Evening star., 1959-05-25
Our Schools and Survival

In its report on American education,
the Presidents Science Advisory Com
mittee has somberly confirmed all the
major findings of earlier studies of the
subject The sum of these findings is
simply and grimly this: That our pres
ent school system, from the elementary
level on up through the universities. is
full of grave deficiencies and that it
must be drastically reorganized and re-
invigorated-with the greatest possible
speed-if our country is to escape a
deadly and conceivably fatal power de-
cline vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.
The immense dangers involved here
are by no means fanciful Actually, as
DR.. Edward Teller has Just reaff1rmed,
and as Admiral Rickover and many
other outstanding Americans have been
warning for the past several years, 1t
already seems virtually inevitable that
the USSR will be scientifically and tech
nologically superior to the United States
by 1870, mere decade from now. AS
for the longer future, unless we act
forthwith to achieve a much larger an
nual output of scientists and engineers,
our lost leadership probably will be
beyond the hope of regaining, and the
Russian Communists will have domi-
nance of sort that will enable them to
shape the world by the end of the cen
tury-a prospect that could mean our
finish as free nation.
1t is against this background of
Supremely perilous potentialities that
the Presidents advisory committee has
called for vast overhauling of our edu-
cational system at every level, especially
in terms of mathematics, the sciences
and languages. The overhauling, placing
a unique new emphasis on the intellect
and on excellence of classroom per-
formance, would include (1) sweeping
examination and revision of curri-
cula, (2) continuous search for gifted
young minds, (3) measures to make sure
that such minds receive all the school,
ing they should have, az action not
only to increase the quantity but also
to improve the quality of our graduating
scientists and engineers, and (5) an ex-
traordinary drive to cope with the
dangerous shortage of competent teach
ers, who must be encouraged with special
economic and other incentives to carry
on, in ever-growing numbers, in their
indispensable and essentially noble pro-
feSSion.
AS for the money to be spent on
education in the United States the ad-
visory committee has urged that the
annual outlay be doubled from the pres
ent SIS billion to $50 billion. Considering
the problems inherent in our exploding
population-education problems that
will bear down heavily upon us in the
relatively near future-thiS recommen-
dation seems conservative enough and
President Eisenhower has indicated that
he is fully in accord with it and with
everything else in the committees re-
port That is why he has expressed the
hope that it will be widely read. Ger
tainly, all thinking Americans, all who
have any interest in the schooling and
survival of our country, should study
the document with great care.
The report, in any case, is an excel
lent one, and it sums up its own warning
spirit by quoting the following apt words
from Alfred North Whitehead: I'm the
conditions of modern life the rule is
absolute The race which does not value
trained intelligence is doomed. Not all
your heroism not all your social charm,
not all your wit, not all your victories on
land or at sea, can move back the finger
of fate. Today we maintain ourselves.
Tomorrow science will have moved for
ward yet one more step, and there will
be no appeal from the Judgment which
will then be pronounced on the un-
educated"