The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1943-06-25

ent day high school students are
crammed with facts, but seldom are
taught the standards of judgment
that they need to think for them
selves, Fortune magazine declares
today in its July issue.
Pointing out that the United
States can never be any better than
its school system, the magazine as
serts after an extensive investiga-
ton of educational procedure that
if children are not educated in DEM
ocratic thinking, their minds will be
nodded only by commercial and po-
litical indoctrination.
To-day, war shortages are cutting
into the supply of both students and
teachers; war training demands new
courses of study; and war taxes are
making everyone taX-conSciouS,"
Fortune points out. There Is
neither time nor money for two
courses of study. Will the liberal
arts or the occupational courses win
and preserve for us the peace?
Confused Life
THE schools, in their confusion,
are only the reflection of the con-
fused life around them. They are of
society, not above it, and their aim
lessneSs is the aimlessness of today's
ever changing world.
Americans are clearly presented
with choice. We can adapt stu
dents to this world; we have been
doing it for some time. Or we can
consciously and deliberately make
our schools more vital and creative
to the end that our children go be-
yond today's confusion and under
stand it better than we do ourselves.
This course, more difficult, is the
way of hcartbreak and of tears. For
1t may we'll produce humane and
thoughtful adults who, dissatisfied
with the life they see, will want TO
better it. But it will produce adults.
A Streamlined adapting of children
to our present world will only pro-
duce adolescents whose dissaStisfac-
ton Is inhuman and whose only
course of action is aimless violence.
I'VE shall probably have to admit
that our present education is not
educating us any too well,' Fortune
declares. And 1t is unlikely to teach
us any better by attempting to
teach us everything. Our students
today resemble nervous victims of
indigestion induced by overeating.
So far as information about the
world is concerned, they live in an
economy of superabundance; the
schools too often force them to
swallow more than they can possibly
asslmilate. But simply giving stu
dents the facts of our brave new
world will not train them to think.
Too much of our schooling, more
over, aims at having the proper
emotions run in the students we'll
conditioned minds when they hear
slogans and catchwords. The parti-
clpation of the people in their gov
eminent has no point if they are
incapable of independent thinking.
Unpleasant statistics are coming
out of the War Department." For
tune explains. Twenty eight out of
every 1000 recently educated young
men are rejected by the Army be-
cause they are too badly trained to
pass even the simplest of literary
tests. In addition, the services point
out that many high school and COL
lege graduates are seriously def
clent in mathematics and science,
weak in the clear and simple use
of the English language.
Our country is not going to be
any better than our school system.
we cannot afford an ill-educated
electorate, and we can insist that
any child who has learned to talk
should have twelve years schooling.
Destructive Influences
IF our schools are not
strengthened and if they do not
teach the student to discriminate
and to eValuate, commercial indoc-
trination or political mobstering will
form the minds of our children, and
IN so doing destroy whatever capa-
city is within them for democratic
thinking.
by and large, the schools have
done too little because they have
had too few funds. The con-
sequences are serious; classes are
SO large that attention to indi-
Vidual students is impossible; teach
ers' salaries are so low that skilled
and well-trained persons are not
attracted into the profession. In
rural areas educational standards
are low, and in Negro areas in the
South they are deplorable.
"Occupational training succeeds
best when strengthened by general
education" Fortune declares. 1.-THE
Army has found that mathematics
and physics are excellent prepara-
ton for handling the engines of
war. In commercial enterprise, ca
pacity to think job thorugh is of
greater value than simple ability to