The Omaha guide., 1945-11-17
War Exposes
Academic

During the war, certain major
weaknesses in our educational sys-
tenn were bluntly exposed. Total re-
jections in the war for physical,
ps%ychiatric and educational reasons
have been almost as numerous as
the number of men who served in
the army overseas. We may or
may not need u young men to fight
another war, but regardless of this.
we need to improve school pro-
grams of health and physical educa-
ton, including the early discovery of
remediable defects to be corrected
by family physicians and public
health agencies. A nation that would
be strong, must be strong phySi-
cally.
Military authorities have also
found a major weakness in the work
Of the schools in the failure to re-
quire older students to carry mathe-
mates to the point of practical mas
terry.
The natural sciences gained a
larger place in the field of educa-
ton during the war, and they should
continue to do so, according to Com
missioner Studebaker. No adequate
understanding of our civilization is
possible without considerable knowl-
edge of them. Moreover. many
careers in trade, technical. profess
sional and scientific pursuits, W..
er of industry, business or agricul-
ture, are handicapped without a thor
ough scientific groundwork, laid in
the elementary and secondary
schools and for many. continued in
the colleges and universities.
But one of the most basic seq
ments of the core, in the opinion Of
DR.. Studebaker, should be made up
Of the social studies. 1t is upon this
group that we have leaned most
heavily in training for responsible
citizenship - and this must con-
tinue. History and the other social
studies are essential to the ground
ing of our citizens in the American
tradition Of political liberty, a
knowledge of the structure of our
republican form of government, and
a firm attachment to the democratic
faith, Doctor Studebaker says.
/ said that it is the belief Of i'm
portant educators that a core Of
this type must become a must in
the curricula of the nation, thereby
casting overheard the traditional
elective system whereby a student
is given pretty much free choice in
what he will study. This new ap-
proach is emphasized in one Of the
most widely quoted documents of re-
cent publication, the Harvard study
entitled, General Education in a
Free Society,"" This work has
startled a number of people coming
as it does from the institution that
saw the elective system reach its
most extreme form, for it recon-
mends the abandonment of that sys-
tenn. In this document, the chief
priest of the elective system points
out the weaknesses of that long-cher-
ished method.
OF course, it is one thing to set
up curricula that will insure the fact
that those attending school will get
the basic studies. 1t is another to
see that these required subjects are
made available to all. Is it possible
to produce and democratically dis
tribute this basic core to all Amer
lea?
Not yet. That is another must
in the new reconversion. The ex-
penditures now made on this price
less commodity are inadequate. But
I am not dealing here with the f.
nances Of education. That is a
subject in itself. Suffice it to say
that even with greater funds this
product. as blue-printed by the ex-
perts, cannot be produced in the
existing plants any more than the
peacetime models and types of in
dustrial commodities can be pro-
duced by machines equipped for war
production. Nor is the personnel and
the training Of that personnel ade-
quate.