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Babe the Blue Ox—lllustration for Tom McE wen’s article’ on Paul Bunyan in Ne >» ‘Frontiers.
iN SPRING ISSUE OF NEW: FRONTIERS

McEwen writes on Paul Bunyan legend

THOSE WHO bought the first
issue of New Frontiers and
found in it the distinct promise
of a vigorous contribution to
progressive Canadian literature
and art: will be more than satis-
fied with the second number of
this new cultural quarterly,

For readers in British Colum-
bia .the most interesting article
.is Tom McEwen’s ‘Paul Bun-
yan,” in which the veteran labor
editor traces the legend of a
people’s hero and concludes with

_ the

this pointed reference to the
Massey Commission:

“| | In looking for ‘what

wasn’t there’ .*°. . the Massey
Conmiission may have made its
notes on what was there with
same blue snow ink his
(Paul's) own chief timekeeper
was accused of using. How other-
»Wise could they miss seeing this
Hercules of the working people,
so brilliantly illuminated in the
creative legend of Paul Bun-
yan?”

“Also of particular interest to
B.C. readers is Hal Griffin's

sketch of Ol’ Bill Bennett in re-

viewing Tom McEwen’s popular
biography, He Wrote For Us:

- The Story of Bill Bennett, Pion-

eer Socialist Journalist,

This
Frontiers went on sale in Van-

couver this week and may be

obtained at the People’s Coop-
erative Bookstore, 337

a copy.

- Nov,
‘Williams and Michurin.

Spring issue of New

West
Pender Street. Price is 40 cents

AVICENNA‘S WORKS INFLUENCED WESTERN LEARNING £

THE 1,000th anniversary
of the death of Aricenna, the
greatest Persian philosopher,
falls this year. He is one of
the four great leaders of thought
who are subject of special cele-
‘brations this year at the sug-
gestion of the World Peace
Council.

* * *

AMONG the great Human-
ist occasions to be celebrated
this year is the 950th anni-
versary of two works — a
Medical Canon and an En-
cyclopedic Commentary - on

logic of Aristotle.

Their author was a highly
precocious young jPersian,
whom Europe knew as Avic-
‘enna, but whose proper name
was [bn Sina, or. more fully,
Abu-Ali Al Hosein ‘Ben.,Ab-
dulla Ibn Sina.

His works, written’ in
Arabic, had a powerful effect

mately rescued philosophy
from the constraints of the-
onORe and so paved the way
for \the coming of modern
science,

Born in Bokhara, Avicen-
na was still a stripling when
he was appointed chief medi-
cal adviser to the Emir. After

the natural philosophy and.

upon the scholars who ulti- —

the latter’s death, Avicenna
practised medicine and taught
philosophy in Khiva, Khoras-
san, Ispahan and ‘Teheran.
Before he died in 952 he had
written many books.

’ Avicenna was anything but
a saintly character.

He had a large appetite for
wine’ and women. And he
showed equal zest in acrim-
onious disputes with dog-
matic theologians.

But for the protection of
the various Emirs who found
his medical services indis-
pensable, he would have been
executed as a heretic a score .
of times.

* ne * :

FOR WHAT should we
honor his memory? He was
born and did his work during
what in Western Europe were
truly the “Dark Ages.”

His work was an outstand-
ing contribution to that
“Arabian” or ‘Saracenic”
culture which helped materi-
ally in the end to dissipate
that darkness and promote
the restoration ot objective

inquiry.

What were “Dark Ages”
in Europe saw in China the
highest flowering of art and
poetry. During that -period
the civilization of India reach-

“scholars

tan.

1000 th anniversary marked —
of great Persian philosopher

ed its peak and the ancient
culture of Persia received a
fresh impetus from the Greek
whom Justinian
drove out of the Empire.

It is right to say that the
art and-learning of ancient
Greece lie at the foundation
of all European culture. But
it is proper to remember that. -
Greek learning had been al-

most totally forgotten when

its memory was revived by
Latin versions of and com-
mentaries upon Jewish trans-
lations of Avicenna.

And Avicenna himself did
little other than reproduce
with stimulating comment the
works of Galen and Hegesip-
pus and, of course, Aristotle.

Socialist construction and’
comprehensively planned ir-
rigation systems are now re-
storing fertility to the Bok-
hara region—Soviet Turkes-
Some day, perhaps, the ©
same will be done for Persia
and Iraq.

It is a pleasing thought, -
that the applied science he
did so much to make possible
will in the upshot restore
alike fertility and abounding
civilization to the region that
gave birth to Avicenna,

‘——T, A. JACKSON.

’ By contrast,

GUIDE TO GOOD READING

‘Land in Bloom’ popular
work on Soviet science

AN AMERICAN once asked
Pasha Angelina, a famous Soviet
tractor driver, how she rose to
prominence. She replied: “I did
not rise from the people...

I rose withthe people.”

Her answer is aptly quoted in
Land in Bloom, by V. Safonov
(obtainable in Vancouver
through the People’s (Coopera-
tive Bookstore, 337. West Pen-
der street). : :

For this book is science of
the people in the sense Angelina
meant. It is popular science writ
ing which has risen with the
people who are transforming
age-old ideas and theories and
destroying myths about biology.
“In a fresh and easy style, in
which the facts and figures are
part of the exciting whole, Saf-
onov writes of the lives and

work of the great scientists of.
in their time

the past, who
rebelled against what was re-
garded then as “incontrovertible
knowledge’ — Charles Darwin,
the Russians Dokuchayev, Seche-
Kovalevsky, .Timiryazev,

Safonov explains, exposes and
destroys the unscientific ideas
about biology which arose from
a divorce between theory and
practise.

He brings to life a few of the
men who made such enormous
contributions to biology or to
nnowledge of the soil, who con-
contributed new kinds of grain
crops, fruits, vegetables, paving
the way for the work of Lysenko
and his contemporaries in mod-
ern Soviet biological sciences.

x * *

TO ANYONE who has had no
science ‘‘education”’ of any kind,
this popular science book reads
like an. exciting tale of adven-
ture and exploration,

Was the new variety of wheat
going to survive the drought?
Would the Soviet people be able
to grow vegetables’ inside the
Arctic circle and produce great,
great juicy cherries in drought
aay frost areas?

Pnhag would and they did. To-
day Soviet people are not only
changing what they grow, but
climate as well.

That this is. possible is a posi-
tive, simple, optimistic assertion
that runs through the whole of
this book.

Safonov writes: “The culti-
vated plants which man has most

’ of all employed in agriculture
_ for thousands of years are in-

deed kinless. Man himself cre-
ated them.’’

-Herein lies the key to the
mastery by man of nature.

These people of the past and
the Soviet scientists of the pres-
ent are alive, f

Small wonder then that the
Soviet science of life was met
‘in so hostile a manner the world
over, by men who write books

proving that we shall starve to

death from food shortage if we

are not ‘blown to pieces by atom —

bombs,

Theirs is a science of death,
Safonov’s ‘Green

it—-gaze at me.

Land’’ of the world of living
things is quick with the optim- —
ism and boundless confidence —
which burst through the pages
of this book to make it so read-
able.

This is the world of living
things grasped and guided and
understood by man. The heroes —
of the science of life today i
the USSR are “‘celebrities, truly
known to all the people, treated”
with honor and respect.

Every one of them is conscious —
ef the fact that he is a leadeY
only in so far as he gets one
to follow him.

“This marks the birth of 4
new human consciousness. This”
is a victory .much harder tO
achieve, than victory over the
land, over nature; it is victory
over what seemed to be an eter-
nal state of mind: ‘Alone I aid

Here is the science of life
which rises with the people-—
FRANCES LISSARD. ht

i
tt

Capsule
Reviews |

THE BIG TREES ;

Unlikely and corny story about
a ruthless timberman (Kirk —
Douglas) who is reformed by 9 —
religious sect in California ry
wood country.

BEND OF THE RIVER
Historically inaccurate, p00!
ly written, widely ballyhooed ;
picture of early settlers in OF —
gon’s Hood River valley. Reeks
with chauvinism. Stepin Fechit

returns to screen in stereotyP
role synonymous with his naiig
LA RONDE

The Vienna of Arthur sennitt
ler’s plays is faithfully portray”
ed on the screen, but the mo
has no more depth than th
original lightweight philosophia Sy
ing of the author, whose mé@
superiority complex ‘is evide®
throughout.
THE MAN IN THE
WHITE SUIT

Alec Guinness again, in an
other anmsing British pictut®
Guinness is good for you.
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS _

Feature of this Academy .
Award winner is a long, gatis
and tasteless dream dance *
quence, which throws in eve
thing that suggests Paris ‘0
Americans, from Aly Khan ©
the Can-Can, :
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN a :

A slick elaborately contrived
Alfred Hitchcock suspense avant
about a murder committed b
a wealthy young psychotic ( Row 2
ert Walker) and his attemp®
to involve a young tennis pl i
(Farley Granger). All -
cock’s skill in building uD sus
pense is lost, however, throw
a story which begins improP
and continues impossibly.

STANTON, MUNRO & DEAN
Barristers - Solicitors - Notaries

SUITE 515

FORD BUILDING

193 E, HASTINGS

(Corner Main & Hastings Sts.)

MARINE 5746

aera

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 9, 1952 — PAGP j