An Ohio school district has been petitioned to ban John Steinbeck's short classic, Of Mice and Men (1937). There's some "foul language" in the book, objects Lloyd Caldwell, whose granddaughter was assigned to read it for her high school English class: "Thereís words on there you wouldnít say to a drunken sailor .... Every page in this book except four, and thatís right at the beginning, has swear words of one nature or another ó and some of them are just dern right, down rotten filthy." Caldwell claims that the parents of other students object to the book's use as well, but have not come forward for fear that this would cause teachers to retaliate against their children. Caldwell's daughter, Brenda Morris, argues that books like Steinbeck's should not be part of the curriculum because they do not facilitate the school district's goals of building character, teaching self-respect, and educating young people in the rights and duties of citizenship.

John Steinbeck won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature. In his acceptance speech, he spoke of both the moral force of literature and the ethical duties of the writer:

The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.

Furthermore, the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat - for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man, has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

The present universal fear has been the result of a forward surge in our knowledge and manipulation of certain dangerous factors in the physical world.

It is true that other phases of understanding have not yet caught up with this great step, but there is no reason to presume that they cannot or will not draw abreast. Indeed it is a part of the writer's responsibility to make sure that they do.