THIS STUBBORN SOIL

by William A. Owens ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

In the early decades of this century, only a passionate thirst for education could have transported a poor boy from Pin Hook, Texas, to Columbia University, and transformed him from a clay-daubed farmhand to an Associate Professor of English His father died the day after he was born. For eighteen years he grew, worked by turns on land the family owned or rented, walked weary miles to snatch schooling when and where he could, hired out when he had to, suffered, scrimped, ""did without or made do."" The stubborn soil round-about yielded no more than grudging subsistence. Prejudices of every kind were rife in his world, and he was a man before he could put them in perspective. Revival meetings and the Coming of the Piano to the family were highspots of life. He made his way to a succession of city jobs and eventually to East Texas State Teachers College, and from there to other schools, a doctorate, and the Columbia Faculty. His autobiography is idiomatic, and is full of drive, pluck, purposefulness. In these days of widespread educational opportunities for even the poorest children, it is worth looking back upon what the desire for learning meant to one of them.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1966

Categories: NONFICTION