The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1945-11-09
Sounder Education Needed
To Maintain Free World
Economics and Geography Among Studies
Required to Ground Students in the
Problems at Home and Abroad.
By BAUKHAGE
Nescs analyst and Commentator.

WNU Service, 1915 Eye Street, NV,
Washington, d. G.
(This is the first OF two articles ON
the subject Of the ''new recover
siOn.")
In the last two months the public
has learned a lot about the irnpor-
lance of industrial reconversion. For
many more months, business men,
with the help of the best technical
advice they could obtain, have been
preparing to shift from wartime to
peacetime production. Government
has shared the knowledge Of its ex-
perts and proffered its cooperation.
Labor has contributed its sugges-
tons. All three know what they
want. Together they hope to obtain
a successful synthesis.
But what many people do not real
lie is that the nation, the whole
world, for that matter, Is facing an
other reconversion problem, equally
as difficult to solve, equally as i'm
portant to achieve. It Is the recon-
version Of our whole educational sys-
tenn, and upon its success depends
the political future Of democracy
and its economic future as well, as
embodied In the theory and out
working Of free enterprise.
1t is no exaggeration to say that
our current educational system,
which along with our wartime In
dustrial system made Allied victory
possible, Is no more adapted to meet
the new and startling problems Of
the postwar world than the Japanese
defense could meet the atomic
bomb.
Enlightened educators everywhere
realize this. In a short time experts
will meet in London to work out a
program outlined in San Francisco
by the men and women who planned
the educational and cultural coun-
Gil Of the United Nations. Here at
home and in other democratic coun-
tries, domestic educational policies
are being reshaped to meet the new
conditions.
Education for world freedom Is an
important objective; education for
freedom in the land of the free is
equally important, for 1t is the form-
dalton stone Of world democracy.
We have the task Of reconverting
our own antiquated machinery so
that it will be geared to produce
and maintain freedom. The United
Nations task is to build new ma
chinery which will evolve a prod
uct which must displace the Nazi-
Fascist teachings which still have
their hold on a large segment Of the
population. Our own product must
be both weapon Of offense and Of
defense.
We have a powerful example In
the need for this in the demonstrate
ed strength of the Nazi theology and
the weakness Of what we have so far
produced to combat 1t.
Nazi Propaganda
Remains Strong
A report made public only q week
or two ago reveals how 'Naziism at
its blacklist" as the report describes
1t, Is being kept alive in q series Of
resistance clubs" in Germany scat
tered from the North sea to the Ba-
varian mountains. Allied investiga-
tors have pieced together an appal-
ling picture Of a widespread activity
based upon race hatred, and other
Nazi principles with which the Ger
man youth has been so thoroughly
indoctrinated in q manner pointed
out in these columns some time ago
and which ! then said must be dealt
with eventually.
The offense Is powerful, and the
weakness of our defense is illustrat-
ed in recent dispatches telling us
how Nazi propaganda is affecting the
viewpoint of the American army OF
occupation. A major is reported as
doubling the truth Of the atrocity
stories in the concentration camp Of
Dachau located only a few miles
from where he was stationed. Amer.
lean soldiers are heard parroting the
familiar Goebbels' fabrication that
Germany was forced into the war
that Hitler had his faults but was
really great in many respects, or il
Hitler's glory is found to be toe
strong goat he is used as scape-
goat to excuse German war guilt.
have just come from a long talk
with one Of Americas great educa-
tors, John Studebaker, United States
Commissioner Of Education. II was
he who introduced me to the phrase,
1.-THE new reconversion.''
"Our democratic system Is threat.
ened from within and without" he
said to me earnestly. "The Amer