Fossils and Marco Polo These broadcasts have begun their "autumn
term" once more. They seem to me to be thoroughly humane, and only occasionally a little too humble. I don't find much interest in books written especially for the young, which are sometimes reviewed and annotated in For the Schools. When I was young I never read them, but cut my teeth on Macaulay, a strengthening chew. But the pro- grammes are full of fact, and in a few days I have found out more than I knew before about fossils, silkworms, and (under Miss Jenifer Wayne's most skilful direction) the Law. Not to mention Marco Polo.
The best of these For the Schools programmes is that, while they simplify, they do not seem to talk down. The young, we can be sure, prefer it that way. As for us middle-aged listeners (eaves- droppers, as it were), we can attend to these broadcasts without any loss of dignity, without any feeling that we might be caught playing with trains on the nursery floor. I dare say that it is faintly ignoble for us to take our natural history or our economics in so easily pre-digested a form ; and the urge for miscellaneous informa- tion is doubtless no very intellectual affair. If I want to know about Marco Polo, why don't I buy a book ? Why, in fact, have I never studied fossils for myself ? I plead human weakness. I also stress the excellent lucidity of For the Schools.
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