PA010nov THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1923
FICE, by Hugh Lofting. Frederlek ltabaga when the snoox and gringo fix
A.Stokes Company. ($2.}9) it uo so that an air car runs over an
When Carl Sandburg swrote Chicago air bridge where the steel one has
Poems, years ago, he started some- been washed away on the Shampoo
thing. Some liked it and some River. Some of 'em, too, live in Iowa,
didn't, and those who didn't set up a Nebraska, Montana, and Walla Walla,
jprodigious yell. Here was something Washington, but they try to act like
AN OLD BOOK IN A point. Perhaps some readers will be new and devilish under the sun, a ( the folks in te Village of Cream
hacked by the titl --Telling e common-ordinary guy whose physical Puffs, just as the people in Yellow
NEW FORM Truth, God and Gold, Catastrophe food was tough rolls and coffee try- Grass, Saskatchewan, and Opelousas,
THE 'NEW TESTAMENT, AN AMERI and Morals, Marriage and DivorceI, ng to put the same food across in Louisiana, try to act and dress like
IAN TIANSLATION, by Ed ar J.Poll-tax and Patriotism. Such a the spiritual world of poetry. He tie people ill New Vork and Paris.
ICdN ed.NS Iivesy Edga r J" had no imagination, no delicacy, no The difference is that those who Sand-
Goodspeed. (Un ersity of Chicago reader should stop with the titles; if art; le wouldn't knsw poetry if le burg -rites about iake good, whit.
Press, $3.00).|he goes fsrther he I apt to discover saw it, and anyhow, he'd never seen those of Yellow Grass do only if the
THE TIIOQAS JEFFERSON BIBLE, that the man who has been set tup aso any. Ie didn't even have humor, or crops are good in the years when
Edited by Henry Jackson. (Boni & ,the founder and leader of a very orth- imagination, or anything else that a crops fail every year. y '
Liveright,'$2.50). odox ibatch of religions was one of met nieded. He cooldn' eon be
To those who are accustomed to the most heterodox prophets that ever whimsical. i
read the daily papers, it may seem lived. If the teachings of Jesus were w sof course, if you want to be crit-
that I am hopelessly behind time in pt into actual practice, or even made tal, there are a good many boners
reviewing the Goodspeed translation swidely known, Christianity would die Maybe these cert'cisms did it affe t iliese stories,-but the boners all
of the New Testament, hailed far and of starratio. Imagine the smug gen- Sandhurg, and maybe they did An epend on your way of being critical.
wide as the "Goodspeed Bible". ' As a tle'en who put up the cash for on how, a year ago he published Rotaa-Some folks say the big trouble is that
matter of fact. the book was officially 'imothy Stone's weekly show tolerat- ga Stories, and gave the critics anoth- the book is only 218 pages long; some
published only a week ago today, ing the ideas of a man who had the er jolt. This prosaic, unpoetic rough others say it's 218 pages too much,
though its newspaper release took!affrontery to say, "The kingdom of neckc they'd been damning so tihor- with the coer thrown in. I don't
place weeks ago. And since I do not eGod is within you"! How quickly they oughly sudden became more decate, Iagree with either of them, yet there
read our two-penny daily contribu- would "view with alarm" the wild more imaginative, more whimsic'l al, some things about it I don't like.
lions to human ignorance, I cannot be bolshevism of the Sermon on the than the best of them. Be took slang One place and another Sandbrg for-
reproached for slowness. As a matter Mount! Providing, of course, it were and made it into music; he grabbed a I gets himself and springs a sentence
of fact. I feet quite virtuously prompt put into plain English, and disen- bunch of every-day words and wove; or two that comes straight out of
tangled froni its surroundings. them into tunes that children dance 'Grimm's Fairy Tales, and they don't
Nearly everyone, whether le be- Thomas Jefferson had no such to when round-ellied gnomes play quite hitch. And when he talks about
lieve; i ithe ilebrew ible fully. witli qualms, and for that reason he coi- their fiddles and jews-harps. Ile taultk the Sooners and the Boomers, and the
reservat ions, or not at all, is quite piled his Morals. But he did have i ed foolishness and made it sound like foolish way they fought each other
willing to admit that we have long smiticient consideration for expedience the wisdom of Aesop; he picked out when they needed to be friends, he's
been in need of a translation f tle to keep the compilatioli strictly to the solemnities of the world and set la little too obvious, and sounds al-
whole of it into the language of limsself. This very nearly resulted in ! them out s every kid could snicker. most as though he was trying to
twentieth-century Americans. It is its loss as Ir. Jackson tells in the lie told of people that nobody ever preach. And to preach that way about
but logical, therefore, that such a h ist chapter of his general discus- saw, people that were part fairies and fighting wars doesn't do any good;
translation should be attempted. andxi sion of the document. Other chap- part bone-head huasmads te out of people read the stuff and say, "Yes,
that it be attempted first for the New tirs deal with the later history of the the desires, the wishes, and the link- that's all right, it's silly to fight and
Testament. In the first place. we of imamniscripts, with Jefferson's inotives ings of men. He looked serious, with knock things to piecas, but then free-
Ioday are more interested in that ser- in preparing it, and its significance asi a grin as broad as his face; lie spoke dsm nmust be preserved, -the world
ies of documents than we are in thea luindication of his attitude toward foolish, and kicked the props fromi must be made safe- for democracy, we
older section of the Bible. ,In the sec- religion. All in all, the Jefferson se- under the respectabilities of ages imust have our place jn the sun, and
ond, it is appropriate from the very lections, with Mr. Jackson's cont- And even his dryest sentences made you've got to lick the other guy first
nature of them that these gospels ments, form a significant book, that poetry. or he'll lick you. So after all, the
should beput into ordinary language. will occupy a place of honor on my Now we have more doing from Root- only way to keep from fighting is to
Mark, Luke and John did not write in shelves above that accorded the larg- abaga Land, under the title Rooaba- ike war." And there you are.
scholastic Greek comparable to the er wsrk from which the Morals were a ga Pigeons. We meet sose of the
schotAstic English of the King James taken. , same people, like Blixie Blimber, and Dr. Dolittle's Postoffice, like Roota-
translation; they wrote as common 'Potato Face Blind tlan; and some oth- baga Pigeons, is sort of a sequel,
ten would ,write, plainly and with I _ _ _ er folks--Bozo the Button Buster, though it is the third instead of the
osore attention to substance than to FOR KIDS OF ALL Googer and Gaggler the Two Christ- second. In it we meet the same crew
form and polish. To put the gospels n mas Babies, Iot Balloons, Hatrack that Hugh Lofting already has made
into any other style is to pt them In AGES the Horse, and the Three Wild Baby- fampus-Dr. Dolittle, the Pushmi-
a false light, as well as to make them lonian Baboons that Went Away in pullyu, Dab-Dab the duck, the dog, the
food for those who are more desirous ROOTABAGA PIGEONS, by Carl the Rain Eating Bread and Butter. pig, the owl, and the white mouse.
of fine words than of fine thoughts. Sandburg. Harcourt, Brace & Co. 'Most of them live in Rootabaga Land, At the request of the pushmi-pullyn
There is many a good Christian who (3.00) ibut some of them hang out in neigh- Dr. Dolittle makes a voyage to Africa,
can repeat the words of Paul without DOCTOt DOLITTIlE'S POST OF. 'boring countries and commute to Roo-i (Continued on Page Five)
an inkfing of his meaning.
For honest Christiana, thereforea
well as for the minority of us who
conceive ourselves honest even though
we subscribe to no faith, Dr. Good- nuId ee a ~td
It i wrtte anI piuiosl An dea and Your future is the most interest-
speed's book comes as sonuethling long an
desired. It is written and printed as ing and vital one in the world and
are the books we are accustomed to i
read; its words an phrases are those a Suggestion it is altogether fitting that you
There is no socus-pocus no Eddyssme
of parroted phrases abot it. Whit should consider it seriously at this
could be iore straightforward than
this; or Two time of Vour life.
"I tell you, any mail who does not
enter into the sheepfold by the door.
but helfibs over at some other place,
isathead rbb. uthmn If N'ou live to be forty the stand-
is a Cief ands a robber. But the miiit
who enters by the door is the shep-
herd of the flock. . . . When he ards by w hich your success will be
gets his own flock all out, he goes In
front of them, and the sheep followtmeasured will in a large degree
him, because they know his voice.'
But they will never follow a strang-
er, . . , because they do not know be measured by the size of your
the voices of strangers.
.. I tell you, I am the door' bank account.
of the sheepfold. All who have come
before me are thieves and robberc,
but the sheep would not obey them.
I am the door."egin now to take steps to insure
In this language I can understand
and even admire Joshua, called Jesus its success. Save a little from
of Nazareth.
However, 'much as I welcome the whatever income you have. The
Goodpeed version of the Nesv Teta-
eettpos snosuchatractn habit will grow easier as time goes
as does the Thomas Jefferson Bible.'
Perhaps this is because I a more' Onand you and yours will De able
than a little lazy, and the 481 pages of
Goodspeed tire me while the 247 to be independent when you are
(there are 86 extra than do not count)
In Mr. Jackson's edition of Jeffersonforty.
do not. Also, there is much in Good-
speed which reason, the German crit-
ics, and Professor Shirley Jackson
Case tell me has no demonstrable con-
nection with the actual statements *
and opinions of Jesus. All this is.
absent in The Jefferson Bible, tTo
which Jefferson himself gave the
name The Morals of Jesus. In it, too, UNIVERSITY AVENUE BRANCH
passages are arranged with definite
relation to one another; they are easy
to find, short, and very much to the