LETTERS: COMPUTER THOUGHTS

To the editor:

Now why should I bask computers? Perhaps I am envious, but then I am not in competition with computers. Yet I am. They challenge certain things which I have found dear and valuable.

Computers dazzle us but have not always delivered.

Somebody tells me that on the cybernet or someplace I can get a million recipes for bread. Great. But what I need is a half-dozen good ones. I bake bread one recipe at a time, and experience and schooling have taught me how to judge and make selections. How do I go about this with a million recipes? I expect editors and cooks to do that laborious screening and make decisions which respect the size of my oven. Other notes on nets tell me that there are hundreds of entries on almost every topic, common an esoteric. But when I call for information, this glut of information is usually superficial. Computer encyclopedias don't describe the differences in the songs of meadowlarks.

I am interested in words. So I check computer etymology and find the laconic entry for Bread, German. I knew that. I know Brot and Bread are related. My Skeats traditional dictionary will tell me when the word first began to be used and give me the forms in other Germanic languages, Dutch and Swedish and Icelandic, maybe. But the computer thinks I am interested only in one word.

This same approach of "shorter is better" continues with e-mail. Here we find modern wonders, I will admit, but I am a kind of student of letter writing, have made it a part of my courses, but I wait to receive one good e-mail letter. The ones I have seen are suited for the style of telegrams. E-mail aggravates the long-established decay in letter writing. I have written e-mail, I shamefully admit, but I have not been proud of the results.

The educator thinks of certain eternal verities and urges his students to study those things which were true in the times of our fathers and will be true for our grandchildren. But I find o such things with computers. The library which installs an expensive system may discover that the company which made it has gone out of business or changed basic styles. I do not feel that students should receive graduation credit for learning computer talk. Yet I am alone in my peevishness. The "great" school has computers for every kindergarten student.

Of course, I am an anachronism in preferring McGuffeys to Macintosh, but then I believe that if Paul had had a Macintosh, we would not have Ephesians and Collosians. And if my father had had a computer, I would not have those wonderful letters when he sent me when I was away at college. I don't consider word processors as computers and have written this letter on one.

PETER HILTY

Cape Girardeau