Essay: "French and English Spoken." Theodore Pratt.

One-minute review: The author has everything bad happen to him when he tries to learn and use French, from failing French I in college three times to embarrassing misunderstandings when he tries to use his French while living in France. However, he did not have to try to learn to master French in France because all the French were trying to learn English with the result that their English was spoken so badly that the result was miscommunication.

American Essays. Ed. Charles B. Shaw. A Pelican Mentor Book. New York: The New American Library. 1948.

Essay: "Seed Corn and Mistletoe." Bernard De Voto

One-minute review: An essay on the American Christmas—symbolized by a lighted cabin in the dark in the snow surrounded by a forest and looking west. “Cerebrals” can criticize America’s Christmas all they want—its commercialism, etc.—but an American Christmas is uniquely an American Christmas, remembered by adults as children and passed on to their children. And an American Christmas is preceded by an American Thanksgiving with its pumpkins and shocked corn in a way that only Americans gather corn in shocks. The roots of America may lie in Europe, but the symbol of America is maize and Europe had no maize. America is America and all that it symbolizes, including maize, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

American Essays. Ed. Charles B. Shaw. A Pelican Mentor Book. New York: The New American Library. 1948.

Essay: "Three Kinds of Collectors." Christopher Morley.

One-minute review: Book collecting—memories of books the author found, and reflections on the effect they had on him. “I am tracing the spiritual genealogy of certain books that have meant much to me.” Three of the authors whose books he had loved were Walt Whitman, George Gissing (The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft) and Joseph Conrad (Mirror of the Sea).

An interesting exercise would be to think and write about the books readers have read—how they found them, when they read them, where they read them and reflections on how they affected them.

American Essays. Ed. Charles B. Shaw. A Pelican Mentor Book. New York: The New American Library. 1948.

Essay: "Dying for Dear Old...." Heywood Broun.

One-minute review: A criticism of the excessive emotion accompanying college football. Concludes with the following sentences: “He was never invited to come to Cambridge to assist in the coaching of any future Harvard eleven. His heresy was profound. He had practically intimated that being defeated was less than tragic.”

American Essays. Ed. Charles B. Shaw. A Pelican Mentor Book. New York: The New American Library. 1948.

Essay: "The Older Generation." Randolph Bourne.

Essay: “The Older Generation.” Randolph Bourne.

One-minute review: The older generation is complacent, stagnant and self-satisfied. It has locked out, not led, the younger generation with its idealistic youth. The older generation’s philosophy of life imprisons the older generation. “The shuddering fear that we in turn may become weary, complacent, evasive, should be the best preventive of that stagnation. We shall never have done looking for the miracle, that it shall be given to us to lighten, cheer and purify our ‘younger generation,’ even as our older has depressed and disintegrated us.”

American Essays. Ed. Charles B. Shaw. A Pelican Mentor Book. New York: The New American Library. 1948.

Essay: "The Rediscovery of Jones." Simeon Strunsky

One-minute review: The Jones family is us. Disregarded in the books by sociologists in the1920’s, the Jones family disappeared in the statistics of the census. But in the next decade of the 1930’s, the Joneses will become of interest, because the Jones family is like you and me and all the rest of us Americans.

American Essays. Ed. Charles B. Shaw. A Pelican Mentor Book. New York: The New American Library. 1948.

Essay: "On the Difference Between Wit and Humor." Charles S. Brooks

One-minute review: “Wit is a lean creature with sharp inquiring nose whereas humor has a kindly eye….” ………. “…wit fades whereas humor lasts.” ………. “But is there anything more melancholy than the wit of another generation?” ………. “Sydney Smith was the most celebrated wit of his day, but he is dull reading now. Blackwood’s [Magazine] at its first issue was a witty daring sheet, but for us the pages are stagnant.” ………. “Where are the wits of yesteryear?” ………. “Yet the humor of Falstaff and Lamb and Fielding remains and is a reminder to us that humor, to be real, must be founded on humanity….”

American Essays. Ed. Charles B. Shaw. A Pelican Mentor Book. New York: The New American Library. 1948.