Collection

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May 29, 1925
One of the most interesting and inspiring signs of the intellectual
ourrents of this country at the present day is the popularity of the novelist
Sinclair Lewis . Sinclair Lewis is a very talented man who has written a good
many novels. ~ny one, I suppose, who takes the ordinary attitude would have
eaid that his earlier books, like the one called "Free Air," would have been
the ones that would have been most popular. The curious thing is that his later
books, ~in Street, Babbitt, and rrowsmith, which are praotically written
from the point of vieVi of Swift and IB.tthew Arnol d, have become the best
sellers , and have made him the best KnOVin . The IDost astounding thing and most
incomprehensive from our point of view is the sucoess of Arrowsmith, whioh is a
novel a bou t the romanoe of research . It sells in innumerable large issues .
It is a very curious insight into what the Amerioan pecple are thinking about .
Arrowsmith is a young medioal student who has the ability for research aId
who goes through all the different phases and different kinds of jobs that a
medical man oan have. The point to the story is the effeot of the atmosphere
on the instinct which he has for research. .'irst of all, the undergraduate days,
and the inability of the undergraduate to underetand that pOint of view , - the
lack of sympathy for a purpose whioh is 9.lpposed to be too highbrow and in
the intellectual world, -the undercurrent of respeot and venerqtion on the part
of some people . The oommercial point of view next, dootors who are interested
only in earning money, and those who are interested in medioine as a profession.
When he gets into practice he enoounters that same diffioulty, the same difference
between the people of aohieving popularity in practioe, and patients not under­standing
things he does believe . The patient sometimes died after the best of
his efforts, and some of them got well after his stupidest efforts . Opinion of
people about him is not quite in accordanoe with real effort and real desert .