In "Old Age," an essay that he wrote in 1870, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 67, lamented that "America is a country of young men, and too full of work hitherto for leisure and tranquillity."
Emerson thought that Americans ignored the "particular benefits" of age, especially the value of experience. For youth, he said, "every object glitters and attracts," and life is apt to be "a heap of beginnings" with little result. The elderly are different: "Age...
In "Old Age," an essay that he wrote in 1870, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 67, lamented that "America is a country of young men, and too full of work hitherto for leisure and tranquillity."
Emerson thought that Americans ignored the "particular benefits" of age, especially the value of experience. For youth, he said, "every object glitters and attracts," and life is apt to be "a heap of beginnings" with little result. The elderly are different: "Age...
"There is a fullness of time when men should go, and not oc- cupy too long the ground to which others have a right to ad- vance."
So wrote Thomas Jefferson after he had finished his second term at the White House and returned to Monticello, his Vir- ginia estate. At 68, the third president had put public life far be- hind him. He was now engaged in other interests-science, architecture, even the study of Greek and (with "great avidity") of mathematics.
As usual, Jefferson...
by W. Andrew Achenbaurn
Last April, more than 3,000 members of the National Coun-
cil on the Aging gathered in Washington to discuss "1984 and
Beyond: Options for an Aging Society." They heard prideful ac-
counts of the strides made in improving the elderly's quality of
life-but also some worries that options for further advances
were narrowing. "One fact stands unchallenged," observed Sen-
ator John Heinz (R.-Penn.), who chairs the Senate Special Com-
mittee on Aging....
many of the world's great re- ligions." The Old Testament authors rewarded men of virtue with long lives. The New Testament promises followers of Christ a hereafter: "He that believeth on me," said the Lord, according to Saint John, "hath ever- lasting life."
In the Eastern philosophy-religions, the path to eternal life may be rather less exalted. Chinese Tao- ists, for instance, aim to reach hsien (immortality) through an austere diet, various unusual sexual prac- tices...
p~~blic
ageizcies and private instit~ttions
I I
ispanics: Challenges an Opportunities."
Ford Foundation, Office of Reports, 320 East 43rd St., New York, N.Y. 10017.
66 PP.
Author: William A. Diaz
America's large and growing Hispanic
population is perhaps its most diverse
"minority group."
The nation's 14.6 million Hispanics (their number as of 1980) are black, brown, and white. Only one-third are foreign-born. Sixty percent of all His- panics in the 50 states are Mexi...
In June 1932, a discouraged month and year in the history of the United States, John Roderigo DOS Passos sat down in his Province- town, Massachusetts, house at the end of Commercial Street to write a new preface to his antiwar novel of 1921, Three Soldiers, published when he was 25.
Three Soldiers was being reissued by the Modern Library, a reprint series so inclusively "modern" in its taste that Petronius's Satyricon was in it along with Ernest Renan's Life of Jesus and John Reed's...
In 194 1, as the undeclared war in the Hitler has often protested that his plans Atlantic escalated, President Roose- for conquest do not extend across the At- velt grew increasingly bold in his lantic Ocean. I have in my possession a campaign to undercut his isolation- secret map, made in Germany by Hitler's
ist foes in Congress. In a nationally government-by planners of the new
world order. . . . It is a map of South broadcast address delivered at the America and a part of Central America...
PERIODICALS
Reviews of articles from periodicals and specialized journals here and abroad
POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
11
RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY
30
FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE
15
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PRESS...
Paul C. 1-ight, in The Ã?â?¡rooking Review (Summer 1984), Brookings Insti-
Vice President? tution, 1775 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
"Hardly worth a pitcher of warm spit " was U.S. Vice President (1933-41) John Nance Garner's estimation of his job. Were Garner around today, he would probably take a kindlier view, suggests Light, a National Academy of Public Administration researcher. During the last 10 years, the Vice Presidency has become an office...