The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 3 No. 2

Authors

Robert W. Sellen
Florence J. Goodman
Arlene Bates Kirk
Clinton Keeler
David D. Anderson
Walter I. Trattner
James C. Waugh
David W. Noble
Robert W. Schneider
Miriam M. Heffernan
Alberta Turner

Contents

Articles

On Providing a Liberal Education

Sherwood Anderson After 20 Years

Progressivism on the International Scene: William Allen White and World War I

Two Novelists and Progressivism

I. William Dean Howells: The Discovery of Society

II. Novelist to a Generation: The American Winston Churchill

III. Critical Comment

New-Old from Nebraska

Verse

Of Our Times

• Discontinuous-Continuum
• Poets and Saints
• Soledad
• Vita Nuova

When the Wind

Winter Swallow

Abstract

in this issue. . .

THE GRATIFYING RECEPTION our more discerning readers gave the first two articles in our October number ( "Alternative to Futility" and "The Case of Harold Rugg") encouraged the editors to select another discussion of the problems of higher education in America for inclusion in this issue. An increasingly broad variety of manuscripts coming our way has made possible the selection of four other articles within the general area of twentieth century American life and letters, with particular emphasis on letters. From the tidal wave of verse contributions which threatened for a time to inundate us altogether, we have selected the work of five poets, three of whom are particularly concerned with the present dilemmas of a world of space-flight and super-bombs. On the whole, the editors think that they have assembled an ambitious and valuable collection of articles and poetry for this first issue of the new year.

WHAT CONSTITUTES a liberal education has been the subject of discussion for · something over two thousand years, but obviously the subject never seems to lose interest, particularly among academic people. ROBERT W. SELLEN comes by his interest. in the subject quite naturally: he grew up in the family of an academic dean, which was, he admits, "a liberal education in itself." Now associate professor of history at Baker University, Baldwin, Kansas, he is a graduate of Washburn University, Topeka, and earned the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in history at the University of Chicago. He has been on the Baker faculty since 1958 and has published articles on diplomatic history and on the writing and teaching of history in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. He is a regular book reviewer for the Kansas City Star and (in military history) The Journal of Modern History. Recently he was elected vice-president of: the Kansas Conference of the American Association of University Professors.

OUR FIVE POETS whose work appears in this issue come from as many states scattered from Massachusetts to California. Florence Jeanne Goodman has been teaching English at Pierce College, Woodland Hills, California, for four years, is married to a consulting engineer, and has a son in Harvard and a daughter at Beverly Hills High. Born in Detroit, she received her A. B. from Wayne University and her A. M. from U. C. L. A. Her poems have been published by many magazines and newspapers and read aloud at public auditoriums and on the radio; a small volume, Devil's Paintbrush and Other Poems, appeared in 1952. ARLENE BATES KIRK, a Parsons, Kansas, housewife and mother of three (two girls and a boy), is a former high school English teacher, whose ''Soledad" is the first of her poems to appear in a national journal. Her aim is "to communicate through poetry in beauty and in truth." Some of her earlier work has appeared in the Kansas City Star. CLINTON KEELER is a native Sooner who recently returned to teach English at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, after earning his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota and teaching several years in New York. His work has appeared in The American Quarterly, Modern Language Notes, The Western Humanities Review, and other periodicals. He spent some three and a half years in the United States Navy during World War II; a view of the ruins of Nagasaki is one of the experiences behind his poem, "Vita Nuova," in this issue. ALBERTA TURNER is a native New Yorker whose husband is associate professor of English at Oberlin College in Ohio where she is a part-time lecturer in English. Mrs. Turner's degrees include: A. B., Hunter College; A. M., Wellesley College, and Ph.D., Ohio State University. She is the mother of two, a girl and a boy, and her poems have been published or will shortly appear in The Atlantic, Antioch Review, Canadian Forum, Harper's, Western Humanities Review, Prairie Schooner, and others. JAMES C. WAUGH is "either a teacher-coach or a coach-teacher at Groton School" in Massachusetts, who is currently enjoying a sabbatical year at the University of California. His poems have appeared in various literary outposts such as The Colorado Quarterly, The New Mexico Quarterly, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Epoch, and Targets, and others are scheduled to appear soon in Mutiny, Chelsea, and The Humanist.

BECAUSE he is "trying to spark a Sherwood Anderson revival and reappraisal," we are happy to publish an article by DAVID D. ANDERSON (no kin), a member of the Department of American Thought and Language at Michigan State University. Professor Anderson's critical biography of Sherwood Anderson won the Michigan State University College Book Manuscript Award of $1,000 last fall, and he hopes it will be published soon. An earlier article by Professor Anderson analyzing critical attitudes toward Herman Melville's work and thought appeared in THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY one year ago.

A HARDY PERENNIAL in midwestern life and letters is William Allen White of the Emporia Gazette. Although the centennial celebration of Kansas statehood is officially over, interest in the Progressive editor continues, and at any given moment in any academic year literally thousands of college students can be found reading his Autobiography or analyzing some phase of his thought and action. WALTER I. TRATTNER is a doctoral candidate in American history at the University of Wisconsin who was born and brought up in New York City and took his A. B. with honors in history at Williams College in 1958 and the A. M. in teaching from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1959. At Wisconsin he is working under the direction of Professor Merle Curti, outstanding authority and scholar in the field of American intellectual history. Mr. Trattner earned a Master of Science degree in history at Wisconsin in 1961; his thesis was a study of the Progressive Movement and the First World War. Currently, he is assisting Professor Curti in his course on American thought and culture. His article here published explores a relatively unknown aspect of William Allen White's life and writing.

LAST APRIL at the annual meeting of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association in Detroit, one session jointly sponsored by the American Studies Association featured two papers dealing with the subject "The Novelists and Progressivism." DAVID W. NOBLE, associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota, discussed William Dean Howells, and ROBERT W. SCHNEIDER, then instructor in history at Wooster College, Ohio, discussed the all-but- forgotten American novelist, Winston Churchill. Following usual academic procedure, MIRIAM M. HEFFERNAN, associate professor of English at Brooklyn College, gave the formal comment on the two papers. In the audience was the editor-in-chief of this journal who immediately tried to solicit both the papers and the comment for publication. All three participants in the session were most co-operative, with the result that their work appears in this issue under the inclusive head, "Two Novelists and Progressivism." Professor Noble, a native of Princeton, New Jersey, received his A. B. in history from Princeton in 1948 and his Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin in 1952. His major field of interest is American intellectual and cultural life; his area of specialization is the period 1880-1920. Besides numerous essays appearing in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, The American Quarterly and The Western Political Science Quarterly, he has published a book, The Paradox of Progressive Thought (University of Minnesota Press, 1958). He is presently writing a book on the relationship of American historical writing and liberal philosophy in the twentieth century.

PROFESSOR SCHNEIDER is a Buckeye by birth with the A. B. from Wooster in 1955, the A. M. from Western Reserve University in 1956, and the Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1959. After two years as instructor of history at Wooster, he moved last fall to Northern Illinois University as assistant professor of history. Like Professor Noble, his area of specialization is American intellectual history with particular reference to twentieth century developments. He has published articles on such Progressive novelists as Stephen Crane and Frank Norris, and he recently completed the manuscript of a book entitled "Man and the Progressive Novelists." Professor Heffernan is an alumna of Brooklyn College who received her Master of Arts degree from Columbia and her Ph.D. from New York University. Executive director of the Walt Whitman Foundation of Brooklyn, secretary-treasurer of the American Studies Association of Metropolitan New York, and a contributor to The American Quarterly, she yearns for some "idle times', to finish a critical study of Vachel Lindsay in which she is currently engaged.

Recommended Citation

Sellen, Robert W.; Goodman, Florence J.; Kirk, Arlene Bates; Keeler, Clinton; Anderson, David D.; Trattner, Walter I.; Waugh, James C.; Noble, David W.; Schneider, Robert W.; Heffernan, Miriam M.; and Turner, Alberta (1962) "The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 3 No. 2," The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought: Vol. 3: Iss. 2, Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/mwq/vol3/iss2/1