Panorama. Vol. VII, No.7 June 1955

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Title: Panorama. Vol. VII, No.7 June 1955
Issue Date: Vol. VII (No. 7) June 1955
Year: 1955
Language: English
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extracted text: . ~ - r - ·9~ MAGAZINE OF GOOD READING Rizal's Novels By NICK JOAQUIN Asia at Bandung The voice wasn't thunderous • SYMPHONY OF THE AIR JU 1955 • EDUCATION, ENGLISH STYLE By James W. Dunnill • HONG KONG'S B~BOO CURTAIN SQ CENTAVOS ARTICLES Asia at Bandung ............................ . Why Rizal's Novels Are Misunderstood ........ . Nick Joaquin 7 Pigeons to Postage Stamps ....... Fenix Madura -16 Hong Kong's Bamboo Curtain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Symphony of the Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ben Revilla 23 The 5th Dimension ........... Mathias Segovia 26 Go to the Barrios, Young Man! ............. . Prudencio Langcauon 31 The Culture of India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Houdini: the Handcuff King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S 7 How Fil-Amercan Inter-Marriages Are Working ... · Lourdes Crisologo-Santos 64 The Hazards of Rising Early . Euphemia Pataniie 67 Education, English Style ..... James W. Dunnill 70 This Is the New Bell Trade Act ... Jose P. Laurel 76 Afghanistan Learns to Read ...... .". . . . . . . . . . . 87 FICTION Wedding Dance Amador T. Daguio REGULAR FEATURES Are You Word Wise? ....................... . Panorama Peek: What Is Your Occupation? .... . Book Review - Brother to Dragons .......... . Leonard Casper Literary Personality - VI: Thornton Wilder Panorama Quiz . , .......................... . In the Beginning ........................... . Philippine Panorama VII: Paraiiaque .......... . Teresita Kamantigue Fun-Orama by Elmer 44 34 41 53 60 79 81 82 86 PANORAMA is published monthly by the Community Publishers, Inc., 2664 Herran, Manila, Philippines. Editor: FELIXllERTO C. STA. MARIA Business Manager: MRs. C. A. MARAMAG Subscription rates: In the Philippines, one year PS.00; two years P9.00. Foreign subscription: one year $4.00 U.S.; two years $7.00 U.S. Single copy 50 centavos. JUNE 1955 VOL. VII MANILA, PHILIPPINES No. 7 Colonialism gets a lashing ,,,,, OR MORE THAN half of the ;r world's population, modern history has been largely a matter of living under colonial masters. The territory inhabited by .nese peoples stretches in a broad arc from the western coast of Africa to the islands of southwest Pacific. Until recently, the flags of Western powers flew here unopposed. The voices of over a billion peoples were rlrnwned in the din of the colonizers' might. Last April 29 countries of Asia and Africa met m the mountain city of Bandung to assert their voice. It did not prove to be a thunderous voice hecause it was divided, but it was heard. The other l1alf of the world sat up and listened as the delegates rnhustly condemned colonialism. The Asian-African conference was sponsored by the Colombo Powers (India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ceylon and Burm''\ h was the first time that v..·tstern powers were excluded from an international meet. It was also the first time that Communist China was represented on an equal footing with the other members in a world conference. There were other striking features of the Bandung- conference. Represented in that gathering were countries widely differing in race, religion and ideology. Sixteen of them belong to the United Nations. Only a few recognize Red China's government. Nationalist China and Isra~ l, although geographically related to the group, were carefullv excluded. One way of grouping the participants was by their attitude towards the West. Thus, only the Philippines among them is genuinely friendly to the United States; India resents and distru:;;ts the U.S.; Communist China hates her. The only thing in common among these nations is that at one time or another most of them had been under foreign domination. Three dominant blocs emerged on the pre-conferenc~ scene. These were: ( 1) the pro2 communists, led by Red China ( 2) the ·pro-Western nations, composed of the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan, supported by Turkey, Iraq, Cambodia and South Vietnam; and ( 3) the nP11fr'l 1 ;~ .. ~, h:d by India and Indonesia. A minor bloc, composed mainly of the African and Middle East states, was expected to wage a spirited fight against colonialism. ,,f"IR THE delegates, clad in colorful tunics and Bond Street suits, poured into the Indonesian city, the heterogeneity bt!came more apparent. India's Nehru, sizing up the situation, started to worry. Unity at Bandung seemed remote. Worse still, there were signs that the anti-communist bloc would gait\ the uppt!rhand and embarrass Red China's Chou En-lai. On the 18th of April, in the plush suroundings of a former Dutch club, the conference opened with the Colombo powers and the following in attendance: Afghanistan, Cambodia, the Peoples' Republic of China, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Gold Coast, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Lybia, Nepal, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the State of Vietnam and Yemen. From the start it was clear that the conference would not proceed as smoothly as N ehnt PANORAMA /j - -< / I I \ l I I ''I'. \ ( I ~ \ l \ ---t------- r -\--\ (" I I Bandung Conference countries: political alignments had hoped. The Liberian delegate objected to Nehru's proposal that in order to save time, the opening speeches of the delegates be printed and distributed instead of being delivered orally. He bellowed: "We are a small nation and when we speak it is not often that anyone will listen. we have come a long way to attend this conference, and we· would like t<' he heard." His view prevailed over that of Nehru's. As the confab progressed, the India-China blocs continued to JUNE 1955 lose ground. Sparked by the Philippines' Carlos P . Romulo, the pro-democratic n at 1 on s lashectllt communism as a "new super-barbarism, a new superimperialism, a new super-power." But the biggest suprise was pulled by Ceylon's Sir John Kntelawala. Jumping off the Colombo bandwagon, he bitterly denounced communist imperiali~m. Said he: Colonialism takes many forms. Think, for example, of those satellite states under communist domination in Central and Eastern Europe -of Hungary, 3 Rumania. Bulgaria, Albania, Czechosiovakia, Latvia, Lithuania. Estonia and Poland. Are the.se not' colonies as much as any of the colonial territ9ries in Africa? If we are united in our opposition to colonialism, should it not be our duty to declare our opposition to Soviet colonialism as much as to Western imperialism? Peaceful coexistence proposed by the Soviets is not possible, )le said, unless the communist powers disband local subversive groups in Asia and Africa. He demanded that the Cominform be dissolved. "} N THE face of such attacks. Nehru's beautifol plans for a smooth conference were shattered. Stomping angrily around, the Indian leader made no attempt to conceal his irritation. It was as if a friend had stabbed him in the back. But the conference spotlight fell mostly on Chou En-lai, who <iisplayed an amazing friendliness to all and a remarkable mildness of manners. He had a good word for everybody. in and out of the conference hall. "The Chinese delegation has come here to seek unity and not to quarrel," Chou said. "China has no intention whatsoever to subvert the governmerit of its neighboring countries." Then, capping his diplomatic triumph, he proposed that Red China and the U.S. sit down and enter into negotiations to discuss the question of relaxing tensions in Formosa. Other Chou maneuvers: ( 1) r.m offer to the Thailand a:.nd Philippine delegates to visit Rert C:hma and confirm for themselves that the communists have no designs against these countries; ( 2) support of the United Nations resolution fm territorial revisions in· Palestine .<lnd recognition of the rights of Arab refugees (nearly half ot the attending nations were Moslems, hence Chou's evident de~ sire to win friends); ( 3) support of India's claim to Goa; and ( 4) signing of an agreement with Indonesia whereby the 2,500,000 overseas Chinese with a dual nationality could choose within a year whether to become citizens of Indonesia or Red China. Chou En-lai no doubt emerged as the most popular figure at Bandung. As one observer put it, Chou came to consoliri.ate his position with India, woo Indonesia, get Cambodia and Laos over to the neutral side, and win general sympathy. He succeeded in all of these. ,,4s FOR the Philippine delegation, no choice could have be'"n happier. Romulo was in his fighting best. Expected by his perennial critics to be the "brilliant spokesman of the West," he nevertheless won the support and respect of the small nations in their fight against colPANORAMA onialism. His able defense of the Manila Pact apparently impr~ssed even the passive neutralists, led by Nehru who condemned all forms of alliances with the world powers. And of course Romulo's international stature lent prestige to the Philippine delegation. ' Similarly, Senator Emmanuel Pelaez, Foreign Affairs l.Tndersecretary Raul Manglapuz and the rest made a creditable performance. Perhaps the concrete achievements attributable 1 to the J>qilippine delegation were: ( () inclusion in the official communique of the condemnation of "colonialism in all its manifestations"· (meaning to include communism, over the objections of the communist bloc); ( 2) successful opposition to the lifting of trade embargo on Red China; ( 3) successful opposition to the subtle move 'to endorse Red China's membership in the United Nations; and ( 4) defense of the Seato pact. Coming to a close on the seventh day, the Asian-African conference enunciated in a final communique the following principles of good neighborliness and friendly cooperation: 1. Respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and principles of tl¥! charter of the United Nb~ions. 2. Respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations. 3. Recognidm: of equality of all races and of equality of all na• tions large and small. JUNE 1955 4. Abstention from intervention or interference in internal affairs of another country. 5. (Respect for) the rights of each nation to defend itself singly or collectively in conformity with the charter of the United Nations. 6. (a) Abstention from use of arrangements of c01lective defense to serve parfr:ular interests of any of the big powers. (b) Abstention by any country from exerting pressure on other countries. 7. Refrair,'.ng from acts or threats ·of aggression or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country. 8. Settlement of _,fl international disputes by peaceful means such as negotiation. conciliation, arbitration or judicial settlement, as well as other peaceful means of the United Nations. 9. Promotion of mutual interest and cooperatior!. 10. Respect for justice and international obligations. ' It is difficult tc make an ac~ .;urate appraisal of the Bandung conference. 'W'hether it has succeeded or failed, only the sinceritv and determination of the p~rticipating nations can prove. The elaboratelv worded communique embodyi~g the ten principles could be just so many words. Or, conversely, it could be translated into meaningful reality. Insofar as the conference gave an opportunity for the peoples of Asia and- Africa to get together and share views, it certainly was successful. Time will tell the rest. - F. C. STA. MARIA, FROM THE Philippine Journal of Education. s JOSE RIZAL Patriot and · na! iu';~:i h-::;'t ·,_· i ;_ :,.,,Yi»:;. _ --'·'' 6 PANORAMA '\tJtiy 1!(iZtal's 1"1ovels :Are I nisunderstood There has beer: too much solemn nonsense By NICK JOAQUIN Noted Fiiipino RUthor and critic 'RIZAL RE-READ today is Rizal "discovered" - as a novelist, a modern novelist. His two novel~, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, have suffered sadly from his reputation as a patriot. You don't go to a great national hero for a funny story; you go to admire, contemplate, worship, and gather pearls of wisdom. Rizal's books have been so beatified, so canonized, enshrined, that they have almost ceased to belong to literature. What's worse, they've been called such names as "The Bible of the Race"th.e sort of epithet a book finds hard to live down. It took the Bible many, many centuries to g~t ptself rend simply iur plea-· sure-as all goods books should be. • -in our part of the world, anyway-is on the rise; and the !Rizal novels are bound to get holier and holier instead of less rn. The time may come, in fact, when a prospective reader will first have to wash his bands, incense his person, and genuflect, before reading a passage from the sacred text. Rizal's title for his first novel may be prophetic. As it is now. who reads Rizal? Everybody. And everybody's always urging everybody else--especially the helpless young-to read him. It's becom· ing a sort of sacred duty among us Filipinos. And that's exactly how we read him: as it duty, a tribttl dµty; and to have our minds elevated, our patdotism itif-ensified. And because we }~!zal v\:·.;..;_j (' :';:_C<, i1J:lc1 liit_:-· Ld\::_ ~ :,_; :_~ ~~ ~--~<-~ T•1 going even tougher. Nationalism aiY;Ll\. u;n-i; c,r because we're JUNE 1955 7 tracking down a quotation; or because we're ghost-writing for some politician who'd like to mouth a few lofty utterances by the Pride of the Malay Race. In short, nobody reads Rizal. n OBODY THINKS of those two books as novels - like Gone With the Wind and St. Elmo and For Whom the Bell Tolls - novels that are funny and sad and exciting and enjoyable. All novels are written to be enjoyed. But when we want to curl up with a good book, do we think of Rizal? Alas, no. We sit down to study Rizal. But we don't take his books to bed with us like we do Margaret Mitchell's. Leonor Rj.veta, Rizal's early sweetheart, considered to be model for immortal Maria Clara The result is very sad. You should never deliberately sit down to read a book for some high and noble purpose. (That's what I call reading a book in cold blood). If you do, you are bound to get bored - though you may refuse to admit it even to yourself. When you finally do admit it, you may blame the book for having bored you. You may accuse it of being overrated. But it may not be the book's fault at all. To approach a book with awe is fatal. I'm not sure that something of the sort has not already begun to happen with Rizal. Already, some critics have attacked his novels on literary grounds. They say that the plot is preposterous, and borrowed from Dumas; that the characters are caricatures; that the writing is pedestrian. Many young people, who were made to read Rizal in a state of stupefied awe practically indistinguishable from boredom, will suddenly realize that it was PANORAMA boredom, and will JOm, with eager cries for relief, in the ikonsmashing. All this may be for the best. When these books have been knocked down from the altar they may find their way back to the shelf and some curious and ignorant boy may pick them up and start reading them with no thought for their message or purpose - simply for the pleasure of reading. And that boy is going to have one hell of a good time. For these bookslbut the Noli especially-are first-rate comic novels - fast, funny and outrageous-novels, in fact, of the same kind as and almost in the same class with Dickens and the early Evelyn Waugh. J F RIZAL did borrow from Dumas, it's amazing what he did with it. He took a creaky, 1'ugubrious melodrama and ~urned it into a crisp, ironic social-problem novel. He picked up Edmond Dantes and transformed him into a Candide. His novels--or his novel, ratherrl1e two books are really one story-is Dumas as Aldous Huxley or Evelyn Waugh might have written it: tongue in cheek. It has bite, it has fun, and-most important of all-it b.as audacity. \Vho among our modern literary social reformers would dare couch his message in the form af an outrageous cloak-and-dagJUNE 1955 ger romance? Rizal did-and. got away with it. He had little to learn about narrative. He was a born novelist-and might have been a great one if he had been less of a patriot. See how he starts his books with a bang. It usually took Dickens a dozen chapters to unroli the plot and march out the characters. Rizal had just as varied a group of dramatis personae; but, in both his books, the scene is set, the characters are assembled, the antecedents emerge, and the plot's a-boiling, in the very first chapter. And with the very first chapter, he astounds, tickles, fascinates and dazzles with the brilliance and audacity. of his invention. In the Noli, for instance, there's the delicious hair-splitting little sermon by Fray Sybilla: "Debemos distinguir en las palabras de Fray Damaso las del hombre de las del sacerdote . . . En las del hombre hay que hacer una subdistinci6n: las que dice ab irato, las que dice ex ore pero no in corde, y las que dice in corde." Could mockery be sweeter? And Rizal closes the chapter with a gem of huge inspired silliness that, to my ear, sounds like pure Waugh. Fray Sybilla has remarked that it was in the fourteenth century that a Franciscan invented gunpowder; whereupon Dona VictorinQ. inquires with great interest: "En el siglo catorce? Antes 6 despues de 9 Cristo?" HO\v Rizal must have roared when he wrote that! The ninth chapter of the Noli ( Cosas de! Pueblo) must be cited as proof of Rizal's mastery of the art of the novel-of his economy, his quick eye, and the richness of his novelistic imagination. The brief chapter begins with Fray Damaso arriving at Capitan Tiago's house; we are then taken into the Dominican convent to witness the enigmatic scene in the dying friar's cell; suddenly we are in Malacanan, listening to the jests of the captain-general; and finally we come back to Capitan Tiago's house to find him angrily blowing out the candles lighted for Ibarra's safety on the road. 1 ~ crucial event in this chapter-the conversation between Fray Damaso and Capitan Tiago-we have not been allowed to witness at all; bblt the quick transitions, the counterpointing, the snatches of casual dialogue, the expert, rapid piling-up of details-we hear even the clinking of coins in the convent-bespeak a novelist who knows exactly what he's doing. T HIS BRIEF perfect chapter might be used as a model in classes for writing. I once re-read it a dozen times at one sitting, fascinated by its mechanics, always with the same astomshed delight. But there are 0t!1e1 chapters just as wonder10 ful: the junta, for example, a'} the tr;bunal ( Cl1ap XX); and the u,tire section dealing with the picnic, where Rizal di<l rns most limpid writing; and t})e uproarious chapter on the ba~ tie between the alferez and his woman; as well as every single scene in which the incomparable Dona Victorina appears. As far as I'm concerned, Dona Victorina is one of the great comic creations of all literatur~ -on a par with Mrs. Malaprop, Nirs. Micawber, and the nurser in Proust. She's now usualq, cited as the symbol of the Filipino's slavish, cringing attitude towards the Westerner-and I really don't know why. For Dona Victorina may ape the Westerner and wear prepqsterous costumes and false curls: but she's not slavish, she does not cringe-not before the genuine Europeans, nor before the friars, nor even before the caietain-general. It's her poor devil of a Spanish husband who does. the cringing-at her feet. She rules him with a terrible fist. And if she's typical of the "slavish" Filipino of those times, maybe we need more of her kind in these times. I wish Rizal had written an entire book about her. I'd willingly give up both the books he did write for that one book he didn't write It would have been a comic masterpiece. Over the figure of Maria Clara-whom, after Dona VictorlPANORAMA na. I consider Rizal's most successful creat1oa-there has been a worse misunderstanding, a double one. The nineteen-twen~ies turned her into a sentimen· tal stock-figure; in reaction, some critics of the succeeding generation have knocked her down from her pedestal, branding her a caricature, not a paragon, and an obsolete ideal. They allege that not being a pure-blood" Filipina, she should not be urged as a model for Filipino women-a line of reasoning that automatically excludes from our emulation, not only Rizal's fictitious heroine, but Rizal himself-as well as Burgos, Quezon, Arellano, and a host of our other national heroes. They are dismayed that Rizal should have made a mestiza his heroine; but seem quite undisturbed that his hero should also be a mestizo. They assert hliat, being a friar's love-child, 1\faria Clara is, far from being an ideal, merely an object of disgust; and that Rizal ( apparently without the slightest .sense of chivalry or mere jusfice, since he is willing to visit the sins of the father upon an innocent girl) was really holding !1er up to our scorn, not our sympathy - an assertion that makes me wonder if these critics have: ever read the book. For anybody that reads the book cannO:t but feel that the {!Uthor seems to have fallen in love with his heroine. The pen JUNE 1955 that's usua!!y so sharp 8.nd acid suddenly turns tend~r B.nd mellifluous whenever it deals with lViaria Cl3ra. Vlbenever Maria Clara 2ppears on the sce:1e, the prose, so hmJ and controHed elsewhere, trembles into poetry. How is her pre~ence felt in the book? Listen: " .. habria admirado una de esas fantasticas visiones, una de esas 2pariciones magicas que a veces se ven en los grandes teatros de Europa, en que a las apagadas melodias de una orque~tra se ve aparecer en medio de una lluvia de luz, de una cascada de diamantes y oro, en una decoraci6n oriental, envuelta en vaporosa gasa, una deidad, una silfide que avanza sin tocar el suelo, rodeada y acompanada de un luminoso nimbo: a SU presencia brotan las flores, retoza la danza, se dispiertan armonias, y coros de diablos ninfas, satiros, genios, zegalas, angeles y pastor-es bailan, agitan panderetas, hacen evoluciones y depositan ii los pies de la diosa cada cual un tributo." And yet Maria Clara hasn't actually appeared on the scene yet; this is'i't Ibarra beholding his beloved: it's purely and entirely the author, bidding forth his heroine. And after the bitter mocking brilliance of the opening chapters, what a difference! Music and a shower of light! Diamonds and gold! And a goddess at whose presence flowers sprang! And how does he describe her? " ... los ojos que casi siempre los tenia bajos, en senaban un alma purisima cuando los levantaba, y cuando ella sonreia y descu11 bria sus blancos y pequenos dientes, se diria que una rosa es sencillamente un vegetal, y el marfil, un colmillo de elefante." Here's the author again spying on the first meeting of the lovers on the azotea: ". . . que se cont(lron entre murmullos que os estremeciais, florecitas rojas de! cabello-de-angel? Contadlo vosotras que teneis aromas en vuestro aliento y colres en vuestros labios; tu cefiro, que aprendiste raras armonias en el secreto de la noche obscura y en el misterio de nuestros virgenes bosques; contadlo, rayos de! sol, manifestaci6n briliante de! Eterno en la tierra ... contadlo. vosotros, que yo solo se referir prosaicas locuras ! " It's always thus when he writes about his heroine. All through the sad and shameful things that happen to her, he keeps her surrounded by light, flowers, music and mysteryuntil she disappears into the nunnery. And when, in the second part of the story, she dies at last, he bursts into a deliirous prose-poem: "Duerme en paz, hija infeliz de mi desventurada patria! .. . Ve, nosotros te recordaremos! .. . Te hemos de ver eternamente CO· mo te hemos sonado: bella, hermosa, sonriente como la esperanza, pura como la luz, y sin embargo, triste y melanc6lica contemplando nuestras miserias! .A ND WHERE, I ask you, is the "half-breed," the "caricature," the "obsolete ideal" in these lines? This is Rizal speaking straight to the reader-and 12 JOSE RIZAL Patriot and national hero of the Philippines Born: June 19, 1861 at Calamba, Laguna Of middle class parents Educated: In early years, at the Ateneo de Manila Later at the University of Sta. Tomas, in medicine Traveled: In 1882 sailed for Spain, the mother country, wl!ere he hoped to tell the abuses ·committed by the colonial government at home After active propaganda work, returned home Published: Two novels, Noli ll!fe 'Tangere (1887) and El Filibusterismo 1891) Exiled at Dapitan, Mindanao, for four quiet years I In 1896, tried for treason . and convicted Executed: December 30, 1896 at Bagumbayan Field on Luneta how does he address his heroine? Daughter of my country! He is not bothered by the "impurity" of her blood as some of our modern critics are. In this, the nationalism of Rizal's age is considerably larger than t>urs. And yet, these critics are not really attacking Maria Clara, not the Maria Clara of Rizal anyway. R i z a 1 nowhere announced that he was going to depict an "ideal woman" or an "ideal Filipino woman"-whatPANORA.MA ever that may be. Being a true novelist, }\e set out to create just one particular person, a single definite individual-and he succeded so well that his heroine has become a folk-figure, the only one of all his characters who has attained this highest form of literary immortality. Between the first and second parts of "Don Quixote," the folk took over and recreated its hero; when Cervantes wrote the second part he was already dealing w_ith another, larger hero, a folk-figure, only partly his creation. Similarly, the folk took over and recreated Maria Clara; unfortunately, there had been, in the meantime, a sudden shifting of cultures: Maria Clara was recreated a Victorian-which she never was, nor any of her contemporaries for that matter. The Philippines never actually experienced the Victorian Age. When Rizal said that the Philippines of his era was a hundred years behind in time, he was absolutely right. For Rizal, that was cause for lamentation; for us, from our happier vantage-point in time, it may be cause for relief-for the Philippines, by being "backward," escaped· some of the ponderous 1:1 orrors of Victorianism. We mav be said to have leapt straight from the 18th to the 20th century, from the age of romanticism and the Revolution JUNE 1955 to the age of politics and anxiety. However, we did not-and it would have been impossible to-completely escape Victoria. Sometime during the last of the nineteen-hundreds and the first of the nineteen-twenties a generation that was being nourished on Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Bryant and Mr. Tennyson, that was being taught to appreciate such books as "Pollyanna," "Silas Marner," "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," and the Elsie Dinsmore series, suddenly developed Victorian tastes and attitudes. The senoritas became very genteel indeed, and the senoritas became addicted to blushing and fainting at the least provocation. The era of America's "Manifest Destiny" in the Philippines was a sort of Victorian twilight as the age of Spanish colonization was the last faint twilight of the Middle Ages. J T w AS during this mock-Victorian twilight that Maria Clara was turned into a mockVictorian ideal - by a people that had gone all the way back to the ABC's of a new culture, that had forgotten or were ignorant of the great days of the Revolution, and that were naturally and consequently rather unsure of their standards and of their taste. Each refined senorita of the nineteen-twenties simpering in a Maria Clara costume helped to distort the im13 age of the vital vigorous girl that Rizal created. There was nothing of the girly-girly, of the limp and languid in Rizal's Maria Clara. Compare her to her contempornries in English or American literature: to the Little Nells and Daras and Agoeses of Dickens or to the now incredible heroines of American novelists like Dean Hov;e!ls, who blushed and averted their eyes at the most innocent mention of bedrooms. No wonder Howels raved over Rizal's novels! What a relief for that haunted Puritan to read a book in which there was no Puritanism, no Victorian coyness, and where the women were women, not stuffed skirts. The Maria Clara of Rizal, a mere girl, is subjected to the most awful and brutal and staggering reveiation imaginationa revelation that could crush even a mature man. She staggers, but she isn't crushed; she stands U,ri und,~r the blow, Is that the "spineless" woman she is now declared to be? 1magine her Victorian counterparts having to undergo such an ordeal! To save her lover and to save her mother's name, she agrees to marry, in cold blood, a man she does not love, even at the risk of inviting the contempt of the lover she's trying to save. This, remember, is the decision of a mere chit of a girl. Is that an example of the vacuity and immaturity of the women 14 of those days? \\!hen she iearns 1hnt her lover is dead she defies even 1-tcr real father: she will marrv no one, she will enter >:'! Huni{ery. You may question her decision, but you cannot quest tion that she has a mind of her own and that she seems capable of bending the will of others -to her own. Where, then, is ·the slave and chattel of men in this. proud, passionate giri? There is, in fact, nothing at all of the Maria-Cla.raish irr Maria Clara-no, nor in any of the other women in Rizal Where's the frailness and limpness in Dona Victorina or in the alferez' woman or in Sinang, Victoria, Id2y and Neneng? But we have lumped all the women of that time-who must sure1¥ have been as various and complex as the women of any other time-into our saccharine idealization of Maria Clara, which is a sentimentalizing, a vu!gan ization of the Rizal heroine; and it is this stock-figure that the critics have been att::icking with such relish. Rizal. saw a woman who was firm, clean, honest, graceful, devout, dignified, modest, tender and true; and if, as some say, our generation must now consider such a· woman "obsolete," then God help our generation! <y HE DISMAY expressed by some people over the fact that such a patriotic man as· Rizal should have made a mesti2'!1 PANORAMA his heroine strikes at the creati,_;.e freedom of a writer; for it implies that a writer-or a Filipino writer anyway-should write to flatter the national ego l:lnd not to satisfy his own particular creative impulses, that he's not free to create the people he wants, the way he wants, and for reasons he need not explain, defend, or apologize for. I have dealt at length on Maria Clara because there has been, I think, the most misunderstanding about her and because the namby-pamby figure she has become may be frightening some people away from Rizal, who might enjoy reading him if they could only disrnrd their old misconceptions of his novels. To prospective re-readers I say: Forget all the solemn nonsense your school teachers and professional patriots have said about these books. Discover them for yourself. Don't read them because you think you ought to. Read them as you'd read a new book by \Vaugh or Thurber, knowing just what to expect but also knowing you'll be surprised and delighted anew. Read thE;m for laughs and, I assure you, you'll find them great, fun. * * * JUNE 1955 WILD BEES MADE WILDER '7UHENEVER a fresh honeycomb is discovered in the north, in a tree crotch or rocky crevice, !,the discoverer claims it by staking crossed 'sticks nearby. Dressed in bahag ( Gstrings) and covered with coconut oil, the man and his friends begin to envelope the honeycomb in the smoke from torches made of large, dried coconut leaves. When the swarm of bees (pukyutan) flee, it is time to climb the tree or rocks and cut the comb loose with a karit blade. Despit~ the smoke, the bees soon return and sting the /iatherers in anger. But the coconut oil on fheir bodies gives them some protection; and the thought of eating the milk-white bees' marvae mixed with fresh honey, some pleasure. * 15 The romantic story of mail L'[ NTIL MIDDLE Eastern ' scholars devised writing, so that letters could be sent by runner or horseman, messages had to be sent by smoke signals, pounded tom-toms, or notched sticks. Even then, it was not until 150 years ago that anyone less than an aristocrat or a State official could afford the price of a posted letter. Only within the past 60 years have printed materials enjoyed lower postal rates than letters themselves. The price of exchanging good will and information has cost lives as well as postage stamps. The first recorded post, about 500 B.C., were the horsemen of Persia's Darius the Great who sent relays throughout his empire, from India to Egypt. The word "post," meaning 16 By FENIX MADURA "placed,'' comes from the Roman period and refers to th!!! placing of horses at intervals, to carry dispatches. So efficient were the Romans, that Julius Caesar's letters from Britain reached Cicero in Rome in 26l days. Letters carried on the same route still required a month for delivery as late as 1800. When the European postal service collapsed with the Roman empire, it was not restored until the days of Charlemagne in the 8th century. Medieval rulers had their own couriers, and merchant guilds, conducted private services, but no regular public post existed. In France, Cardinal Mazarin, prime minister under PANORAMA Louis XIII and XIV, made possible a local post in Paris, run from a central office. For the first time letter boxes set up on the streets of Paris were emptied several times daily. The receipt accompanying the delivery constituted a primitive type of stamp. However, when an Englishman, William Dockwra, organized an efficient daily penny service for London, he was jailed by the Duke of York, who had a monopoly on postal revenues! tJN 1670, mail packets from England were sent across the Channel twice weekly, with France servicing the O\r.erland part of her half of the route. A later treaty, in 1713, arranged for mail to reach as far as Turkey. To supplement their low pay, the crews of British p a c k e t s delivering mail (through most of the world, by 1800) often indulged in smuggling or !n capturing foreign vessels as prizes of war. In the North America colonies, one of the earliest postmaster generals was Benjamin Franklin, until war broke out. During the Revolution, in 1777, General Burgoyne was waiting for his fellow British general, Howe, to advance up the Hudson Valley and join forces with him. When London officials failed to send instructions to Rowe by fast ship, Burgoyne JUNE 1955 was isolated and overwhelmed by American troops. It was an Englishman, Sir Rowland Hill, who in 1835 suggested that rates be based on weight, not on distance carried. This idea of uniform rates was adopted by t4e United States, France and Germany. Britain was also first to provide cheaper rates for newspaper and books. China Clippers under full sail raced across the seas with dispatches in the 1830's. The Australian post had regular sea communication with America by 1866. The post used Maori runners in New Zealand and Hottentot post-boys in South Africa. The "tin can" service used until recently in Tofua, of the Tonga South Sea group, was one of the most colorful. Because coral reefs prevented ships from approaching the island closely, a tin can containing mail was thrown overboard. The island's strongest swimmer dashed out through the surf, according to Philip Soljak, and towed the mail ashore. flusT AS eye-catching was (! America's Pony Express, which carried mail over a route 2,000 miles long, following old buffalo grazing trails. Eighty riders and 400 horses in relays covered the distance in 17 less than ten days, though stage coach took a month! For 16 months, before being replaced by Western Union telegraph, these riders braved blizzards and Indian attacks. Because nations had different rates and procedures, an international postal convention was held in 187 4 to set uniform regulations. By 1900, the Universal Postal Union included almost every country in the world. Each member undertakes to transmit mails entrusted to it by the best means of communication it uses for its own mails. Today the Union's members handle over sixty billion letters a years. Although an airplane loaded with tons of letters may seem to have nothing in comBEYOND RANGE OF GUNS The first regular airmail was the pigeon and ballon service out of besieged Paris during the war with Prussia in 1870. Three hundred and sixty pigeons carried micro-photographed dispatches. Meanwhile,ballons transported three millions letters and 91 passengers in 63 ascents, despite attack from high-firing German guns. mon with the turbaned horsemen of ancient Persia, the Channel cutters of Queen Elizabeth, or the Indian- fighting Pony Express, still their function was the same: to put the stamp of brotherhood on farflung corners of the globe. * * * 18 'JN 1937, Frederik, crown prince of Denmark, filled out an advertising coupon in a magazine and mailed it to a professional bodybuilder in England. Later, on one of his visits he was persuaded to have a dragon tattooed on his now-expanding chest, to match birds and dragons already on his arms. By the time that he was king, his chest measured 45 inches, his biceps 15 inches and his thighs 24 1/li inches. When he visited England in 1951, a London newspaper published pictures of him, tattoos and all. The Communist papers at home laughingly referred to him as "Popeye the Sailor," and the King himself was worried about how Danish gym instructors would react to his going out of the country for training. But he was proud of his physique, still! * PANORAMA WHEN BRITAIN first took Hong Kong, during the "Opium War," it was a barren and empty island. The British, having decided to force China to trade with them, had sent a small force from India to seize and hold Chusan, a stronghold halfway up the China coast. A score of warships and armed steamers and 10,000 soldiers dictated terms to the Emperor of China. Yet, by ,the treaty of Nanking, the emperor managed to keep Chusan and give little H'Ong Kong away instead! The British accepted it - and still hold it - for its importance as a doorway to the Asian continent's markets. The Chinese, who historically long considered aliens inferior to themselves, welcomed Arab merchants in the 10th century but restricted them to the use of five ports, controlled by imperial edict. . The 17th century provided another example of this imJUNE 1955 In Red China's backyard • periousness. The Pope had sent a miss\on of scientist-Jesuits to the court at Peking. They cast the first cannon, reformed the Calendar, and engraved an upto-date map of China. But because the Pope and the Emperor could not agree on the best word for "God" in Chinese, the bamboo curtain slammed down and tor twc centuries the West was shut o• it of the Orient. The Emperor made few concessions, even by the 19th centm .t. At least, on a mud flat o~t side the walls of Canton m thirteen two-storeyed houses foreigners were confined and denied the companionship of women. At the height of the trading season, according to the report of G. J. Yorke, 1000 people would be huddled together in a compound only 200 yards square! Only on holidays could they visit their wives, in the nearby Portuguese settlement of Macao. 19 ~ RITISH traders could dP-al only with a guild of horn six to thirteen Chinese firms called the Cohong. Except in the case of homicide, they were not subject to Chinese law, but the Cohong merchants paid their fines instead and were reimbursed from a special tax on British trade. On a charge of homicide, however, a victim's life was demanded whether he was guilty or not, and in spite of all mitigating circumstances. Once the British handed over a seamim who was then strangled slowly in front of their factories. Anyone who attempted to visit the Chinese women in nearby flower boats might be returned trussed upside down to a· bamboo pole. It was for these continued insults that the British, whose pride was high after helping to defeat Napoleon, i?hot their way into the treaty ports and won Hong Kong in the 19th century. The bamboo curtain was forcibly lifted until the Communists seized power in Peking. Hong Kong covers only 32 square miles of hill, granite, and scrub-brush. As the colony developed, Chinese flocked there to discover a freedom unknown at home. However, their arrival forced the extension of living quarters to the mainland across the bay. These now include 20 3 1 /.i square miles on the tip of Kowloon or Nine Dragon peninsula, and a 99-year lease on the rest of the peninsula and several small islands. However, the depth of the metropolitan districts no longer suffices to feed the colony or defend the inner city in the event of attack. The Japanese stormed it easily in World War 11; and the Red Chinese can also do so,. whenever they choose. The 2,500,000 Hong Kong Chinese protected by the British easily outnumber the total population of 'New Zealand. 1,250,000 live on the island itself, or more than 2,000 to the acre. The squatters alone have their own factories, restaurants, opium dens, and even a police and fire force! The colony has registered 17,000 ocean-going junks, and the total population living permanently afloat on these or smaller boats is estimated at 200,000. Not one owner has a British passport, but all have British protection. Most are fishermen who use Hong Kong harbor for its security from pirates. Yet it seems unlikely that these Chinese ever would fight to defend the existence of Hong Kong, as for example would the Portuguese and. Indian communities which also enjoy· British freedom there. PANORAMA CROWDED HONG KONG Hong Kong holds the record for being the most thickly populated place in the world. As of May, 1953 there WP.re 5,148 persons per square mile, according to a United .Nations survey. This compares with Saar's 964, the Netherlands' 790, England and Wales' 754 and Belgium's 723. Japan, however, is the most thickly populated area in Asia, with 593 persons- per square mile. India has 281 and Pakistan (both east and west) 207. '8 ECAUSE of this basic distrust of elements ~hich outnumber them in their own colony, Hong Kong is not run democratically. Its governor, sppointed by the Queen, selects bis own executive council. Nor 1s the legislative council responsihle to the public. The governm~nt is run efficiently, like a tightly organized British business concern. However, trade itself has always been free, under the Crown rule. Hong Kong has the only safe deep-sea port in the mainland between Singapore and Shanghai; it is the largest banking center in the Far East; it has the cheapest harbor facilities in the world. Because its main function is as depot for the China trade, there JUNE 1955 is no general tariff, income tax is low, and price control is restricted. The cheapness of Chinese labor, their industry and instinct for trade have aided the British immeasurably in building this community. Since the foremost -interest of all is commercial, it has never interfered with mainland politics. Yet the Communists may resent anyone's possession of Hong Kong. However, should they drive the British outside the bamboo curtain, free trade would end and the Communists too would suffer. There is not another safe depot, on the mainland, where goods can be collected and bulked for export, and where imports can be broken down. for redistribution up-country. Historicaily, it was the "intruders," the British, who ended local extortion and unreasonable interference by the central government. ?/tEANWHILE, Hong Kong (encouraged by embargoes imposed during the Korean War and restricted exports from Formosa) has trained itself to answer the Communist threats from Peking by seeking as much business as is possible elsewhere. The British have no personal love for Red China. Today, 70% of the colony's trade is with countries outside China. Hong Kong is fast be21 coming an important manufacturing and shipbuilding center. Textile and rubber industries have grown, and two of the Commonwealth's biggest passenger liners were launched there recently. monwealth. But in ftong Kong, the popular majority are Chinese whose cultural ties would never let them be equal partners or co-defenders of free trade. Until such freedom no longer serves the Free World, Britain intends to prevent her piers and factories from being seized for the service of Red China. In India and Ceylon, when British government became intolerable, unwilling subjects were invited to become equal partners in the British Com22 * * * 7w1cE A MONTH nimble men from Palawan climb the clifls of their rocky island to take the birds' nests, balinsasayaw, from the deep caves where they have been formed elaborately from the saliva of swallows. With a long rope, the men lower themselves into the caves, guided only by the light of a saleng (resin) torch. There is always the danger of slipping or falling, or of being pinned inside a cavern by a moving rock, or (since they are nearly naked when they explore) of being mortally bitten by snakes. Yet the occupation is one inherited from generations of climbers. The birds' nests are sold by Chinese merchants to Manila hotels and restaurants, for soup or medicine. For his share, the climber (likely to be from the primitive Tagbanuas of Palawan's mountains) may risk his life for a hundred pesos. • PANORAMA Mostly about Toscanini, the spirit behind the • By BEN REVILLA m EETHOVEN'S No. 7 brought into full focus the compactness of the orchestra, reflecting individual virtuosity held together forcefully and with a flexibility which asserted itself in the Second Move· ment,'' thus wrote a local music critic describing the premiere ·performance of the Symphony of the Air in Manila. In Japan where the orchestra had performed earlier, a writer said: "As the symphony was brought to the grand finale, ~he crowd who sat in an ecstasy of tonal splendor kpew no end of jolly." Everywhere the Symphony nf the Air went, in its tour of Asia, there was lavish appreciation for the ensemble's tone and volume. For the audiences, whether in Tokyo, Seoul, Taipeh, or Manila, the full tone of this orchestra was overJUNE 1955 whelming, "partly because of its sheer richness and partly no doubt because it was new to them." In a culturally arid place like ours, the Symphony of the Air performance was indeed a new thing, and local orchestras and conductors are catching on: the audience, for the first time for most of them, had actually listened, not by hi-fi set nor recording, to one of the best American orchestras. O:riginally known as the NBC (National Broadcasting Company) orchestra, the Symphony of the Air had two guest conductors during its tour: Thor Johnson of the Cincinnati Symphony and Walter Hendl of the Dallas Symphony. O;rphaned since the retirement of 80-year old Arturo Toscanini not so long ago, the Symphony has played under other batons, but the spirit of the 23 conductor who welded the group into one of the world's most cogent orchestras is always there. Once, in tribute to Toscanini, the Symphony performed without a conductor. g OSCANINI took charge of the newly-formed symphony orchestra of the National Broadcasting Company in December, 1937. Since then until his retirement, he conducted weekly concerts in the NBC's effort to democratize musical culture. The Asia tour of the Symphony of the Air, sponsored by the U.S. State Department, is understood to be along this program. Toscanini first came to the United States forty years ago and made his debut at the Metropolitan - the date was November 16, 1908, in the opera Aida. He returned to Italy in 1915; visited the United States in the winter of 192021 for a concert tour with the orchestra of La Scala; worked with the Philharmonic Symphony until his return to New York in 1937 to lead the NBC orchestra. In the later years of Toscanini's association with symphonic music in America, his return has been looked upon as the cardinal event of the musical season in New York. The NBC is said to have re24 ceived approximately 50,000 requests for tickets of admission to the broadcast studio in which the Italian master and his ninety-odd musicians gave their first concert under his direction on the night of Christmas, 1937. The NBC Symphony concerts under Toscanini were not intended for the benefit of listeners in the room where they originate. They were given primarily for wireless transmissi6"n to those listening before receiving sets. They did not exist as concerts in a hall. gHE BATON was given to Toscanini to lead an orchestra established and supported for no other purpose. than that he should make of it a perfected vehicle for the widest possible diffusion C1f great music. An enthusiast of Toscanini described the daring ad· venture of the NBC in building an orchestra for his special use as an outcome of the conviction that fine symphonic music and great symphonic, leadership are immensely and increasingly popular in America. Many persons, of course, who have become aware of Toscanini's ppwer as an interpreter of music, did not have the opportunity of seeing his in action - an experience described as having its own legitimate and PANORAMA undeniable fascination for the appreciatiye musician no less than for the casual concertgoer. But for those who are sufficiently well served by their receiving sets and are percep· tive enough, these concerts on the air have become "wholly and sufficiently an experience of the ear and the kindled imagination and the spirit quickened and released." Those who had managed to attend Toscanini's concerts knew this scene and ritual only too well: "the packed, expectant, audience-room; the resolute emergence of the vigorous, sturdy figure with the countenance of legendary beauty and nobility and the burning, deepset eyes; the progress, with bent head, across the stage to the podium, as though the walker hoped to read the conductor's stand without be•ing noticed; the rising orchestra and audience, and the irresponsible outburst of welcome salutation; the prompt dispatch of the unavoidable business of greeting and acknowledgment, and the turning to his players; the sharp, imperative rap of the stick upon a near-by violin-desk; the immediate assumption of mysterious authority and control by a magnetizing will over a hundred other wills; and the release of a beauty and clarity and prec1s10n of orchestra sound which made it evident that Toscanini had returned." goscANINr's fame is considered without parallel in the annals of music: such celebrity as he has won had never come to an artist of his kind. Toscanini was the least sensational of music-makers. "Our terrestrial habitation," a writer said, "is not, at present the happiest of places; yet there is a spirit abroad today, among those who remain potentially or actually civilized, that is full of a new intensity and eagerness, that hungers and thirsts after the beauty and greatness of imponderable things.'' Such a spirit still governs a symphony orchestra, although the beloved conductor, after a lifetime in the service of music, had gently put away his baton for that long overdue and well-deserved rest. * * * THE SCOTCHMAN Then there was the Scotchman who gave his sweetheart a lipstick as a birthday present because he knew he'd get most of it back. ... JUNE 1955 25 The DIMENSION What does it look like? WHEN ALBERT Einstein aucceeded in applying the theory of relativity to rotational as well as to .-traight-line motion, in 1916, he remarked that probably not over a dozen persons could understand his paper. He was not boasting of his own exceptional mind, as is sometimes thought. Rather, Einstein was refer· ring to the fact that, after eleven years of search, he had suddenly encountered the ready-made but very recent mathematical machinery - the absolute calculus of Levi-Civita - which r.ould be made to serve his equations. It is this formidable ~nd complicated calculus which has always made difficult the complete understanding of the theory of relativity on a scientific basis. Yet even the average imagination can readily grasp many of the phenomena associated with the theory. The explanation of the falling 26 • By MATHIAS SEGOVIA of bodies as due to an attractive force exerted by the earth was, of course, not original with Newton in the eighteenth century. The concept was known to Aristotle (4th century, B.C.) and to Galileo (16th century). Newton's special contribution was to make of the concept of gravita~ tion a generally accepted law by applying it also as an explanation to the motion of the moon ;;iround the earth and of the planets around the sun. However, a century later when telescopes bad improved, it was discovered that Mercury did not behave according to the Newtonian law of in v er s ~ squares. It remained for Einstein's explanation, first an· nounced in 1905 and perfected by 1916, to take the puzzle out of the little planet's irregularities. By now many solar eclipse PANORAMA expeditions have verified what Einstein predicted: that rays of light would be permanently deflected under the intense gravitational forces existing near the sun. s lNCE THE time of Newton, physics has seen the gradual linkage of heat and energy, of magnetism, electricity and light; even matter came to be identified as electrical in structure and as a manifestation of energy. Only gravitation remained aloof. Although it superficially resembles the attraction of magnetic and electrified bodies, it cannot be blocked by a suitable screen as magnetism clearly can be. Newton himself privately formed over thirty separate speculative theories on the subject. When almost 200 years had elapsed, Einstein offered his own understanding ot gravitation. He had observed that there was another phenomenon of very much the same sort, namely inertia, especially in the form known as centrifugal force. Centrifugal force is independent of the material involved, is not a function of temperature, and cannot be cut off by any form of screen. The motion of a system may give rise, clearly, to something simulating a gravitational field which disappears when the motion of the system stops. Jt1NE 1955 Einstein hypothesized that a field of gravity is equivalent to a field of inertia, provided that the soace-time coordinates of the sy~tem change suitably. The concept supposes space to have a fourth dimension (time) and to be non-Euclidean (the axioms of plane geom"etry do not apply to the positive, that is. convex surface of spact;). Furthermore, space is warped slightly in a fifth dimension! To illustrate by analogy: imagine a level surface of still water of indefinite extent; this surface will be two dimensional, having length and breadth, but no thickness. The !),l.ltface bemg perfectly flat, the geometry of figures traced it will be Euclidean. But suppose the surface, instead of being flat, is spherical, like the surface of the ocean viewed on the large scale; the geometry of figures of such a surface will exhibit non-Euclidl!an properties. On such a water surface a floating particle, if set in motion and freed from the action of all forces, frictional, attractional, or otherwise, would travel by the shortest, "straightest" path it could find, obeying Newton's first law of motion with the additional condition of being confined to the spherical surface. H OwEVER, let us make this flat surface of water nonEuclidean by placing on its surface a particle of a heavy body 27 i.uch as lead so that it will float, without breaking through the 1;urface. This particle then lies 1rnpported by the unbroken water surface bent into a cusp or depression. Here we have a surface, normally two dimensional, bent or depressed slightly in the direction of a third dimension in the vicinity of a particle of matter. The geometry of figures traced upon the indented portion of the water surface will be non-Euclidean. The shortest line between two points within the cusp will be a curve (a geodesic line), although if the line, be extended beyond the cusp, it will pass onto a Euclidean surface and be indistinguishable from an ordinary straight hne. Suppose now a comparatively heavy particle thus floating and forming a rather deep and widely extended cusp. At a great distance, suppose a much smalEinstein entertainingly illustrated his own theory when a New York hostess asked him to tell her about relativity "in a few simple words." This was Einstein's reply: Madam (he said) I was once walking in the country on a hot day with a blind friend, and happened to say I could do with a drink of milk. "Milk?" said my friend. "Drink I know; but what is milk?" "A white liquid," I replied. "Liquid I know," said the blind man, "but what is white?" "Oh, the colour of a swan's feathers." "Feathers I know. What is swan?" "Swan? A bird with a crooked neck." "Neck I know - but what is crooked?" Thereupon, madam (said Enisfein), I lost patience. I seized his arm and straightened it. "That's straight," I said. Then I bent it at the elbow. "And that's crooked," I told him. "Ah," cried the blind man. "Now I know what you mean by milk." 28 PANORAMA ler and lighter particle which hardly produces any cusp, moving freely along the surface in a direction that will carry it past the heavy particle, well within the latter's cusp. The path of the moving particle, at first an ordinary straight line, will, as it enters the cusp, gradually assume the curved or geodesic form proper to the space in which it finds itself. Assuming no attractive force, such as magnetism, to exist between the particles, the moving particle will pass on and out of the cusp, its path again becoming straight; but on account of the brief twist to which it was subjected in passing through the cusp, the final straight portion of the path w,ill not in general be a continuation of the straight portion. The particle will have suffered a permanent deflection. In Einsteinian terms, one would say: the inertia of the moving particle, combined with the peculiar curvature of the surface which it had to traverse, produced the change in its path. The ordinary theory of gravitation cannot account for such a permanent deflection. EINSTEIN regards our i;olid space of three dimensions as only a part of reality, its fourth dimension being perceptible to us only as a succession in changes in time. In fact, Einstein was forced to assume that even four-dimensional space is JUNE 1955 curved or cusped slight!y around each particle of matter, in the direction of a fifth dimension. A ray of light coming from a star traverses millions of miles of space remote from material bodies - space which, therefore, for all practical purposes may be considered "flat" or Euclidean; the path of the light ray is a straight line. But if it ~ventually passes close by the sun, whose great mass cnuses a considerable cusp or warp in space, the straight line becomes twisted in that vicinity, and when 1t emerges, although it is straight again, it has been per~ manently deflected from its ori~inal course. Einstein's pred1ctlons of such deflection have now been observed and measured many times, especially against the edge of the moon, the sun, and the companion star, to Sirius. ln developing t h e general theory of relativity, Einstein came to regard our solid space as being convex, finite in con~ent and yet unbounded. Furthermore,. he has long asserted that this curvature of space is caused by the presence of matter in it. On a two-dimensional surface, like the ocean's previously considered, a floating particle makes a relatively small cusv. If there are two particles near each other, the space between them will be depressed slightly from its normal level. If additional particleS be insert29 ~d between the two, the depression will be increased, and the outline of the space will begin to suggest a curvature. By increasing the number of particles and their proximity, space may thus be given a curvatur~ as great as desired. If the distribution of matter is sufficiently extensive, it is conceivable that our originally plane surface may curl up mto a sphere, pitted all over with iittle matter-cusps. The radius and area of this sphere will depend upon the proximity of the cusps, that is, upon the density of distribution of matter in space. B v ANALOGY, Einstein has given formulas for the radius of curvature and the cubic contents of our solid space, based on the still-hypothetical density of distribution of stellar matter in space and assuming that gravitation is a constant. This is the foundation for the statement of the British scientist Jeans that if one followed a "straight" line through space, after 100,000 million light years he would arrive back at his starting point. With the conviction of ont: who has understood his own enormous labors, Einstein once said, "No amount of expen-' mentation can ever prove me right. A single experiment may at any time prove me wrong." He spoke with humility which sometimes breeds complacency and intellectual inertia. Having described gravitation in 19 Ji), he immediately set to work to discover some law that would explain the joint phenomena of gravitation and electromagnetism. * * * 30 :As <Dickens Thickens A teacher comparing the work of Dickens and Thackeray said: "It's in his wonderful insight into human nature that Dickens gets the better of Thackery; but on the other hand, it's the brilliant shafts of satire, together with a keen sense of humor, that Dickeray gets the pull over Thackens. It's just this: Thickery is a humorist and Dackens is a satirist. But, after all, it's unnecessary to make any comparison. Both Dackery and Thickens are worthy of study." PANORAMA Advice to graduates: §o to the !Ba"l"lio:i,, <Jjoun9 dlllanf By PRUDENCIO LANGCAUON Former Secretary of Education QV HILE many of our leading professional men and women come from the rural areas, our villages and· small towns lack professional services. Our professionals, after having obtained their licenses, prefer to remain in the metropolitan areas. This is unfortunate in several ways. There is an overcrowding in the professions in the cities, causing keen competition and unemployment. Many professionals, unable to practice their professions, accept jobs as clerks salesmen and other positions. In the meantime people in the small towns and barrios continue to live without the benefit of the services of the professionals. The ideal, of course, is that lb.ere should be enough proJUNE 1955 fessionals in our small towns and barrios to ,take care of the needs of the residents. And how can this be effected? It seems that both rural communities and the professional should meet each other half way. They should discover a basis of cooperation which is fair and profitable to both. The professionals should be able to make a livelihood and the rural communities should be able to afford their services. Our schools and educational leaders can contribute a great deal to the making of professionals rural-conscious. One of the shortcomings of our professional education is that one who studies for a profession, be it law, medicine, journalism or business, is prepared mainly for the metropolitan needs 31 and conditions in those professions. A student of business is largely trained in business. operations in metropolitan areas. A student of law is made to succumb to the glamour of big law cases tried in metropolitan courts, especially in the higher tribunals. l7i LESSON can be learned V"'1 in the teaching of journalism in American universities. In their freshman or sophomore year, those who take this profession are made to choose between metropolitan and country journalism training. Those who choose the former are taught the techniques and mechanics of writing, editing, and publishing a big city newspaper or magazine. Those who elect the latter are trained in the peculiar ways of rural publications. Some such variations in the direction of teaching may well be adopted in most of the professions, especially in medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy and engineering. The slanting of teacher-training towards rural education is especially urgent at this time. Seventeen percent of our organized rural communities have no sobools whatsoever. The rural folk make up most of our 40 percent illiterates. Yet we talk with alarm about unemployed teachers by the 32 thousands. Had these professionally-trained teachers been prepared to teach rural children and adults, working m1der rural conditions, using rural materials and meeting rural needs, many of them, without prompting, would J:iave gone to the small towns and barrios to organize their own schools regardless of government permit and recognition. The main reason why professionals do not go to the rural communities is that the economic life there cannot support profe~sionals. A trained banker cannot just go and open a rural bank in a small town or barrio because he fears that, even if they had the money, the people might not be willing to take it out from the bottom of their . trunks to deposit in a bank. A physician h~s to figure out first whether he can have enough paying clients before opening a clinic equipped with expensive instruments. On the other hand, where there is enough demand for professional services, supported by the ability to pay, professionals go without urging. It is important, therefore, that rural communities themselves do something to attract the professionals.· What they can do is hard to forsee. But again we have the examples of some modern PANORAMA countries. In Europe and America there have been established medical cooperatives. Families pay a fixed fee each month and out of this fee a clinic is equipped and opened and physicians and nurses are contracted to the extent of the medical needs of the paying mempers. Thus, a physician invited by a rural community is certain to receive an amount each month sufficient to support himself and his family. 1'.JERHAPS our smaller communities can afford to pay enough to attract a good professional. In this case money contributions may be supplemented with goods. A farsighted professional would not mind bartering his services provided he can expect improvement in the future. And this brings us to the obvious fact that rural . improvement must be a carefully coordinated attempt. Educational leadership, while undoubtedly essential, is not enough. There must be a synchronization of all the dynamic and productive forces in order to reconstruct our rural c o mm u n Hies. Fortunately there is already such a movement being undertaken by civic-minded people which may well serve as a basis of other efforts. I refer to the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement. Our schools and educators can simplify their problem by merely cooperating with the PRRM and other attempts in the same direction. The reconstruction of rural areas is a slow and tedious process requiring sustained· patience, courage and persistence. Tpis is especially the case in a democratic country. In a diCtatorship, people can. be herded like so many sheep to facilitate the process of reconstruction. In our case we should resort to the democratic way of convincing the people of the advantages and necessity of improvement and wait for them to aspire and prepare themselves for that improvement. * * ... SO IT SAYS! Teacher: Give me a quotation from the Bible. Bright pupil: "And Judas went out and hanged himself." Teacher: Good. Give me another. Brighter pupil: "Go thou and do likewi,e," * JUNE 1955 33 Most of the twenty words 1riven below ahould be in your readin1r vocabulary. Th&t la, you should be able to reco1rnize them, although you may not be able to define or &ctually use them in writin1r. Select the proper definition for each, then turn to pare 80 for the correct anawers. Fifteen is paasin1t. 1. brackish- (a) muddy; (b) having a saltish flavor; (c) crooked and narrow; ( d) resembling a broom. 2. harangue- (a) a noisy, vehement speech; (b) a funeral procession; (c) a road block; (d) an elaborate praise or eulogy. 3. presage- (a) a violent attack; (b) omen or prediction; (c) a narrow passage; (d) a very bright child. 4. matinee- (a) an opera idol; (b) a morning song; (c) a musical or theatrical performance in the daytime; (d) a hand-woven Chinese straw mat. S. tonsure- (a) act of clipping the hair; (b) a huge container of grain; ( c) removal of the tonsils; ( d) an insult. 6. volatile- (a) poisonous; (b) flowing continuously; (c) semi-liquid in state; ( d) evaporating rapidly. 7. Jee- (a) Chinese ornament; (b) a wide angle; (c) sheltered side; ( d) falsehood. 8. impasse- (a) road or way without outlet; (b) a dead person; ( c) unattainable goal; ( d) past event. 9. gobbler- (a) a shoemaker; (b) a blacksimth; (c) one who eats or consumes; (d) a male turkey. 10. emulsion- (a) hazy recollection; (b) milky liquid preparation; (c)mysterious behavior; (d) like a mule in appearance. 11. detonate - (a) to be out of tune; ( b) to diminish suddenly; ( c) to explode with great noise; (d) to adjust in tone. 12. assuage- (a) to make less severe; (b) to condemn; (c) to cut up into sausages; ( d) to insult. 13. banter- (a) one who bats; (b) a male goose; (c) playfully teasing language; (d) to parry or deflect. 14. dissuade- (a) to advise against; (b) to convince; (c) to mislead; (d) to make a deliberate mistake. 15. epistle- (a) a loyal follower; (b) the Bible; (c) a letter; (d) a dog whistle. 16. anent- (a) an addition; (b) in line with; (c) away from; (d) a relative. 17. fracas- (a) a fight; (b) a big failure; (c) tent-like structure; ( d) loud noise. 18. stench- (a) offensive odor; (b) a deep ditch; (c) to stop; (d) to sew or mend. 19. inhibit- (a) to live in; (b) to become habituated to; (c) to restrain or check; ( d) to diagnose. 20.venom- (a) poison; (b) a secret; (c) an edible herb; (d) a seller. 34 PANORAMA A message expressed in the philosophy of the Vedanta and in the imaginative rationalism of Hinduism with regard to the fundamental basis of existence, is bringing something which both the heart and the mind of Modern Man everywhere is craving for 1 HE CULTURE of India is a great complex, perhaps in its roots and its implications the greatest complex of its kind in the world. And in its complexity it is like life itself. It is vast as Nature herself, Nature as she has been manifested in the minor continent of India. In its all-inclusiveness, it may be compared to a tropical forest. The geographical boundaries of India (India is used to mean the geographical and cultural entity that has always been so known since ancient G r e e k times, including both the States of India and Pakistan) make the country rather like a pocket, where whatever ethnic stocks arrive, stay on to attain a complete development, participating in the life already existing in the country and enriching it with new elements and contributions. Racial Origins Six distinct racial groups with their separate speeches belongJUNE 1955 • ing to four speech-families have co-mingled in blood and culture to give rise to the people of India and to the characterized culture or civilization of India. The process began at least 5,000 years ago, but it continued for some centuries more to function and to spread and consolidate the completed culture over the whole of India and over what have been called the lands of Greater India, in Southeastern Asia and in Central Asia. After 700 A.D., and particularly after 1200 AD., Indian culture came in contact with Islam-first the Islam of the Arab in Sindh, and afterwards the Islam of the Turk and the Persian in the Punjab. In the 16th17th centuries, modern European and Christian influences touched the fringe of Indian culture in some coastal areas when the Portuguese established themselves in Goa and in a few other seaport towns, in western India as well as in Bengal. But Portuguese influences were not 35 deep enough, and the real contact with European culture started after the English became the masters of Bengal in 1757 and subsequently established their empire over the whole of India. I NDIAN CULTURE in its broadest sense would include all that has been achieved in the domain of thought and the good life by the people of India, as a whole or in groups, ever since the foundations of a common life, common traditions, common way of thinking and a common :ittitude were laid by the most important component elements of the Indian people (the Austric, the Dravidian and Aryan speaking groups), beginning to form in the upper Gangetic Plains a single people with a sir1gle Aryan speech. The culture that took shape in this way around the beginning of the first millennium B.C. took another 500 years to be fully characterized, and a further 500 years to expand from the Ganges Valley to the whole of India. At the start of the Christian era, we have a Pan-Indian culture fully established. This culture has been described as Ancient Indian, or Ancient Hindu, with its three important philosophical and religious expressions, viz., Brahmanical, Bud36 dhist and J aina. It was a joint creation of Aryan and nonAryan elements. Significant Contributions Ideas like Sumsara, or trans' ' migration and Karma, or a mans actions, determining his fate, the mysticism of Yoga with its special discipline and practices, the doctrine of Bhakti or devotion to God-all these developed in an atmosphere of cooperation between Aryan and non-Aryan. And those who built up Hindu philosophy profited by the diversity of point of view presented by the different racial elements. The theory of caste stressed division of mankind according to their qualities or character ( guna) and their avocations (karma), and not according to race (a Brahmin so born was no Brahman unless he went through certain ceremonies, and certain other ceremonies also exalted people to a higher position). Indian_ philosophy and attitude to life seeks to model human relations on certain spiritual bases: "He who sees all creatures in himself, And himself in all creatures, then he does not dislike or hate (anybody)." -Isa-Upanisad PANORAMA 1(abindrnnatli Tagore (1861-1941) n T EVERY period in it5 long history India has had hundred1 .Tt of poets. Non,e of them, however, ever had as many admirers in the West as Rabindranath Tagore, who was born just 94 years ago on May 6, 1861, in Calcutta. In 1913, the Nobel Prize for Literature· confirmed his fame. It was then discovered that the poet had founded a school called Abode of Peace - Santin iketan-which he himself directed entirely, and that it was rapidly becoming a true international university. It was to this school that Tagore immediately devoted the £8000 of the ?\Tobe! Prize. Poems, novels and plays, translated into English by the author, and into other languages, often by illustrious :.vriters, presented "the mind of India" to a whole generation of Occidentals. By his own countrymen, too, ha was considered a profound sage, whose words were received with the closest attention, and his doctrine on the relation between Indian thought and western civilization exercised undeniable influence. The East, he said, must accept industrialization and technical progress; but he considered that it was the role of the Orient to show that certain pernicious influences could be avoided, and that, above all, the basic spirituality of Eastern thought could be kept intact. He believed, therefore, that education had a primary role to play in this evolution and that its. fundamental object was "not merely t9 give us information, but make our life in harmony with all existence." Then came 1914. Tagore raised his voice on behalf of frustrated and oppressed justice: "There is a moral law in this world," he reminded the warring peoples, "which has its applications bC>th to individuals and organized bodies of men. You cannot go on violating these laws in the name of yoqr nation, yet enjoy their advantages as individuals. We may forget truth for our convenience, but truth does not forget us. Until man can feel that unity of mankind, the kind of barbarism which you call civilization will exist." Until his death Tagore showed no mercy towards nationalism, which he termed "that dominant intellectual abstraction." But he offered a glimpse of hope of a world transfigured, "when the diverse races and the nations have evplved their perfected distinct characteristics but all attached to the stem of humanity by the bond of love." JUNE 1955 37 Harmony of Contrasts THE CULTURAL unity of India is the result of the implicit acceptance of Sanskrit literature. The cultural history of India has been a progressive Sanskritization of those Indian lessons and ideas for the realization of the good life. This cultural unity has as its basis the following: ( 1 ) A sense of unity of all life and being as the expression of an unseen Reality, which embraces life and the universe. ( 2) A desire for synthesis, to combine apparently disconnected or discordant fragments in life as well as experience in their proper place as an Essential Unity. ( 3 ) An urge to realize this Ultimate Reality through knowledge, or work, or grace.· ( 4) A rigid adherence to intellect or intelligence sought to be harmonized with emotions. ( 5) A recognition of the sufferings and sorrows of life with an attempt to go to the root causes to remove these sufferings and sorrows, by creating an understanding through knowledge or faith or both. ( 6) A feeling for the sacredness of all life which finds its outlet in the negative doctrine of Ahisma or non-injury and the positive one of Karuna or sense of pity and M aitri or active charity. 38 ( 7) A great tolerance for all other beliefs, experiences and points of view. Indian culture recognizes that the Ultimate Reality manifests itself in various forms and that Truth is approachable by diverse paths, and as such does not insist upon or inculcate a particular creed which must be accepted by all. It believes that man can attain to the summun bonum in life through the best that is available in his environment followed in a spirit of sincerity and charity. The ultimate truth does not pin itself down to the experiences or opinions of an single individual, but it is expressed in the experiences of the sum total of humanity. The three basic ideas of Indian culture can be summarized in Samanvaya or Synthesis, Satya-jijnasa or desire to know the truth, and Ahimsa or non-injury. The Weakness of Indian Culture PARADOXICALLY, the weakness of Indian culture lies in what is its greatest strength -its all-inclusiveness frequently conduces to absence of zeal or conviction, and tends to make people prone to compromise and to yield. The Indian may be taught to tread the path of the Gods in cultivating a frame of mind au-dessus de la melee; but unless he has braced himself PANPRAMA with the manly doctrine of the Bhagavad-Gita to fight for the good, it takes a good deal of suffering and sacrifice for him before he can stiffen himself into resistance. Thought rather than elan in action marks the characteristic Indian effort. With this wide sweep seeking to embrace all, this sense of understanding and sympathy, this acceptance of the position that "diversity of thought is a part of the scheme of things and is quite in keeping with the scheme of Nature in other directions," Indian culture has been able to leaven the thoughts and views of other peoples who come to know and understand it. For a long while, Indian cul~ ture and thought formed the guiding spirit in the intellectual and spiritual aspirations of the greater part of Asia including Ceylon, Burma, Indo-China, Indonesia, eastern Iran, Central Asia, and Tibet. The sister-civilization of China (supplying, with lndianism and Islam, one of the three mainsprings of civilization in Asia), also received its full share of the I n d i a n spirit through Buddhism, and passed it on to Korea and Japan and to Giao-Chi or Viet-Nam. Tibet developed the elements it received of Indian culture and passed it on to Mongolia. The question of the influence of Indianism on the Hellenic world is problematical, as InJUNE 1955 dianism was developing contemporaneoously with Hellenism. But there is evidence of contact between Greek thought and Indian thought from the days of Alexander the Great. Indian gymnosophists or recluses impressed the Greek mind. India was indebted to Greece for an advance in astronomical knowledge, although the heliocentric theory of the planetary world was her own discovery. Indianism in the Modern World @oNTACT with the European mind at the beginning of the. last century quickened the Indian spirit. The scientific curiosity of the West established Orientalism studies as intellectual disciplines beside the study of the classical humanities, and the attempt at a just estimate of the Indian contribution to human culture on the part of European savants filled Indian scholars with a spirit of emulation in understanding and appraising the bases of their own civilization. Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the first modern and cosmopolitan Indian who offered to the world the Upanishads as India's great contribution. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Hindu saint and devotee, underlined the universality of Hindu religious thought and ideals, and his disciple Swami Vivekanada by this firs1 public proclamation before the 39 West at the Congress of Religions in Chicago in 1893 inaugurated a movement for the understanding and wider application in practical life of the Indian Vedanta philosophy, Other great Indian personalities came up as harmonizers between the spirit of man and its expression through lndianism-Rabindranath Tagore, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Sarvepalli Radhakrishman, among others. Tagore's internationalism, so beautifully expressed in his poetry, has been accepted and appreciated by the cultural elite all over the world. Radhakrishman's insistence on the idealistic aspect of life as set forth by Indian thought has also been received with growing conviction by men of thought everywhere. Gandhi's doctrine of nonviolence ( Ahimsa) and Holding Fast to the truth (Satyagraha) is looked upon with increasing interest by thinkers of the present day. The message of India as expressed in the philosophy of the Vedanta arid in the imaginative and emotional rationalism of Hinduism 'with regard to the fundamental basis of existence, is bringing something whichjudging from current trends in thought and culture in Europe and America-both the heart and the intellect of Modern l\.fan everywhere is craving for. MEDAL MASTER 40 British-born Don Hatswell, movie-jndustry expert on uniforms, medals and national dress, can spot an incorrect military decoration a block away. Though he hardly remembers when his interest in "shiny things" began, his quick eye and boundless knowledge have kept Czarist medals off movie Gls and averted countless other costume errors since 1922. One of Hollywood's outstanding technical advisers, Hatswell is also one of America's foremost authorities in this glittering field. * PANORAMA 10anorama 10eek AND THE LORD, angry at man's disobedience, said: "In the sweat of thy lace shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.' Work is the heritage of man. Every able-bodied person, upon reaching a certain age, must have an occupation. He must support his · family. So it was when Adam, defying God, was driven out of Paradise by an angel; so it will be till doomsday. On this and the next few pages PANORAMA presents some of the more interesting, if common, occupations of Filipinos. Is any of these YOUR own? THE WOODCARVER. Even the powerful machine age has failed to dislodge the skilled craftsman, in this case a maker of an elaborate wooden bedhead. (Photo by DERRICK Kr;tGHT, Shell Photographic Unit, London) THE ACROBAT. Mo,t of the time the circus performe~'s life literally hangs on the bfllanc~. If you are the giddy type, this occupatiotl is not for you. THE FARMER. Much safer though not any easier is farming. In this work you need a good, strong back and a love for the outdoors. THE BOAT BUILDER. As old asi the sea is the maker of ships. THE GOLD MAN. A distiller of wealth from the earth's bowels, this man pours out pure gold. Would you rather own the mine? ( Photos on this page h.1 1 Df<:HRICK KNIGHT, Shell Photographic Unit, London) a WIY AO reached for the upper horizontal log which served as the edge of the headhigh threshold. Clinging to the log, he lifted himself with one bound that carried him across to the narrow door. He slid back the cover, stepped inside, then pushed the cover back in place. After some moments during which he seemed to wait, he 44 talked to the listening darkness. "I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither of us can help it." The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the dark house, like muffled roars of falling waters. The woman who had moved with a start when the sliding door opened had been hearing the gangsas for she did not know how long. The sudden rush of the rich sounds when the door opened was like a sharp gush of fire in her. She gave no sign that she heard Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in the darkness. But A wiyao knew that she heard him and his heart pitied her. He crawled on all fours to the middle of the room; he knew exactly where the stove was. PANORAMA By AMADOR T. DAGUIO With bare fingers he stirred the covered smouldering embers, and blew into them. When the coals began to glow, Awiyao put pieces of pine wood on them, t!'len full round logs as big as his arms. The room brightened. "Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing women?" He felt a pang inside him, because what he said was really not the right thing to say and because the woman did not stir. "You should join the dancers," he said, "as if-as if nothing has happened." He looked at the woman huddled in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall. The stove fire played with strange moving shadows and lights upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness was not because of anger or hate. "Go out-go out and dance. If you really don't hate me for this separation, go out and dance. One of the men will see you dance well; he will like your JUNE 1955 dancing; he will marry you. Who knows but that, with him, you will be luckier than you were with me?" "I don't want any man," she mid sharply. "I don't want any other man." 11 E FELT relieved that at last 1 L she talked: "You know very well that I don't want any other woman, either. You know that, don't you? Lumnay, you know it, don't you?" She did not answer him. "You know it, Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated. "Yes, I know," she said weakly. "It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You cannot blame me; I have been a good husband to you." "Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed about to cry. "No, you have been very good to me. You have been a good wife. I have nothing to say 45 against you." He set some of the burning wood in place. "It's only that a man must have a child. Seven harvests is just too long to wait. Yes, we have waited long. We should have another chance, before it is too late for both of us." This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out and bent her left leg in. She wourtd the blanket rpore snugly around herself. "You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have prayed to Kabunyan much. I have sacrificed many chickens in my prayers." "Yes, I know." "You remember how angry you were once when you came home from your work in the terrace because I butchered one of our pigs without your permission? I did it to appease Kabunyan, because, like you, I ·wanted to have a child. But what could I do?" "Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he said. He stirred the fire. The sparks rose through the crackles of the flames. The smoke and soot went up to the ceiling. Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull at the rattan that kept the split bamboo flooring in place. She tugged at the rattan flooring. Each time she did this the split bamboo went up and came down with a slight rattle. The gongs of the dancers clamorously 46 called m her ears through the walls. .fl WIY AO went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused before her, 1 o o k e d at her bronzed and sturdy face, then tun;ied to where the jars of water stood piled one over the other. Awiyao took a coconut cup and dipped it in the top jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from the mountain creek early that evening. "I came home," he said, "because I did not find you among the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you to come, if you don't want to join my wedding ceremony. I came to tell you that Madulimay, although I am marrying her, can never become as good as you are. She is not as strong in planting beans, not as fast in cleaning water jars, not as good in keeping a house clean. You are one of the best wives in the whole village." "That has not done me any good, has it?" she said. She' looked at him lovingly. She almost seemed to smile. He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came closer to her. He held her face between his haads, and looked longingly at her beauty. But her eyes looked away. Nev e r again wouid he hold her face. The next day she would not be his any more. She would go back to her parents. He let go of her face, and she bent to the. floor PANORAMA again and looked at her fingers as they tugged softly at the split bamboo floor. "This house is yours," he said, "I built it for you. Make it your own, live in it as long as you wish. I will build another house for Madulimay." "I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to my own house. My parents are old. They will need help ,in the planting· of the beans, in the pounding of the rice." "I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountain during the first year of our marriage," he said. "You know I did it for you. You helped me to make it for the two of us." "I have no use for any field," she said. 11 E LOOKED at her, then 1 L. turned away, and became silent. They were silent for a time. "Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right for you to be here. They will wonJUNE 1955 der where you are, and Madulimay will not feel good. Go back to the dance." "I would feel better if you could come, and dance-for the last time. The gangsas are playing." "You know . that I cannot." "Lumnay," he said tenderly, "Lumnay, if I did this, it is because of my need for a child. You know that life is not worth living without a child. The men have mocked me behind my back. You know that." "I know it," she said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you and Madulimay." She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and sobbed. She thought of the seven harvests that }Jae:! passed~ · t_ he high hopes they had in the beginnip.g of their new life, the day he took her away from her parents across the roaring river, on the other side of the mountain, the trip up the trail · which they had to climb, the steep canyon which they had to cross-the waters boiled in her mind in foams of white and jade and roaring silver; the waters rolled and growled, resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the stiff cliffs; they were far 47 away now but loud still and receding; the w a t e r s violently smashed down from somewhere on the tops of the other ranges, and they had looked carefully at the buttresses of rocks they had to step q,n-a slip would have meant death. They both drank of the water then rested on the other bank before they made the final climb to th~ other side of the mountam. She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his features - hard and strong, and kind. He had a sense of lightness in his way of saying things, which often made her and the village people laugh. How proud she had been of his humor. The muscles were taut and firm, bronze and compact in their hold upon his skull-how frank his bright eyes were. She looked at his body that carved out of the mountains five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if a slab of shining lumber were heaving; his arms and legs flowed down in fluent muscles -he was strong and for that she had lost him. SHE FLUNG herself upon his knees and clung to them. "Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband," i;he cried. "I did everything to :iave a child,'' she said passionately in a hoarse whisper. "Look at me,'' she cried. "Look at my body. Then it was full of promise. It could dance; it could 48 work fast in the helds; it could climb the mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full.-But, Awiyao, Kabunyan never blessed me. Awiyao, Kabunyan is cruel to me. Awiyao, I am useless. I must die." "It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his arms. Her whole warm naked breast quivered against his own; she clung now to his neck, and her head lay upon his right shoulder; her hair flowed down in cascades of ' gleaming darkness. "I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care about the house. I don't care for anything but you. I'll have no other man." ''Then you'll always be fruitless." "I'll go back to my father. I'll die." "Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you hate me. You do not want me to have a child. You do not want my name to live on in our tribe." She was silent. PANORAMA "If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means I'll die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved out of the mountains; nobody will come after me." "If you fail-if you fail this second tme-" she said thoughtfully. Then her voice was a shudder. "No--no, I don't want you to fail." "If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of us will die together. Both of us will vanish from the life of our tribe." The gongs thundered through the walls of their house, sonorous and far away. "I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao let me keep my beads," she half-whispered. "Y 011 wil! k~ the beads. They came from far-off times. My grandmot~~me from way up North, from the slant-eyed people across the sea. You ke~ay_,__They are worth tWeQ!y fields." "I'll keep them because they stand for the love you have for me," she said. "I love you. I love you and have nothing to give." She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out to him from outside. "Awiyao! Awiyao! 0 Awiyao! They are looking for you at the dance!" "I am not in a hurry." ''The elders will scold you. You had better go." "Not until you tell me that JUNE 1955 it is all right with you." "It is all right with me." He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the tribe," he said. "I know," she said. He went to the door. "Awiyao!" u E STOPPED as if suddenly 1 l hit by a spear. In pain he turned to her. Her face was agony. It pained him to leave. She had been wonderful to him. What was it that made a man wish for a child? What was it in life, in the work in the fields, in the planting and harvest, in the silence of night, in the communings with husband and wife, in the whole life of the tribe itself that made man wish for the laughter and speech of · a child? Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the unwritten law demand, anyway, that a man, to be a man, must have a child to come after him? And if he was fruitless - but he loved Lumnay. It was like taking away half of his life to leave her like this. "A wiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile m the light. "The beads!" He turned back and walked to the farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they kept their worldly possessionhis battle-axe and his spear points, her betel nut box and her beads. He dug out from the darkness the beads which had 49 been given to him by his grandmother to give to Lumnay on the day of his marriage. He went to her, lifted her ·head, put the beads on, and tied them in place. The white and jade and deep orange obsidians shone in the firelight. She suddenly clung to him, clung to his neck, as if she would never let him go. "Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" she gasped, and she closed her eyes and buried her face in his neck. The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip loosened, and he hurried out into the night. Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she went to the door and opened it:-The moonlight struck her face; the moonlight spilled itself upon the whole village. She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to her through the caverns of the other houses. She knew that all the houses were empty; that the whole tribe was at the dance. Only she was absent. And yet was she not the best dancer of the village? Did she not have the most lightness and grace? Could she not, alone among all the women, dance like a bird tripping for grains on the ground, beautifully timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men praise her supple body, and the women envy the way she stretched her hands like the so wings of the mountain eagle now and then as she danced? How long ago did she dance at her own wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted, who once danced in her honor, were dancing now in honor of another whose only claim was that perhaps she could give her husband a child. "It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she know? How can anybody know? It is· not right," she said. s UDDENLY SHE found courage. She would go to the dance. She would go to the chief of the village, to the elders, to tell them it was not right. Awiyao was hers; nobody could take him away from her. Let her be the first woman to complain, to denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take another woman. She would break the dancing of the men and women. She would tell Awiyao to come back to her. He surely would relent. Was not their love as strong as the river? She made for the other side of the village where the dancing was. There was a flaming glow over the whole place; a great bonfire was burning. The ganAsas clamored more loudly now, and it seemed they were calling to her. She was near at last. She could see the dancers clearly now. The men leaped lithely with their gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked PANORAMA m feast garments and beads, tripping on the ground like graceful birds, following their fuen. Her heart warmed to the flaming call of the d a n c e ; "strange heat in her blood welled up, and she started to run. But the flaming brightness of the bonfire commanded her to_ stop. Did anybody see her approach? She stopped. What 'if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of the bonfire leaped in countless sparks which spread and rose like yellow points and died out in the night. The blaze reached out to her like a spreading radiance. She did not hfive the courage to break into the wedding feast. Lumnay walked away from 1he dancing ground, away from the village. She thought of the new clearing of beans which A wiyao and she had started to make only four moons before. She followed the trail above the village. When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it carefully. Nobody held her hands, ,and the stream water was very cold. The trail went up again, and she was in the moonlight shadows among the trees and shrubs. Slowly she climbed the mountain. When Lumnay reachep the clearing, she could see from where she stood the blazing bon· fire at the edge of the village, where the dancing was. She could hear the far-off clamor of JUNE 1955 the gongs, still rich in their sonorousness, echoing from mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her; they seemed to call far to her; speak to her in the language of unspeaking love. She felt the pull of their clamor, almost the feeling that they were telling to her their gratitude for her sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many gangsas. £ UMNAY thought of Awiyao as the A wiyao she had known long ago--a strong, muscular boy carrying his heavy loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his home. ·she had met him one day as she was on her way to -fill her clay jars with water. He had stopped at the spring to drink and rest; and she had made him drink the cool mountain water from her coconut shell. After that it did not take long for him to decide to throw his spear on the stairs of her father's house in token of his desire to marry her. The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing moonlight. The wind began to sough and stir the leaves of the bean plants. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to. sit down. The bean plants now surrounded her, and she was lost among them. A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more harvests-what did it matter? She would be holding the bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken 51 almost, but moist where the dew got into them, silver to look at, silver on the light blue, blooming whiteness, when the morning comes. The stretching of the bean pods full length from the hearts of the wilting petals would go on. Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the growing bean pods. * * * fl f;}lory of Yorle THE GREAT east window at York Minster which . was removed for safety during the war has now been restored, and last week was re-dedicated by Dr. Garbett, the Archbishop of York. The work of restoration has taxed the skill of experts and craftsmen, for this great stained glass window, made nearly five and a half centuries ago, is in many sections. · This east window, one of the great glories of York Minster, had been dismantled or repaired twice before,, but those socalled restorers presented their modern successors with a tricky problem. The medieval glass in some, parts had been put back all higgledy-piddledy, and the intricate designs of pearls had been mixed up. The work of reassembly looked like a bewildering jigsaw puzzle, with thousands of pieces of glass spread out on glasstopped tables, which were lighted from underneath. The Dean of York, who is an expert on medieval glass, came into the workshops tiwce a day to supervise the corting. A knowledge not only of old glass was needed, so that the intruding newer pieces which have strayed among the original ones could be separated, but also an intensive knowledge of the Bible and of the lives of saints. Some odd jumbles were found: a little red cow, for example, had somehow got on top of Noah's head as if it were a hill, and part of the section depicting the Ark looked a hopeless muddle, but what might have been planks on the hull were found in the section showing Jacob's Ladder, and also in the coverlet of Isaac's bed. * * LIKE NAPOLEON Professor: "If you all ki:ep your present marks, you will be like Napoleon." Coed: "How, Professor?" Professor: "You will go down in history!" 52 PANORAMA '¢fliti Book Review Brothtr to Jragons * By LEONARD CASPER 511\ .HnH ,.II\ 9111\1. ~Ill\ Hll\1. In the labyrinthine soul, a beast half-man lJ.41.4 HEN ROBERT OPPENHEIMER witnessed the first atomic W explosion at Los Alamos, he thought of the Shatterer of the World and experienced, he says, a "sense of sin." Other scientists since that moment have also learned to question their man-made achievements; but like Oppenheimer and perhaps most of the modern world, they hardly know what to do with their newly acquired sense. There is no rule in the physics book which can counsel a method of atonement. In the maze of human behavior they have suddenly been confronted with the dark horned threat of the minotaur, man's other self. The revelation must have been just as quick and foreverfreezing, which came to Thomas Jefferson when he learned how his two nephews literally had butchered a slave on the frontier, in the winter of 1811. Jefferson, whose immense faith in man's innate goodness fathered the Declaration of Independence, could never bring himself even to mention this instance of man's brutality. But in fiction the unspeakable is heard. Brother to Dragons is subtitled A Tale of Verse and Voices: it provides tongues for the murderers, for their uncle, for the author-as-man himself, in a pentecost of illuminating truth. Jeffersonianism - that extreme individualism capable of saying, "That government is best which governs least" because it-believes in man's natural goodness, reinforced by hard simple labor in the season and on the soil of the Lord-is the doctrine most easily identifiable with the surviving culture of the Southern United States. It encouraged the belief in states' rights 11.obert Penn Warren. Brother to Dragons. (New York: Random House, 1953), JUNE 1955 53 which precipitated a civil war; today it_ is the last rampart against the "invasion" of the South by Northern machines and their industrialized ethics. As a Southern writer, Robert Penn Warren might easily have used this book to give unqualified praise to his Jeffersonian heritage. aowever, Warren is a writer first, a Southerner second, at best. His ultimate heritage includes a sense of original sin, which he generously shares here with Jefferson. Thus he succeeds in making a point without making propaganda. (A similar situation occurred with his Pulitzer prize novel, All the King's Men, about the growth and assassination of a. Southern dictator. Americans celebrated the death of the actual man, Huey Long, as heartily as if they themselves had hin~d the gunman. The novel, however, advises in effect: Go ahead, shoot to kill; but just remember, there's a little bit of everyone of you - of us - in that man. Turn a public spotlight on any of us, and see if our own works are 21-jeweled or corroded with base metals.) <DECEMBER 15, 1811, was a night when the world seemed to want to end. The whole Mississippi valley cracked in a continental earthquake. And on that night Lilburn Lewis killed a slave, in a fit of unloved jealousy, on the pretext of a broken pitcher. Yet the night and the quake were neither cause nor effect of the axe murder and subsequent roasting, but rather parallels to the soul's night and the rent torn in the human fabric. Lilburn's brother bec:'!_me an accomplice after the fact, and the slave an accomplice before, because he had goaded his master. But in the brotherhood of man, all men become accomplices to this unbrothering. Jefferson is made to share the common guilt for his naivete, his over-fond submission to the "western dream" that was America: the frontier as hope and salvation; whatever you have been, go west and be born again. And that dream - Jefferson's dream of the immaculate Lousiana Territory, from the Rockies to the Mississippi, where innocence waited new arrivals - that dream was evil, a trap for the soul. He had sent Meriwether Lewis, his brother-in-law's brother, to explore that vast untouched Territory. But Lewis, discovering the bestiality of so many Indian tribes whom he had wanted to believe were stainless, as all "natural men," all primitives in theory 54 PANORAMA were supposed to be.- in despair Lewis returned from his expedition and shot himself. The virtue of Brother to Dragons hardly lies in the darkness of its indictment. A physicist is shattered when, replacing his instruments momentarily, he sensitively records and responds to an earthquake in the sky. But a creative artist, who is closer to the truth for being less an instrument of unrelated fact, takes his sense of sin not as doom but as an initial stimulus to keep his willed-soul awake. The world is not suddenly intolerable; instead, after the purification of vanity, the world becomes intelligible, unified - although in a more complex fashion than the simple physical logic of cause and effect. The physical world takes for its final measuring reference the dimension of time. But the metaphysical world is a place of simultaneous event: so that Warren can say, . . . the dream of the future is not Better than the fact of the past, no matter how terrible. For without the fact of the past we cannot .dream the future. It would be terrible to think that truth is lost. It would be worse to think that anguish is lost, ever. A sense of sin is a remembrance; but just as without memory, the existing Now is robbed of essential content, so too a sense of wrong is recollected morality, the beginning of sal. vation. Or, as Warren puts it, only if we are . . . aware of the incorrigible and blessed need To give even evil the justification of good And thus affirm the good, do we have the possible courage To confront the necessity of virtue. Even our defenses, our rationalizings, betray us and become prepared avenues of that marching truth which . is the explanation of our being alive. The recognition of complicity is the beginning of innocence. The recognition of necessity is the beginning of freedom. The recognition of the direction of fulfillment is the death of the self And the death of the self is the beginning of selfhood. ECAUSE, although Brother to Dragons takes historical facts for its point of departure, it is not interested in the gratuitous cruelty and violence of history for their own sake, its form is properly abstract. The characters are largely disembodied; they brood over events instead of reenacting them. But, paradoxically, -that very detachment of the particular character from an individual action allows a suggested involvement.·. of a!I the characters in any single action: and that complicitly, JUNE 1955 55 however indirect, is the theme of the tale. Conflicts become internalized, meditated upon by many minds (to make the resolution more credible than if it were reached by the author alone), and wrestled with gigantically in the arena of the soul. Brother to Dragons is no less dramatic for being disembodied. Yet, it is not stageable. It encourages modern versified drama, already contributed to so meritoriously by T. S. Eliot (Murder in the Cathedral) and Cristopher Fry (The Lady's Not for Burning); yet it is not their kind of theater. Rather, like Goethe's Faust, it is meant to be read, not seen: but that too is appropriate. In joining his voice with these antagonists, the reader rightfully becomes another accomplice, and the sin he senses, all men being each other's keeper, is theirs in him. 56 * * * METALS MELT AND FREEZE J! OR CENTURIES scientists have been trying to determine the exact freezing points of metals - the temperatures at which they solidify from the molten state. What hindered them was the presence of minute solid impurities too small to be removed. These impurities, which exist in a supposedly pure metal, cause iCto melt and freeze at about the same temperature, giving rise to the popular misconception that a metal's melting aQd freezing temperatures are identical. But several years ago, scientists at General Electric devised a way of obtaining extremely pure samples. With these samples they established the true freezing points of 13 metals and proved that they will melt and freeze at temperatures hundred! of degrees apart. Gold, which melts at 1,063° C., can be cooled to 860° before freezing. Palladium's freezing point is about 300° under its melting point. In their experiments the G.E. scientists took tiny chunks of the purest metals they could get and sliced th!!m into a number of even tinier chips. If only a few of the impurities were present in the original chunks, they reasoned, some of the chips would be pure. They put the chips in a heating device filled with inert gas and equipped with a thermocouple to meausre the temperature. Then they made microscopic movies, to prove their theory. * PANORAMA The world's greatest magician HOUDINI: tlie hattdcutt kitt9 IN GERMANY, sometime before an ex-Austrian corporal boasted that the Third Reich would last a thousand years, a man challenged the the Berlin police to handcuff and leave him naked in a cell. At first, the Berlin cops balked; they had heard of this faulous man. Ultimately they pted the challenge in the f press tauntings, and r some hideous ancient s in Nuremberg, some most modern locks and . ..: medieval punishment contraptions - all designed to hold any mortal. The man was stripped bare, searched by police . experts for any hidden aid device and then placed in a locked cell. Within five minutes the man was out in the police office hall, having freed himself of the handcuffs, picked the cell-door lock, and mastered the lock of the corridor gate leading to the cell. JUNE 1955 The Berlin police were so embarassed that they publicly charged the man with bribing an official to know the intricacies of the police trap. The man sued the police and won in damages and costs. A few weeks after that feat in the police cell, the man officially performed at the Wintergarten Music Hall which was packed to suffocation at every performance for a month. This man, already world-famous, was indeed the fabulous , "Houdini, the Handcuff King." Many years before, Houdini, upon arrival on England for the first time, dared Scotland Yard as he did the Berlin police. His escape feat caused a sensational period of business at the Alhambra Theatre where he performed. Houdini always came out of every tight situation; no locks nor police force could hold him. Ear lier in his stage career, Houdini challenged the most 57 famous, modern lock-makers in the world. He had so ma~ tered the principles of their locks that the manufacturers were compelled to improve their products and paid the man handsome fees as consultant. The man himself has a vast collection of shackles, manacles locks bolts, and bars; som'e were' almost prehistoric, certainly medieval. Others were of the most modern manufacture. In whatever country he travelled, he added to his collection; he kept close. watch on new developments m the making of locks of all kinds, largely through the technical journals. HARRY HOUDINI was born in Wisconsin, U.S.A. with an unpronounceable family name. After reading the works of Robert Houdin, considered an eminent name in the annals of conjuring, Harry decided to change by deed poll his original family nomenclature. Incidentally, Harry had proceeded to debunking the claims of the Frenchman in a book titled The Unmasking of Robert Houdin. The book was a best seller and provided Houdini with tremendous publicity. Houdini travelled all over Europe and the United States and his performances rai.,.5ed him from comparative obscur58 ity to stardom. When he w~s elected chairman of the Magician's Club of London, he demonstrated that sleight of hand was just as easy for him as hand-cuff slipping. His version of the 11eedle trick involved passing on to the tongue a dozen needles, a yard of sewing thread, accompanied by gulps of water. to wash the material down. Within a minute of the last needle disappearing in his mouth, he picked out the end of the thread and slowly withdrew it from his mouth. Every needle was threaded. Houdini's other feats, popularized in a recent movie, included under-water stunts. He would stay upside-down in a tank of milk or water for three and a half minutes, somet· over four minutes. I forming this feat he w handcuffed, hands heh back and manacled. 0 occasions he would hav self manacled before jumpi from a boat into a river and releasing himself while in the water. The end of this fabulous career came in the manner of one of these uiider-watel' feats. It was not however due to an ultimate failure in his performance. Houdini died of pneumonia after being immersed head downwards in a tank for about four minutes in a performance in Detroit. PANORAMA WHAT COULD be the secret of . Houdini? This question may. now be asked. As a man he looked hardly ari "escapologist," as imitators of Houdini or handcuff experts in their own right like to call themselves. Described as quiet, rather pallied, with piercing eyes and wavy hair parted down the middle, under medium height, he looked more like a tough lawyer than a strait-jacket expert. A nonsmoker, he kept himself in perfect condition but never muscle-bound. A personal friend for many years attributes Houdini's "secret" to the life of precision which the man lived. Houdini's private and. professional lives, he said, were measured by the clock and the lock. As described by that friend, Houdini fixed exactly the number of his sleeping hours, the precise moment of his awakening; he had a punctilious regard for regular meal-ti,mes, and an almost passionate punctuality in all professional and private affairs. Houdini was a generous man. He always appeared at charity performances, gave thousands of pounds to Jewish organizations, and helped financially many individuals, most of them musichall professionals. HE> was inclined to spiritualism during his lifetime, and would have become a confirmed convert had he been able to find a medium through whom to communicate with his dead mother. He never ended his serach for spiritual contact. * * * A colored parson was telling one of his flock that if he did not mend his ways he would go to the place where there would be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. "I hab no teeth," said the erring one. "De teeth will be provided," replied the parson. * * The geography teacher was asking the class for an example of a wild beast. "A tiger," snapped Pedro. "Give me another example," said the teacher. "Anotber tiger," replied Pedro. * JUNE 1955 59 Literary Personality-VJ THORNTON WILDER: W'Litten tliis lno'Lnin9 While others wept and raged, he pointed at the human mind LIKE T. s. ELIOT, Thornton Wilder has written not much but well-well enough, in his 5 7 years, to win three Pulitzer prizes (for The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth). Yet he has been a serious novelist and playwright without being a solemn one. He has requested as his epitaph, "Here lies a man who tried to be obliging;" and though he is slightly fussy and professorial-looking, he considers his main virtue the ability to put strangers at their ease. His friends are not only intellectuals but also prize fighters, waitresses, a Chicago gunman named Golfbag, and exgamblers, now members of Alcoholics Anonymous. These he has lived with intimately, not because as a writer he wants to exploit their vices, but because his affection for people is able to discover the potential saint behind the average sinner. He has indulged his appetite for life constantly as if "I was going to live 150 years." Consequently, he has learned every major European language except Russian, to give him common footing with expected new friends. Probably it was this admiration for the living, which saved Thornton Wilder from joining the ranks of his expatriate American friends who, after World War I, jammed Paris: Sherwood Anderson; John Gould Fletcher, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, etc. Although his sympathies were not completely opposed to this self-described "lost generation,'' Wilder returned home to teach, feeling that the florid excesses of the Left Bank were not the answer to the post-war crisis. 60 PANORAMA T HIS REFUSAL to ignore responsibility "is a natural expression of mine," says teacher Wilder. "It is part of my inheritance." His father, owner of a Wisconsin newspaper, used to read Scott and Dickens to the children-for moral content only. He lectured them constantly on how to defend themselves against an evil world. But their mother, believing that the world was not that evil, restored their balance with the poetry of Yeats and Maeterlinck. Mr. Wilder planned the future of each child: one was to be a minister (he became prof~ssor); one, a doctor (she became a poet); one, a nurse (she became a novelist); another, a scientist (she became a housewife). Perhaps because Thornton was the sole survivor of twins (his brother was stillborn), his father hardly knew what to make of him. As a result, Thornton has lived a free and distinguished life. But as a result of his father, he still scolds and preaches openly, even to those who have met him only a few minutes ago. For a time, while Mr. Wilder served as consul general, Thornton went to school in Shanghai, and later in California. Wherever he was, he inhabited himself and cared little what others thought about his untied shoe laces. He dressed his sisters in cheesecloth and made them act his one-act plays; he devoured mythology and Shakespeare; he wrote letters to an imaginary friend, called George. Finally, at Oberlin College, in the Midwest, he learned an unforgettable lesson about what makes the classics classical: "Every great work was written this morning." This was the heritage that he refused to deny in the 1920's when he decided that the value of literature had not been destroyed by the war. He taught in the daytime, and wrote at night. By 1926, he had finished his first novel, The Cabala, a mannered book about an exclusive circle of Roman aristocrats. Influenced by his studies in archeology, his characters seemed like ancient gods in modern dress. Not long afterwards he published his most famous work, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), which begins, "On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below;" and which proceeds to investigate why God allowed this "disaster" to occur. The book sold 300,000 copies in its first year; and Peruvian tourist guides pretended to have found the bridge site which Wilder had invented! JUNE 1955 61 H 1s THIRD novel, The Woman of Andros, was so successful that from the royalties he managed to build a house for his parents, while he himself went to Berlin and began to read all their great books, in the original German. In the 1930's, when other writers beaped their books with dead coal miners and child slave-laborers, Wilder continued to believe in the future. In Heaven's My Destination (1935), he invented a character, George Brush (the imaginary one he had written to as a boy?) whose good will and humor was limited only by the fact that, like Wilder, he accosted strangers and talked too much. Because the 1930's were a time of depression, Wilder's book made little impact on the public imagination; but the University of Chicago invited him to lecture on the classics. He acted out the parts of blind Homer, the Greek choruses, and the entire siege of Troy so well that his students came to believe that, in fact, the oldest epics had been written just that morning. He shook his finger at imaginary demons, crouched behind his podium, peeked out from under chairs. Semester after semester, his students lived in suspense. At his suggestion, Chicago invited Gertrude Stein to present a series of lectures. It was she who, in Paris, had helped restore a sense of discipline to American writers (like Hemingway) so that they could write about the "lost generation" without, themselves, becoming lost. Now, in Chicago, she made a gift of her wisdom to Wilder also. She distinguished human nature, which is fixed in place and time, from the human mind which is capable of pure existence and pure creation. The boundlessness of the mind, she said, is discoverable in masterpieces, 1ecording the everlasting Now of truth. R EMINDED AGAIN of his own studies in archeology and his devotion to the classics, and with his feelings reinforced by the "boundlessness" of America's geography, Wilder wrote Our Town ( 1938 ), the play that breaks every law of playwriting except those of sustaining interest and of dramatizing the human effort of daily living. Our Town has no scenery and almost no plot; but it has tears, flesh, sweat and blood. It becomes the story of all towns, in all times and places. His next play, The Skin of Our Teeth, is the story of the whole human race, with all its failings and near-escapes, from the Flood to Armagedon. "Our Town,'' says Wilder, "is the life 62 PANORAMA of the family seen from a telescope five miles away. The Skin of Our Teeth is the destiny of the whole human group seen from a telescope 1000 miles away." In World War II, Wilder served the Air Force as a combatintelligence officer in Italy and later wrote a brilliant novel about Caesar,-The Ides of March. But again he returned home without being disillusioned, without feeling that no one should grow a beard because the sky was falling. Instead h~ continued passing anonymously among his fellow men in restaurants, until he knew them well and they took him for granted enough to pick their teeth in front of him without apology. From that close sense of humanity, he was able to lecture at Harvard, in 1949, on the average American (who perhaps is the average Anyman, anywhere, removed from the straitjacket of local customs) in unfrightened, unfrightening terms: "From the point of view of the European, an American is nomad in relation to place, disattached in relation to time, lonely in relation to society, and insubmissive to circumstance, destiny, or God. It is difficult to be an American, because there is as yet no code, grammar, decalogue by which to orient oneself. Americans are still engaged i9 inventing what it is to be an American . . . "Americans could count and enjoyed counting. They lived under a sense of boundlessness. And every year a greater throng of new faces poured into their harbors, paused, and streamed westward. And each one was one. To this day, in American thinking, a crowd . . . is not a homogenous mass . . . but is one and one and one . . . "Every human being who has existed can be felt by us to be existing now. All time is present for a single time. Every American has this sense, for the American is the first planetary mind. Americans have the realization of the multiplicity of human beings and their geographical extension. Many problems which seem insoluble will be solved when the world realizes that we are all bound together as the population of the only inhabited star." * * * Biography, like big game hunting, is one of the recognized forms of sport, and it is as unfair as only sport can be. -Philip Guedalla JUNE 1955 63 Sociological re port ~(Utt 6?«-rl~ 1~ r/'ee 1(1~ By LOURDES CRISOLOGO-SANTOS • ")N ITS March issue, Panorania presented evidence that the urban middle-class Filipina prefers an American husband to one from any neighboring Asian country or from Spaincountries where the family is ruled by the father, as it is here. Now another study has been made, although a smaller and more specialized sampling, to determine the degree of success in marriages between American males and Filipino women. S. Stephen Rafel, whose findings have appeared in the Philippine Sociological Review, worked with 20 Fil-American couples, who were wed after World War II and now live on or near United States military installations where the men are employed. Although all the marriages were relatively re64 cent and the individuals came from differing cultures, Rafel has already noted important signs of adjustment. Courtship: In America where a sense of responsibility is expected in young people and both boys and girls are trained to manage for themselves, freedom requires that there be no chaperonage. The Filipina, however, has been raised in a society of opposite customs. She is allowed little freedom, not only because she is expected to have wildly romantic impulses but also because Filipino marriages are centered on family unity instead of individual rights and wishes. Even though the Filipinas, in this survey; lived away from home and worked for the United States government, almost always they insisted on the PANORAMA chaperon systein, and the permission of the bride's father was asked. The grooms financ!id the marriages. However, in no case did the families of the individuals arrange portions of the marriage; and the courtship was somewhat shorter than the usual Filipino convention. Offspring: Respect for American children shows itself in rhe equality of trust and therefore responsibility given even the youngest family members. ·Filipino children, as a rule, are alternately spoiled and overdisciplined; they are given chores, not responsibilities; they are commanded, not consulted. The children of these Fil-American familes are raised by both parents equally - a Western tendency; but since ne~ther parent dominates and both are likely to be the result of different upbringings, the child is often confused by alternate commands and requests. At least in school, however, ·they are likely to be trained Americap-style, as preparation for probable transfer to the States. (Although many of these twenty couples are content to remain in the Philippines, a larger number hope to settle in the husband's country.) Relatives: Freedom in America includes independence, if JUNE 1955 desired, from relatives and inlaws. However, in the Philippines the family group is (sometimes oppressively) strong. "Authority,'' writes Mr. Rafel, "goes vertically downward on the basis of age and deference to one's elders is practiced. By marrying an American, the Filipina leaves the security, authoritaranism and conservatism inherent in Filipino family life." The American husband shows no deference to his wife's elders but treats all people equally; in his own house he is king. He discourages frequent visits to or from his wife's relatives; nor does he follow the Filipino practice of lending money to relatives. Nor do husband or wife enter fiestas and celebrations avidly. Religion: The Americans, coming from areas of diverse Protestant sects, are used to such an equality of religious belief (since no single sect dominates) that tolerance actually is unnecessary. In the Philippines, however, where 16 million Catholics form an overwhelming majority, tolerance. becomes a civic and moral necessity. The American Protestants in the study, therefore, have found it easier to adjust their own beliefs than to ask their wives to give up Catholicism. As a result, there have been many mixed marriages 65 "The influx of American personnel ;_nto an urban area in the Philippines added to the exi;ting diversity, and the intermarriages that resulted may be considered as hdicative of the conflicts characteristic in an area of social change. The movies, books, radio and school tended to Westernize the urban family and so there e..<'.~ted ,ommon ground between the American and Filipina." - S. STEPHEN RAFEL. (although few conversions): the children are raised as Catholics, and religious disagreements hardy occur. Food: The American husbands have made few personal concessions to the Filipino food pattern, although their wives and children are allowed a mixture. The fathers eat mainly American food, prepared in an American manner with few spices; and. perhaps for reasons of economy (or diet?) the family usually accepts the male parents' standards. Finances: In a few cases the American husband is content to let the home finances be run by his wife, in Filipino tradition. The average, however, has mingled its ethnic patterns so, that a final analysis of which one dominates is difficult. Rafel reports, "It is felt that the husband directs the finances of the home with assistance from his wife, whereas, it is a wife's duty in the Philippines." Conclusions: Despite cultural differences, the Fil-American couples have evolved a combined culture of their own which 66 is sufficiently consistent not to disturb their collective peace of mind. The only areas of actual conflict are the handlin~ of finances and the attitude towards relatives. Otherwise, only one or two could be called problem marriages; and these involve persons who, one suspects, would have difficulties in any environment. For the most part, both men and their wives have overcome the frigh,tening conditions of war and occupation which prevailed in the years of their first meeting. Actually their adjustment to each other has been much greater than their assimilation into the local culture. In the American manner, the FilAmerican families tend to enjoy their isolation from the de .. mands of the larger social units which Filiipinos recognize and serve. However, Mr. Rafel is not disturbed by his fact. "Too much similarity," he says, "denervates society and is generally stultifying. What is needed are divers groups with tolerant attitudes towards each other'. for the betterment of society.'' PANORAMA So MUCH has been written and said about the advantages that come with getting up early in the morning and dashing off to work; or if one were a bird, getting there ahead of the flock and catching the first worm. Of course, only the first worm never lived long enough to enjoy the benefits of going early to bed and rising with the sun. Late-rising worms probably lived longer but that's beside the point. But people who unquestionably subscribe to that "early to bed, early to rise" philosophy are supposed to arrive at that delightful state of bliss where they are not only endowed with vim, vigor and vitality but have enough cash to burn and Solomon's wisdom. Under the circumstances, one must be very pleased with himself. The saying, however, promises so much for eight hours of sleep and guarantees what seems to be a long-term plan under which one is entitled to happy living for nothing. The fact that there are very few "healthy, wealthy and wise" individuals simply goes to prove that human nature rejects anything that's too good to be true. And why not? If this secret formula could promise all those benefits, people working in night shifts would quit their jobs; even those working during the daytime would as soon turn in JUNE 1955 The Hazards of Rising Early How to be healthy, wealthy - and fat By EUPHEMIO PAT AN.NE • their resignations than stay up late to work overtime. MY OWN experience with this saying has left me with a rather firm conviction that getting up early and going to work in half-coma is not healthy, much less wise. As a feat, it is neither singular nor noteworthy; as a sample of discipline, it is, to say the least, debilitating. It can sour up one's disposition and sorely affect the mental state of other people. I used to teach a seven o' - clock morning class in the university. The idea of getting up 67 so early in the morning and, without as much as a mental limbering up suddenly embark on a discussion of some literary event or a moot point in history, was an ordeal for both myself and the students. None of them, I remember, ever came around to asking the dean to scrap the time schedule - an indication again that the brain refuses to function properly at that ungodly hour. Common observation bears me out on "this point: that seven o'clock classes are generally dull and the tempo of mental activity sluggish. This explains why the professor generally enters the classroom with a forced smile scotch-taped on nis mouth and a joke he picked up from the Reader's Digest the night before. By telling a funny story at that time in the morning, the teacher is supposed to bring forth boisterous laughter and rouse sleepy-heads from their slumber, thus inducing a mood for mental action. Actually, the only thing it can inspire is a general clamor for more jokes - a topic hardly fit to take the place of a review of the ev~nts leading to the disintegration of the Roman Empire. Experience has taught me never to crack a joke early in the morning. Administered before a class of drowsy young people, the thing earl lead to 68 confusion and defeat the objectives of higher education. T HE PICTURE of a classroom full of "bright faces" at such a time can sometimes bG disturbing. One inevitably harbors the suspicion that he is handling a class of young insomniacs who look like they have sat up the whole night till dawn just waiting for the alarm clock to go off. But what really bothered me everytime I met my first class was the idea of im:.. posing upon a group of unwary students a mental burden. I would wince every time I opened a discussion on the lesson for the day. The whole thing is like some domestic scene wherein a husband just out of bed gropes around the semi-darkness of the kitchen toward his wife who is fumbling with a match-stick, and greets her in a husky voice with an inquiry like, "Good morning, dear. Do you mind explaining to me the difference between Newton's and Einstein's concepts of space?" or "How do you explain the tragic element in Keats' poetry?" I feel that educating the youth early in the morning is not conducive , to the healthy growth of minds. Nobody can absorb anything at seven o'clock in the morning, except possibly food. PANORAMA A class schedule that permits one befuddled brain to communicate a mass of befuddled thoughts to an inert group of young people, who wish they vvere back in bed, is pushing the frontiers of learning too far. If anything, morning classes should be devoted to doodling, for lack of anything to do. By no means should the brain be forced to be shifted into high gear at the drop of a classcard. He is a wise professor who, after going through the roll, suppresses a yawn and announces: "I think we should all go home and sleep some more." He would serve the cause of education better. 0 NE CAN'T just fall into a discussion of, say, the philosophical implications of the Malthusian . theory with . the same alac.rity as washing the face. It's not even advisable, as far as I'm concerned, to open the same subject between two and four in the afternoon; it's too hot in this country at these hours to talk about population pressure and food production, unless the information were served with cold drinks or injected intravenously while one is taking a nap. The time I think best for a wholesome communion of minds is right after supper when the mind begins to loosen itself and looks forward to a hectic round of mental activity as stimulating as Chinese checkers. Again, I find this the most ideal time for classes because a professor who gets dull under the circumstances can put an automatic end to the class by lulling both himself and his listeners into sleep. The mornings should be spent in some light manual activity like hunting for giant African snails in the garden or observing the flight of the bees. The afternoons should be taken up by quiet strolls in the park or contemplating the beauty of the sunset. This schedule I consider ideal for students. After all, there are enough men and wom.:'.!n in this world to keep things going by delving deep into the wisdom of the ages. * * * MORE OBVIOUS It is said that doctors and lawyers make many mistakes, but that the lawyers' are more obvious. This is so because doctors bury their mistakes six feet underground, whereas lawyers hang theirs six feet in the air. JUNE 1955 69 Education, English Style • Dr. Arnold's Rugby remains the ideal • By JAMES W. DUNNILL UNESCO Specialist in Teacher Training l'\ry) HILE IN England we are VV exporting anything we can in order to survive, our educational system is nonexportable; nor· indeed can any educational system be transplanted successfully in another country. Our system is based on centuries of trial and error, centuries of tradition, some of it stupid and ridiculous, centuries of prejudice and of course it is peculiar to a peculiar people. It is often illogical. Perhaps the best example of this is to be seen that in a sy_§tem where 96 % of the children attend statutory schools yet still the most dynamic f o r c e in education s p r i n g s from independent schools - and here is the supreme illogicality - we call them public schools. The system has developed, as all things do in our country, empirically but there is much common sense and very little theoretical motivation. When a thing 70 is tested and tried we then rather foolishly seek to justify the result by finding some convenient theory. Let me give you another example. I would defend, and so would the, majority of educators in England, co-education as an educational principle, as long as my son doesn't have to go to a coed school. What is the guiding philosophy behind British education? I suppose I could mention "preparation for life, a training for citizenship, the development of the whole individual, spiritually, morally, intellectually and physically" - but sound though' these ideas be, I think the aim of Dr. Arnold's Rugby is perhaps still the basis of our objective. Do you remember that wonderful old school tale, Tom Brown's Schooldays? Tom, of course, went to Arnold's Rugby and his father, Squire Brown, a bluff landowner typical of PANORAMA British gentry in the last century was taking the boy to school in the stage coach he mused, as many parents do, on what sort of education he wanted for his lad. "Do I want them to make a scholar out of him?" he pondered. "I never cared much about Greeks irregular verbs, nor did his mother for that matter. No, if only they'll turn him into a fearless, truthtelling Englishman and a gentleman and a Christian, that's all I ask." If this seems to be outmoded and a thought nationalistic let me assure you that in essence I would apply it to any coun- · try. For any country which produces a citizen who is fearless, truth-telling, a Christian and a man with the code of ethical behaviour implied in the word gentleman is doing pretty well. In its broad essentials the philosophy behind British education follows Squire Brown's ideas. <J HE BRITISH Education Act of 1944, as with so many gi'eat acts of Parliament, brought few new ideas. In fact it was a codification of practices in education, thought and administration which we had been trying out for many years. It may interest you to know teat, at the moment I was standing .in a queue with about 300,000 soldiers waiting for the next bus home from Dunkirk. It seemed JUNE 1955 that only the death throes remained for England. At that moment some learned gentleman sat down in London to consider this Education Act which would be implemented after we had won the war! I cannot give you all the details of this act but here are a few outstanding points: all education at the primary, secondary and further levels is free. There is compulsory education for all children from 5 to 15a great proportion go on to 16, 17, and 18 of course. From 5 to 11, all children have primary education and at the age of 11 go, according to the result of certain tests, to one of three secondary schools - grammar, technical or modern. The first two have names which are self explanatory, the third has a practical approach to education, for the boys and girls attending this secondary modern school are non-academic. It is in this school where great attention is paid to rural science and practical arts. Of course the Act made provision for many other services, such as free milk, school meals and an all-embracing health service. Generally speaking the students for universities are recruited fr o m the grammar schools as a result of their attainment in the general school certificate, set incidentally by university boards and not by the state. This examination is 71 taken at three levels, the ordinary, the advanced and the scholarship. Such is the competition that only boys who pass at the scholarship level have much hope of being accepted for a university. Financially speaking, education in England is administered by a partnership between the central body, namely the ministry of education and the local education authorities which are based either on countries or boroughs of over 100,000 people. The local authorities administer the schools and colleges in their geographical area while the ministry seek to preserve a fairly even standard of education over the whole country chiefly by Her Majesty's inspectors - mild, friendly men who advise and never dictate either as to policy or method. One of them, a friend of mine, was telling me how they always· try to slip into a school in an unobtrusive manner and tr~ not to disturb the harmony of the class. He was standing at the back of the class one day when a little boy said tO his teacher, "Please, teacher, who is that man standing there and why doesn't he go to work like my father has to?" (By the way it is an unwritten law in my country that an educational official never accepts free hospitality). 72 11, ow ABOUT the university: In the first place out of a population of 50,000,000 only 85,000 students attend universities. When you compare this with a figure of 120,000 students out of your population of 20,000,000 you will realize that we don't talk quite the same language on this matter - nor indeed with America. You cannot take a degree in hairdressing or in the lugu~ rious art of becoming a mortician at a British university. We have a different conception; we. deliberately restrict our entry to the absolute cream, both from the point of view of intellect and character. But in case you should imagine that this consists of a social cream let me say that 86% of the studenfs at British universities have their tuition and residential fees paid by public funds or bursaries given by the universities. No able student is denied his right to university education and if his parents' means are small he will receive maintenance grants as well. There are some 20 universities in the U.K. Oxford, which looks down on Cambridge as a new university - after all Cambridge was not founded until 1164 fully thirty years after Oxford - together with Cambridge, have set the tone and pattern of university life in the U.K. Next, you will doubtless be -interested in the organization of PANORAMA universities. Here is another curious anomaly. Each university i<> completely autonomous alihough supported in many cases by an 80~{: grant from the government - not, mark you, - the ministry of education. Parliament appoints what is known as the university grants committee, a body which consists of members of Parliament, univer:. sity chancellors, and many great Jay figures of the country. Officials of the ministry of education are in attendance. This committee considers the bids for money put up by the various universities to conduct their affairs over the next five years. When this sum is agreed the university concerned received its money direct from tile chancellor of the exchequer and has absolute freedom over expenditure for five years. As you will see this does enable the universities to plan ahead for a reasonable period and not to suffer the indignity and cramping of initiative whkh follow ;here there is a yearly budget. The chancellor who is the equivalent of your chairman of the regents is a layman. It is an outstanding honor to receive the chancellorship of a university. Lord Alexander, Lord Tedder, James Barrie, Lord Halifax are a few examples of great men who have been chancellors of our universities. The important point is they are disinterested; JUNE 1955 they do not belong to the ministry of education; they are not narrowly pedantic with a mere scholar's outlooks. They are men of affairs capable of bringing breath of fresh air to the cloistered mustiness of academics' halls. The vice chance1lor equates with your president. He con ducts the affairs of the university with the assistance of the registrar. There is really no difference in the organization within the universities from your own. We have, as you have, our schools, faculties and departments on a subject basis. Professors are in charge of the various faculties and they have staffs of lecturers. In one respect we differ. It is assumed that all university teachers will wish to devote a fair proportion of their time to research - a further scholarship - and accordingly they do not teach nearly so many hours as your people normally do. n OW AS TO THE philosophy behind our university I think you will realize another important difference. We still cling to the belief that students should not come to a university to be trained for some special vocation - at least not in the first years of his university life. We believe in developing an all TOund individual with the mind broadened and the char73 acter trained to evaluate problems with clarity of thought. We are finding it increasingly difficult to preserve the idea of a liberal education at our universities because we are tied to the chariot wheels of world competition. To survive, we must export, to export we must lead. in the technological race. Thus intense specialization is driving n spearhead into the placid pool of our university life. · This is of course particularly true of the scientific and technological fields and the crisis in the British universities is just this thing. Can we preserve our standard of liberal education and at the same time maintain our place which I say with all modesty is well out in front in the spheres of nuclear physics, engineering and scientific development? As usual we are indulging our talent for compromise and it is now arranged that the student must spend the first year in pursuing a "studiwn generate" after which he follows his specialized studies. You will doubtless be eager to know what exactly happens to the guinea pig as he enters our university system and what methods are employe'd to bring the full impact of university upon him. We believe wholeheartedly in residential education at this level for it is in communion -with his fellows and his tutors long after lecture hours when the student truly 74 acquires a libernl culture; in his clubs, his rooms, in the theatres a:1d the concert halls. But perhaps the kernel of this whole affair is what we call the tutorial system. Every young man has his tutor who plays two main roles in the development of the young student. The tutor, firstly, organizes and supervises the student's program of lectures and probably once a month listens to an essay read by the students' program of lecture!i. This, read and dis'cussed informally over a cup of tea, cup of coffee, or glass of beer according to the hour of day, is an important contribution !owards the students' intellectual progress. It can be of course a salutary check on his or her progress. lVIy tutor once said to me: "This paper is la~entable. I suggest that you attend one or two lectures in spite of the fact that it is the cricket season." Secondly, the tutor is in loco parentis. He is your father confessor to whom you tell your intellectual, social and personal problems. Perhaps the chief PANORAMA point I would like to make here is that frnrn the outset the onus to study is placed upon the stu~1ent and he comes into an adult world where he is an equal partner with the tutorial staff in the pursuit of knowledge. The high school atmosphere is gone. 0 £"GREAT MOMENT too is th.: influence of the chapel on the student and also the dining hall in which it is obligatory to dine in the first two years at university. Here the uncouthness of the youth is rubbed away by ·civilized manners and intelligent conversation. Then, of course, there are the game fields and the river where the mens sana in corpore sa110 philosophy is worked out where hard knocks and rough handling lay the foundations of even temper and calm judgment. Most of us who have survived the rigors of school .and college in Britain find the hardships of war quite a pleasure! We have clubs and societies of every conceivable brand, too, so that each student will not only have int~rest but also develop a sense of responsibility. by organizing his particular activity. \Ve do not believe in leadership training per se. Leadership is developed, not consciously striven for. There are people who believe that you can have • JUNE -1955 • leadership after a course of seven lessons. Leadership, we maintain, should emerge as ;m incidental development to e;eneral education. There is one important development in our universities which has met with general acclaim in Europe. I refer to the Extra Mural Dep::irtment. This serves to project higher education into the towns and village by utilizing a panel of university lecturers. These lecturers conduct classes and tutorial groups in the evenings which have been an enormous success. Two purposes are served. In the first place the outside world feels the impact of the university and what is of even greater importance the university feels the impact of the outside world from the farmer, the trade unions, the butchers, the bakers, and candlestick makers. Very salutary it is for these cloistered dons. Education is indefinable unless you are satisfied by the all embracing definition that Education is life. Of one thing we are proud in England: whether or not the education we offer is any good, everyone can get it. There is equality of opportunity which is something of a step along the road to true democracy . 75 1/iis 1s the ?1ew BELL TRADE ACT By Senator JOSE P. LAUREL • (First of two parts) an agreement with the President of the United States pro1 w AS PRIVILEGED to head an viding for the acceptance of the economic mission to the provisions of the final act." United States for the purpose I wish to make some ohservaof re-examining all aspects of tions on the final act of negoour 1946 trade agreement with tiations. that country and recommending The preamble of the agreeany revision thereof to the Phil- ment, as revised, recalls the> ippine government for submis- close economic and political ties sion to the Philippine Congress. between the people of the PhilThe m1ss10n, after about ippines and the people of the three months' sojourn in Wash- United States, underscores their ington, brought back the "Final · desire to place their trade reh!f Act of Negotiations R~lative to tionship en a mutua1ly advanRevision of the 1946 Trade • tageous basis in keeping witli Agreement Between the Repub..:., their long friendship, and recoglic of the_ Philippines and the nizes the need for · strengthenU nited States of America." Tlie ing the economy of the Philipmission has submitted its re- pines to enable the young Report, together with the ''Final public to contribute more' efAct of Negotiations," to the fectively to the peace and prosPresident of · the Philippines perity of the free world. who, in turn, has sent a special 1. Article I, paragraph 2 (parnessage to Congress recom- ragraph 3, Final Corrected Agmending it "give early and fa- reement) of the proposed revorable consideration to the final vised agreement (Article I, paact and authorize the President ragraph 2 of the Trade Agreeof the Philippines to enter into ment of 1946) increases the ta76 PANORAMA riff preferences for Philippine articles entering the United States. Thus, during the years 1956, 1957 and 1958, the duty to be imposed each year will be only 5 % of the corresponding United States duties; under the Trade Agreement of 1946, it will be 15% 20% and 25%, respectively, of the corresponding United States duties. A similar pattern is followed through until 1974, when the agreement terminates. Furthermore, the tariff preferences for United States articles entering the Philippines will be decreased. For instance, during the years 1956, 1957 and 1958, the duty under the proposed revision will be 25% of the Philippine duties; under the 1946 Trade Agreement, it will be 15%, 20%, and 25%, respectively, of the Philippine duties, and similarly, for the rest of the period until 1974. Whereas under the 1946 Trade Agreement, the graduated duties to be imposed by the Philippines Rnd the United States on the products of the other were to increase at an equal rate, under 'the proposed revision the Philippine duties to be levied on United States products will be increased at a rate very much faster than the United States duties to be levied on Philippine products. In other words, under the proposed revision, the application of Philippine duties on imports from the United States will be accelerated while JUNJ;: 1955 the application of United States duties on imports from the Philippines will be decelerated. 2. Under paragraph 7 of Article I of the proposed revision (paragraph 8, Article I, of Final Act), the present 17 % special excise tax on the sale of foreign exchange is abolished and is substituted by a temporary special import tax which shall be progressively reduced so as to terminate by 1966. THE 17 /'v TAX on the sale of foreign exchange js at present imposed not only on visible items, such as imported goods, but also on invisible items, such as remittances of dividends or profits. The substitute in the form of the temporary special import tax in the proposed revision is intended to provide the Philippines with revenue to replace that which will be lost by the abolition of the exchange tax .. This special import tax will be imposed only on the visible -items. The abolition of the exchange tax will eiiminate the dual rate of exchange of the Philippine peso. The United States and the International Monetary Fund have agreed to the imposition of the 17 % exchange tax as a temporary measure to be discontinued as soon as the financial position of the Philippines would allow. The Philippines is permitted to levy a special import tax in addition 77 to the ordinary customs duties, up to a level necessary to restore its customs revenue in any calendar year to the amount collected from the exchange tax on United States goods in 1955. This special import tax can be imposed by the Philippines up to December 31, 1965. During this ten-year period, it is expected that Philippine financial position will have improve~ markedly as a result, among others, of the benefits to be derived from the proposed revised trada agreement so as to render the imposition of the special import tax unnecessary after 1965. As far as the protection af- - forded infant industries of the Philippines by the existing exchange tax of 17~'c is concerned, that is much less than the protection which will be afforded by the accelerated increase in the ordinary customs duties which are to be levied on United States goods, not to mention the protection to be afforded by the additional temporary special import tax. 3. Paragraph I of Article II of the Trade Agreement of 1946 is amended by deleting rice, and removing cigars, scrap tobacco, coconut oil and buttons of pearl or -shell from the application of- the absolute quota provisions. Instead of the absolute quotas on the last four items of Philippine export, tariff quotas are established. Under the 1946 agreement, the Philip78 pines cannot export to the United States any amount in excess of the absolute quotas. As revised, the Philippines will be allowed to export any amount., t.o the United States in excess of the duty-free quotas provided it pays the corresponding full United States duties. The quotas on cigars, scrap tobacco, coconut oil and pearl buttons under the proposed re.vision will be diminished more gradually than the 5 '.; annual reduction provided in the Trade Agreement of 1946. For instance, during the calendar year 1958, the percentage reduction on the quotas of the aforementioned products will be 20~ ~ under the Trade Agreement of 1946, whereas under the proposed revision, such percentage will be only 5 1 1 ;. Under the present agreement, that percentage reduction will be 35 '.; in the calendar year 1961, 50% in 1954, 65',; in 1967, 80~~~ in 1970, and 95~{ in 1973, whereas under the proposed revision, the percentage reductions for the same periods, would be 10 ~:~ , 20~-;-, 40~;, 60~~ and 80%, respectively. This represents a substantial gain for the four major Philippine exports to the United States because of the deceleration of the application of the percentage reductions in the proposed revision. (To be concluded) PANORAMA P aao'tama flui.i 01~e mark of an educated man iS the poss~ssion ot a reasonablf fund of general information. The highly specialized individual, oftt-n dubbed Hn "expert," fn:~quently knows little or nothing- out· side his own line. Try yout·self on the following questions, then turn to the next page for the correct answers. 1. According to tests made by scientists, the American duck hawk, a speckled falcon, is the swiftest bird in flight. It can fly: A. 180 miles pet' hour; B. 30 miles per hour; C. 60 miles per hour; D. 100 miles per hour. 2. You don't have to be a meteorologist to know that a cloud is made of: A. smoke; B. dust and other impurities; C. vapor; D. heat waves. 3. One of these coifntries does not have a language of its own. Which one? A. Switzerland; . B. Korea; C. Finland; D. Belgium. 4. Romeo would have sworn to Juliet by its twelve moons, instead of the (earth's) moon, had he lived in: A Saturn; /J.· Jupiter; C. Mars; D. Neptune. 5. Of all animals except man, the one considered the smartest is the: A. elephant; B. dog; C. chimpanzee; D. horse. 6. The Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court is: -6· Ricardo Paras; B. Manuel Moran: C. Sabino Padilla; D. Felix Bautista. 7. You should have no difficulty in identifying the famous line "the moving finger writes, and having writ moves on" as belonging to A. Keats; B. FitzGerald; <; Tennyson; D. Milton. 8. The peacock is of col'.tt'!re a male, and the female is called: A. gander; B. she-peacock; C. peahen; D. tern. 9. Nicolo Paganini is generally considered as the greatest musician who ever played the: A. violin; B. piano; ~· cello; D. harp. 10. Silver is were you find it-and it abounds most in the country which is the greatest producer of this metal: A. Peru; B. Canada; C. Russia; D. Mexico. - JUNE 1955 79 ARE YOU WORD WISE? ANSWERS 1. ( b) having a saltish flavor 2. (a) a noisy, vehement speech 3. (b) omen or prediction 4. (c) a musical or theatrical performance in the daytime 5. (a) act of clipping the hair (1 ( d) evaporating rapidly 7. ( c) sheltered side 8. (a) road or way without outlet 9. (d) a male turkey 10. (b) milky liquid preparation 11. (c) to explode with great noise 12. (a) to make less severe 13. ( c) playfully teasing language 14. (a) to advise against 15. (c) a letter 16. (b) in line with 17. (a) a fight 18. (a) offensive odor 19. ( c) to restrain or check 20. (a) poison * • ANSWERS TO PANORAMA QUIZ 1. A. 180 miles per hour 2. C. vapor 3. A. Switzerland 4. B. Jupiter 5. C. chimpanzee 6. A. Ricardo Paras 7. B. FitzGerald (Edward, 1809· 83; British poet who translated<: Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, here quoted) 8. C. peahen 9. A. violin ( Paganj.ni, an Italian, lived 1 'Z_84-1840) 10. D. Mexico * A TTEN fl ON: HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS 80 The PANORAMA will give a prize of PlO for the best and PS for the next best essay on any problem of national or international significance. The best essay will be published in this magazine. The essays, which should not be less than 300 words, should not exceed 500 words. Entries must be typewritten, double-spaced on 8 x 11 bond paper and must be accom· panied by a statement from the principal that the contestant is enrolled in the 1chool he is . representing. The decision of· the editors will be final. PANORAMA In the Beginning. . . GROUNDLING ( spectatcr of crude or uncultivated . taste) Shakespeare ( 1564-1616) is generally credited with having popularized this word, which meant originally a spectator in the pit of an Elizabthan theater; thus, one of the low or uneducated masses. ("Split the !!ars of the groundli:ng .. !'-Ham· 'lilt) jtJNE 1955 GOVERNMENT (a system of political rule) From the Latin gubernaculum, mean· ing a "rudder'' and gubernare, meaning "to steer or direct,.. comes this term. Government therefore is the rudder which steers the ship of statP X •RAY (an extremely short-wave penetrating radiation) Translated from the German :1-strahlen, the term indica~es that the na ture bf the rays was unknown. Wifliam Roentgen ( 1845-1923), Gerrr.a1 physicist, discovered X-rays. bl Philippine Panorama-\JII PARANAQUE: Salt for> a City' f Wounds By Teresita Kamantigue 0 N YOUR way to Cavite, Batangas or other points south on the National Road, do not bother looking for Paraiiaque. Geographically, you are bound to pass through the town proper (the term "poblacion" is no longer in use),, as well as five of its six bar:.. dos. On second thought, look anyway. Or you may pass right through Parafiaque. The whole of the town is a series of blocks strung tautly along the National Road between Pasay City and Las Piiias in Rizal: Baclaran-Tambo-Dongalo (for Ibayo, turn left)-La ijuerta-San Dionisio. At one end, the strain is beginning to show. Baclaran, and Tambo to a c@rtain extent, seem inclined to sever from the string. They have grown :::>way, " boom due t ·J a ?! e)/}.!.::sd~:..::~ .. ·q.:..;v2 .. ·~;, a1 t airp:)r·t: !_ ; .. __ , - :· · 1:-:. ~--; ~·!S f~1.!' l-.'·tJ_~; ~·J~· ('~ i:,;\·t,:: -'~! 82 , ... aO - • cigarettes. Foreigners and cityr people with an eye on a Blice of beach have come in droves to settle down in a country club (Los Tamaraos) turned subdivision. It may be a healthy growth but these i. i·n.c.~---~-- r.~.:1r~·ic~ ; <~~,-- 2 r...o d?fir1ite ·~ '·"' ·~c:e.': :,.; \ 1 c ·c T1-: 2v ha\·e PANORAMA do, they will probably take on the aspects of .lVIanilan suburbia. And this is not Paraiiaque. The best thing to do is go <h:nvn at Dongalo. Not on the ma.in road: i( will simply take you, in a quarter of an hour, through a Calle Real of tile and Chinese-owned lumber offices, embroidery shops, two moviehouses (one of them closed temporarily), the funera~a-ad agency-studio run by the town handyman, and homes with their front windows closed. You v.·ill end up at three beach res·1rts which are just bits of l\".:anila, transplanted. Take the side streets. Here, where the houses gossip precariously with each other, begins the town of fierce loyalties, strong opinion and a marked accent. The last is most noticeable md is expressive of the first two. The tone starts high, dips an aggressive fraction before the end oI a phrase, and goes back to its former level. At best, it is softly petulant b~ it can he blatanly nagging. Children carry it over into their English. It varies from the Batangas manner which starts low and rushes into a headlong ascent, but it is as aistinct and as conducive to parody. and oyster-gatherers. It would be a reproach to them if they were otherwise. (Centuries ago, a Spaniard in a carriage came tu this place of earth and sea, liked what be saw and told t~ driver: Para agui, stop here.) But further inland, there is still the farmer, and, in almost every house, women plant their flowers in linen and batiste, with needle and thread and skill However, when the bintol for catching crabs and the palay sack5 are laid down, there is not much difference. The· people have been in the sun and they show it. They are lithe from walking on the quartered fields, ap.d the shifting floor of the sea has made them sure of their footing. From looking over midday fields and through the phosphorescent water for the elusive kitang, they have received a squint; from the salt-rakes, their strong grip. They admire strength. Workclothes and tapis of old women are dyed in darnpol from the bark of trees. Thef come out stiff and reddish-brown to wear out the years. They are elemental; sometimes, painfully so. When they take you in, you do not stop at the porch. They give you lock and key. But that is, ij tli.ev ta 1.:e you in. Otherwise, .•. _..:.~C. 83 you may say they are ~en ::;i tive. In a way, this ~ubJec tiveness is not a turning to self alone. Chide one and you ins'.lit his barrio. Ask about a man and they tell you where. he lives, before anything els_e. This is probably why bart10 divisions realiy divide. B ET\VEEN Dongalo and Ibayo a feud erupts every so often. A point against Ibavo is its isolation. It is, f.cr a~ practical purposes, an. isla~_d (one end connects with N ~ chol's Field but the road i~ hardly passable) . Its one c?nnection with the town bemg a ,vooden bridge, Ibayo makes it a point of honor to silence references to the bridge's destructivity. (It may be simply 3 coincidence but a popular take-off on a song about the lonely Lousiana bayous starts with: "B<tbagsak and tulay ng Ibayo ... ") In La Huerta, you have the "aristocracy." (You will have to take their word for it: It's not a barrio -why, it's the town itself!) The church, school and municipio are here, in the centralized Spanish tradition. The church has not changed much except for paint and bigger windows. The same statues of patron saints - on ledge, not in niches; life-size and wooden-look out into into space. On Christmas, nt 84 the Consecration, the gigantic paper star, silvered, sways down from the choir-loft to the altar. The belfry has its bats, its sunsets and its secrecy. A few thick-walled houses remain. The elders still think of the Peninsula; they point out Manuel Bernabe who went with his verses to the Spanish court. But their children like a smattering of Tagalog and English and they only know the poet as a likeable sa.bimgero with an eye. for the ladies. ("In the morning, he is with the gallos; in the evening, with the gallinas.'') Religious sects have sprung up but Catholics still out number all of them put together. At the last Redemptorist m~ sion, the people were responsive. Men reassuringly apprn:1ched the Communion rail. The Church could be firmer, PANORAMA though, say the Belgian priests ho walk as far as three kilometers into farmland to say Ma~s. T HE PEOPLE are voluble but they like to say much in a few words. They may "Say: "Yes, what can we do for you?" and you get the feeling that it is at the same time: "We know you're here and we are watching.'' · Again, unexpectedly: "Is .your house painted?" You will not then ask why· their :fit:>uses are left to fade from the first fresh brown, allowed to look one with the dust on the roads. If you want color, wait for the moro-moro plays that come every year to San Dionisio. Wait for the sunduan in May. Your eyes will be so pleased, they might even wish * • to stay shut tlw rest of the year. The other months are short on caprice. You walk where the road is a mixture of chaff and sand. Here the malnngay trees shut off the buses and the people in the buses who are in a hurry. Near the outlet to Manila Bay, the salamboas relax their great nets to let the fish swim in. A little old brown and white woman, sitting on top of a table, works on a fishnet with an enormous bamboo needle. In the houses, by i.be open doors, there is low laughtc·;· among the women and their embroidery-hoops. The night fishers rest; they seem to be arguing; the salt piles rise. The pattern is of earth and flesh and blood. It is big and very strong . "' CHARGE IT TO EXPERIENCE Alexandet Ven Humboldt, the scifjntist, Johnnes von Mueller, the great historian, and Johann Fichte, the renowned phi!osopher, all occupied for a time residences in a block of houses owned by a wealthy distiller. ·This landlord referred to the galaxy of famous tenant. as his "Zoo of Scholars" and frequently would take his friend11 on a round of the block pointing out the house in which eech lived. - "There lives von Humbd!P.t," he once said to a friend. "He iii a rutt:ural scientist a~ nMllist. He pays his rent on time. Over yonder livl!1! von ¥ueP'er. He is a historian and understands the rise and fall, of empires. So he pays his rent late, but pays it. But in that house, over near the comer, lives that fellow Fichte who is a philosopher. His true dwelling place, he holds, is in 11he uqiverse amt since one doesn't pay rent in the ~osmos, he sees no need ·'to pay me. JUNE 1955 85 'Jun-(J'Ufl,Ht,4. , , • , , , by Etmq: Ma! A man from the soap company to see you. 36 PANORAMA In two weeks, 48 pages! 7HE LITTLE kingdom of Afghanistan, b e t w e e n !ran, Pakistan and the Soviet Union in Asia, is perhaps the only country in the world that has no Christian churches or Christian nationals. Yet recently they welcomed two Protestant clergymen, Dr. Frank Laubach and Dr. J. Christy Wilson, who were visiting the little-known land to help launch a literacy campaign. The first day when · forty Afghan soldiers were brought to Dr. Laubach as pupils, they were frightened and sullen. Since the time of Alexander the Great, the men of Afghanistan have been renowned for their courage as fighters, not for their abiliily as students. Moreover, these were village draftees now meeting in a large classro'om in the new library building of the Ministry of Education in Kabul, the capital. Because not one of the young JUNE 1955 recruits could read a single letter, much less a word, probably they thought they had been summoned to display their ignorance. With their shaved heads and rough homespun uniforms, the soldiers sat impatiently on the floor. Then Dr. Laubach began to teach from his charts in the Persian language. Every letter was illustrated with a picture which taught the letter in a simple word which the illiterate men all knew. After an hour the soldiers had learned nine letters and could read a number of sentences in a simple story. The observing officers and teachers were so amazed that they suspected a trick. They themselves began to test the soldiers, only to discover that the recruits had a right to smile: they had begun to learn to read! In two weeks each man could read Dr. Laubach's 48-page book. 87 ?HE MINISTER of Education, His Excellency Abdul Majid, himself educated at the Universitv of California and at Corne"il, had invited Laubach and Wilson although no missionaries had ever been allowed to enter the country before. Their job however was to spread not the gospel but literacy. They had entered Afghanistan from the fabled city of the northwest frontier, Pesha.wr.r, in Pakistan. A Chevrolet station wagon, provided by the Afghans, had taken them through Khyber Pass to the capital- a distance of only 200 miles; nevertheless, they had stayed overnight at a government rest-house en route. For their project, they were given an office in a corner i·oom of the ornate tomb of the grandfather of the present king. The location, however, did not upset them inasmuch as it happened to be within the compound of the Ministry of Education. A staff of fine artists and caligraphers were at their disposal, and above all Maulana Yaqub Hasan, the English teacher of many government officials. Although a Mm:lem priest, he entertained these Christian visitors with goodhumored stories and proved to be an ardent sports fan as well. He seemed to have memorized every punch ever landed by Joe Louis. 88 Dr. Laubach is known as a man of deep devotional life yet when he began his campaign for literacy,' he became a driving executive, · brooking no change or l.nterference. In one month he managed to have his charts accepted, established the first books in Persian and Pushtu (officials language of Afghanistan), and started on a second series of books, All this, despite predictions that in the Orient any plan took at least a year to mature! AFGHANISTAN is the seventy-third country in which Dr. Laubach has worked out his method, and Pushtu is the 209th language he has handled. Kabul has a population of some 200,000; so that much would be accomplished even if only this one city would continue to practice the elementary language guides given the country. PANORAMA le campaign was launched with illiterate draftees, in hope of making the army efficient and intelligent. ugh them, as their militarvice takes them to widespread villages throughout the frontiers, it is hoped that the use of reading and writing will spread. Dr. Laubach's "each one teach one" method is already famous. As ib effect is already noticeable, the Ministry of Education has planned to send more and more books to the provinces, to keep raising the vocabulary of the newly literate to more then a thousand words. Meanwhile the word charts are even hung on walls in the city streets so that the average man may teach himself as he walks. (Cm:nIT: The article on Fi'l,;-rl':-; no\·els h"· ,S"ick Joaquin, p. I. i~ reprinted from 1hl' VJiiUvnin1_-~ (}1tarterl_I/ I. ,·-.·,. approved * by the Director of the Bureau of Public Schools for secondary school libraries as a student's and teacher's reference (March 5, 1955) * by the Director of Private Schools as a general reading material for secondary schools (March 21, 1955) * by Mister Reading Public PANORAMA Magazine of Good Reading DON'T MISS A COPY - SUBSCRIBE NOW The New Bell Trade Act By Senator JOSE P. LAUREL Advice to Graduates By Prudencio Langcauon Book Review * Fiction Features