The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 1 No. 3

Authors

David G. Barry
Jerome Cushman
Stuart Levine
Reed Schmickle
Clay P. Malick
Charles E. Guardia
Midwest Quarterly Editors

Contents

Prose

The Mosaic Heritage of Charles Darwin

Night-Thoughts of a Librarian

Poe's Julius Rodman: Judaism, Plagiarism, and the Wild West

Art and the Modern Mind

The Supreme Court as a Moral Force

Poems - Charles E. Guardia

Points of View

Vacillation

Ariel: For Adonais

Peculation

Cicerone

Homily

Mercator's Projection

Ace Atque Vale

Platonic Year

Abstract

in this issue...

THIS NUMBER of THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY moves our horizons out beyond any previous measure. While our first two issues have contained solid material on a variety of subjects from a diversity of minds, the basic criticism of them has been that the Social Science area was somewhat overrepresented. Even a casual check of our contents will bear out this charge. Therefore, it is with considerable satisfaction and even relief that the editors offer this issue-with only one contribution from the Social Sciences. The scope of subject matter is broader in this issue than it has ever been before. We confidently expect to maintain these proportions in the future.

SINCE 1959 WAS THE CENTENNIAL of the publication of Charles Darwin's monumental Origin of Species, it rather embarrassed the editors of this journal that we had contributed nothing to the world-wide celebrations in observance of this landmark in the advance of natural science. Accordingly, when it was announced that DAVID G. BARRY, new chairman of the Department of Biology at Kansas State College, would discuss the intellectual and scientific backgrounds of Darwin at the January meeting of the College chapter of the American Association of University Professors, practically the entire editorial board turned out to hear him in the hope that a suitable article might be developed. Our most sanguine hopes were realized. Indeed, Professor Barry's discussion was so complete as to provide us with two contributions. The lead article in this issue is only the first half of his paper; the second section will appear in our July issue. While Charles Darwin needs little introduction, our new colleague does, beyond this campus. An Iowan by birth and upbringing, David Barry has drawn his education from more than half a dozen colleges and universities in as many states. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from Iowa State Teachers College, but between matriculation and graduation he attended Bard College of Columbia, Washington Square College of New York University, and Biarritz American University in France during and immediately after World War II, in which he served with the 101st Airborne Division, Glider Infantry. From the State University of Iowa at Iowa City, he received the Master of Science degree in 1948 and the Doctor of Philosophy in 1952. After teaching biology at Wisconsin State College in Eau Claire Iowa State Teachers and Mankato State College in Minnesota, he was National Science Foundation science faculty fellow at Harvard University last year. He holds memberships in many scientific societies, including Sigma Xi and the Wilderness Society of America, and was president of the Mankato chapter of the American Association of University Professors in 1957-58. His experiences and interests are at least as broad as his formal education. His basic interest is in the history of biology, but this has led him into anthropology, geology, paleontology, genetics, taxonomy, mountain-climbing, and color photography. He has climbed over the Grand Tetons, made himself intimate with the ecology of the American midwest, and recorded on film and tape the sights and sounds of nature to a truly amazing degree. The editors are proud to take this opportunity to make his work more widely known.

WHILE CHARLES DARWIN can be found in almost any library, JEROME CUSHMAN is unique to only one, the Salina Public Library on the banks of the Smoky Hill River a few miles west of its confluence with the Saline. Mr. Cushman has been librarian there since 1946 but his activities have not been confined to that central Kansas community: he has been president of both the Kansas Library Association and the Mountain-Plains Library Association, and has served on several committees of the American Library Association. He is the author of articles appearing in The Library Journal, The Wilson Library Bulletin, The American Library Association Bulletin, and Library Trends. Recently he wrote an article on American public libraries for the Encyclopedia of Librarianship published m England. Among his interests are the theater and music he directs plays for the Curtain Callers, Salina's little theater; he writes puppet scripts for his Library Puppeteers who produce a puppet season from November through March annually, and he devotes a great deal of time to story-telling. He is even, he confesses, a frustrated author and "is convinced that despite two refusals some perceptive publisher will bring out his juvenile." His community interests are reflected in his work with the Salina Guidance Center, the Community Chest, and other civic groups. Every Sunday night he handles a "good" music program on KSAL and once every three weeks does radio book reviews. In addition to writing music and drama criticism he somehow finds time for work in the library and occasional reading. The second article in this issue is the product of his long experience demonstrating what a library can be in and do for a community.

FOR ITS FIRST VENTURE into poetry THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY turns gratefully to poet CHARLES E. GUARDIA, associate professor of literature here. A partially reconstructed Southerner (he was born in Natchitoches, Louisiana), Professor Guardia describes his four in U.S. Naval Intelligence as service in the late war. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Louisiana State University and a second master's degree and the doctorate from Harvard. After a year of editorial work in a New York publishing firm and five years on the faculty of Tulane University, Professor Guardia came to Kansas State College of Pittsburg in the fall of 1954. A specialist in Restoration drama and a neo-classicist by taste and training, he makes an exception of the Romantic poet John Keats, whom he honors in one of his poems.

ANOTHER AMERICAN POET of an earlier time is, like Charles Guardia, rarely thought of as a writer of western stories. Usually when the name of Edgar Allen Poe comes up, the almost automatic response is "Quoth the raven, nevermore!" or one remembers The Fall of the House of Usher, The Goldbug, or the tintinnabulation of the bells, bells, bells. Currently Poe seems to be enjoying a sort of renaissance in American literary circles; revived interest in him even runs to television productions of some of his better-known tales. It therefore seems rather appropriate that THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY should have an article on the Richmond poet, particularly since this article deals with Poe's only adventure into the West, his incomplete Journal of Julius Rodman.

STUART LEVINE who sent us the Poe article, has been a member of the University of Kansas faculty for two years, teaching English and American Civilization courses. Presently editor of the Central Mississippi Valley American Studies Association Journal, he has his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard, magna cum laude, and the masters and Ph. D. from Brown. He worked his way through graduate school playing French horn in the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and as a radio commentator on classical music, and he is past president of the Pierian Sodality of 1808, the nation's oldest orchestra. He has a book on Edgar Allen Poe in the publisher's hands.

ALMOST EVERYONE has some opinion on art, especially modern art, and because of the nearly perennial controversy raging around it, the editors are pleased to present a discussion of it by a modem artist. REED W. SCHMICKLE, assistant professor in the Industrial Education and Art Department of Kansas State College, works with great competence and verve in oil, water color, and concrete. A product of Missouri, he did his undergraduate work at Southwest Missouri State College in Springfield and earned the Master of Arts degree in art at the University of Missouri. He has exhibited his oils and water colors in numerous juried shows about the country and has served as juror in many others. In addition to his creative work he teaches art history, design, painting, and several sections of the Fine Arts courses in the College general education program. He studied architectural sculpture with Bernard Frazier, working with him as project assistant. This particular experience yielded rich dividends for this college: the striking thirty-two foot concrete sculpture on the south side of the Industrial Education and Arts building came from the hand and mind of Professor Schmickle. Last February he spoke before the Faculty Seminar on the Liberal Arts on art and the modern mind, a subject which, by a great coincidence, happens to be precisely what the editors of THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY invited him to write on for them and it.

FOR MOST AMERICANS, the Supreme Court is easily as interesting as modem art, equally controversial, and has a more direct impact on their lives. The last article in this issue is a liberal analysis of some Supreme Court decisions made in the last thirty years. The analyst is CLAY P. MALICK, professor of political science at the University of Colorado, who prepared this discussion as the second Great Issues Lecture in the 1959-60 series sponsored by the Department of Social Science here. A member of the Colorado faculty for nearly a quarter of a century, Professor Malick has taught constitutional law, political theory and other related subjects. He has written a book, Labor Policy Under Democracy, as well as many articles on law, the Supreme Court, and labor politics. In addition, he is a member of the advisory board of The Colorado Quarterly. From 1942 to 1945 Professor Malick served as referee for the NonFerrous Metals Commission and chairman of a committee for collective bargaining of the War Labor Board. His degrees include the Bachelor of Arts from Duke University, Master of Arts from Columbia University, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard.

Recommended Citation

Barry, David G.; Cushman, Jerome; Levine, Stuart; Schmickle, Reed; Malick, Clay P.; Guardia, Charles E.; and Midwest Quarterly Editors (1960) "The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 1 No. 3," The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought: Vol. 1: Iss. 3, Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/mwq/vol1/iss3/1