Which Way America?: Communism, Fascism, Democracy (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Which Way America?: Communism, Fascism, Demo...)
Excerpt from Which Way America?: Communism, Fascism, Democracy
We do not pretend, these days, that the American combination of Democracy and capitalism has worked perfectly. But this is our way of doing things, and be fore we change we will look around. While the battle of propaganda goes ou, in the newspapers, on the street corners, by radio, and in talking with our friends, we can take time to think. What are these other ways they want us to take over? For instance, what is Communism?
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(Excerpt from Smoky Roses
The mogul rides the east wind, ...)
Excerpt from Smoky Roses
The mogul rides the east wind, Cleaving the dust and heat, Speeding from dawn to twilight With thunder and lightning feet.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Lyman Lloyd Bryson was an American educator, radio broadcaster, and author. He is known for his work in educational radio and television programs for CBS from the 1930s through the 1950s.
Background
Lyman Lloyd Bryson was born on July 12, 1888 in Valentine, Nebraska, the son of George E. Bryson, a druggist, and Nancy Melissa Hayes. His childhood was spent in a sparsely settled cattle-raising region. According to his own estimate, the "simple egalitarian democracy" of the frontier and his mother's "very deep implicit faith in the power of beautiful words to coerce the social good" were the most significant influences in his early life.
Education
After completing high school in Omaha, Bryson entered the University of Michigan, where he wrote poetry, talked "great ideas, " and read "in forty directions at once. " After receiving the B. A. in 1910, he spent three years as a reporter for the Omaha Daily Bee (1910), the Omaha Daily News (1911), and the Detroit Evening News (1912 - 13).
In 1913 he returned to the University of Michigan to study for the M. A. , which he received in 1915.
Career
After receiving his M. A. from the University of Michigan, Bryson worked as an instructor, and then assistant professor, of rhetoric and journalism there from 1913 to 1917. During this period he also studied law; published a volume of poetry, Smoky Roses (1916); contributed verse to Forum, Survey, and New Republic; and had a one-act play, "The Grasshopper, " produced by the Arts and Crafts Theater of Detroit in 1917.
Except for the ten years (1918 - 28) when he traveled throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia doing administrative, organizational, and publicity work for the children's programs sponsored by the Red Cross, Bryson's subsequent career was devoted entirely to education in the broad, instrumental sense in which he used the term.
In 1928 Bryson became associate director of the San Diego Museum of Anthropology (he was made director in 1929) and professor of anthropology at San Diego State Teachers College.
From 1929 to 1932 he was executive director of the California Association for Adult Education, and in 1931 and 1932 he also directed the University of California summer school in adult education. He left California to serve as the forum leader of the Des Moines adult education project (1932 - 34) and then went on to Teachers College, Columbia University, where he served initially as visiting professor (1934 - 35) and subsequently as professor of education (1935 - 53).
Adult education, or the effort to make experience deliberately rather than accidentally educative "as a means of enriching and strengthening the lives of all men and women, " had become Bryson's abiding vocation. In effect, his mature career consisted of efforts to harness the communications media to the educational needs of a democratic society.
During the mid-1930's, Bryson established a "readability laboratory" at Teachers College to determine how serious works on political, economic, and social questions could be made lucid, comprehensible, and appealing to a mass audience, and then to produce material that met these requirements. In 1938 he was appointed chairman of the adult education board of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).
Four years later he became director of education for CBS and, after World War II, counselor on public affairs.
He was moderator of a number of radio and television discussion programs, notably "The People's Platform, " an informal analysis of current events; "Invitation to Learning, " a review of the classics; "Time for Reason, " a commentary on the background of current problems, including those of radio; and "Lamp Unto My Feet, " a discussion of religious and ethical questions. Bryson also served as a lecturer and discussion leader of forums ranging from those sponsored by the New York Town Hall to the Jewish Theological Seminary Institute for Religious and Social Studies and Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion.
He wrote for both popular and scholarly journals--Survey Graphic, House Beautiful, Saturday Review of Literature, Political Science Quarterly, and Business Week--and his monographs were addressed to a wide range of audiences. The fundamentals of his philosophy, however, remained constant.
Subsequently he wrote a number of articles and The Drive Toward Reason (1954), a series of lectures on the function of adult education in a democratic society.
Lyman Bryson became a teacher by "a series of accidents, " although his mother's belief that her son's "small lyric gift" would enable him to "get political power and do good" clearly affected his view of the teacher's function as midway between that of a poet and a statesman.
During World War II, Bryson was chief of the Bureau of Special Operations for the Office of War Information and thereafter became increasingly a social philosopher of scientific humanism. He sought to use "intelligence and experience" to create "conditions of freedom" beneficial both to the individual and to the social good.
In The Next America: Prophecy and Faith (1952) Bryson stated that "the present battle for democracy, for the chance to develop as persons by the experience of choice and consequence, is between individuals and collectives, " a view that placed him squarely in opposition to intellectuals who saw an alliance of government, labor unions, and schools as an antidote to the evils of a competitive, capitalist society.
Quotations:
"I suppose I could properly be called a humanist; at any rate, that name has often been applied to me by friendly critics, and I would be most sympathetic with “naturalistic humanism. ” However, I would be inclined to assimilate this with classical humanism, although the writings of some of the men cannot be taken to express my point of view. It seems to me quite wrong to suppose that classical humanism must be as anti-democratic as are the ideas of men like Babbitt and T. S. Eliot. "
Established a middle position in adult education: “Even though we can establish this distinction between teaching and leading, we must allow that many workers in the field play both roles, not at once, but in relation to different students, or at different times, in different activities. ”
“The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for experience, while the error of age is to believe experience is a substitute for intelligence. ”
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"Building a national culture in which there are to be, ultimately, no artificial barriers between any man and his own best self" was both the means and the end to which Bryson believed "the next America" should devote itself.
Connections
On October 4, 1912, he married Hope Mersereau, an artist; they had one son. His wife died in 1944, and on May 11, 1945, he married Katherine McGrattan.