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...SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF HUMAN STUPIDITY-Walter B. Pitkin-Simon & Schuster...
...brains had legs, most brains would be all legs, or so Walter Boughton Pitkin, breezy professor in Columbia University's School of Journalism, seems to imply. For its gangling lack of intelligence the Professor takes the world to task. Its follies, like its females, show an infinite variety, but there seem to be only nine major categories of human stupidity. "These intermarry and blend in all sorts of combinations. . . . Some rise to glory, while others are hunted by the police. The history of them all is the history of our race, in the main." Though abysmal dullness abounds, Author...
presence of one one-trillionth of a grain of timothy, golden rod, or ragweed pollen." On this happy note, with his tongue reaching for his cheek, Professor Pitkin winds up his 540-page introduction with the words: "We are now ready to begin the history of human stupidity." He cannot be said to have left his subject where he found...
What shall you learn? Says Pitkin, you must decide that for yourself; but he advises one of the three "hardy perennials in the garden of knowledge": geography, psychology, mathematics. When is the best time of day to work? "For more than 30 years I have made it a rule to study and do other intellectual work as early as possible in the morning. Whenever I can get under way before seven, I do so. Eight o'clock is late. Nine is fatal." Regularity-is important. "Work a little every day at your subject. I mean that you should work...
...Author. Walter Boughton Pitkin has worked at 40 different jobs. He started herding cattle at 14, at 53 is professor of journalism at Columbia University. In his spare time he writes books, occasionally gives galvanizing advice to editors of moribund magazines...