Public Address Reviewed (A Speech):  “A Life Without Books” [“Books are the Great Preservatives.”], delivered by Dr. Monroe E. Deutsch, Vice President and Provost, University of California, Berkeley, California.  Delivered on Book Day at Mills College, California, December 1, 1943

Publication Source:  Vital Speeches of the Day, January 15, 1944, Vol. 10 Issue 7, pp. 220-223.

Subject:  Relationships Formed with Books and with the Reading of Books

(Check with your local educational institution or local public library on how to get a copy of the speech through their research databases; or use your access privileges from your local educational institution or local library to their research databases to find the speech.)

Background Information:  Dr. Monroe E. Deutsch lived from 1879-1955.  He was a Professor of Classics and held administrative positions at the University of California, Berkley.  During World War II, in his role as an administrator, he opposed the forced internment by the United States government of several hundred Japanese students from the University of California, Berkeley because of their Japanese ancestry.[i]  He worked in their defense and managed to have the interned students released and accepted at colleges and universities across the United States to continue their education.  In his speech he will note that books help in understanding other nations, cultures, and races, thus breaking down prejudice and misunderstanding by learning how others live and think.

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Introduction

Monroe Deutsch’s speech was given on December 1, 1943 at Mill College, California, in honor of Book Day at the College.

Deutsch states it is conceivable that life can be lived without books, but such a fate is not beneficial to the individual, to society, or to the world

Deutsch notes, though, that the reading books can be misused as to time spent in reading, and in the choice of materials read.  This is reading done of ephemeral books, to reading done of books that are vile and destructive.  For the later, he cites Adolph Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, and Hitler’s “baleful aims” of promulgating hate and pursuing extreme German nationalism, all controverting international cooperation and peace causing World War II, leading to death and destruction.[ii]

There is an obligation to realize the relationships formed with books and with the reading of books.  Deutsch in speaking about this takes a far ranging approach covering ancient to present history.  This is keeping with his basic theme that books preserve and communicate thought, history, and culture through time and space. Allied to this theme is that reading books can be used for the betterment or for the diminishment of one’s self, a nation, or the world.  His speech is well worth reading for how he puts together and presents his many ideas and thoughts.

I will break down the relationships formed with books and reading that Deutsch presents in his speech as follows:

• Books As Literature
• Books As an Everyday Force
• Books Inform People about World History and about Other Cultures and Races
• Books are not a Substitute for Living and Choosing Books to Read
• Speech’s Closing on the Power of Books and Making the Choice to Read Books

Books as Literature

Dr. Monroe Deutsch states that reading the good books written over time offers “…one of the greatest opportunities that life presents.”[iii]  In good books, Deutsch says, “…men and women have left the best of themselves for posterity.  Time has with merciless hand chosen that worth preserving and cast the rest aside.  For example, we may assume that by and large the best works of the Greeks and Romans have come down to us.”[iv]  Ultimately time is the greatest critic and prevails over contemporary best sellers lists.  Deutsch states:  “You can be sure that when you read Plato, Virgil, Shakespeare, or Goethe, you are reading something great-something worth reading.  They form the legion of honor of all ages.  And if you accustom yourself to reading great books, you will soon find yourself ill at ease in the company of the tawdry and ephemeral.”[v]

Duetsch develops throughout his speech the theme that books preserve and communicate thought through time and across space.  This function of books effects the reading of the great books as follows:

“Moreover, the reading of great works constitutes a bridge across time and across lands and oceans.  It reveals the oneness of human beings, whether they lived in Athens four hundred years before Christ or on China twenty-four centuries ago or in our own land in that age of giants that formed our infant nation-or, so on the other hand, whether they live today in India, in Czecho-Slovakia, or in Russia.  Despite more or less superficial differences, you will find how essentially alike we are-how the world outlook of these great men and women have meaning for us.”[vi]

And Deutsch finds that the reading the good books of the past “…should, in short, be active, not passive; it should furnish nourishment for living-above all, a philosophy for times of tribulation and suffering”[vii]

Books as an Every Day Force

Deutsch after speaking of books as literature states books have countless every day uses and influences.  What is primary in the daily use of books is their function in education.  In education there are textbooks for learning; reference books that students consult to learn from, and that teachers consult to stay abreast of their discipline; the lecturer needs books to make his, or her lecture; and the published books of research findings by scientists and social scientists.  Education would be impossible without books.

And then for everyday living, books are needed for artists to discuss the nature of art, historians to write histories and biographies, novelists to write novels, and poets to write poetry.  And, there is much more produced in the way books such as manuals and guidebooks.

This leads Deutsch to fully articulate his important theme about books:  that they preserve and communicate thought, history, and culture through time and space, and what would happen if there were not books to do this:

All [books] have one common feature-they preserve.  They keep for the use of other years, perhaps centuries, the happy phrasing of a poem or a speech, the recollection of a life; or they gather what the past has told us, modify or correct it, but pass it on.

In short books are the great preservatives.  Not only the thoughts men have had and cast in imperishable words, but the deeds and lives of those of other ages and lands-these things we call books hand on to us.  Books are imperative for education in society.  Education could not take place without books.  We have said that education would be drastically changed if there were no books.  Would that not also expand to all life?  Scientists would not be able to capitalize on the discoveries of other scientists in the past; history would tend toward folklore handed down; knowledge of other countries would decline and make them remote. In truth, isolationism in time and space would occur.”[viii]

Books Inform People about World History and about Other Cultures and Races

Books communicate and transmit thoughts across the expanse of time and space.  They can be shared by many people simultaneously and, given this, are of importance to every person:  “Books are indeed important to mankind as a whole.  Through them alone does humanity retain contact with its past; through them alone does humanity touch hands with its fellows in sundered lands”[ix]

By communicating the history of the past, books help people to better perceive their present history and to better understand people of other cultures and races, thus breaking down prejudice.  Deutsch states:

“….Books have the magic quality of making both space and time vanish.

So we can see with the eyes and judge with the minds of other peoples-be they Latin-Americans or Chinese or Russian as well as view the world and its problems as did the Athenians of the Fifth Century B.C. or the English of the time of Queen Elizabeth or the American of the days of Washington and Franklin and Jefferson.  History is made real, biography is lived before our eyes in books.

This should free us from the narrow confines of the present.  It should also break down the stupid prejudices and intolerance, which are bred through ignorance.  Reading the writings of Lin-yu-tang must make one understand the Chinese mind better, and help to batter down any foolish sense of white superiority.  Read the life of George Washington Carver, or works of James Welden Johnson, and you will see the world through the eyes of the Negro.

We talk at times of inter-cultural education, education to break down the walls of ignorance between those of different nationalities, complexions, and creeds.  In my judgement, there is nothing better for this purpose than books; they will show you are not only how much we are alike beneath more or less superficial differences, but also rouse our admiration and respect for those apparently unlike us by revealing the intellectual heights at which they have arrived.”[x]

 Books are not a Substitute for Living and Choosing Books to Read

Books are tested in their value by time.  Books are companions, teachers, and guides, and they bring an understanding of people, places, and events.  Deutsch, however, is not advocating reading all the time and removing one’s self from living with other people.

Deutsch poses the question if it were possible to lock one’s self in a room to read all the time would this be desirable.  He answers, “Of course not. Books are tools, instruments; they should help us to live; but they are not life; nor can they replace life.  Indeed, I shall even go so far as to say that unless you live a life with others, you cannot understand books; for they depict the thoughts and reactions of great men who did not live apart from life but drew inspiration from it.”[xi]

Deutsch finds making choices are an important part of life, which includes what one reads.  And, in general, making wise choices Duetsch contends, “…is certainly worth more than even a diploma.”[xii]

In choosing what to read Deutsch offers some guidance.

First, one should not feel pressured to read what others are reading, which includes best sellers. Keeping up with what the crowd is reading is to be part of impossible contest.  Instead, speak freely of what one is reading that is a good book from the past and not a current book, which may be trendy but will disappear quickly over time.  The great words from good books do not disappear over time.  To quote Deutsch, “Words that are eternal are more alive than the froth that will disappear in a moment of time.”

Duetsch is not against reading contemporary books.  There are information and ideas to be gained from them that cannot be gained from books of the past.  To choose wisely among contemporary authors to read, one’s choices will be facilitated by having read good books of the past that will give one the standards and guide posts by which to choose the best of contemporary books:   “Yet again I must emphasize that the best critics is time, and if you follow it and read the great works of the ages, you will become your own best critic.  You yourself will have a touchstone enabling you to separate the pure gold from the dross.”[xiii]

And second, a person in choosing books to read has the possibility to make some of books read part of herself, or himself.  This comes down to each book read and how that book will be treated by one for retention.  To quote Deutsch:  “While we talk about books in the plural, we must never forget that it is the degree which books become part of one that counts not merely the number of books one has read.”[xiv]

Deutsch gives the observation made by English author and academic Lord Charnwood (1864-1945) in his biography of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865/President of the United States, 1861-65).  Charnwood found that Lincoln’s reading was limited to the Bible and selected other books.  Lincoln read and reread his books thoroughly for learning practical approaches to solving problems and for learning how life should be lived.  Lincoln’s deeds and words have lived through time and Deutsch states that, “When men or women thus make a book part and parcel of themselves, we understand why we are told beware of the man of one book.  He has not merely tasted it but so partaken of it as to extract its very life and vitality.”[xv]

Speech’s Closing on the Power of Books and Making the Choice to Read Books

Deutsch ends his speech as follows:

“At least it [my speech] gives me the chance to pat books on the back and tell them I am with them, even in the age in which machines have the center of the stage.  But books are machines too.  I wonder whether there are any greater.  We stand in admiration of the machine which by the touch of a finger raises an object weighing several tons.  But a book may do far more than that.  On the one hand, think of ‘Mein Kampf’ and all the evil it has produced.  Death destruction, misery, have been left in its trail.  On the other hand, we have the Bible (the book), which has turned men’s minds to human brotherhood and set up the highest ideals for mankind.

Yes, books like everything else, may prove baleful, and destructive, or beneficial and ennobling. In the selection of books, the individual can himself make the choice.  At least in a free society, no one can tell him what he must read.  What you read, you decide-be it the most nutritious of food or veritable poison.  And, thereby you are in large measure determining the nature of your thinking and, indeed, of your doing.  Each book that you read plays its part in carving your character.  You can live in the company of the great of all time and share their thoughts.  You need no elaborate introduction to them; they are waiting for you and, indeed, they yearn that you come.  For they only live when men and women open their pages and let them speak once more.  ”[xvi]

The next blog post on November 1, 2023 will review a speech given in 1993, 50 years after Dr. Monroe Deutsch’s speech, by Carol Rigolot, the then Executive Director, Humanities Council, Princeton University.  The title of her speech is, “Why Read Books in an Era of Television?” (Imagination, Comprehension and Analysis).  In her speech, she examines various reasons for reading books.

FOOTNOTES

[i] In 1942 the American government to keep West Coast military facilities secure sent about 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry living in the states California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona to relocation camps in the interior part of the United States.  The internment of the Japanese was lifted in the beginning of 1945.

[ii] “A Life Without Books,” Vital Speeches of the Day, January 15, 1944, 223

[iii] Ibid, 220

[iv] Ibid, 220

[v] Ibid, 220

[vi] Ibid, 221

[vii] Ibid, 221

[viii] Ibid 221

[ix] Ibid, 221-222

[x] Ibid, 223

[xi] Ibid, 222

[xii] Ibid, 222

[xiii] Ibid, 222

[xiv] Ibid, 222

[xv] Ibid, 222

[xvi] Ibid, 223