serious. When had finished the second paragraph of this column, I suffered ready severe attack, and a doctor was called hurridely. Now, four hours later, I'm at it again, a bit wobbly, but determined to catch up with with that deadline.
 All my life, doctors have warned me against high attitudes. But you know how one feels about such warnings. I have sought out high places, just to SC whether the doctors were right. When I came out alive, I've always felt rather superior, and have sent notes to my physicians, for their case-books, mentioning the heights at which I've flown or travelled in a train or automobile.
 At the precise minute of writ ing this, I don't feel a bit high hat toward those doctors. If one hadn't arrived promptly today. this column would have been only two paragraphs long, and it wouldn't have been followed by