CENTER OF THE STORM

My own life is a study in environment, heredity, and chance,"" says John Scopes, who accepted the responsibility for teaching evolution at the famous trial which confronted and defeated silver tongued Fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan, even though Scopes was declared guilty. Mr. Scopes was obviously the calm eye at the center of the storm and watched the proceedings with care. Not only Clarence Darrow, but the also brilliant Dudley Field Malone defended him in the ""monkey trial"" held at Dayton, Ohio to uphold Tennessee's Butler Act. His admiration and concern extended to the man who prosecuted him and retired from the trial shortly to die (the inference is that he was a broken man). The trial remained a monkey on Scopes' back when he considered returning to teaching; he went to the Venezuelan oil fields instead for some years. His considered recall, replete with courtroom testimony and debate, will take a quiet place in the literature of American law.