My big criticism about this part
is that it seems to cover only the
<u>highly talented youngsters</u> - The panel is
<u>interested in all strata of human society.</u>

J.R. Killian (rec'd 10/4/57)

V - Report

HAK's comments

September 23, 1957

# THE CULTIVATION AND UTILIZATION OF HUMAN RESOURCES

## INTRODUCTION

It is not only recognition
of high talent, but talent
at all levels.

The task confronting Subpanel V is an extraordinarily basic one.

Perhaps more intimately than any other subpanel, our field of inquiry concerns the ultimate unit of <u>action and value of American society</u>: the individual person. It might be said that where the main task of other subpanels is to determine the direction of our national movement, ours is to examine the nature of the <u>national motive power itself</u>. <u>means what?</u>

See JRK's
initial
statement

That motive power is the aggregate energy, skill and talent of the American people, and it is to the encouragement of these qualities that our report is largely addressed. We conceive our purpose to be a consideration of the ways in which the hundred and seventy million individuals of today -- and the two hundred and twenty millions of two decades hence -- can best be helped to cultivate the creative capacities by which their own lives and our national life may be enhanced.

I am getting a little weary
of this constant incantation.

There is in this task a concern with the dignity of the individual
<u>life which brings it directly into the mainstream of the American moral</u>
<u>current</u>. There are many ways by which the greatness of a nation may be measured -- its wealth, its power, its cultural eminence, but perhaps none is so ultimately meaningful as the measurement which asks of a people: what <u>have you made of yourselves</u>? We take this question, which is

Is this really clear?

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 2 -

addressed to each person and which must be answered uniquely by each person, to be the primary concern of American society. And we take our task to be that of helping to create an environment in which the creative potential of every individual will be sought out, nurtured and appreciatively utilized as the precious achievement it is.

This task would rate a high priority of importance at any moment of our development, but it is given a special significance by the nature of the situation in which the United States now finds itself. This is a situation of scarcity -- not of men as such, nor of materials, but of the creative talents and abilities which are the source of our national vitality. It is not that skills and talents lack, or that there has been a diminution of native creativity -- on the contrary, there is probably a broader base of available abilities than we have ever enjoyed before. The difficulty, rather, lies in the extraordinary growth of the demands put upon us by the society in which we live.

It is only a commonplace to note that our society is increasingly complex, specialized, and dependent on trained expertise. Yet the full extent of that dependency is still very little understood. In the field of international politics where abstract mathematical and physical research has literally altered the nature of war, the conditions of peace, and the prospects for human development, the signal importance of creative endeavor has been most dramatically evident. But the reliance which our society places

also failure to utilize available talent

OK

[Y]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 3 -

on skill and talent is by no means confined to our anxious striving for
nuclear proficiency. It is, for example, enlightening to reflect for a
moment on the range of talents demanded by a large business enterprise
today and yesterday. Only a few decades ago, a business firm looked for
its direction almost entirely to its executive owners, whose decisions were
based on their own practical competence and experience, and who turned
for support but not for managerial guidance to the hierarchies of common
skills below them: bookkeepers, sales personnel, and factory labor. To
analyse the managerial functions of a larger enterprise of today is to enter

a different world. Industrial psychologists, economists, public relations
men, market research specialists, tax lawyers, highly trained accountants,
personnel specialists, engineers and research scientists of a dozen descript-
ions, all importantly influence the business decision-making process; and
even at the base of the industrial structure an increasingly versatile, skilled
and intelligent work force is necessary to the successful operation of a typical
large business organization.

And what is true of business is equally the case in other fields.
Government is no longer the relatively simple exercise of homely housekeeping
functions of a century ago. The typical government figure today is "the
expert" -- and while we may sometimes caricature his role, we should be
critically handicapped without his counsel. In the field of military organi-
zation as well, strategy is no longer determined in isolation by a group of

Two Problems: psychology which requires expert, need which produces
requirement for him,

Isn't all
this rather
obvious
- why state
when is
commonly
accepted.

Is all of this
healthy? In
its quest for
specialization
out society
may inhibit
generalized
thought.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

military experts alone, but rests importantly on the advice of scholars and
technicians expert in matters far removed from military affairs as such.

The examples could be repeated indefinitely, but the point is clear.

The character of our society makes cultivation of skill and talent a matter of national importance quite as much as of individual desirability. The encouragement of personal achievement and the effective utilization of personal talent are social objectives of the highest priority.

This fact bears importantly on our task in two ways. First it defines our objective in social as well as individual terms: we must consider not alone how individual abilities may be encouraged to develop for their own sake, but also how those abilities may best be discovered, utilized to full advantage, and oriented in the direction required by our national existence.

Thus our report will contain a number of suggestions designed to increase the efficient national use of our human potential as well as designed to aid in its individual cultivation.

But the imperativeness of the demand for talent touches our task in another and even more profound way. It bears directly on a conflict which lies at the heart of the problem of individual creativity -- the conflict between the freely exercised aspirations of individuals and the hard realities of an orderly society. We might, were we given the opportunity, all wish to be artists; we must, given the nature of the world, be railroad men and

I do not think you should be so carried away by certain parts of
the Haskins Report.

Problem in a
democracy
because it
must be by
means of
individual

Bring in
JRK's 3
points at
this juncture.

Is this so
important
in the eyes
of the panel -
was rarely
discussed.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 5 -

Problem
though is
that %
required
by society
to be

men wish
to be so.

Doesn't this
have to be
done too

dockers, coal miners and assembly line workers, street sweepers and bus
drivers as well as artists. There are inescapable limits to the free exercise
of human ability which are imposed by the strictures of society itself; the
demands of society are an age-old and perhaps eternal frustration for the
individual. This frustration still exists, and exists importantly, in our
society: we must still provide for the regular performance of social tasks
*rather which are not desirable either from monetary considerations, etc.*
*which hardly accord with anyone's conception of creative labor. Yet the*
nature of the social demands which are presently imposed upon us contribute
meaningfully to the alleviation of this conflict. For what we have described
as the proliferation of new professions, skills, and needs is nothing less
than an upgrading of the creative level of social work as a whole. The *rou-*
*tine chore*, the hard and dull toil of society, is giving way to a new, more
exacting, and imaginative level of work. The very necessities of the times
thus bring with them opportunity, for the demands of society and the desires
of the individual are more mutually compatible in a society urgently in need
of skill and talent, than has ever been the case before.

* * *

These few remarks serve to present some basic consideration of our
task. They point up our ultimate moral and our immediate practical objectives:

V - Report

October 23, 1957

the encouragement of creative talent for the values it offers to the person himself, and its encouragement for the good of society; and they offer a reassuring note as to the greater -- if by no means complete -- compatibility of these aims in a society of increasing complexity and dependence on creative skill.

But it is well that we temper this initial reassurance with two necessary cautions. First we must recognize that insofar as the pursuit of our objective concerns the inner core of human behavior -- the motives and aspirations, the drives and talents of human beings -- it forces us to deal with equations of many unknowns. We know very little of what makes human beings behave as they do, of what provides one man with great talent and another with none, and of why one man will exercise his gifts and another neglect them. In attempting to nourish creativity, we are at best crudely and clumsily exercising the yet undeveloped art of the cultivation of human excellence.

What can be done to help this area of

ignorance - see Adams' and Gardner's remarks in transcript.

I don't follow

ence.

You like this word! It reminds me of too many friends.

This necessary and sobering consideration is reinforced by a second. This is the fact that our society is committed to the freedom of human action. We may speak of the human resources available to us, but we cannot -- as can some authoritarian societies -- talk of the resources "at our command." Thus insofar as we may see the need for new directions of individual effort, for new patterns of the utilization of human effort, we cannot as a rule

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 7 -

legislate that effort or those patterns of use into existence. Certainly we can
plan ahead, but our plans must take the shape of an attempt to create con-
ditions in which individuals of their own volition will change their life goals
in accordance with social preferences. That this is a handicap to efficiency
is undeniable, but it is a handicap whose disadvantages are more than out-
weighed by other considerations. A society which depends primarily on
voluntarism and on self-directed change may conform to new patterns more
slowly than a society which can <u>command</u> change, but the adjustment will
be deeper and more enduring in the end. And even were it not, we would
still prefer our voluntaristic methods because they are the only means funda-
mentally in accord with the priority we give to the individual himself.

Good
point!

With these introductory remarks, we may turn to a description of the
framework of the Report itself. In the course of our deliberations we have
been concerned with a variety of matters which bear on the cultivation and
the utilization of our human resources: in the supporting papers of our sub-
panel the reader will find the foundation of fact and theory from which we
have culled our remarks. It is fitting in this Introduction that we express our
gratitude to the scholars and specialists who have contributed so much to our
deliberations.

However, in the brief space of this Report we have chosen to concen-
trate our attention primarily on a few of the paramount issues. We shall

V - Report

September 23, 1957)

- 9 -

marked the discussion of our Panel, and it is hoped that this central body of
opinion will be accurately and forcefully represented here.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

This is a good section until you
come to that part dealing with the
growth of metropolitan areas -
what effect do they have on values,
morals, etc.

-10-

I

The Setting of the Problem

1. Our Human Resources

The human resources of America consist of the physical and mental capacities of the hundred and seventy millions individuals who comprise us. If we consider those individuals as our ultimate riches, then we are steadily growing wealthier, and at a startling rate. On an average day there is a net rise of 7,400 in the population of the United States; over a year, a rise of some 2-1/2 millions. This will very likely give us, by 1975, a population of not quite 225,000,000.

The causes of our recent growth in population are obscure. In part
our growth stems from our economic prosperity, but only in part. An import-
ant contributing factor has been a reorientation of our attitude toward family
life itself: the average American woman is today married before she reaches
voting age, has her first child at age 22, and with her third and typically
last child -- at age 26 -- has achieved a bigger family than her mother,
although not so large a one as her grandmother. Yet another cause of our
population rise has been our decreased mortality. Of the children which
This sounds exaggerated
even if it is not our average mother will produce, very few will die before middle age. Our
death rate from natural causes for the time span between age one week and
age forty is rapidly approaching -- although it has of course not yet reached
--- statistical zero.

I am not
sure this
is not too
complicated:
Why not
simply say
population
increases at
startling rate.

This
exaggerated

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 11 -

We do not know with certainty what will be the trend of birth rates in the future. However, for the time span of our report, the basic datum of human resources is already in existence. Everyone who will be twenty years old or older in 1975 has already been born. Therefore we can predict with very great accuracy the age composition of the older portion of our population in 1975, and by extending present birth rates can estimate with fair certainty what will be our younger age groups. Here is what our supply of human talent will be at that date:

Population of the U.S. by Age: 1955 and Projected for 1975*

| | 1975 | 1955 | 1955-1975 Percent Change |
|:---|:---:|:---:|:---:|
| | | (millions) | |
| All ages | 222.3 | 166.0 | 34 |
| 0-4 years | 25.4 | 19.1 | 33 |
| 5-14 years | 41.9 | 30.5 | 37 |
| 15-19 years | 18.7 | 11.2 | 67 |
| 20-24 years | 19.3 | 10.8 | 79 |
| 25-44 years | 53.2 | 46.9 | 13 |
| 45-64 years | 43.1 | 33.4 | 29 |
| 65 years and over | 20.7 | 14.1 | 46 |

* Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, p. 25, No. 123, "A" Projections.

It should be noted how differently from that of the present will be our age composition by 1975. Today, as a consequence of the low birth rates of the 20s, we are short on young adults, while our high birth rates in recent

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 12 -

years make us relatively strong on children. Twenty years hence the situation
will be radically changed. The baby boom of recent years will have resulted
in an enormous increase in the age groups 15 to 24; and as our present middle
ages attain the later brackets, there will be a large increase in the age group
65 and over.

This pattern of our future population already points up two of the prob-
lems of the future. One consists of the fact that 20 years hence we shall be
<u>Particularly</u> faced with a wave of young people, still in mid-education and on the thresh-
<u>with increasing</u>
<u>emphasis on</u> hold of their careers. This flood of young people will place an immense
<u>college education</u>.

On the other <u>pressure</u> on our educational institutions and may perhaps also come as an
<u>hand if</u> <u>indigestible</u> sudden influx of new entrants to our labor markets. Our dispro-
<u>this is true</u> <u>why are we so</u> concerned <u>portionately</u> large number of older people presents a problem of a different
<u>about shortage</u>
<u>of talent if</u> kind. With nearly one person out of every ten over 65 years of age we shall
<u>both are true, as</u> well they may have to adjust ourselves to the presence of a large group for whom we now
<u>be, explain paradox.</u>

have very little national "use."

Both these certain eventualities for the future come as challenges
to the utilization of our human resources. The presence of a huge youthful
reservoir of still underdeveloped and unchannelized talents gives us a
magnificent opportunity to equip ourselves with a distribution of skills more
nearly in balance with our social needs. At the same time, the wasted
resources of older age -- and the largely unused resources of our

V - Report

September 23, 1957

young-middle-aged women who have completed rearing their children -- offers us a *new kind* of human resource for which creative outlets must be found.

In addition to these changes in age composition, the American popu-
lation will also change in other ways which bear on the quantity and quality
of skills and talents it contains. For one thing, it will be a more homogeneous
population. The main homogenizing influences are two. One is migration.
We are a moving people -- 20 percent of us change our address each year --
and there are great slow currents, northward and westward, which describe
the drift of our people. Twenty years hence California will in all probability
be the most populous state and Nevada no longer the least populous. Twenty
years hence the Negro will have shed, to a greater extent than he has already,
his southern regional character, (as a consequence of his migration to northern
and midwestern cities.) Meanwhile the farmer is disappearing as a distinct This
seems
group: a million of our rural population leaves the farms each year and only over-
the higher birth rate of those remaining retards a precipitous decline of our
farm population. As a consequence of all this social movement we are
becoming an ever more national community in which regional loyalties and
sharp regional differences are year by year diminishing.

Why does
this make
us more
homogeneous?

Much of this slow homogenization of our American society manifests
itself as a change in the kind, as well as the locale, of our habitat: we
are becoming metropolitanized. In 1900, the average American lived in the

I think we could use some Kirk tables about distribution of
population: implication for age pyramid, old age, illness
etc. If they are not in his paper, we can get them from him.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

countryside; by 1930, he lived in a small town of from five to ten thousand
population. Today, he lives in a big city or its satellites; by 1975, he will
live in suburbia. Four-fifths of the nation's growth between 1950 and 1955
was concentrated in the urban fringe that rings each of great cities and
extends far in the countryside. By 1975, when the helicopter may have come
into general family use, the typical American may again be on his way back
to the country town. With this difference, however; he will no longer be a
rural person. The tempo of his life and his work will center on the great
metropolitan areas to which he commutes and toward which he will be
culturally orientated.

This is
already true
to a large
extent.

Hence, we may expect for 1975, a more uniform America -- that is
to say, a supply of talents and skills in which the common factors of habitat?
and general outlook will be more similar than exists today. Here too, is
both a problem and an opportunity. If it suggests a loss of some of the rich-
ness of variety which a culturally diverse people may possess, it should
also bring into being, by virtue of the possibilities for a more uniformly
good education, a higher common denominator of capacities from which to
draw.

Can you
say this ?

What of the quality of our human resources? The progress of science
in combatting diseases is too well known to require documentation. We may
expect that within 20 years, our life expectancy will be lifted from its present
70 years to 75 or 80. It is certainly reasonable to assume that the number

V - Report

September 23, 1957

of work-days which illness costs the nation should show a per capita decline, and to assume that our national physical energies will be at least as robust as today. In this connection the needed and probably soon forthcoming provision of national health legislation and the growth of group medical facilities should do much to increase our physical well-being. Whether our mental health will show a similar improvement is a graver question. There is at least the possibility that an older and more urbanized society will be increasingly vulnerable to emotional disorders. The importance of pscyhiatric counseling and guidance, for youths at the commencement of career-choices as well as for older people at the termination of life careers, will be correspondingly enhanced.

Let us briefly summarize what we can say about the physical shape of our human resources over the foreseeable future.

* Our total numbers will have in all likelihood have reached 225 million.

* We shall face an unusually large concentration of population in the age groups 15 to 24 and 65 and over, and a new labor force of still young mothers.

* We shall present a more uniform national profile with suburbia as slangy? our typical habitat.

* We shall be less subject to early mortality and to physical illness but perhaps somewhat more afflicted by the emotional stress of age and urbanization. Also won't this expansion of life-cycle level off sometime? It seems to me it leads to increase in population while it is being extended but after that should stay even.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

Can this be stated differently? you mean the social demand? 2. The Needs of Society

Our human resources cannot only be assessed in physical terms. Even

The panel never really got into the problem - isn't it too much of a conjecture? more important in determining the supply and quality of talents and skills will be the social factors which condition them. Thus, we must make some projections -- of necessity, less than certain ones -- concerning the environment in which the American individual will mature.

By 1975 it can be conservatively estimated that there will be over 90 million people in our labor force, compared with some 70 millions today. What sorts of tasks will this force be called on to perform? What skills and aptitudes will they require?

One method of approaching this problem is to review the long-term trends within our labor force. If we look back to 1910 and compare the distribution of selected skills and occupations with those of today, the contrast is striking:

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 17 -

Occupational Distribution of Labor Force *

| | 1910 | 1955 |
|:---|:---:|:---:|
| | **percent** | |
| Professional & technical workers | 4.4 | 9.8 |
| Proprietors, managers, and officials, excluding farm | 6.5 | 11.1 |
| Clerical workers | 10.2 | 14.2 |
| Skilled workers and foremen | 11.7 | 14.1 |
| **Total** | **32.8** | **49.2** |

* Statistics for 1910 from America's Needs and Resources, Twentieth Century Fund, N.Y. 1947. p 549. 1955 from Statistical Abstract of the U. S. 1956, p 209. Note: 1955 figure for white labor force only.

Thus it can be seen that a portentous shift has occurred in the kind
of labor skills required of our population: Whereas in 1910 less than a third
of our people were called upon for the exercise of skills and techniques
demanding specialized training or considerable education in 1955 almost
a half of our labor force was so qualified.

By 1975 we can expect this proportion to have risen considerably
higher in response to these continuing pressures:

1. The gradual advent of automation.

The consensus of the engineers and economists who have considered

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 18 -

Can a consensus Believe?

the problem believe that the first impact of automation will
be the elimination of routine jobs and the offsetting creation
of far more technically skilled jobs of machine supervision,
computer maintenance and regulation, etc. It is by no means
certain that automation may not present a considerable
problem of economic adjustment, but its impact on the level
of skills required is certain to be upward.

2. Increasing specialization.

We have noted already the trend in every area from pure
science to applied business management toward an ever
growing body of sub-divided skills. It is perhaps an
arguable point whether this extreme division of labor is an
altogether healthy tendency; but it is not arguable that the
phenomenon of specialization shows any sign but that of
further increase. It is simply the fact that as our body of
knowledge expands at something like an exponential rate,
it requires an ever finer classification, and we may
confidently expect a further proliferation of professions
and skills which will add to the demand for highly trained
and educated labor.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

How will this increase demand for talent?
Isn't this way of meeting demand? Unless
you mean these professionals will be in demand.

3. The professionalization of discovery.

Business enterprise provides an excellent example of a phenomenon much wider-spread than business alone. Not very many years ago the process of invention and innovation, which is so critical to business success, was largely the outcome of a relatively few gifted individuals, such as Edison or Ford. This kind of individual inventor is still an American folk-hero, but he is being replaced in actuality by organized and systematic research. It is now the business of business to invent. The creation and rapid expansion of organized research and development facilities not only in business, but in science, medicine, social science, military affairs, and elsewhere, adds importantly to the growing demand for skills and talents.

Thus we find ample reason to believe that our labor force will be called upon to embody an ever growing body of specialized skills. Yet it is not only skill, in the sense of mere dexterity or formalized training, which the future will require. It is creative skill -- creative talent -- which threatens to be the crucial need.

It is undoubtedly true that at all times society is short of high talent personnel and that the influence of giftedness has always been far out of proportion to its numbers. Yet there are special reasons why we must consider

V - Report

September 23, 1957

the encouragement of extraordinary talent as a matter of unusual concern
for the immediate future.

One such reason is our struggle for survival, not only vis-a-vis the
Russians, but in a world where the democratic process, liberal capitalism,
and the very morality of the open society are under half-skeptical, half-hopeful
foreign scrutiny. The need for gifted talents is accordingly very great -- not
only to help us cope with the threats to our national existence, but also and
importantly to attest to the world at large our capacity to create creativity.

A second reason for the imperative need for special talent comes from
our growing awareness of the immense advances which lie directly beyond
our present limits of knowledge. There is at present a tantalizing awareness
of the gains which can be wrested from the ocean of ignorance; we are at
the very lip of break-through progress in a dozen fields: physics, biological
chemistry, medical research, psychological therapy; and the potential value
of talent accordingly was never greater.

Yet a third reason for the special need for giftedness lies in the nature
of the social structure itself. We are, for better or worse, an increasingly
<u>organized</u> society. In every area of communal life -- government, business,
the military, science, education -- the typical unit is larger, more formally
structured and multi-echeloned than in the past. Itself a consequence of the
complexity of our society, this trend to organization poses a severe challenge
to creative effort in the nature of the working environment it offers. As a

Even more elementary.
A society as our must grow in order to retain its dynamism. This itself produces demands for talent.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

number of social observers have commented, the skills needed by people
today are increasingly social skills -- the ability to "get along" with people,
to become a member of a "team", to work one's way up the social ladder of
the large organization by the exercise of "personality".

In this atmosphere of large-scale organization the temptation is to
conform to the ways of the group. There are considerable benefits in terms
of social amenities and smoothness of life to this organizational attitude, but
it is hardly conducive to the kind of "breakthrough" thinking whose importance
we wish so to emphasize. The need accordingly is for the cultivation of
talented individuals who will be able to withstand the pressures of the
organization, and whose creative abilities will themselves disturb the torpor
in turn requires that large organizations respect and cultivate just such
"disturbing" talents is a corollary whose dilemmas are not inconsiderable.
At this juncture however we wish to stress the heightened need for creativity
as a necessary source of stimulus to organized society itself.

If we may recapitulate our basic argument of the preceding pages, we
see powerful trends in society which point to the need for an increasingly
skilled workforce over the foreseeable future. However the truly critical
demand of our times will not only be for increased skill as such but for the
creative skill by which we may justify our way of life, break through to new
areas of knowledge, and offset the bureaucratic tendencies of contemporary
society. The need for creativity is the truly imperative and insatiable demand
of our times.

O.K.
Good section.

Read here
pp. 431-433
of my book
which has
some of
my ideas on this subject

[Y]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

Use more of Riesman's
ideas - i.e. desire for
security in young people

3. Incentives and Motivations

In an open society such as ours, the fulfillment of social needs
depends on the personal efforts -- the private striving -- of individuals.
Thus if we are to adduce a needed increase in the supply of talents -- and to
distribute those talents among competing social claims in some roughly
efficient way -- we must turn to a consideration of the incentives which impel
free men toward their life careers.

At the conclusion of our report we shall have some further remarks
to offer concerning the nature of incentives themselves, but at this stage of
our inquiry we wish to focus attention on the larger social factors which shape
and influence our attitudes toward work. For whereas the personal element
is always critical in an open society, the background of social pressure will
importantly condition the behavior of many individuals. One might note, for
example, the prodigies of effort, self-sacrifice, and imaginativeness which
are so often remarked as the by-product of the social conditions of war. Clearly
the tensions of a warlike climate would be an unacceptable price for our
society to pay for the cultivation of creative talent, but the profound influence
which the social climate itself can exert in this regard leads us to examine
our own society for its characteristic and pervasive pressures.

We find these to be two:

1. We are a society which has hitherto largely depended on economic motives -- both those of need and those of ambition -- to attract men to the

Or of a
society
which
artificially
creates them
like a totalitarian
society.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

-23-

tasks which society demanded of them. Yet in the near future -- and already
in the present -- our social need is for the development of many skills
and talents for which economic stimuli do not play a major role. To instance
only a few such cases, the demand for teachers, government personnel at
all levels, highly trained social service workers, scientists and technical
research workers of all kinds is probably more pressing than the recruitment
of salesmen or average business executives. Clearly some improvement in
the financial rewards of these non-business professions is imperative, but
equally clearly this cannot be the full answer: business can always outbid
the non-profit organization for talent. Hence we face the serious problem
of how to orientate the development of talent in directions which go counter
to the economic current.

Develop a
sense of
responsi-
bility
"a la
Puritanism"
that Riesman
has in mind.

2. We are a society in which the economic environment is changing from one of austerity to one of comfort and security. In its crudest terms, the economic whip which has for so long driven society, has been replaced by a reliance on the economic carrot -- and the carrots themselves are of more and more uniform size. Thus even *within* the sphere of economic activity and economic incentive there is posed the question of whether our present system of rewards will serve to bring forth the kind of effort we need. Business executiveship, when fully exercised, is a demanding and arduous task. In a society in which comfort, leisure, and a fair share of the amenities are available for only modest effort it is by no means certain that the dedication and

You make
this sound much
too drastic.

? when - frontier days

V - Report

September 23, 1957

What are the new values of the college
graduate generation today. I do not think
we have made the problems

- 24 -

self-sacrifice needed to exert full executiveship will be forthcoming. Already
the plaint among many business men is the lack of aggressiveness, the
security-mindedness, the aversion to lea dership evidenced by the younger
business candidate. The popularity of such professions as personnel and
public relations -- which deal with the social side of business -- is symptomatic
in this regard. Hence the second question which our new environment raises
is whether it will affect the zest and vigor of economic enterprise itself.

These reflections, insofar as they are justified, lead us to the
conclusion that the changing nature of our society may considerably complicate
the structure of incentives and motivations needed to make it function well.
They indicate the need for a higher _esteem_ -- as well as higher financial
rewards -- accorded to vital professions which cannot compete for talent
on economic grounds alone, and they raise the challenging question of how
we shall adduce "hard" work in a society of comfort and ease. There are
no simplistic answers to questions such as these. We raise the matters not
to dispose of them, but bring them to our attention as part of the background
against which we must consider the problem of talent. For as we turn now
to the measures we may take for the better and fuller utilization of human
resources -- and to their cultivation through the educational process -- it is
necessary to have in mind the new, disturbing and challenging nature of the
environment for human effort itself. What our very brief discussion of
incentives commends to our attention is an awareness that a new conception

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 25 -

of what constitutes "success" may be the most important and far-reaching
social change which we will witness in the years ahead.

* * *

With this brief review of the physical characteristics of our population,
of the needs of society insofar as they can be foreseen and of its environment
pressures we have completed sketching in a setting of the problem. According-
ly, we now turn to the consideration of the means at our disposal, concentrating
in this regard on two primary questions: first, the better utilization of certain
overlocked and underutilized human resources, and second, the improvement
of our educational institutions.

V - Report

- 26 -

September 23, 1957

II

## The Means at Our Disposal

By what actions, public and private, can we contribute to the cultivation and better utilization of our human talent resources? A central portion of our answer concerns the educational process, for education is both a means of cultivating and of utilizing talent, and the concluding portion of this section of our report is accordingly devoted to a discussion of problems affecting the teacher, the public and private school, and the university. Before we take up the question of education however, there is another important matter which calls for our attention and with which we introduce our discussion: the improvement of our present practices of manpower utilization.

## Manpower Utilization

At first sight the manpower utilization question threatens to overwhelm us by its sheer magnitude: there is not a sector of the economy, not an important service of society which is not handicapped by a shortage of talent and which could not benefit from the recruitment of new talent and the better utilization of the talents it has attracted. Clearly we cannot investigate, bit by bit, the employment pattern of our society. Hence we propose to approach the problem in its broadest aspects by posing two questions which seem to us to lie at the heart of the matter. The questions are these:

1. How can we better use the basic labor force of the nation?

2. How can we significantly improve manpower practices for high-talent personnel?

[Y]

Why bring this in at this point?

Seems out of place.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 27 -

# 1. How Can We Better Use the Basic Labor Force of the Nation?

It has been pointed out that if we are to realize the full potential of our economy by 1965, we shall have to increase our total output by 40% with a labor force which will have increased by only 11%. These figures make unmistakably clear how dependent we are on increases in productivity for economic growth. In the future, as in the past, the bulk of that increased productivity will come from the use of more and better machinery and power to aid human effort. Yet an important contributing factor can be the improvement in the quality and quantity of human effort itself. This is particularly true since there now exist four large areas of manpower where we are seriously wasting our resources.

**The first of these is womanpower.** As a recent report of the National Manpower Council made clear, women are playing an increasingly important role in the American economy. One out of every three workers in our regular labor force is a woman. However this increasing participation of women in paid employment has not been paralleled by a corresponding increase in the level of work that women perform. Except for teachers and nurses there are no large numbers of women in professional or skilled fields -- despite the fact that women are employed in practically every sector of the economy.

Many adjustments must be made if more women are to be employed in positions where they can utilize their full potentialities. Among the important

O.K. except
more emphasis
on the
number of
women
available

[NY]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 28 -

changes required would be better educational preparation for girls at the high school, college, and university levels; greater willingness on the part of employers to open their in-service training programs to women who give promise of remaining more or less regularly in the labor force; and special guidance and retraining opportunities for the large number of women who might wish to enter or return to work after their children start school.

The second opportunity for improving our labor force is the Negro. The Negro has benefitted greatly during the past decade and a half from broadened economic opportunities and, in turn, has been able to make a greater contribution to the economy by working in more productive jobs. But the margins for further gains are substantial. These gains will require a continuing exodus of Negroes from the poor farm lands of the South to the urban South, North, and West, where their opportunities for better jobs are much greater. The fact that such opportunities exist, and that there will undoubtedly be more of them in the years ahead, has major implications for the way in which young Negroes should prepare themselves for work; the Negro must acquire the education and training which alone will qualify him for better jobs. Even more important, the availability of rich human ability in the unused Negro labor force emphasizes from yet another point of view the supreme importance to the United States of an approach toward equity and tolerance in inter-racial relations. These are matters to which we will return in our consideration of educational opportunities.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

The third major opportunity lies in the development of depressed areas.

When President Eisenhower asked Congress for legislation to assist the depressed areas of the country, he stressed the need for action on grounds of equity: why should a child born in the backwoods of Tennessee be deprived of opportunities available to children whose parents are fortunate enough to be living in more prosperous regions? But there are additional reasons for Congress to act. The only chance for many young people now growing up in the depressed areas to earn a reasonable livelihood is by migrating to areas where employment opportunities are greater. But their willingness to migrate and their ability to integrate themselves into new communities depends importantly on their education and on the encouragement they receive with their occupational planning.

A clear gain will accrue, not only to the individual, but also to the economy from a relocation process which would enable more people to leave areas of underdevelopment for regions where jobs are plentiful.

The final area of wasted manpower is our older worker. During the depressed 1930s many employers established a compulsory age of retirement -- usually at 65. Retirement was viewed as one way of providing work for those most in need of a job. The generation since then has witnessed important changes: there have been large additions to the population aged 65 and over; most men and women in their sixties and seventies are in better physical and emotional health than formerly; and the age at which people start work,

did Panel
ever talk
about this?

I feel this
section is
entirely
over-
exaggerated
in length
and im-
portance
relative
to
attention
paid it by
the Panel.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 30 -

especially in certain professions, has been much advanced. (Witness the
medical specialist who does not begin to earn a proper living until eight
years out of medical school.) These developments date for the most part
from the recent past, a period in which a shortage of jobs has been trans-
formed into a shortage of well-trained persons -- a condition likely to prevail
throughout the decades ahead.

What adjustments are called for to insure that old practices, appro-
priate for their day, do not remain in force after the conditions which led
to their establishment no longer exist? Compulsory retirement has always
been enforced primarily in supervisory and management ranks. The typical
production worker drops out of the labor force when he is no longer able to
keep the pace and there is no easier job to which he can readily be trans-
ferred. Often he is still eager to contribute -- perhaps in a part-time job --
but employer indifference, social security regulations about earning income,
or simply lack of job-guidance make him unable to find work. He becomes
consigned to our homes for the obsolcent human in Florida or California
where he putters himself into boredom and dissatisfaction. In the executive
ranks, in civil service and in most non-profit organizations, formal regulations
rather than the individual's preference determine when a man retires.

To a certain extent this is unavoidable; no effective system of executive
development is possible without reasonable turnover at the top. In the absence

V - Report

September 23, 1957

of a fixed retirement age, those at the top are likely to regard themselves
as irreplaceable, even though many lose their vigor before 65 and become
more adept at coasting than working. No organization in a competitive en-
vironment can long survive a policy which leaves retirement solely to the
discretion of the individual. Chronological age, however, is an imperfect
criterion. What is needed is more knowledge of the aging process and ad-
ditional objective criteria which can be used to supplement chronological
age to determine when an individual should retire.

The more effective use of older persons requires the application of
courage and imagination. Were older men and women prepared to leave
their regular careers in order to join another kind of activity, the reluctance
to quit would not be so severe and the psychological shock not so great. A
number of companies have begun to pioneer in pre-retirement re-orientation
of older personnel with a view to easing their readjustment to a new but still
active life. The WhitneyFoundation has led the way in enabling distinguished
retired professors to continue active teaching for a year or two at smaller
institutions which could otherwise never have attracted them. Government
and non-profit organizations have also begun to make excellent use of persons
of high ability who have retired from industry or from academic life. Occasion-
ally a man who has earned full retirement benefits will move, in his late fifties
or early sixties, from an employer who enforces a fixed retirement age to

V - Report

September 23, 1957

another who is willing to keep him at work longer. Clearly this entire area
requires research, publicity, and perhaps not least, legislative encourage-
ment.

Note must also be taken of personal practices which militate against
the hiring of older persons. The age limit for new employees is frequently set
as low as 35 for secretarial work, 40 for management positions, and 45 for
skilled workers or operatives. These policies reflect inflexibilities in insur-
ance and pension schemes as well as prejudices which have no rational basis.
More efficient utilization of the nation's manpower resources requires that
major efforts be made to adjust the realities of the employment market to the
ever larger number of older workers. New York and Massachusetts have been
tackling the problem for some time, and the U.S. Department of Labor is now
pushing ahead with a major program. But much more needs to be done before
effective solutions are developed.

## 2. How Can We Improve Manpower Practices for High Talent Personnel?

High talent personnel are to be found in every sector of our society,
public and private alike. They are the "seed-corn" talent of industry and
government, education and social service. Yet it is clear that their services
are often not being used to maximal advantage -- sometimes because they are
not sufficiently appreciated, perhaps more frequently because their very
scarcity leads to their hoarding or misuse. A complete review of the utilization

[Y]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 33 -

of high talent manpower is clearly beyond the scope of this paper, but a few
examples of current mispractices may serve to alert us to the kinds of prob-
lems involved:

* One need hardly point out the crucial value of research to business, government, and society in general. Yet productive research is being jeopardized by the fetish for something called "research" which is in fact nothing but intellectual makework. This misapplication of scarce talents has several forms. Many foundations have sponsored research projects of dubious value and exaggerated scope -- the latter consideration serving to aggravate the current vogue for "team" research. It is often far easier to receive a grant for a project involving a dozen men than for the potentially much more incisive work of a single scholar. The government research-supporting institutions, such as the Office of Naval Research, are equally at fault in the casual financing of projects which absorb first-rate talent for second rate ends. Universities, more interested in the funds attached to the projects than in the intrinsic value of the projects themselves, encourage the presentation of swollen research budgets. Business has become aware of the public-relations value of research and bids for highpower talents, only

Not a fair
statement.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

to use them for less than highpowered inquiries. This failure
to distinguish between projects of genuine importance and
showcase projects results in a squandering of intellectual
talent which we can ill afford.

* The use of skilled talents by our government is another area of often extreme malpractice. From a failure to adapt draft policies to the realities of scarce student talents, to a failure to utilize or coordinate scientific and scholarly aid in the military and diplomatic establishments, the spectacle presented is one of talent wastage -- and worse yet, an un-awareness of the wastage.

* Recruitment practices of large corporations leave much to be desired. Lavish offers at the campus level, usually based on the most cursory acquaintance with the applicant's potentials, are often followed by routine assignments to "learn the business." The tedium of a mediocre training course, with its emphasis on "starting at the bottom" is hardly the best use of bright young people whose abilities equip them to start near the top, as for example, in an assistant's capacity. The present system leads to unnecessary early dissatisfaction on the part of the most talented

duplication
of efforts

I do not feel
this should be
discussed - a
very moot point
in eyes of many
are so-called
training
courses.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 35 -

business trainees and to a failure to use their fresh abilities
before these have staled by too long an exposure to corporate
"procedure."

The fact that talent is misused by business, government, and academic
sectors alike suggests that the problem must be approached by a many-sided
attack. Some immediate courses for action which suggest themselves are these:

1. Greater sharing of intellectual talent among educational
institutions. A number of smaller colleges have already evolved
a cooperative use of high talents which no one of them alone could
"afford" and have begun to dovetail academic offerings rather than
to duplicate and re-duplicate one another's catalogues. Here is
an excellent field for further exploration and application, perhaps
under the aegis of a foundation grant for an inter-collegiate intel-
lectual coordinating body.

2. Another opportunity for the better utilization of manpower would be to dovetail career opportunities in government and private economy. The increasing need for private executive personnel to be acquainted with the problems of government, and the no less important need for government personnel to have a first hand insight in the problems of business suggests the possibility of fruitful interchanges of personnel between the two. Tours of duty of several

V - Report

September 23, 1957

years duration in the government might be recognized by some corporations as a regular stage in a man's career development, and it should be possible to make this flow a two-way exchange.

3. The use of trial employment periods during the junior year va-cation period offers an excellent chance for both corporation and applicant to get to know one another on a more solid basis than a half hour's interview in the spring of senior year. The fact that the employment period will necessarily be limited should also force the employer to offer more genuinely interesting and challenging indoctrination courses or assignments for the potential employee.

is being done on
a wide scale
at present time

4. The government use of expertise is a matter which calls for overall review and reconsideration. No simple recommendation can significantly improve a relationship which is presently formless, planless, haphazard, and inefficient. There is no doubt but that especially attention must be paid to the use -- and misuse -- of high talented personnel in the Defense and State Departments. It is possible that the coordinated use of talented manpower may require a centralized advisory office attached to the President's Executive Office.

Is this at
all practical?
-- see Hoover
Reports.

5. Perhaps the most important single line of action is to improve and increase research into human resources and particularly into

meaning what - identification?

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 37 -

high talent resources. The fact is that at the moment we know
very little about such basic issues as why many young people
with high potential are not motivated to pursue a college educa-
tion; why about half of all who enter engineering schools fail to
graduate; why only a few of the high talented students are willing
to proceed with graduate studies; why some able people are at-
tracted to and remain in teaching or the armed services or other
areas of public service at relatively low salaries, and why others
move out of their chosen careers for minor differentials in earnings.
More effective utilization of the nation's human resources depends
on the explanation of our basic knowledge of such human behavior.
This is a challenge alike to universities, foundations, business
and government.

The Educational Problem

The fact that the utilization of manpower is so closely connected with
the creation and development of talent leads us naturally to the consideration
of the single most important talent -- shaping mechanism at our disposal; edu-
cation. The very fact that 40 million Americans -- nearly one out of every
four persons in the nation -- will be attending some sort of school this year
suggests the magnitude of both the problem and the opportunity which it offers
us. For despite this massive movement of the American people towards their

V - Report

September 23, 1957

educational institutions, the fact is that many of these Americans will be receiving an inadequate education. Only a year ago, the United States Office of Education estimated that the nation's schools were short 100,000 qualified teachers. Many elementary and high schools and colleges are already finding it impossible to hire well-qualified teachers in such basic subjects as English, languages, and social sciences. Some schools have even had to drop chemistry, physics and mathematics from their curricular since there were no teachers to teach them.

In what sense?

Dangerous and poorly documented paragraph

are they?

This inadequacy of education threatens to become still more severe in the years ahead. By 1969, high schools will be deluged with 50 - 70% more students than they now can barely accommodate; by 1975, our colleges and universities will face at least a doubling of the students who wish higher education.

At the same time that this unprecedented demand will materialize, our supply of teachers is apt to fall even further behind. The number of new school teachers needed in the coming decade is equal to about 50% of all the four year college graduates of every kind in that same period. Since only about 20% of college graduates enter school teaching, the severity of the shortage is apparent. At college levels, the teacher shortage is even more critical. The number of new college teachers needed to 1970 is roughly three times the total number of Ph.D. graduates likely to be turned out in the same period.

Is this so bad? - rather a high percentage it seems to me.

Is Ph.D. necessity for teaching?

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 39 -

These background statistics indicate the heroic nature of the measures which we will be forced to take if we are to maintain -- much less improve -- the quality of education in this nation. Nothing less than all-out attack against the problem from many vantage points will succeed in giving us the educational framework which is indispensable to the achievement of our full utilization of our human resources.

We see the main lines in this all-out attack to take the following form:

## 1. Teacher Recruitment

> How do we attract the best minds of the
> young people into making a career of teaching?

It is simply the unfortunate truth that the status of the teacher in America today is low. This fact plus the total inadequate economic remuneration of teachers has the unfortunate consequence of keeping away from the teaching profession many of our more talented individuals. Thus, one immediate course of action is to improve the quality of teacher recruitment by improving the actual facts of the teaching situation itself -- the training it involves, the salaries it earns, the nature of the task it undertakes.

The financial aspect of the problem, which is clearly the most important, is a matter to which we shall return at length. However it is worth stressing, in respect to the recruitment of teachers, that better pay -- although a necessary improvement -- may not be a sufficient one. The better training of teachers and their more skilled and dignified use are equally important means of attracting a larger flow of teacher applicants. An encouraging development

Also raise the "social standard" of the teacher in the eyes of the public

V - Report

September 23, 1957

in this regard has been the renewed interest of some liberal arts colleges
in turning out good school teachers, a mission which was once important
to them, but upon which many of them had turned their backs for many years.
Another development of significance in this respect has been the emergence
of a considerable number of "fifth year" teacher training programs leading
to a Masters Degree. These programs are designed to provide a roadway
into school teaching for liberal arts graduates who may lack standard
undergraduate professional courses.

The important point in these and other recent experiements is the
demonstration that there can and should be more than one route into school
teaching. It would be wise for state governments to foster the development
of all these routes by the judicious use of tax funds and teachers certifica-
tion regulations rather than to assume that the only way to expand the supply
of teachers is by the four year State Teacher Colleges.

2. Better Utilization of Teachers

Perhaps no profession has shared so little in the general rise of pro-
ductivity as that of the teacher. To a large degree, this is due to the fact
that teachers tend to be handled as interchangeable units in an educational
assembly line. The best teacher and the poorest in the same school build-
ing may teach the same grade and subject, use the same textbook, handle
the same number of students, get paid the same salaries and rise in salary

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 41 -

at the same speed to the same ceiling. Indeed, the only way for many
teachers to get promoted beyond this educational lockstep is to stop teach-
ing and become administrators. Clearly, if the content of the teaching task
is to be made more attractive, this routinization of education will have to
be greatly changed.

One of the changes that suggests itself immediately is the elimination
of needless petty tasks which may occupy as much as one-third to one-half
of a teacher's time. The use of teacher aides may accomplish much in this
regard. Yet another means of increasing the productivity of the teacher is
the employment of such devices as television to bring effective teachers into
contact with larger numbers of students than they would otherwise face. Such
departures from customary practice as the teacher aide and television are not
merely stop gap measures to help us surmount the immediate teacher shortage
crisis. They are the beginnings of a long overdue revolution in the technology
of education without which it will not be possible in the years ahead to attract
enough top college people into education, to utilize them efficiently and to pay
them what they are worth.

3. Financial Support

Inseparably connected with the problem of the recruitment and better
utilization of teachers is the matter of how we shall finance the increased de-
mands on our educational apparatus.

This
doesn't get
at what
Douglass
Brown has
in mind.

[NY]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 42 -

Certainly from an economic point of view the United States is in an excellent position today to provide financial support to education -- and in a very bad position to risk providing too little support. Yet in fact our outlays for education have failed to keep pace with our rising national income.

Against a Gross National Product of $391 billion in 1955, total educational expenditures in the United States ran just under $14 billion, or 3.6% of the GNP. This total breaks down as follows:

| | Billions |
| :--- | ---: |
| Public Elementary and Secondary | $9.4 |
| Private Elementary and Secondary | 1.2 |
| Public Higher Education | 1.5 |
| Private Higher Education | 1.9 |

From the figures available it appears that at least since 1930 this relationship of educational expenditures to GNP has remained relatively constant at about 3.5%. This has meant, of course, a large increase in total dollars spent on education as national product has risen, but since enrollments have also risen, a smaller expenditure *per pupil*. Meantime the proportion of national productive effort devoted to other socially important programs, particularly defense, has risen considerably. For example, in 1940 the people of the United States spent $2.00 on education for every $1.00 spent on military

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 43 -

services (not including costs of previous wars), but in 1955 we spent nearly
$3.00 on military services for every $1.00 on education.

Even allowing for considerably greater efficiency in the use of educa-
tional funds, it would not be unreasonable to assume that our schools and col-
leges will require 10 years from now at least *double* their present level of fi-
nancial support in order to handle a much larger number of students and to
improve quality. In other words, by 1965 the whole educational effort might
require something on the order of $28 to $30 billion. It may be conservatively
estimated that the Gross National Product by 1965 will be on the order of $525
to $550 billion, or from $135 to $165 billion above the 1955 level (measured
in 1955 prices). Thus, 10% of this increment -- somewhere between $13.5
and $16.5 billion -- would be sufficient to double the 1955 level of educational
outlay. This would mean, however, raising educational expenditures from 3.6%
of the Gross National Product in 1955 to something like 5.4% by 1965.

A significant rise of this sort in the proportion of Gross National
Product represented by education would involve a sharp departure from the
past pattern. Traditionally, school finances have been borne by local com-
munities but in recent years there has been an increasing shift of the burden
of school support to state governments -- from just under 17% in 1930 to over
41% in 1954. The reasons are many -- not the least compelling of which is
the fact that sole reliance on local financial capacities alone would result in
gross inequalities of educational opportunities.

[N]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 44 -

It now appears that an increasing number of communities and states are rapidly approaching the point of serious difficulty in appropriating further substantial sums for education. Some cities such as New York City have pushed real estate taxes to the point of maximum economic feasibility, have adopted sales taxes or similar revenue measures and now are even considering the possibility of local personal income taxes. State governments are becoming increasingly concerned about the effect which higher state taxes may have upon their competitive position with other states in attracting or holding industry. Certain states and communities where economic levels are well below average are clearly not in a position to expand greatly their support for education.

It is basically these considerations that have given rise to the current issue of Federal aid for education. From an *economic* point of view, (setting aside for the moment the corollary issue of "Federal control" over local schools), there is no question but what the Federal government is in a considerably more favorable position than either state or local governments, to divert a share of the annual increment of national income into education. Moreover, only the Federal government is in a position to reduce the wide educational inequalities among the children of different states.

The issue of whether Federal aid would involve heavy risk of Federal control of local education is, of course, a very important and complex one.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 45 -

Upon this question, unfortunately, most of the recent debate has shed more
heat than light. One relevant fact which seems not to be very widely known
or understood is that for more than a century, and on an increasing scale,
the Federal government has in fact engaged in the financial support of state
and local education in a variety of ways, particularly in higher education,
though also at the school level. Complaints of Federal intrusion upon local
autonomy under these previous programs appear to be exceedingly rare, though
this, of course, does not mean that the risk is not real. It does suggest, how-
ever, as does past experience with Federal aid programs in other fields, that
the risk of Federal control in the field of education varies greatly with the
particular form which the aid program takes.

There is much room for honest differences of opinion on Federal aid
to education. It might be useful however to concentrate our attention on
the directions in which Federal education grants should be turned, if they are
found necessary.

1. They should encourage state and local communities to make their
own maximum effort to support education.

2. They should supplement these efforts rather than substitute for them.

3. They should be utilized to reduce the sharp inequalities of educa-
tional opportunity among children of different states.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 46 -

4. They should preserve and vitalize local leadership and local autono-
my of control over education, leaving each state free to employ the Federal funds
in accordance with its own priority needs.

In addition to this cautious use of Federal funds to supplement local
education, there are minimum contributions which the Federal government can
make in a different form. One such is the strengthening of the Office of Educa-
tion which is not presently equipped to give us all the needed factual data about
education. A more challenging departure would be the support of technological
research into improved educational methods. The establishment of a merit
scholarship program -- a domestic "Fulbright" plan -- for the encouragement
of scholarship in all fields, from talented young people in high school to
teachers in mid-career, would be another extremely useful step. And finally
a vigorous program of national publicity must alert our nation to the continuing
importance of the educational crisis.

## 4. Private Higher Education

- Here Thackery and Brown's points of view
need to be compiled.

One of the more important question marks in the future of education
is the role of private colleges and universities. Their share of total enrollments
have already declined to less than 50% of all higher education (and far below
this in many states), and if this trend is not offset, their share of total students
could readily fall to less than 20% within 15 years.

Why is this so bad? - Panel feels that we must have all
kinds of colleges.

I feel
this only
skims
over
many
points

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 47 -

One of the principal reasons for the relative decline in the private college is a lack of financial strength. Faced even now with the serious problem of balancing their budgets, they are not optimistic about giving large extra funds for expansion. Yet, these private colleges have in the past been the source of <u>some of the most profound contributions</u> to American life and their waning importance is a phenomenon upon which we can only look with profound misgivings.

One encouraging development in recent years has been the dramatic increase of contributions by business firms. While total gifts of this sort are still very small relative to total needs, the trend is sharply upward and represents the tapping of a new and potentially very important source of aid. A second as yet untried development would be the reform of the private college "pricing system." Today, tuition charges frequently represent only 50% or less of actual instructional costs, so that every student automatically receives a large "hidden scholarship" financed out of endowment income, current gifts, and low faculty salaries. Overt scholarships are then superimposed upon the "hidden scholarships" for those students who cannot even afford the "cut rate."

The private colleges might well consider an alternate pricing and scholarship policy under which tuition would be set at the <u>full cost of instruction</u> and each student would receive whatever amount of scholarship

V - Report

September 23, 1957

assistance he needed and would pay whatever proportion of the full tuition he
could afford. This would result in eliminating "hidden" scholarships entirely,
putting all student subsidies out in the open, and placing all student charges
on an ability-to-pay basis. No student would be kept out of the college for
financial reasons, none would receive a subsidy if he did not need it, and
not a dollar of alumni gifts or other income would be wasted on hidden sub-
sidies to students whose families could well afford the real cost of a good
college education. The result of such a change of policy in virtually all private
colleges would be to increase total revenues from students, with the increase
available for higher faculty salaries and for scholarship help to students who
really need the help.

Many college administrators agree with the logic of such a policy but
see difficulties in the way of making the transition from present practices to
such radically different ones. If a substantial number of leading colleges
were to announce their intention to move to the new plan in a series of sched-
uled steps, most of these difficulties might be avoided. In any event, the
fact remains that much of the financial plight of private colleges today is di-
rectly traceable to their pricing and salary policies. Unless and until these
policies are substantially revised, their plight is likely to continue.

The private colleges need also to examine some of their other very
costly practices, particularly those having to do with utilization of space and

V - Report

September 23, 1957

faculty. The physical plant of most private colleges is utilized only a fraction of the year and only a fraction of the week when college is in session. To achieve fuller utilization would involve considerable change in academic schedules -- such as classes in the afternoon and early evening as well as in the morning, laboratories sessions in the morning and evening as well as in the afternoon, and even the substitution of a four quarter or three semester plan in place of the two semester plan now followed by many. Such changes would make it possible for a great many private colleges to "process" 50 to 100% more students with little if any expansion of physical facilities, and without increasing the number of students on the campus at any one time.

One other important possibility which the well-established private col-
leges might profitably explore is that of "spawning" some new private colleges.
It should be far easier today to create new private colleges of excellent quality
than 75 or 100 years ago. The nation is far richer, more value is attached to
higher education by far more people, and there is an enormous and growing
surplus of applicants for high quality, independent colleges. If a new college
could have the moral and academic support of well-established colleges, the
problem of developing a good faculty and student clientele would be far less
than the problems faced by new colleges in the past.

Hopefully such new colleges would not simply be carbon copies of the
older ones. Their buildings could be far more functional and less expensive;
their utilization of faculty and facilities could be more efficient; more

Question
here is
what do
you use
for a
faculty.

What about community colleges ?

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 50 -

responsibility and challenge could be given to students to learn for themselves.
Perhaps there would be no lectures -- the best ones could be piped in by
closed-circuit television from the parent institutions. Only a working library
would be needed because the more elaborate library collections of the older
colleges could be shared when special research called for access to rarer docu-
ments. The parent colleges could, for a period of years, supply the nucleus
of the faculty of the new institution, composed of some of their ablest and
most imaginative teachers who would be given the challenge of an opportunity
to escape the restrictions of old patterns and to create something new. The
"feed-back" effect upon the old colleges would undoubtedly be wholesome and
substantial.

These various possibilities of expanding the capacity, improving the
quality, and strengthening the financial position of private higher education
would appear to warrant prompt and thorough investigation and experimentation.
Unless changes such as these are devised and carried out, there is real danger
that the role and influence of higher private education will progressively de-
cline in the years ahead.

5. Fuller Use of Existing Talents

The cultivation of excellence cannot be increased only by concentrating
on the improvement of our educational facilities. We must also turn to the
consideration of the use -- and misuse -- of our present resources. Although

Recognition that homes must
educate children, not just leave
job to the schools.

[Y]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 51 -

dramatic progress has been made in providing formal education through high school to the overwhelming majority of young people, there still remain many inequalities in educational opportunity for which the nation is paying a high price in terms of the wastage of human ability.

These inequalities take many forms, have many causes, and do not all lend themselves to remedial action through the schools and colleges. Some of the most important educational influences upon a child lie outside the classroom, especially in the home and neighborhood, and the schools cannot hope to remedy all of the deficiencies or counteract all of the undesirable influences that exist in a young person's total environment. Great inequalities of educational opportunity also exist among the children of different communities and different states because of wide variations in the economic ability of these different areas to support education. During the first year of the Korean conflict, for example, the national failure rate on the Armed Forces Qualification Test was 19.2%, but the failure rate for Selective Service registrants from nine states where incomes and educational expenditures are relatively low ranged from 34 to 58%. This type of evidence underscores the fact that poor education in any one area of the nation becomes the serious concern of the whole nation. Evidence of the high mobility and population from one part of the country to another further underscores the same point.

The rapid growth of tax-supported higher educational institutions has greatly reduced the economic barriers that formerly prevented a majority of

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 52 -

qualified young people from getting a college education, but important economic barriers still remain. It is estimated that each year 100,000 of the brightest high school students fail to continue their education into college, largely for economic reasons. Probably a far larger number who do continue are discouraged on economic grounds from selecting a college most appropriate to their abilities.

There is a subtler but equally serious form of inequality which results from the frequent failure of our schools and colleges to provide adequate programs for their ablest students. Our educational system has evolved into a chronological lock step under which all young people start off together at the age of 6 (or age 5 if there is a kindergarten) and march forward one grade per year, to emerge 12 years later with a high school diploma and possibly 4 years after that with a college degree. This chronological grouping of young people often results in the ablest students being exposed to educational programs whose content is too thin and whose pace is too slow to challenge and stretch their superior abilities. The result is to dampen or destroy their native curiosity and their enthusiasm for learning. Poor teaching, unchallenging programs, and rigid academic procedures can waste just as much potential talent as economic, racial, and other barriers to equal educational opportunity.

The many causes and forms of inequality of educational opportunity must obviously be attacked in a wide variety of ways. Those which stem from an underprivileged environment must be approached by social programs which

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 53 -

extend far beyond the schools and which affect the child's whole family and neighborhood -- programs designed to achieve better housing, better employment opportunities, better community, cultural, and recreational resources and the like. But in such situations it is also essential to strengthen the schools and the link between the home and the school. A good example is the pilot program being operated by the New York City Board of Education to help Puerto Rican youngsters to overcome language and cultural barriers that heretofore have prevented their access to a good education in the public schools. There is need for much stronger efforts, especially in large cities, to improve the educational opportunities of youngsters living in underprivileged neighborhoods.

Similarly there is need for removing the economic barriers that now keep many of our ablest youngsters out of college, or out of the right college for their particular abilities and interests. The National Merit Scholarship Program, recently established by private foundations and business corporations, is addressed to this problem, but the scale of its effort is still far too small in relation to the need, and therefore makes doubly urgent a consideration of Federal aid for merit scholarships, perhaps through the existing National Merit Scholarship Program. The schools and colleges themselves need to do much more to make their procedures less rigid and to improve the educational opportunities of able students. A number of experimental programs point the

What about loan systems?

V - Report

September 23, 1957

way toward various possible solutions of this problem. In the public schools of Portland, Oregon, for example, and in a growing number of other school systems, abler students are given a chance to spend part of the day in courses of study well above their chronological grade level. Under the Advanced Placement Program, now sponsored by the College Entrance Examination Board, a rapidly expanding number of secondary schools, both public and private, are offering college-level courses to their best juniors and seniors. Many colleges are prepared to permit such students to "leapfrog" freshman college courses and get credit for them. Yet another approach is represented by the experimental Program for Early Admission to College, under which about 1,000 able students have entered 12 different colleges over the last five years *before* completing the last year or two of high school. An evaluation of the first two groups to graduate from college under this experiment shows that, on the whole, they have far outperformed their classmates academically, while despite their lower age their record of social and emotional adjustment to college compared favorably to that of students generally. Much more needs to be done to extend such programs and to make our school and college programs richer and more flexible so as to accommodate the needs and abilities of abler students.

One aspect of the problem of unused talents which merits special attention concerns the educational opportunities open to the Negro. Despite the overall progress which characterizes Negro education, there is a very real question as to whether the *gap* between Negroes and Whites has been

Also mention
of Amhearst
plan & the
Harvard
tutorial.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 55 -

greatly closed. It was recently reported, for example, that only 5% of
seniors in Negro state supported teacher training colleges, attained the
minimum achievement level of 95% of the seniors of White supported colleges
in the same states. It was also revealed that the achievement record of these
Negro seniors roughly approximated the achievement records of high school
juniors of middle class districts of certain New England cities. Such statis-
tical records are occasionally cited to support the contention that Negroes
are not capable of absorbing a full education. The fallaciousness of this
contention has been many times disproved, and the level of educational
achievement has repeatedly been found to mirror the opportunities presented
to the Negro.

The present disregard for the potential of the Negro has today become
a problem which critically affects all Americans. In depriving the Negro of
a full educational opportunity, we are depriving ourselves as a nation of
the use of some 10% of our human talents. Socially and economically, this
is too high a price to pay, morally it is indefensible. The end of segregation,
with all the difficult adjustments it imposes, is of course the first necessary
step in this direction, but it is only a first step. Until the Negro has been
offered an equal opportunity with the non-Negro to develop and use his
individual talents to the utmost, we shall have failed in a critical area to
achieve our moral and material goals.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 56 -

III

I am not certain this section has any relevance to the report - certainly not in the quantity reflected here.

Toward the Cultivation of Excellence

With these suggestions for the improvement of our utilization and cultivation of talent, the substantive content of our report is complete, and we return to a larger perspective over the problem as a whole. Perhaps it is well to reflect on the cautions and reservations with which we initially introduced our discussion, and to recall the element of the unknown which surrounds human behavior, the slowness of change of a voluntaristic society, and the yet unpredictable effect of our social environment on incentives and motivations themselves. These cautions and reservations remind us that whereas much can be done to cultivate and utilize our human resources to better advantage, the problem does not permit of glib disposition. If the tone of this report is hopeful, it is not one of facile assurance.

Throughout our report two themes have consistently appeared. One of them is our national moral value of equality. This is the American ideal which has produced our public educational system, which has consistently sought the elevation of talent wherever it appeared, and which has created a society where status is achieved by accomplishment rather than by traditional privilege. Behind many of our suggestions for the improvement of our institutions lies a moral commitment to the ideal of equal opportunity in life, and the rightful equality of access of all talent to the environment of encouragement and sustenance which it needs.

[4]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 57 -

But there is another theme which has also run through our discussion: the theme of excellence itself. By excellence we do not mean worldly success or financial eminence. Rather it is a moral quality of inner achievement. It is the mark which distinguishes the man who has fully engaged himself in a task of his own choice, compatible with his own ideals in life. It is the inner measure of life achievement, rather than its outer measurement.

Americans are not always consistent in their admiration for excellence. It is the quality we single out in a Lincoln, a Jefferson, a Lee; and from its cultivation and appreciation comes some of our internal strength, our sense of human dignity. But this is not the only strain of the American character. There are visible also tendencies not to admire excellence but to distrust it, and to erect in its stead the simpler goal of measurable achievement in fame, money, or some other external standard. This is the cult not of excellence, but of success.

Yet the real test of excellence is not that provided by the inevitable failings of human nature itself. The test rather, is whether the ideal of excellence is compatible with a society which also espouses the ideal of equality. For equality, which begins as a rallying cry for a common starting point in life can end as a slogan for a common destination in life. In a democratic society the race is opened to the swift but the rules of the race are often written by the slow. The result is frequently a lowering of goals until all can achieve them: a society in which, like Alice in Wonderland,

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 52 -

"everyone has won and all shall have prizes." It is good that everyone in a democracy has a chance to win prizes -- provided that the quality of the prizes is not thereby cheapened. But if we come to seek not for an equality of chances but for an equality of results, we shall end by vitiating the very source of vitality of an open society itself.

This is precisely the danger which presently threatens us in our desire to achieve "equal excellence" in education. We have made of the receipt of a college degree an accolade of merit, not in terms of the benefits which it may confer on the college graduate, but as evidence of his promotion to the privileged status of a college alumnus. To be "educated" -- that is to say, to have received a college degree -- is the summum bonum of American career apprenticeship today. Meanwhile we are permitting two grave situations to develop. First, we are so seriously inundating our limited institutions of higher education that those who are equipped to benefit from higher study may be deprived of the atmosphere, the facilities and the individual attention they require. Second, by necessarily diluting the content of higher education, we are deluding the average person that by spending his four years on a campus he is thereby an educated man.

This is happening because we have tied the label of excellence to the formality of "higher education" and now insist that no one shall be so disprivileged as to leave the race without a diploma award. We are, in other words, using our drive toward equality to undermine our need for excellence --

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 59 -

not because the two need necessarily conflict, but because we have come
to measure excellence in such a way that its egalitarian application must
lead to dilution and devaluation.

The answer to this dilemma does not consist in a calculated limitation
of education to the "superior." On the contrary the crux of the answer lies
in stripping the notion of superiority from the formalities of higher education.
What is needed is the realization that excellence is a quality, not a quantity
of life achievement, and that excellence has as many realizations, forms,
directions and needs as there are individuals themselves. So long as we
equate excellence with education and try to share it by squeezing people
into college, we subvert education, and what is more we misuse the ideal
of excellence itself.

College education is not the only road for a full and excellent life.
Travel, artistic or business apprenticeships, the cultivation of technical
skills, home education -- there are an endless number of ways in which a
person may equip himself for the life in which his abilities will permit him
to excel. Hence if there is an answer to the profound dilemma of an
excellence-seeking, equality-bound society it lies in the recognition that
excellences must differ; that any attempt to mold excellence into a single
form, to subject it to a common conditioning and to point it to a common goal
is the sure defeat of excellence and the equally sure victory of its enemy --
mediocrity. In the realization that differences of life-paths have nothing

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 60 -

to do with the *worth* of any life path, and in the encouragement of the diversity,
uniqueness and individuation which a truly egalitarian cultivation of excellence
must produce lies the goal for a democratic society. Whether we shall succeed
in winning this goal may determine, more importantly than any other single
challenge, the tone of the American society of the future.

September 23, 1983

V - Report

Table of Contents

<table><tr><td>III. Toward the cultivation of excellence</td><td>26</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3. Buffer use of existing talents</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4. Private higher education</td><td>46</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3. Financial support</td><td>41</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3. Better utilization of teachers</td><td>40</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1. Teacher recruitment</td><td>39</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The educational problem</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;practice for high talent personnel?</td><td>33</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3. How can we improve manpower</td><td>33</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1. How can we better use the basic labor force of the nation?</td><td>33</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1. How can we better use the basic Manpower utilization</td><td>33</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;II. The means at our disposal</td><td>30</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3. Incentives and motivations</td><td>25</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3. The needs of society</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1. On human resources</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I. The setting of the problem</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Introduction</td><td>1</td></tr></table>

V - Report

September 23, 1957

## INTRODUCTION

The task confronting Subpanel V is an extraordinarily basic one.
Perhaps more intimately than any other subpanel, our field of inquiry concerns
the ultimate unit of action and value of American society: the individual
person. It might be said that where the main task of other subpanels is to
determine the direction of our national movement, ours is to examine the
nature of the national motive power itself.

There is in this task a concern with the dignity of the individual
life which brings it directly into the mainstream of the American moral
current. There are many ways by which the greatness of a nation may be
measured -- its wealth, its power, its cultural eminence, but perhaps none
is so ultimately meaningful as the measurement which asks of a people:
what have you made of yourselves? We take this question, which is

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 2 -

[N]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 3 -

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 4 -

The examples could be repeated indefinitely, but the point is clear.
The character of our society makes cultivation of skill and talent a matter
of national importance quite as much as of individual desirability. The
encouragement of personal achievement and the effective utilization of per-
sonal talent are social objectives of the highest priority.

But the imperativeness of the demand for talent touches our task in
another and even more profound way. It bears directly on a conflict which
lies at the heart of the problem of individual creativity -- the conflict be-
tween the freely exercised aspirations of individuals and the hard realities
of an orderly society. We might, were we given the opportunity, all wish
to be artists; we must, given the nature of the world, be railroad men and

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 5 -

dockers, coal miners and assembly line workers, street sweepers and bus
drivers as well as artists. There are inescapable limits to the free exercise
of human ability which are imposed by the strictures of society itself; the
demands of society are an age-old and perhaps eternal frustration for the
individual. This frustration still exists, and exists importantly, in our
society: we must still provide for the regular performance of social tasks
which hardly accord with anyone's conception of creative labor. Yet the
nature of the social demands which are presently imposed upon us contribute
meaningfully to the alleviation of this conflict. For what we have described
as the proliferation of new professions, skills, and needs is nothing less
than an upgrading of the creative level of social work as a whole. The rou-
tine chore, the hard and dull toil of society, is giving way to a new, more
exacting, and imaginative level of work. The very necessities of the times
thus bring with them opportunity, for the demands of society and the desires
of the individual are more mutually compatible in a society urgently in need
of skill and talent, than has ever been the case before.

* * *

V - Report

October 23, 1957

- 6 -

[Y]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 7 -

V - Report

September 23, 1957

begin by outlining the setting of the problem as a whole-- a task which will lead to a consideration of the background factors bearing on the cultivation and utilization of talent and creativity. This will lead us to a review of certain population characteristics relevant to the availability of skill and talent, to a summary of the requirements for talent imposed by society, and to a consideration of the incentives and motivations in our changing society.

Following this discussion of the background to the problem, we turn to an examination of the means at our disposal for dealing with the issues themselves. Part II of our Report concerns itself with action rather than diagnosis; and the reader wishing to learn of our recommendations for policy is referred to our sections of manpower utilization practices and education.

As is to be expected, we place the matter of educational progress at the very heart of the problem of the cultivation of talent and accordingly our largest single section is devoted to it.

In conclusion we offer a few remarks on the nature of the American evaluation of creative effort and towards a positive philosophy of endeavor.

A final word concerns the Report itself. It is quite impossible in a paper of such short scope to do justice to the variety, much less the depth, of the contributions of all our Panel members. At best what we have managed to distill here is only a partial representation of many views. Considering the ramifications of the problem itself, however, a remarkable consensus

V - Report

September 23, 1957)

- 9 -

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 10 -

I

# The Setting of the Problem

## 1. Our Human Resources

The causes of our recent growth in population are obscure. In part our growth stems from our economic prosperity, but only in part. An important contributing factor has been a reorientation of our attitude toward family life itself: the average American woman is today married before she reaches voting age, has her first child at age 22, and with her third and typically last child -- at age 26 -- has achieved a bigger family than her mother, although not so large a one as her grandmother. Yet another cause of our population rise has been our decreased mortality. Of the children which our average mother will produce, very few will die before middle age. Our death rate from natural causes for the time span between age one week and age forty is rapidly approaching -- although it has of course not yet reached -- statistical zero.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 11 -

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>1975</th><th>1955</th><th>1955-1975<br>Percent Change</th></tr><tr><th></th><th colspan="3" style="text-align: center;">(millions)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>All ages</td><td>222.3</td><td>166.0</td><td>34</td></tr><tr><td>0-4 years</td><td>25.4</td><td>19.1</td><td>33</td></tr><tr><td>5-14 years</td><td>41.9</td><td>30.5</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>15-19 years</td><td>18.7</td><td>11.2</td><td>67</td></tr><tr><td>20-24 years</td><td>19.3</td><td>10.8</td><td>79</td></tr><tr><td>25-44 years</td><td>53.2</td><td>46.9</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>45-64 years</td><td>43.1</td><td>33.4</td><td>29</td></tr><tr><td>65 years and over</td><td>20.7</td><td>14.1</td><td>46</td></tr></tbody></table>

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 12 -

This pattern of our future population already points up two of the problems of the future. One consists of the fact that 20 years hence we shall be faced with a wave of young people, still in mid-education and on the threshold of their careers. This flood of young people will place an immense pressure on our educational institutions and may perhaps also come as an indigestible sudden influx of new entrants to our labor markets. Our disproportionately large number of older people presents a problem of a different kind. With nearly one person out of every ten over 65 years of age we shall have to adjust ourselves to the presence of a large group for whom we now have very little national "use."

Both these certain eventualities for the future come as challenges to the utilization of our human resources. The presence of a huge youthful reservoir of still underdeveloped and unchannelized talents gives us a magnificent opportunity to equip ourselves with a distribution of skills more and more of both are nearly in balance with our social needs. At the same time, the wasted and largely unused resources of older age -- and the largely unused resources of our

[Y]

V - Report

September 23, 1957

In addition to these changes in age composition, the American popu-
lation will also change in other ways which bear on the quantity and quality
of skills and talents it contains. For one thing, it will be a more homogeneous
population. The main homogenizing influences are two. One is migration.
We are a moving people -- 20 percent of us change our address each year --
and there are great slow currents, northward and westward, which describe
the drift of our people. Twenty years hence California will in all probability
be the most populous state and Nevada no longer the least populous. Twenty
years hence the Negro will have shed, to a greater extent than he has already,
his southern regional character, as a consequence of his migration to northern
and midwestern cities. Meanwhile the farmer is disappearing as a distinct
group: a million of our rural population leaves the farms each year and only
the higher birth rate of those remaining retards a precipitous decline of our
farm population. As a consequence of all this social movement we are
becoming an ever more *national* community in which regional loyalties and
sharp regional differences are year by year diminishing.

y - Report

September 23, 1957

countryside; by 1930, he lived in a small town of from five to ten thousand population. Today, he lives in a big city or its satellites; by 1975, he will live in suburbia. Four-fifths of the nation's growth between 1950 and 1955 was concentrated in the urban fringe that rings each of great cities and extends far in the countryside. By 1975, when the helicopter may have come into general use, the typical American may again be on his way back to the country town. With this difference, however; he will no longer be a rural person. The tempo of his life and his work will center on the great metropolitan areas to which he commutes and toward which he will be culturally orientated.

Hence, we may expect for 1975, a more uniform America -- that is to say, a supply of talents and skills in which the common factors of habitat and general outlook will be more similar than exists today. Here too, is both a problem and an opportunity. If it suggests a loss of some of the richness of variety which a culturally diverse people may possess, it should also bring into being, by virtue of the possibilities for a more uniformly good education, a higher common denominator of capacities from which to draw.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 15 -

* We shall present a more uniform national profile with suburbia as our typical habitat.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

## 2. The Needs of Society

Our human resources cannot only be assessed in physical terms. Even more important in determining the supply and quality of talents and skills will be the social factors which condition them. Thus, we must make some projections -- of necessity, less than certain ones -- concerning the environment in which the American individual will mature.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 17 -

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>1910</th><th>1955</th></tr><tr><th></th><th colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">percent</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Professional & technical workers</td><td>4.4</td><td>9.8</td></tr><tr><td>Proprietors, managers, and officials, excluding farm</td><td>6.5</td><td>11.1</td></tr><tr><td>Clerical workers</td><td>10.2</td><td>14.2</td></tr><tr><td>Skilled workers and foremen</td><td>11.7</td><td>14.1</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>32.8</td><td>49.2</td></tr></tbody></table>

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 18 -

## 2. Increasing specialization.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 19 -

### 3. The professionalization of discovery.

Thus we find ample reason to believe that our labor force will be called upon to embody an ever growing body of specialized skills. Yet it is not only skill, in the sense of mere dexterity or formalized training, which the future will require. It is *creative* skill -- creative talent -- which threatens to be the crucial need.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 20 -

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 21 -

In this atmosphere of large-scale organization the temptation is to
conform to the ways of the group. There are considerable benefits in terms
of social amenities and smoothness of life to this organizational attitude, but
it is hardly conducive to the kind of "breakthrough" thinking whose importance
we wish so to emphasize. The need accordingly is for the cultivation of
talented individuals who will be able to withstand the pressures of the
organization, and whose creative abilities will themselves disturb the torpor
which otherwise threatens large enterprises, public or private. That this
in turn requires that large organizations respect and cultivate just such
"disturbing" talents is a corollary whose dilemmas are not inconsiderable.
At this juncture however we wish to stress the heightened need for creativity
as a necessary source of stimulus to organized society itself.

V - Report

September 23, 1957

- 22 -

### 3. Incentives and Motivations

We find these to be two: