A True HumanistAuthor(s): Isaiah BowmanSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 56, No. 2 (Feb., 1943), p. 104Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/17782 .

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104 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

to diagnose deficiencies especially in their early stages when therapy is most valu- able. In the last number of "The Mil- bank Memorial Fund Quarterly" H. D. Kruse summarizes the various manifes- tations of nicotinic acid and vitamin C deficiencies. More summaries of this kind are needed.

It is the goal of nutrition workers to prevent the development of nutritional disorders. This can only be accom- plished by a thorough knowledge of the distribution of the known vitamins in natural foods. The availability of the pure vitamins as standards has given great impetus to extended assays. Work of this kind is slow and tedious, but it is gratifying to find that the industries supplying meat, cereals, milk, fruits and vegetables are giving considerable sup- port to these projects.

Lastly the synthetic vitamins may be used for the fortification of certain foods in order to relieve the wide-spread incidelnce of a specific vitamin deficienicy in restricted areas of this country. This is now possible because of the low cost of some of the vitamins such as thiamine

and niacin. It is futile to compare the cost of one vitamin when supplied in the form of a natural food and when sup- plied in synthetic form because the natu- ral food usually carries an appreciable amount of all the nutrients, not only most of the vitamins, but such compari- sons do indicate why it is possible to fortify foods under emergency condi- tions. For example, 10 mg of nicotinic acid may cost 700 times as much when purchased in the form of high-priced foods as it does when purchased as the pure chemical. In spite of these facts natural foods have been and will con- tinue to be the main source of the vita- min in our diet, but enrichment pro- grams will play their role in buffering sudden changes in the availability of natural foods.

When historians look back on the dec- ade 1930-1940 it will be considered a period when greatest progress was made oln the chemistry of vitamins. Let us hope that the decade 1940-1950 will be considered the period when the most sensible application of the available knowledge is made.

A TRUE HUMANIST WE profoundly hope and earnestly strive for

a future in which a balanced education may be again possible. What all must see is that such a balance will not be determined by us alone. Our neighbors everywhere oln the planet force us to take them into account. Their traditions, their ideas, their possession and probable use of power are among the permanently inescapable forces of life. We can neither wrap ourselves up in the past, and disclaim responsibility for conveyillg useful truth about the outside world to the coming generation nor neglect the past in our hurry to find solutions for political and social problems too complex to be resolved by simple schemes devised by the philosophers.

From the temple itself comes the assertion that the true humanist is one who is a servant of his times, using his knowledge as "a weapon and an arm not merely a liberal art." Preoc-

cupation with "life and time and eternity" need not exclude consideration of the plainer needs of the hour with their high content of the practical, the scientific and the political. Even in our so-called material civilization science and humanism need never be in conflict among cul- tivated men. I have no fear whatever that our 'eculture'' will be destroyed by a scientifically implemented war, however prolonged, if we are the victors. My only fear is that the lessons of this war will be lost in the fatigues of a post- war world in which men may again try to find security in provincial simplicities, assumptions and slogans, educational and otherwise. Edu- cation must be as intense, imaginative and ex- perimental as the problems of the future are complex and difficult.-Isaiah Bowman in the Report of the President, 1941-1942, of the Johns Hopkins University.

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