The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-10-10
The University of the Air

The radio is in its early infancy an instrument
Of formal education. Yet it well may produce the
greatest educational revolution since man mastered
tho art of vritng-f not since he attained the power
of speech
An excellent survey of the status OF the radlo III
education today has been provided by the American
association for Adult Education. This organization
has published a timely study made by professor
Lowering Tyson under the title of Education Tunes
In"
Soma sixtv-tWo out of more than six hundred
licensed broadcastng stations owned and operated
bv educational institutions More than 10 per cent OF
all broadcasting stations directly engaged In eouca
tional work Some 1859 educational programs nave
aone out over the air since Sept. 3, 1929 Schools OF
the air have been organized on the Pacific coast ana
in Ohio And we are only at the beginning
The radio should be a potent instrument in pro-
Noting admit education Such material is supposedly
Tor adults and does not have to be tempered TO chill
drens minds There should be great field here Tor
the fearless dissemination of stimulating and cnai-
lenghg materials
But who is going to finance such efforts? VIII the
manufacturer of oothpase electrical appliances be
likely TO support course Of honest lectures on the
specia program of Soviet Russia the tariff the status
and procedure of public utilities the Mooney
ings case?
win educational institutions send out over their
broadcasting stations materials more frank and
straightforward than that which they permit to be
taught in their cassrooms? VIII state legislatures
make appropriations to support lectures on political
science which severely attack legislative methodist
Can the Reds get licensed station and il they did
would they permit the free statement of truth when
it happened to have conservative flavor?
Merely to ask questions like these is to indicate
the inherent difficulties in using the radio as an
agency for unhampered adult education. Some OF the
most pressing of all public questions scarcely can get
on the air at all
Take birth-control. Several hundred stations were
approached recently as to their willingness to have
the theory-not the practice-of birth-control dis
cussed under their auspices. Two responded in the
Affirmative great New York station even refused
to broadcast the address given the subject by Dr.
Harry Emerson Fosdick.
Debates on religion science are taboo.
Fundamentalists have free range the radio but
atheists like Joseph Lewis would have hard work to
Get ON the air Admirals ride rough-Shod over paci-
tlsts in getting assignments
The president of the National Security League has
been repeatedly on the air. but how often has W. T.
Foster or Ben Gtlow broadcast to trembling millonS9
The Constitution has been defended TO the point of
tears but who has been permitted to attack it, In
short there has very little education of an adult
variety which has succeeded in getting by"
The radio puts new and greater strain upon free
dom in education. 1t has been rule In colleges and
universities that man could say almost anything
within reason he uttered his words in the secrecy