CONTENTS

PAGE

CONTENTS .................................................... iii

FOREWORD .................................................... ix

CONFERENCE PROGRAM .................................... xi

GENERAL SESSION ADDRESSES

U. S. Foreign Policy and
Higher Education.................. Henry A. Kissinger 1

Quality in Higher Education............ John W. Gardner 8

Education in America—the Heroic Encounter.... Max Lerner 13

Higher Education and the
National Interest.................. Lawrence G. Derthick 23

INFORMATION REPORTS

The Congress and Higher Education:
Report on Pending Legislation........ James L. McCaskill 29

Developments in School Segregation-Desegregation:
A Factual Report.................. Don Shoemaker 30

Higher Education as a Field of Study: Reports on
Training for Administrative Leadership..... Norman Burns 37
.................................... Algo D. Henderson 39

Higher Education and World Affairs: Reports on Education
for Overseasmanship; Impact of Overseas' Service on Home
Institutions ................................ Harlan Cleveland 41
.................................... Edward W. Weidner 45

Institutional Research: Reports on
Management Data, 1957-58; Future Supply
and Demand Studies.................. W. Robert Bokelman 51
.................................... Ray C. Maul 54

Liberal Education and Labor Unions:
Recent Developments.................. Emery F. Bacon 56
.................................... Maxwell H. Goldberg 57
.................................... Clinton S. Golden 59
.................................... Anthony Luchek 61
.................................... Peter E. Siegle 63

Public Relations: Report on the
White Sulphur Springs Conference........ E. H. Hopkins 64

Recruiting College Faculty: Report on
the Minnesota Study.................. Ruth E. Eckert 66
.................................... Willard R. Johnson 70

The Literature on Higher Education:
Commentary.......................... Russell M. Cooper 74

TV and Closed Circuit Equipment and Arrangements:
Slides and Commentary.................. Philip Lewis 77

iii

CONTENTS

V

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>PAGE</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Chapter 8. By What Philosophical Approach and by What Methods Should We Identify Talented Youth?<br>Analyst's Statement..................Roger W. Russell<br>Recorder's Report..................Marcus C. Old</td><td>123<br>129</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 9. What Criteria Should Be Used in Determining When, Where, and What Kind of New Colleges Should Be Established To Meet the Expanding Need for Higher Education?<br>Analyst's Statement..................T. C. Holy<br>Recorder's Report..................A. O. Kuhn</td><td>130<br>135</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 10. What Organizational and Fiscal Support Patterns Are Most Desirable for an Effective System of Two-Year Institutions Within a State?<br>Analyst's Statement..................S. V. Martorana<br>Recorder's Report..................B. W. Musgraves</td><td>136<br>141</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 11. What Are the Current and Potential Implications of Regional Cooperation Among Institutions of Higher Education for Improving and Extending Educational Opportunities?<br>Panelists' Statements...........Robert C. Anderson<br>.................................Stanley J. Wenberg<br>Recorder's Report...........Wendell P. Jones</td><td>142<br>145<br>151</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 12. How and to What Extent Can Higher Institutions Within the Same Community Coordinate Their Efforts in the Interests of Efficiency and Economy?<br>Analyst's Statement..................Herbert W. K. Fitzroy<br>Recorder's Report..................George H. Gloege</td><td>152<br>163</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 13. What Are Appropriate Extension Services for the Colleges and Universities?<br>Analyst's Statement..................J. R. Morton<br>Recorder's Report..................John H. Hutchinson</td><td>164<br>167</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 14. How Can Optimum Utilization of Currently Available Institutional Facilities Be Assured?<br>Analyst's Statement..................James F. Blakesley<br>Recorder's Report..................John L. Lounsbury</td><td>167<br>173</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 15. How Are the Curricular, Teaching, and Personnel Problems Currently Facing Well-Established Programs of General Education Being Met?<br>Analyst's Statement..................Edward A. Carlin<br>Recorder's Report..................W. L. Gruenewald</td><td>174<br>182</td></tr></tbody></table>

vi

CONTENTS

Improvement of Teaching

PAGE

<table><tbody><tr><td>Chapter 16.</td><td>What Sources and Techniques Should Be Utilized in the Recruitment of College Teachers and What Methods of Retention Should Be Employed?</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Analyst's Statement.</td><td>Eugene W. Dils</td><td>183</td></tr><tr><td>Sec. 1</td><td>Recorder's Report.</td><td>Eleanor F. Dolan</td><td>190</td></tr><tr><td>Sec. 2</td><td>Recorder's Report.</td><td>Richard G. Axt</td><td>191</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 17.</td><td>How Can the Morale of College Teachers Be Improved?</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Analyst's Statement.</td><td>Helen C. White</td><td>191</td></tr><tr><td>Sec. 1</td><td>Recorder's Report.</td><td>Samuel D. Schaff</td><td>196</td></tr><tr><td>Sec. 2</td><td>Recorder's Report.</td><td>Robert A. Caldwell</td><td>197</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 18.</td><td>What Should Be the Essential Qualifications of a Teacher in a Two-Year College?</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Analyst's Statement.</td><td>James L. Wattenbarger</td><td>198</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Recorder's Report.</td><td>William A. Black</td><td>203</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 19.</td><td>What are the Most Promising Procedures by Which Departments Can Pool Efforts To Improve the Preparation of College Teachers?</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Panelists' Statements.</td><td>Clifford E. Erickson</td><td>204</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>Roy A. Price</td><td>208</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>Goodrich C. White</td><td>216</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Recorder's Report.</td><td>Amy Hostler</td><td>220</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 20.</td><td>What Are Some of the Administrative Problems Posed by Television as an Educational Device?</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Panelists' Statements.</td><td>Colby Lewis</td><td>221</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>Holbrook M. MacNeille</td><td>224</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>H. Burr Roney</td><td>226</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Recorder's Report.</td><td>Clifford G. Erickson</td><td>229</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 21.</td><td>What Are the Pros and Cons of Teaching by Television?</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Panelists' Statements.</td><td>Francis A. Gaul</td><td>230</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>Leslie P. Greenhill</td><td>233</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>J. Paul Leonard</td><td>237</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Recorder's Report.</td><td>L. V. Britt, S.J.</td><td>239</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 22.</td><td>What New Developments and Techniques, Other than TV, Indicate that the Quality of Instruction Need Not Be Sacrificed, nor the Teaching Load Increased, While Increasing the Number of Students Taught?</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Analyst's Statement.</td><td>Elizabeth Paschal</td><td>240</td></tr></tbody></table>

CONTENTS

vii

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th>PAGE</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Sec. 1</td><td>Recorder's Report</td><td>246</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Sister Mary Theresa Brentano, O.S.B.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Sec. 2</td><td>Recorder's Report</td><td>247</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 23.</td><td>How Can Faculty Members Share Most Effectively with Their Colleagues the Stimulation and Knowledge Gained from Participation in Workshops and Conferences?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Analyst's Statement</td><td>248</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Recorder's Report</td><td>253</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 24.</td><td>What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Honors Programs?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Analyst's Statement</td><td>254</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Recorder's Report</td><td>258</td></tr></tbody></table>

New Developments in Curriculum

<table><tbody><tr><td>Chapter 25.</td><td>What Should Be the Relationship of General Education to the Specialized Fields of the Liberal Arts and Sciences, to Technical Education, and to Preprofessional Education?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Analyst's Statement</td><td>259</td></tr><tr><td>Sec. 1</td><td>Recorder's Report</td><td>262</td></tr><tr><td>Sec. 2</td><td>Recorder's Report</td><td>263</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 26.</td><td>What Are the Implications for General Education of the Noticeable Trend Toward a Redistribution and Sharing of Educational Responsibility by a Variety of Agencies in American Society, Such as Industry, Labor, and the Armed Forces?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Analyst's Statement</td><td>264</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Recorder's Report</td><td>270</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 27.</td><td>What Are Effective Methods of Making Substantial Improvements in the Curriculum?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Analyst's Statement</td><td>271</td></tr><tr><td>Sec. 1</td><td>Recorder's Report</td><td>277</td></tr><tr><td>Sec. 2</td><td>Recorder's Report</td><td>277</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 28.</td><td>What Are the Obligations of Liberal Arts Colleges to the Preparation of Elementary and Secondary School Teachers?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Analyst's Statement</td><td>278</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Recorders' Report</td><td>281</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>and W. Nelson Francis</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>CONFERENCE RESOLUTIONS</td><td></td><td>282</td></tr><tr><td>INDEX</td><td></td><td>285</td></tr></tbody></table>

FOREWORD

In the fall of 1957 the Planning Committee for the Thirteenth National Conference on Higher Education set out to define the most critical issues then facing the colleges and universities, to secure the most expert authorities available to analyze these problems, to invite a most representative assembly of faculty and administrators to consider and debate these issues, and to report in summary fashion the proceedings of this intellectual enterprise. The present volume is the panoramic record of the representative thinking of this conference, held in Chicago, March 2-5, 1958.

The dramatic eruption into outer space of the first Russian sputnik in the fall of 1957 suggested to the Planning Committee that new dimensions and complexities demanded attention. Therefore, they selected "Higher Education: Strengthening Quality in the Satellite Age" as the title for the 1958 conference.

In the keynote address at the conference John Gardner affirmed that we must have both quality and quantity in American higher education and that our society has the resources to ensure both. Later, "The Pursuit of Excellence," the report of the Panel on Education of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, again stressed the need for quality. This same idea has appeared in many other places since then.

This report together with the printed proceedings of the 12 conferences preceding it constitutes a current history of the issues facing higher education in the United States during these years. The Association for Higher Education hopes that the printing of these reports is making a contribution not only to individuals particularly concerned with higher education but also to the general public.

The 1,040 participants attending the conference from 45 states and the District of Columbia represented 455 colleges and universities enrolling the vast majority of U. S. college students, 70 lay and professional organizations concerned with higher education, and 20 government agencies.

Nearly equal numbers of faculty members, deans, and presidents attended. Students and college trustees also took part. Both publicly supported and privately supported colleges sent participants. In short, it may be fairly said that the composition of the conference constituted a cross section of the whole community of higher education in the United States.

*Current Issues in Higher Education, 1958,* reports the proceedings of the 1958 conference. It contains the general session addresses, statements of the analysts, and recorders' reports of the deliberations of the discussion groups.

ix

x

FOREWORD

Two innovations were incorporated into the 1958 conference. There was an exhibit of approximately 170 books dealing with different phases of higher education. This project was initiated and managed by the National Committee on General Education of the Association for Higher Education. Another new feature was a television demonstration of teaching via telecast and by "closed circuit."

Through the courtesy of Educational Television Station WTTW two lectures, one in the field of humanities by Louise Dudley, professor of humanities, Stephens College, and another in the field of biology by Charles E. Hadley, professor of biology, New Jersey State Teachers College at Montclair, were telecast for the whole Chicago area as well as for the conference by Station WTTW. Following this, a panel chaired by President David D. Henry of the University of Illinois analyzed both the lecture demonstrations and the potentialities of television in education.

President Robert G. Bone of Illinois State Normal University was moderator of a second panel, which was carried by closed circuit television to separate meeting rooms in the Pick-Congress Hotel. Conference members sent questions to the panel.

Many individuals, organizations and firms were helpful in making the television demonstration possible. The late John K. Weiss, assistant vice president of the Fund for the Advancement of Education, gave unstintingly of his time and advice in helping to plan the whole project. Benjamin Willis, Superintendent of Schools of Chicago; administrators of the Chicago Junior College and Chicago Teachers College; John W. Taylor, executive director of Educational Television Station WTTW, and the staff of WTTW; Major Lenox R. Lohr, president of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry; Harry K. Newburn, president of the Educational Television and Radio Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan; the Dage Television Division of Thompson Products, Inc.; Motorola, Inc.; Ralph Steetle, JCET; and the Pick-Congress Hotel of Chicago all made significant contributions to the television program.

The editor takes distinct pleasure in acknowledging with grateful appreciation the valuable contribution made by general session speakers; analysts, chairmen, recorders, and resource persons in the discussion groups; members of the Planning Committee; the consultants; George Cook, graduate student at Michigan State University; and the staff of the Association for Higher Education, with particular appreciation for the untiring and efficient work of Anne C. Yates and Charlene White.

Attention should be called to the fact that certain editorial prerogatives have been exercised and that the views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the National Education Association, the Association for Higher Education, nor the institutions represented by those conference leaders whose statements or reports appear in this volume.

G. Kerry Smith

September 30, 1958

PROGRAM

Sunday Evening, March 2

General Session Address:

"U. S. Foreign Policy and Higher Education"

HENRY A. KISSINGER, Associate Director, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University; and Director of Special Studies, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Incorporated

Conference Social

Monday Morning, March 3

General Session Address:

"Quality in Higher Education"

JOHN W. GARDNER, President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advance-
ment of Teaching, New York City

Monday Morning and Afternoon

Discussion Group Meetings:

1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27

Monday Evening

General Session:

Televised Education—Demonstration and Comments

Telecast from Educational Television Station WTTW

Presiding: DAVID D. HENRY, President, University of Illinois

Teaching Demonstrators: LOUISE DUDLEY, Professor of Humanities, Stephens College

CHARLES E. HADLEY, Professor of Biology, New Jersey State Teachers College at Montclair

Panel at Station WTTW

Moderator: DAVID D. HENRY

Members: LESLIE P. GREENHILL, Assistant Director, Division of Academic Research and Services, The Pennsylvania State University

J. PAUL LEONARD, President, American University of Beirut, and International College, Lebanon

H. BURR RONEY, Professor of Biology and Coordinator of Television Instruction, University of Houston

HELEN C. WHITE, Professor of English, The University of Wisconsin; and President, American Association of University Professors

xi

xii

PROGRAM

Summarizer: JOHN E. IVEY, Executive Vice President, New York University

Closed Circuit at Congress Hotel

Presiding: ROBERT G. BONE, President, Illinois State Normal University

Panel at the Congress

Moderator: ROBERT G. BONE

Members: MAURICE L. HARTUNG, Associate Professor of the Teaching of Mathematics and Professor of Education, The University of Chicago

E. DEALTON PARTRIDGE, President, New Jersey State Teachers College at Montclair

LAURENCE SIEGEL, Evaluation Analyst, Educational Study of Instructional Procedures, and Associate Professor of Psychology, Miami University

RALPH STEETLE, Executive Director, Joint Council on Educational Television, Washington, D. C.

JOHN K. WEISS, Assistant Vice President, The Fund for the Advancement of Education, New York City

Tuesday Morning, March 4

## Information Reports:

* "The Congress and Higher Education: Report on Pending Legislation"

* JAMES L. McCASKILL, Executive Secretary, Legislative Commission, National Education Association, Washington, D. C.

* "Developments in School Segregation-Desegregation: A Factual Report"

* DON SHOEMAKER, Executive Director, Southern Education Reporting Service, Nashville, Tennessee

* "Higher Education as a Field of Study: Reports on Training for Administrative Leadership"

* NORMAN BURNS, Professor of Education, The University of Chicago; and Secretary, Commission on Colleges and Universities of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools

* ALGO D. HENDERSON, Professor of Higher Education, University of Michigan

PROGRAM

xiii

"Higher Education and World Affairs: Reports on Education for Overseasmanship; Impact of Overseas' Service on Home Institutions"

HARLAN CLEVELAND, Dean, Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University

EDWARD W. WEIDNER, Director, Institute of Research on Overseas Programs, Michigan State University

"Institutional Research: Reports on Management Data, 1957-58: Future Supply and Demand Studies"

W. ROBERT BOKELMAN, Specialist, College Business Management, Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D. C.

RAY C. MAUL, Assistant Director, Division of Research, National Education Association, Washington, D. C.

"Liberal Education and Labor Unions: Recent Developments"

EMERY F. BACON, Director of Education, United Steelworkers of America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

MAXWELL H. GOLDBERG, Professor and Head, Department of English, University of Massachusetts; and Executive Director, The Humanities Center for Liberal Education in an Industrial Society

CLINTON S. GOLDEN, formerly Lecturer on Labor Problems, Harvard Business School; and Executive Director, Harvard University Trade Union Program, Altamonte Springs, Florida

ANTHONY LUCHEK, Professor of Industrial Relations and Head, Labor Education Service, The Pennsylvania State University

PETER E. SIEGLE, Research Associate, Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults, Chicago, Illinois

"Public Relations: Report on the White Sulphur Springs Conference"

E. H. HOPKINS, Vice President for University Development, Washington University

"Recruiting College Faculty: Report on the Minnesota Study"

RUTH E. ECKERT, Professor of Higher Education, University of Minnesota

WILLARD R. JOHNSON, Vice President, Educational Affairs, United States National Student Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Graduate Student, Harvard University

FOREIGN POLICY AND HIGHER EDUCATION—KISSINGER

1

GENERAL SESSION ADDRESSES

*U. S. Foreign Policy*
*and Higher Education*

Henry A. Kissinger

Associate Director
Center for International Affairs
Harvard University, and
Director of Special Studies
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Incorporated

THE subject that I have chosen is "American Foreign Policy and Higher Education," and the problems that I should like to emphasize here are not so much the technical problems we read about in the newspapers, but some of the psychological difficulties we have had in adjusting our preconceptions to a situation that is changing more rapidly, and often in directions quite different from those for which we have been prepared.

We have tended to believe that peace was the normal relation among states; that there was an inherent merit in the process of negotiations, and that this process operated independently of any of the pressures that might be brought to bear. We have also believed that aggression was an unambiguous act, and we have interpreted it extremely to the extent that our desire for peace was great. We have come to believe that aggression would always take the form of an attack on the international system, and that the proper strategy for combating it was punishing the aggressor by inflicting the maximum amount of destruction on him. We believed that war and peace were successive phases of policy, and that peace was assured not only by a strategy providing for a maximum amount of destruction, but through a system of collective security which assembled the greatest number of allies. Our past security has also tended to make us believe that we could always substitute our industrial potential for any mistake we might make in the assessment of forces, and for any failure to engage ourselves in an international dispute.

All of these preconceptions, or at least most of them, have been overthrown by recent developments. As geography has shrunk, we have learned that the normalcy of peace and the clearness of aggression was an historical illusion which was produced by the fact that the kind of transformation that was required to threaten American security was so drastic and so major that many other nations would enter the fray before we did.

For a century and a half, Americans liked to believe that there was something wicked about the European balance of power; that the wars it produced were due to the shortsightedness of little men. We did not

2

CURRENT ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION 1958

realize that what seemed pettiness to us was a much narrower margin of survival; that many transformations which were not particularly important to the United States were very threatening to the European powers. We profited because the European powers were quicker to recognize a threat than we were.

In retrospect both World War I and World War II seem to us as having been fought to resist an attempt at world domination. We forget that both of them started on issues which to Americans of the time did not seem worth involving themselves in—the invasion of Belgium in 1914, the invasion of Poland in 1939. We have labored under the great difficulty that ever since the end of World War II, any resistance to aggression or any achievement of a positive goal has depended not on the *ultimate* action of the United States, but on the *initial* action of the United States.

In many areas of the globe neither negative nor positive measures have been possible unless the United States was willing to lend a hand, and the United States has experienced great difficulty in realizing that we were living through a turbulent period characterized by two revolutions, the anticolonial revolution, representing the attempt of many nations formerly ruled from abroad to achieve independence and national dignity, and the Soviet revolution, representing attempts to overthrow the international system based on the principles of the dignity of man and the democratic institutions which characterize much of the 19th century world.

When reality clashes with our expectations, ambivalence is the inevitable consequence, and so the United States has been torn between applying its attitude for peaceful relations or its remedy for aggression. We have oscillated between a conciliation which has often been mechanical and an intransigence which has been equally mechanical, between negotiating as if all problems were soluble and could be resolved by the process of negotiation independent of any of the pressures, and insisting that negotiations were inherently futile. We have had great difficulty in weighing the capabilities of other states against their intentions.

With respect to the Soviet orbit, we have often been so obsessed with the problem of Soviet intentions that we have great difficulty in grasping the opportunities which have been available to us. Ever since the death of Stalin, and in fact before that, there have been periodic discussions in America as to whether a basic change had in fact occurred in the Soviet system and whether the time had now come when the successors of Lenin or Stalin might pursue a more peaceful course. There has been a tendency, when we have negotiated, to interpret Soviet intentions most favorably, as if we could not negotiate against the background of a recognized hostility. And, in fact, it is very difficult for Americans, and for the best of reasons, to understand implacable hostility. There is very little in the American scene that would prepare us for such a phenomenon, and that would prepare us for negotiators not so much concerned with their opposite numbers at the conference table as with

3

the world at large, opponents who may in fact use a negotiation in order to undermine the position of their protagonists.

The obsession with Soviet intentions has come to expression recently in the debate about whether or not there should be a summit conference. The advocates of a summit conference have maintained that there has been a basic change in the Soviet system; that the new educated class, the new industrialists, and the new bureaucracy were not willing to risk everything on a final showdown and on continued intransigence. The opponents of negotiations have maintained that there has not been a basic change, or if there has been a basic change, that the Soviet Union should give a simple indication of its good faith. In the process we have not paid sufficient attention to the problem of whether negotiations may not be necessary precisely when we are convinced of Soviet bad faith, whether the question of negotiations is not essentially irrelevant to the question of Soviet intentions. A negotiation, after all, not only defines the possibility of a settlement, but also defines an issue with which to contend. We do not have to be so nervous about meeting an antagonist. If the Soviet Union is willing to settle, a conference is the proper place to do it; if it is not willing to settle, a conference is the best place to expose it.

The uncertainty about negotiating may be due in part to the fact that we are not clear about our own purposes, and that we are in difficulty where the perpetuation of the status quo often seems the only concern, because we have been so concerned with intentions, or at least with intentions when we have negotiated.

There has also been the tendency in our relations with the uncommitted nations to conceive of policy as if it were a popularity contest and to overlook the fact that in many regions of the world the situation is revolutionary precisely because old values are disintegrating. To ask nations what they want may only increase their uncertainty since their dilemma is precisely the fact that they do not exactly know the direction in which they wish to travel. If we look back on our own history, we should realize that nothing that Great Britain could have done in the first 120 years of our existence would ever have brought us into an alliance or even into a close alignment with Great Britain. The closer the European powers had sought to approach to us, the farther we would have moved away. It may be the same in our relations with the uncommitted—that the closer we try to approach, the more they will move away from us in order to show their independence. This does not mean that we cannot have good relations with the uncommitted. It does mean that not every criticism is a symptom of the real problem, and it also means that our relations with the uncommitted may depend more on the clarity of our own purpose and on the majesty of our own behavior than on our attempt to determine precisely what it is that they may wish.

Now, if in the problem of negotiation we have been too much concerned with the intentions of others and too little concerned with

4

our purposes, in our approach to the problem of power we have been
equally absolute. We have argued since 1945 that any war would in-
evitably start with an all-out attack on the United States; that its tar-
get would be the installations of our strategic air force, and its objective
would be the destruction of our industrial potential. We properly
conceived that against such an attack our task was to inflict the greatest
amount of punishment. We thought of war as a clearly defined act
which would follow a period of peace, and we thought of strength as
something which we would have to build and which would then be
self-evident and could be self-evidently used in the process of negotia-
tions. We did not fully realize how absolute the concept of war was
which we had developed and how it inhibited us in the crises which in
fact arose.

In every crisis, from the Berlin air lift, to Korea, to Indo-China, to Suez, and to Hungary, the argument that the real threat was the all-out war tended to support the Soviet strategy of ambiguity. It gave arguments for deferring a showdown to a more propitious moment or to a clearer case. We had to learn that over-all strength does not guarantee particular strength, and that both the horror and the power of modern weapons tended to paralyze us, the horror because it made most issues not worth contending for, and the power because it made most transformations seem irrelevant. A gap opened up between our policy of deterrence and the strategy we were willing to implement, between the desire to assemble a maximum amount of force and the desire to construct the widest system of collective security.

Moreover, the more terrible the consequences of our strategic doctrine,
the more reluctant other powers became to support us. In the past, the
decision to resist aggression was always a reasonable one because the
worst that could happen as the result of an unsuccessful war was national
disintegration, but when national disintegration seemed to be the con-
sequence of the beginning of a war, massive retaliation and the decision
to engage in all-out war came to seem less and less attractive. We have
had recent examples in our offer of missile installations to Europe.
Suddenly our allies realized that deterrence might have to be imple-
mented; that a war might have to be fought within the territories of
these countries; that our military doctrine and our policy of military
security are becoming increasingly inconsistent.

In short, we have had great difficulty in bridging power and policy,
and in bringing our expectations into line with the challenges which
we have in fact faced. As a result, we have had to spend more time in
analyzing the nature of the problem than in solving it. There has come
about the defense which has been so characteristic of our foreign policy,
and which is also so out of tune with the spirit of the age, which is
revolutionary precisely because it opposes the status quo.

Now, many of the difficulties I have described could be related to
specific policies, but I should like to relate them to the personnel who
have actually conducted our policies, because it seems to me that the

5

deepest reason for our defensiveness is not the failure of this or that policy, but the difficulty our leadership groups have experienced in coming to grips with the situation we have faced.

The two groups from which most of the leaders of the government are drawn are businessmen and lawyers, and very little in the experience of these individuals prepares them for the challenges which they must face. The role of the businessman on the whole is to consider the goals of his institution as given. His skill is in judging between various administrative positions. His excellence presupposes that some criteria are fixed. But the problem of our situation is that our criteria for judging policy are disintegrating and that all over the world our deepest challenge is not the technical implementation of goals but the definition of goals. And the problem of many of our lawyers is that much of their training runs counter to the hypothetical cases which are inherent in long-range planning. The skill of many of our lawyers is in analyzing individual cases. They tend to reject the hypothetical case involved in long-range planning. They have a tendency to wait until all facts are in, but by the time all facts are in it is too late to do anything about them.

I am not saying that these groups are not able. On the contrary, they are extremely able. The very fact that they are groups which are most highly rewarded in our society brings about a greater concentration of talent than in any comparable group. The difficulty is that very little in their pregovernment experience causes them to reflect about the problems with which they will have to deal when they are in government, and a great deal of their time within government has to be spent on the more elementary tasks of getting to know their problems.

One symptom of our difficulty is that frequently there is disagreement within our government, and within our nation, as to whether a given set of circumstances in fact constitutes a problem until a crisis has broken out. Because of the difficulty of assessing the situation there is also a slow reaction time. Often more time is spent in analyzing a situation than in finding remedies for it.

One of the symptoms of the discrepancy between expectation and reality, and one of the reasons for the ambivalence of many of our people is the temptation to assume that our difficulties are caused by a kind of administrative breakdown. But the more a bureaucracy is overloaded with the task of the fundamental thinking, the more sterile its performance tends to become. The concern of a bureaucracy is usually more with risks than with opportunities. One never gets into difficulties for not having foreseen an opportunity because an opportunity is inherently conjectural and it can never be proved that it existed. One can get into serious difficulties for having attempted something and failed. Moreover, the task that is required at the moment is not only to administer according to traditional norms, which is what a bureaucracy is designed for, but to break through the existing criteria and to develop new goals.

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When we come to the outside groups that are called together from time to time, the same difficulty exists. The supply of available talent is extremely limited, with the result that the same people tend to appear on the same committees. The very fact that they are constantly sitting on committees forces them either to the level of their most current experience or it keeps them so occupied that they have little time for reflection. But if new people are brought into these committees, so much time has to be spent on briefing them that they have very little opportunity for long-range thinking.

Moreover, outside committees are limited by the receptivity of the bureaucracies which they must ultimately convince. Often the result of an outside governmental committee is either that it confirms the existing pattern of thought, and therefore the task could equally have been performed within the bureaucracy, or else if it is too much in advance of the bureaucracy, it is ignored. I have occasionally been amused by the situation where a committee, when it first makes its report, is rejected because it is too radical, and two years later a committee is formed on the same topic which rejects the previous recommendation because now it is too antiquated.

These factors produce an oscillation between rigidity and spasms of innovation. The rigidity comes about because no matter with how much doubt a policy was accepted, once it is adopted it becomes sacrosanct because on the other side of existing policy is intellectual chaos. And, worse than this, a repetition of the process that produced the policy in the first place.

And when the impasse of existing policy becomes too great, there is then a call for new decisions at any cost, and the most radical proposals are given a hearing, not because they are considered meritorious but because they are new.

It would be idle to suggest that it is very easy to do something about this situation. The problem is, rather, what education can do for our leadership groups both while they are receiving their training and afterwards. I have become deeply convinced that one of our grave mistakes is to assume that education ends with the A.B. degree, a mistake, incidentally, that the military services never make. We should find ways of motivating our most talented individuals while they are going through education; we should seek opportunities in the communities in which we are located to relate the men of affairs to the men of reflection. We must not make the mistake of assuming that a low order of theoretical ability indicates a low order of total ability. An association is as beneficial to the scholar as it is to the man of affairs; in fact, perhaps more beneficial to the scholar.

Such associations are essential for the scholar, particularly the scholar concerned with questions of national policy, because many of the traditional methods of scholarship do not apply to the same degree in the areas of national policy. Much of the knowledge is in the minds of men who have had experience, and much of the judgment depends on a

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contingency of application to which one should be exposed from time to time. These study programs do not have to yield dramatic results or dramatic headlines. They are peculiarly activities which are worth doing for their own sake and which may stimulate the participants to concern themselves with problems which will be of importance to them throughout their lives.

But beyond the rather mechanical problem of forming study groups, and associating the men of affairs at a formative stage of their careers with the scholars at an equally formative stage of their careers, is the problem of what the universities themselves can do to create the kind of atmosphere in which they can enrich and in fact ennoble not only their students but their other participants.

It seems to me that the scholars themselves have been torn by ambivalence. In the field of national policy there has been a tendency to disregard the problem of relevance, to insist that what cannot be researched by traditional means does not exist, and with it has come the development of a perfectionism which paralyzes action just as surely as the excessive empiricism described earlier. There is very often a tendency to confuse the mode of analysis with the mode of action, and to assume that because a given man of action is prevented, by the pressure of having to make decisions, from formulating his views as clearly as the man of thought, that there is no moral validity in what he does.

On the other hand, when the scholar does enter the field of national policy, he sometimes takes too shortsighted a view of relevance. Then he may let his "customer," whether it is the government or a large foundation, decide what is relevant and he becomes inwardly committed to being consulted and to having his advice taken.

The universities and institutions of higher learning have to find a middle ground between excessive abstractness and a kind of utilitarianism which gives the answer in the very definition of the problem. There is a very important function of creating a haven for reflection, of slowing down somewhat the pace of life, and slowing down somewhat the insistence on immediate decisions. The universities, it seems to me, can contribute more to national policy by an attitude than by specific solutions. They should measure themselves not only by the projects which they attract but by those which they define. If we are going to attract people into the deepest sense of policy making, if we are going to teach them that not every good intention guarantees success, and that there may be tragic aspects in the lives of nations, it would seem to me that we can teach it to them in part by improving the tone and the reflectiveness of our universities.

8

Quality in Higher Education

John W. Gardner

President
Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching
New York City

NO one can say that life has been dull for American educators since the dawn of the space age on October 4, 1957. The clamor has been deafening. And a good deal of the uproar has been produced by individuals who never had two consecutive thoughts on education before that fateful day. Characters we had never heard of went into orbit and started beeping. But those of us who are professionally involved in education are not exactly taciturn types and we have cheerfully added to the racket.

Looking back on it I think we would all agree that nothing really surprising has come out of all the commotion. The wise men said some wise things; men who were not very well informed said some uninformed things; and silly people said silly things. The proportions of wise, uninformed and silly contributions were probably not very different than they usually are. The chief difference was that the spirit of the times turned up the volume control considerably, or to put it another way, there were many more people listening. To those of us with a lifetime concern for these matters, it often seemed that the foolish comments rang more loudly, but that may have been an illusion.

At any rate, the first flush of excitement is now over, and we have the opportunity to appraise our problems a bit more calmly. One is reminded that when Thomas Babington Macaulay, the English historian and poet, was four years old, a maid spilled some hot coffee over his legs. She quickly set the coffee-pot down and made a great fuss over him, but he pushed her away saying, "Thank you, madam, the agony is somewhat abated."

One of the issues which has been most frequently raised in the public discussion of recent months has been the question of quality in education. I propose to discuss this question as it bears on higher education.

Arguments about quality in higher education tend to be rather heated and, it must be said, rather pointless. There are many reasons why such conversations become muddled, the foremost being that they so often degenerate into arguments over "elite" versus "mass" education. People who engage in these arguments remind me of the two washerwomen whom Sidney Smith observed leaning out of their back windows and quarreling with each other across the alley; they could never agree, Smith pointed out, because they were aruging from different premises.

In the case of arguments over "elite" versus "mass" education, I am convinced that both premises should be abandoned because behind the arguments is the assumption that a society can choose to educate a few