Evening star., 1939-07-03
Mass Education Held
Falling Of Objective
Believes Greater Emphasis
Must Be PIoced on
MonuoI Troininq

MUST be fIoced on
Munuol Troining
To the Editor Of The Star:
Americas rapid and premature re-
cession from a frontier nation to one Of
contemporary urbanity has brought in
its wake many complex problems. OF
these, the one of adolescent education
commands very serious consideration.
Principally because of the fact that
student enrolment in the colleges and
universities throughout the United
States has reached such astronomic
proportions approximately one and
half millions in 1889, one is led to the
erroneous conclusion that this fecumdity
OF erudition and eclecticism has en-
gendered, in some manner, fruition of
American intellectual superiority.
Wisely or not, the Nation as whole
has always assumed rather paternal-
istic, though unscientific benevolence
toward mass education in the puerile
hope that higher level of cultural at
tainment and general economic better
ment must inevitably ensue But to
those of us who have carefully studied
statistical analyses covering several dec
ades Of indiscriminate selection, we find
that the ratio of eyer-increasing student
personnel to that of rising population is
decisively disproportionate; that the
general level of our cultural and eco
nomic well-being has not been advanced
to any appreciable degree, and that,
conversely, today, as always, the torch of
progress is carried by the comparative
lew upon whom Divine Providence
has seen fit to bestoW plethora of Gre
ative ability.
1t is not within the province of a de-
mocracy to arbitrarily assume that mass
education, in the higher sense, has
proven practicable or in general bene-
flcial to society. Certainly such as
sumption cannot be predicated on the
premise that the monolithic imponder-
ables of intellectualism, lie, metaphysical
distractions, pedagogic polemics or the
intricate nuances of differential and
integral calculus are, in the larger sense.
essential corallaries to social compe-
tence or civic prominence.
In order to satiate the persistent and
inordinate prediction of democracy for
the quantitative rather than the quail
tat1ve factors involved in educational
processes, there is definitely perceptible
disposition to lower the intellectual
prerequisites for matriculation with the
resultant degradation of national aca-
demlc standards. Even under these de-
based conditions the road from matricu-
latlon to graduation is cluttered with the
inept, the mentally sterile and even the
socially incompetent.
Despite the viewpoint that indiscrimi-
nate intellectual endeavor is the sum-
nation OF all that is desirable in the
BODY polite, there seems to be a distinct
premonition in the ranks of our educa-
tors that the conditions prevailing in
the higher field of education are peril
ously close to chaotic. Fully one-half of
the student personnel attending our
higher institutions of learning fail to
reach the third year for the fundamental
reason that they simply lack the innate
mental capacity to master the scholastic
curriculum. In our schools of the tech
nlcal sciences the discrepancy between
success and failure is even more pro-
nounced
In any constructive method of cor
rectional intent, prime consideration
should be given to, firstly, the students
demonstrated mental capacity to profit
ably pursue the verbal and mathematical
prerequisites of the learned profess
sions' or the liberal arts; secondly.
a general elevation of requirements
for admittance and the wedding out
OF those students whose mental in
hlbitions preclude any possibility of ul-
innate success; and thirdly, the inau-
guration of system of general educa-
ton and vocational training for the basic
purpose of directing into channels of
civic usefulness those students of mod
crate or limited means who fail to meet
these requirements, but Who must
nevertheless, seek their proper strata in
the scheme of things.
OF course, in limited way, MANY of
our high schools have utilized the ad-
vantages of vocational training concur
rently with the regular curriculum, and
the benefits therefrom have been of
inestimable value to the extent that it
has, IN many instances. diverted the stu
dents mental proclivities from intel
lectual mirages to the more mundane
sphere OF manual apttudes Such train
ing is, of necessity, rudimentary in ma
ture and later should be supplemented
by more intensive course in order to
meet the exacting requirements of spe-
cialized fields. The essential point is
that the germ of useful endeavor has
been implanted in fertile fields and the
student should ultimately realize an
economic competence that had hitherto
been but vague and uncertain.
In the main, there is no material rea-
son why this system, in more advanced
form, cannot be extended to the numer-
Gus high school graduates who, through
parental guidance Cor misguidance) or
through individual inclination, aspire to
academic attainment beyond their DEM
onstrated capacity to sustain, and are
left to cope with a bewildering and
sometimes demoralizing sense of futility
and frustrated ambition.
Though we strongly suspect that this
unrestricted cultivation of liberalism
in education is more matter of social
prestige than intrinsic worth, there is
some hope in the fact that the problem