Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1943-04-20

colleges and universities.
The Hearst newspapers were in
terested in the finding because it sub
stantiated in a large degree something
which these newspapers had been long
saying-that many of our trusted Ameri-
can educational institutions had been
surreptitiously converted to subversive
purposes and uses, of which the disparage-
ment of the American achievement was an
inseparable part.
Now the New York Times has COM
pleted another survey deserving of wide
attention.
BY its second inquiry, the Times has
demonstrated that an appalling ignorance
of American history exists among college
freshmen-indicating plainly that there is
little or no adequate, or accurate, in
struetien in the subject in the high schools.
Obviously, therefore, the public has
been expending enormous sums in tax
money and in endoWments for education,
with no better result than to produce AN
ENTIRE GENERATION that will have
virtually no comprehension of the ira
ditions and principles upon which this
nation was founded and developed.
Thus lacking in basic training for
citizenship, how competent can such
generation be to protect its country
against either the wles and treacheries
of ambitious demagogs or the intriguing
adherents of alien isms?
However, the recorded failure
schools and colleges to teach American
history truthfully. or even to teach it at
AL, is but fraction Of what should be
known.
A FEW days after the New York
a Times second survey was announced.
the San Francisco Board of Education
voted unanimously to drop from its schools
the textbooks of Prof. Harold Rugg of
Columbia University.
These books, which have been exposed
by the Hearst newspapers, by the Ameri-
can Legion and by others and which
consequently had already been eliminated
from the curricula of various cities, belong
to the type of pedagogical works known
as social studies"
And to perceive WHY and HOW
American history has been either side
tracked or contaminated in the schools
and colleges it is necessary to scan the
course of the social studies" movement
lOT Tie ldpSc.
Several years ago a group Of radical
educators in the American Historical
Association formulated the social studies"
program, whereby the formal teaching
of certain subjects NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.,
economics, civics, geography, etc.-was to
be abolished and a composite course
amalgamating all Of them was to be SUBJ
stituted.
Prof. Rugg was a member of that
group.
He was also a member Of the pro
gressive Education Association" to which
others of the same group also belonged.
ACCORDING TO THEIR PUB
LISHED DECLARATIONS, the leaders
among these educators" were Socialist
minded and were undertaking DE-
LIBERATELY to utilize the facilities
and processes of education TO IMPOSE
SOCIALISM UPON AMERICA.
In their final report, after spending
100000 of money obtained from the
immensely rich Carnegie endowment, the
Commission" of the American Historical
Association proclaimed to the teachers
of America in 1884, with seemingly the
voice of authority, that "the age Of indi-
vidualism" in America was CLOSING" and
that new age of collectivism" was
emerging.
Harold L. Laski, the British Com
munist, looked over their prospectus
and pronounced it, expertly and sympa-
thetically, to- be IAN EDUCATIONAL
PROGRA FOR A SOCIALIST
AMERICA"
DURING that period in the thirties,
- with the Progressive Education
Association" extremely active within the
National Education Association, the De-
partment of Superintendent of the
N. E. A.-composed of some 1000 school
uperintendents-pu forth at least two
year books supporting the radical
theories.
Harold Riggs social studies" text
books have been ONE of the means of
carrying the program into the public
schools, and have been the most widely
prevalent means.