W H A T
M A K E S
L I V E S
by Porter Sargent
How personalities are shaped or misshaped
by our constantly changing environment, by persons
of the past and of the present, seen and unseen,
by misleading propaganda and teaching, resulting
in maladjustment, hate, waste, and war.
Divinities that shape our ends may be malevolent.
Reprinted from the 24th edition of
A HANDBOOK OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS
P O R T E R
S A R G E N T
11 Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts
1 9 4 0
Go to table of contents, index, or technical notes.
Foreword to the digital
reissue
WHERE, you may ask, did this unsung
title turn up? One place is 1000 Americans (Boni & Gaer,
1947), wherein George Seldes exposes "the real rulers of the USA." He
quotes three pages. One cites the September 1939 issue of
Harper's (Charles A. Beard wrote the lead essay, Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels). The journal's
treatment of international topics drew censure from its banker
directors: a switch in editorial motif followed.
Another page recounts the shutdown of crusading journalists known as
muckrakers. They had incited reforms of such ills as tainted food,
impure drugs, graft, monopoly, land fraud, child labor, etc.
Seldes echoes Sargent on the rise of one plutocrat, Thomas W.
Lamont, to perhaps the country's most commanding height: senior
partner of the House of Morgan. The authors relate how Lamont imposed
his ideas and values on education and communication media.
Porter (Edward) Sargent (1872-1951)--A. M. Harvard 1897--managed
grammar schools, taught biology, researched in comparative neurology.
In 1914 he began to compile and publish a survey, A Handbook of
Private Schools. US entry into World War 1 left him skeptical
of what governments say about foreign affairs; he awoke to the new
modes of propaganda. His Handbook did well and he used
its introduction to share his views, his misgivings, his concerns for
the nation. The preface to the 1940 issue comprised What Makes
Lives.
My quest for a reprint had lasted 18 months when, in February 1998,
eureka! A query of the New York Public Library catalog showed
they have it on microfilm. (Five years earlier NYPL had sent its
crumbling printed copy to be photographed, part of the Brittle Books
Program -- preservation backed by the US National Endowment for the
Humanities.) A quarter-hour's browse confirmed the character of the
book. The quality of the 35 millimeter film, though, was not adequate
for scanning and optical character recognition. A student working
part-time that summer transcribed the volume -- from photocopies of
two-page spreads to computer text files.
This hypertext version keeps the pagination of the source. Although
page numbers seldom appear, they enable an index -- new with this
digital reissue. This version omits six pages of the original table of
contents (they refer to lists of schools) and six pages of text on the
history of the Handbook, changes to edition 24, user's
guide, and testimonials.
Many thanks!
THREE PEOPLE helped with
ideas and support: Norman
Dafoe, systems programmer, a friend since 1972; Daniel Brandt, who does
research in the public interest; and Floyd Rudmin, educator and
author.
Please email any corrections or suggestions to the editor.
Foreword and hypertext markup copyright
© 2000, 2003 Dale Wharton