Page Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE Wednesday, January 15, 1958 Page Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE Wednesday, January 1 5, 1958 Homage to Louis Bredvold: '4 By THORNTON H. PARSONS IT'S HARD to know now which of us first called attention to the mystic appropriateness of the first five letters on the office door of L I BREdvold in Haven Hall. Books for liberation and balance. His esteem for books was expressed overtly in unabashed seminar ser- mons against the graduates' casual habit of stealing or marking vol- umes from the library, and cov- ertly in the affectionate, caress- ing way he held books in his hands or lined them up on the desk be- fore beginning his lecture. If a graduate student hadn't perceived Louis Bredvold's re- sponsible and orderly use of books as guides to spiritual freedom, to right thinking and living, he might, in attending Austin War- ren's courses, hear "my eminent colleague Louis Bredvold" extolled as a model for philosophical depth of interest and unity in scholarly and critical writing; for Brevold is related to the 'Germans' only in his Scandinavian ancestry. As a scholar, he has emulated Swift's bee and has come from his investi- gations with greater sweetness and light to shed upon the literature, the history, and the philosophy of the period, and with a surer hold upon his own convictions. When I heard hit refer to my friend Ed Heinig as "a good John- sonian," I imagined there was no higher praise possible from him. The philosophical stance of en- lightened conservatism, which he learned from his masters of ear- lier centuries, has protected him from the aberrations of the 20th century. It must have been a pain- ful moment for a 1930's campus Marxist, orating on the library steps, when Louis Bredvold's socratic voice was raised to chal- lenge a glib sophistry. And who would not weep for the brilliant visiting physicist who received Bredvold's congratulations upon a speech on nuclear fission, and then received his question, "What is Man?" "A fortuitous concourse of atoms," came the unguarded reply. "So was your speech," ON DECEMBER 8, 1941, he met the professor of International Law on campus and inquired what his subject matter was now that war had been declared and treaties were automatically void. Without waiting for an answer, he continued triumphantly, "You have no subject matter. You never should have given up the Great Law of Nature." Bredvold has an impressive Johnsonian free'dom from cant. One day a rather vain and arro- gant student interrupted his lec- ture with the objection that the judgment Bredvold had been making about a writer was invalid because nobody could say exactly, what words mean. Bredvold calm- ly heard the 'philosopher' out, then asserted the claim for - hu- man knowledge and wisdom. "The semanticists have talked them- selves into the position of being unable to say anything. .We can say things precisely enough. We don't have to stop making judg- ments because somebody discovers that we cannot be absolutely pre- cise in our definitions or that words are not scientifically per- fect conveyors of meaning. We are still able to say things." BREDVOLD'S assurance about his own values has not caused him to lose empathy with 'here- tics,' though. I have heard him deplore the almost universal poli- tical liberalism of the teaching fellows who, in instructing fresh- men, snip at the fabric that cov- ers our "naked, shivering hu- manity," but these young teach- ers and learners could get no more patience and understanding than from Bredvold. In a Ph.D. seminar one afternoon I watched him teach with equanimity basic points of composition to a 'pro- fessing' teacher of freshmen who had just read a bad essay of his own to the class. No stauncher foe of modernity has come for- ward since Irving Babbitt. "Whose view of man prevails in your time?" he asks his students. "Johnson's and Swift's, or Rous- seau's?" But the modernists who have found themselves in 'his classes, immature undergraduates or progressive teachers getting the M.A. for economic reasons, have been treated with gentleness and tact. He has fulfilled Babbitt's dictum that a man must be rigor- ous in getting human standards to live by, but flexible in applying them. In his own books and in his teaching he has steadily pursued philosophical and stylistic values. "Generally," he used to say, "we have a moral tone of medium to low. Reading Swift increases it, invigorates us morally as a brisk ten-mile walk in zero weather in- vigorates us physically." This de- scription aptly suggests one side of the Bredvoldian effect, too., His greatness, though, consists in the masterful integration of mor- alist and storyteller - witty, deli- cately ironic, urbane. As he coun- seled seminar writers to concen- trate more on soundness than on novelty, he would launch upon an analysis of the difference in subtlety between the American and French scholars in their at- tacks upon essays delivered at meetings of learned societies. Americans plunge in immediately and bludgeon the author; where- as the French, even when impelled to destroy, begin with a conces- sion to civility. "In the essay we have just heard there is much that is new and much that is true. Unfortunately, the things 'S ti ::: ~ .-. v, t 1 1 1 1 1 A i r 1 1 1 1 1 l l that are true are not new, and great man's preference for Rich- the things that are new are not ardson? Of course, Bredvold al- true." ways exonerated himself and fel- low Johnsonians from the charge NEVER hear of Charles II or of exaggerating Johnson's power Edmund Waller now without and wisdom. When Sidney Roberts recalling Bredvold's story about came to the University to read a them. Charles chided Waller for paper, Bredvold introduced him as writing better poetry when cele- a Johnsonian and then explained, brating Cromwell than when cele,- "A Johnsonian does not claim that brating a newly restored king. Johnson was always right. He With brilliant agility, Waller an- merely claims that Johnson was swered, "My Lord, we poets al- never wrong." Johnson himself ways succeed better: with fiction would have been pleased, I think, than with truth." Naturally, Bred- with Bredvold's insistence that lit- vold has treasured the choicest erature must be ultimately moral, stories about Johnson. He was and that this judgment has to be talking about puns one day and made, and takes precedence, fi- made a parenthesis to tell us of nally, over the aesthetic judgment. the time some of Johnson's rois- So Johnson did not err in prin- tering friends decided to go by ciple. "Johnson did not under- his house and wake him up. They stand the comic spirit," Bredvold stood in the darkness outside his very gently interceded. "If he and bedroom window yelling and I ever meet as shades, I will ex- throwing pebbles until Johnson plain it to him, and I think I can raised the window and cried, get the old fellow to understand." "What would you have with me?" HE MIGHT gin by repeating Somebody began,"They say you for Johnson the hilarious can make a pun on any subject, is that true?" reading of Meredith which he gave "It is." as his contribution to the series "Make a pun on the king." of readings by members of the "The king is no subject," said English Department at the Uni- Johnson, slamming the window. versity. He described this as his Bredvold's sensitiveness to the "recreative" reading. The Bred- comic spirit saves him from the voldian sense of appropriateness rigidity of some moralists. I re- is never asleep. For the Hensy member how I waited for the day Russell Lecture last spring he gave- when he would discuss Johnson's us the best of Bredvold'the Schol- strictures against Fielding, for ar, carefully distilled by many Bredvold always staunchly as- years of study and reflection; but serted that "The four giants of he has resources of humor and the 18th century are Swift, John- charm to call upon when the oc- son, Fielding, and Burke." How casion demands, and these re- could a Johnsonian explain the (Continued on Next Page I I We Offer You The Key To Proper, Practical Formal Wear i ALL -WOOL TUXEDOS 100% All-Wool Worsted, made especially for us. Natural shoulder plain front pants, shawl collar. Styled correctly and priced to save you m oney ......... ... .................................. . -... . 49.50 Cummerbund sets ..... 4.50-10.00 , SPECIAL Tuxedo shirts . .......... 5.95 COMBINATION OFFER Stud sets ... .... cuf .i.. 4.50 Complete formal outfit, consisting of including cuff lnks suit, cummerbund set, tie, shirt, stud Tux Hose ................ 1.50 set, hose and suspenders only 60.00 Redwood & Ross 1268 South University ... Campus Theatre Building.. .Phone: NO 5-6375 'I -1 Books We got a million of 'em! Try our six-dip malt or shake... 30c Half gallons ice cream ..79c Our own make! Genuine U.S. postal cards Going at cost! No Doz and No Nods - Instant Coffee GO BLUE - LUMBARD'S UNIVERSITY DRUG 1225 South University Phone NOrmandy 2-0743 Ann Arbor,Michigan r i ji