Draft Chapter IX - Overall Report

January 20, 1958

# CHAPTER IX

## ACHIEVEMENT AND ASPIRATION AT HOME

### I

Hitherto we have surveyed the American scene largely in objective terms. We have looked out over a broad panorama of changing age groups, habitats, tasks, incomes, more in order to find out what was there and what lay behind the surface phenomena than to ask what meaning these things had in terms of our immediate future. We have called attention to many changes in the American environment and speculated on what effect these changes might have on us, but we have not yet asked what we might do in turn to alter that environment.

This is the purpose of our present and subsequent chapters. For we are not merely passive onlookers at the social spectacle. We are active participants in it. Karl Marx once wrote: "The philosophers hitherto have only interpreted the world in various ways; the thing, however, is to change it."

We have had a demonstration of the stunning extent to which a militant minority could in fact change the world, and of the even more profound extent to which they could not. Now we must ask the same question of ourselves.

It is hardly necessary to point out that the objective of social change, if pursued beyond modest lengths can become both presumptuous and improper.

For there is a risk in dealing with large-scale problems of human values and

For that is a risk in dealing with broad-acute problems of human values and
if humanized beyond modest length can become both dreamtions and instruments.

It is hardly necessary to point out that the objective of social change,
which they could not. Now we must ask the same question of ourselves,

If we could in fact change the world, and of the even more profound extent to
which they could not. Now we must ask the same question of ourselves,
which they could not. Now we must ask the same question of ourselves,

We have had a demonstration of the stunning extent to which a militant minority
interpreted the world in various ways; the thing, however, is to change it."

Karl Marx once wrote: "The Philosophers hitherto have only
are not merely abstract theoretical at the fundamental spectacle. We are active per-
sons."

This is the purpose of our present and subsequent chapters. For we
after that environment

might have on us, but we have not yet asked what we might do in turn to
in the American environment and speculated on what effect these changes
in terms of our immediate future. We have called attention to many changes
lay behind the surface phenomena than to ask what meaning these things had
behind them, tasks, incomes, more in order to find out what was there and what
terms. We have looked out over a broad panorama of changing age groups,
Hitherto we have surveyed the American scene largely in objective

I

## CHAPTER IX

January 30, 1928

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objectives, of "simplifying" matters by reducing the individuals who _are_ the problem to the level of manipulable things. There is a delicate line to be drawn between the legitimate need to assess our environment and to offer suggestions for its development, and the illegitimate temptation to decide for other people how they should devote their life careers; and although this distinction is often difficult, it is particularly important for an open society such as ours to attempt to observe it.

There is, however, a framework of values which can help us to bring about change with a minimum of infringement upon individual freedom. This is the framework of individual achievement itself. For Americans are doers. Personal accomplishment is in the very marrow of our existence. We tend to value a man's life more by what he does than by what he is. Hence if we ask, _in terms of America's own values_, where its immediate challenges lie, the answer is unequivocal. The challenges lie wherever achievement is found to be denied.

II

If we look out over the American scene to find those areas where achievement is in fact denied, there is little doubt where our eye will first light. This is in the area of agricultural distress where three million families -- sharecroppers, tenants, submarginal proprietors -- constitute a part of

a sharecropper's tenant, a submarginal protractor -- constitute a part of light. This is in the area of agricultural distress where three million families achievement is in fact denied, there is little doubt where our eye will find light. If we look out over the American scene to find those areas where

II

found to be denied.

the answer is unequivocal. The challenge he whenever achievement is taken, in terms of America's own values, where its immediate challenges lie, to value a man's life more by what he does than by what he is. Hence it we personal accomplishment is in the very narrow of our existence. We tend to the framework of individual achievement itself. For Americans are doers, about change with a minimum of individual freedom. This there is, however, a framework of values which can help us to bring such as ours to attempt to observe it.

distinction is often difficult, if it is particularly important for an open society for other people how they should devote their life careers; and although this suggestions for its development, and the ill定义ate temptation to decide drawn between the legitimate need to address our environment and to offer problem to the level of manageable things. There is a delicate line to be drawn objectives, of "simplyifying" matters by reducing the individuals who are the

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America which is almost totally exluded from any real possibility of growth and self-realization. Most of these families live in agricultural backwash communities, ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-educated, and despite their homegrown food, ill-fed. Their output is pitifully small. Their productivity is meagre. Half of them have incomes of less than $1,000 a year.

Yet this meanness of life is made all the more anomalous because it exists in an environment whose larger problem is one of abundance and super-abundance. It is not too little production that threatens agriculture as a whole but chronic overproduction: in mid 1957 our government held over $7-1/4 billions of surplus farm products. It is not too little productivity, but a fabulously rising curve of output which characterizes farm operations: in the past quarter century the productivity of American agriculture has risen 52 percent. And it is not poverty which threatens farmers as a whole. Of five million farm families, at least two millions do well and enjoy an abundant and expansive life.

This correctly suggests that there is not one farm problem, or one farm population but two -- the efficient 40 percent of our farmers, who produce enough to supply our entire food needs, and the unproductive 60 percent -- the 3,000,000 submarginal farmers -- to whom agriculture is merely a subsistence way of life.

Today we are treating both classes of farmers alike. Rich and poor, efficient and inefficient alike receive price support payments for their crops.

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Hence we are guilty of two economic mistakes. The prosperous farmer is given a public subsidy to which he is no more entitled than a prosperous manufacturer. And the unprosperous farmer is encouraged to do the very thing which he should not. He is encouraged to remain a farmer instead of thinking of changing his occupation.

Clearly we need to divide our farm population into its component parts and to treat each as it needs. The proper objective for an agricultural program for prosperous farmers is not to support their *prices* but to underpin their *incomes* in times of disaster. The objective would thus be to insure the efficient farmer against severe economic hazards, but not to induce him, by means of a totally unrealistic fixed price umbrella, to produce beyond the capacity of the market.

A quite different problem is posed by the submarginal farmer. From the point of view of the national interest and of his own opportunities for growth, there is only one indicated solution to his problem, drastic though it may appear: the submarginal farmer must be induced to leave his present occupation.

From a purely economic standpoint, this is not an insuperably difficult aim. Inefficient farmers, who so desire, could be given a cash grant to facilitate their transfer to urban employment. A billion dollars appropriated by Congress for the purpose of purchasing submarginal lands would effect a substantial reduction in the number of unproductive farmers,

would affect a substantial reduction in the number of unproductive farmers; appropriated by Congress for the purpose of purchasing submarginal land; grant to facilitate their transfer to urban employment. A billion dollars' worth of efficient farmers, who so desire, could be given a cash check, and thus a purely economic standpoint, this is not an inconsiderably present occupation.

through it may appear: the submarginal farmer must be induced to leave his for growth, there is only one indicated solution to his problem, dassic from the point of view of the national interest and of his own opportunities. A quite different problem is posed by the submarginal farmer.

the capacity of the market.

by means of a totally unrelenting fixed price umbrella, to produce beyond the efficient farmer against severe economic pressure, but not to induce him to incur the risk of increasing his prices in times of disaster. The objective would thus be to increase their incomes in times of disaster. The program for broader farmers is not to support them prices but to underpin prices and to treat each as it needs. The proper objective for an agricultural enterprise is to secure a fair return on the investment of the farmer.

Clearly we need to divide our farm population into its component of thinking of changing his occupation, thing which he should not. He is encouraged to remain a farmer instead of manufacturing. And the broader farmer is encouraged to do the very thing which he should do. Hence we are a unity of two economic mistakes. The broader farmer

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in addition to yielding side benefits by adding to the nation's forest or
open park areas and by bringing under adequate management lands
which are now badly run. There is little doubt that such an investment
would pay for itself many times over, not only by making possible a
large reduction in farm support payments, but by increasing the total
productivity of the nation.

Yet the relative straightforwardness of such a remedy conceals
the real difficulties of the situation. The agriculture problem is a social
as well as an economic one; it is tied up with the racial issue and it has
roots in low levels of education, health and social status. We are not,
after all, talking of rooting out 3,000,000 economic statistics: we are
trying to induce a large portion of these three million human beings to
change their way of life of their own accord. In fact this change has
already begun. The poorer farmers are drifting out of agriculture -- a
million people each year leave the farms for the cities, and only the
relatively higher rural birthrate keeps our farm population from shrinking
even faster than it is. But the trouble with the present movement is that
it is taking place under terrible duress, and that it represents a flight
from poverty rather than a positive movement toward something better.
Too often it results in little more than the transfer of rural distress to
an urban setting.

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Hence what is needed is not only a stimulus to leave the farm,
with at least a small stake to tide the rural emigrant over his transition,
but also active help in readjusting to a new way of life.

This will necessitate coordinated social programs at local,
state and federal levels. It will need a tax-induced decentralization
of industry to utilize the labor resources in rural areas and information
programs to inform interested individuals of job opportunities. The
redirection of present Federal agricultural agencies toward the provision
of social counselling, housing assistance for displaced farmers, and
technical training for new employments, are all parts of what must be a
carefully unified and rounded long-term program.

It would be futile to pretend that this deep-seated problem can
be substantially alleviated in a few years. Indeed we may need to begin
by focusing on the children of our depressed areas, bringing these young
Americans into contact with richer educational and environmental
opportunities. Certainly a major effort is needed if we are not to
continue to exclude them from the chances for achievement which we
believe to be the right of every American.

A second sector of our society where achievement is blocked by
the sheer pressure of environment is to be found in our decaying urban
centers. Here may well lie the most resistant domestic question we face
for, unlike the problem of rural poverty, urban decay is not, however,

for, unlike the problem of rural poverty, upon decay it is not, however, centrale. Here may well lie the most realist domestic direction we face the sheet-breeze of environment is to be found in our decaying mass of the second sector of our society where achievement is blocked by ... believe to be the right of every American.

continue to exclude them from the chances for achievement which we opportunities. Certainly a major effort is needed if we are not to Americans into contact with richer educational and environmental py focusing on the children of our depressed areas, bringing these young be substantially alleviated in a few years. Indeed we may need to begin It would be futil to pretend that this deep-affected problem can carefully utilized and rounded long-term program.

technical training for new employments, are all bars of what must be a
of social counselling, housing assistance for displaced farmers, and
redirection of present Federal agricultural agencies toward the provision
programs to inform interested individuals of job opportunities. The
of industry to utilize the labor resources in rural areas and information
state and federal levels. It will need a tax-induced decentralization
This will necessitate coordinated social programs at local,
but also active help in resuming to a new way of life.

with at least a small stake to tide the rural emigrant over the transition,
Hence what is needed is not only a summing to leave the land.

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crudely, working itself out. It is worsening. Nor does it affect only
a relatively small fraction of the nation's population. To quote from
a recent report by the Twentieth Century Fund:

About one fifth of all the dwellings in cities and metropolitan
regions were in slums or blighted areas in 1950. There were
more than six million of those slum dwellings. Nearly four
million more dwelling units, though not in slums, fell below
good standards and were a menace to their neighborhoods.
Housing for more than 30 million people was below reasonable
standards of health, decency, or convenience.

This in itself is a serious failure of the American economy. While
the slum is by no means peculiar to or at its worst in America, its
presence here, amidst so much wealth, is an acid commentary on the
values of our economic system: what are we to make of the fact that
many urban dwellers can afford to transport themselves in style but not to
live in decency, because we have solved the technological and economic
problems of the car, but not of the house?

But the decay of the inner city is not only an economic question:
it also has its terrible social consequences in the lives which slum
surroundings permit and encourage. The very exceptional young person
will overcome his environment, but the ordinary human being will be
pulled down to its level. Civic ideals, high personal ambition, dignity
of life -- these are not attitudes which a mean and hard environment
inculcates. And this social problem in turn is given a special urgency by
a fact to which we have already called attention -- that so many of our

a fact to which we have already called attention -- that so many of our
inhabitants. And the social problem in which it arises a special tendency by
of life -- these are not attitudes which a mean and hard environment
brought down to its level. Civil ideas, high personal ambition, dignity
will overcome the environment, but the ordinary human being will be
aroundings permit and encourage. The very exceptional young person
it also has its terrible social consequences in the lives which alum
but the decay of the inner city is not only an economic question;
problems of the city, but not of the house?

This in itself is a serious failure of the American economy. While
standards of health, 'decency,' or convenience,
Housing for more than 30 million people was below reasonable
good standards and were a menace to their neighborhoods.
More than six million of these slum dwellings, nearly four
regions were in slums or blighted areas in 1920. There were
about one fifth of all the dwellings in cities and metropolitan

relatively small fraction of the nation's population. To quote from
creatively working itself out. It is worshipping. Nor does it affect only

January 20, 1928.
Draft Chapter IX, Over-all Report.

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decayed districts are fast becoming exclusively Negro slums. For
just as the young middle classes are deserting the city, so the under-
privileged Negro migrants are seeking the city, and once there, are
soon entrapped within its worst slum districts. It has been estimated
that if present Negro migration rates continue and if our segregation
patterns do not change, within thirty years Negroes will constitute
from a quarter to half the population of ten of our fourteen largest
central cities. The implications of this problem in terms of its
political, economic, and social divisiveness are serious enough to
warrant heroic measures to relieve it.

What can we do to eradicate our slums?

The problem requires answers on two fronts. One of these
involves the sheer complexity of an effort which cannot be conceived in
smaller terms than rebuilding the affected cores of our major cities. For
little is gained by a piecemeal tearing-down of single blocks but a
temporarily respectable pocket of segregation. Even an attack on
isolated neighborhoods will often not suffice to cope with the problem.
It is not alone the eradication of intolerable housing that is required, but
the introduction of new green space, the relocation of industrial plants,
the provision of community facilities of many sorts if our urban centers
are to become environments in which good lives can be led. The associated
problems of political districting, zoning laws, real estate opposition,

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racial frictions, and a host of other considerations present a
formidable obstacle to broad and ambitious planning.

That this is an immense difficulty is apparent, but it is not
an insuperable one. On a limited scale such city replanning and
rebuilding has already been done in Pittsburgh, St. Louis, New Haven,
New York and Philadelphia. What seems to be needed now is a central
coordinating or counselling center to serve as an advisory service to
cities planning the massive elimination of blight, to widen the horizons
of local planning, and to make available the experience of other
communities engaged in similar activity. Such a center might be
constituted under the Federal Government, or possibly under the aegis
of one of our great foundations.

But a second question is even more importunate. It asks
whether we can afford the sums needed for urban redevelopment. For
estimates of the cost of rebuilding our metropolitan areas and clearing
them of rot run to gigantic size: $100 billions is a frequently cited sum,
which may very well under-estimate the need. Even distributed over a
twenty year span -- and it would take at least this long to mobilize
the men and resources needed for such an enormous task -- this
represents a formidable claim on our economy, most of which would have
to be publicly rather than privately borne.

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Yet the claim, while huge, is not unmanageable. A five
billion dollar yearly expenditure on urban rehabilitation represents
but a five per cent claim against the total local, state and federal
expenditure which is to be realistically anticipated within less than
ten years. It is only a one per cent claim against our total national
production. An elastic budgeting of the total over a long span of years
would allow us to slow down the expenditure if it threatened to overburden
our economy, and to draw on it in greater volume as an anti-recession
reservoir of public works should the need arise.

But the ability of our public authorities, or of our economy, to
bear an all-out campaign against urban decay must be considered not by
itself, but in conjunction with other claims. Our military budget, our
foreign commitments, our other social welfare plans must also be
accommodated within our national public and private capabilities. And
as our penultimate chapter will show, these capabilities, at the most
optimistic, will not permit us to indulge in every desirable public
program simultaneously unless we are willing to curtail the use of re-
sources for private consumption or for private investment.

Hence we must make a choice. As long as international tensions
exist, it is unlikely that there will be enough slack in our "normal"
government budget to permit more than a partial attack on what is, by any
standard, one of the ugliest and costliest areas of American life. We may

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be able to hold the line against a worsening of our slums, but we
probably will not be able to move it back. To bring the resources of
men and materials to bear in adequate quantities would quite likely
mean a sacrifice -- the imposition of additional taxes or more likely
the restriction of non-essential building. Whether that price is worth
paying cannot be determined by any arbitrary measuring rod. It must be
decided by social values of the American people themselves.

III

The problems of urban and rural slum peculiarly touch the
capabilities for personal achievement of many among the lowest fifth of
America's income receivers. Now we must move upwards along the
income scale to consider the far larger body of Americans -- one family
out of every three -- which is no longer in the shadow of need, but whose
$2,000 to $5,000 incomes are still insufficient to assure full economic
independence. What are the salient problems which impair the life-chances
of this group, and how can we help meet them?

Two such problems spring immediately to our attention. One of
these is capacity of this broad stratum of our citizenry to provide
adequately for its health. And the other is its capacity to face economic
insecurity.

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Despite the extraordinary advances in medical skill and knowledge over the past decades, it is the unhappy fact that the state of America's health leaves much to be desired. For this there is the mammoth evidence of the draft figures. Of the first two million men drafted in 1940-41, one-half were rejected for physical or mental disturbance. In the period 1948-52, the rejection rate was 45 per cent; at the start of the Korean War, it was 58 per cent.

These figures indicate the degree to which America must evidence an increased concern for its physical well-being. Research, demonstration, dissemination of information, the provision of hospitals and medical training schools, and not least the recruitment of more doctors constitute a series of related needs for which energetic public and private action is essential. But the near-term challenge is to help Americans, particularly in the lower middle income brackets, avail themselves of the medical service which exists. Many of these families simply do not have the financial resources to provide adequately for themselves on a private basis. They are not "charity" patients. A severe illness can literally bankrupt them.

The most obvious method of alleviating this problem is through some sort of "socialized" medicine. It is to be noted in this regard that America lags behind many of the great democracies who now accept the maintenance of public health as an integral public function. Yet we would

January 20, 1958

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hesitate to recommend a compulsory Federal health insurance program, because at this juncture it is not certain whether such a program might not actually retard the cause of health care. Rather we would strongly recommend an approach to the social responsibility for health through a more voluntaristic program.

We believe that excellent prospects for efficient and relatively inexpensive hospital and medical care lie in the direction of group practice organized around a community medical facility, offering both out-patient and in-patient care, and paid for under family prepayment plans. Medical care and payment organized in this way has proved highly successful where it has been attempted and the resistance of organized medicine to group practice combined with prepayment plans does not appear to be supported by objective analysis. Putting a "firm" or group of professional men on the annual retainer is the essence of group practice prepayment -- a concept quite common in our social and economic system. The incentives on the part of the doctors are necessarily in favor of prevention and early diagnosis, since the utilization of hospital beds increases the operating costs for the medical group. This is in contrast to the situation prevailing under present hospitalization insurance plans, which are believed in many instances to have been abused by both doctors and patients who do not have a direct stake in preventing over-utilization.

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Another type of protection which should be seriously considered is a form of state or Federal health "disaster" insurance, which might provide all (or a large portion) of a family's annual medical costs over and above a fixed amount, or a flexible amount based on income. The "deductible" amount should be substantial enough to minimize interference with private insurance plans, and should encourage the growth of such plans below the "ceiling" amount.

What would be the cost of a full scale health program? It is very difficult to make estimates in the fine, but a general order of magnitude for public health, medical care, and hospital construction costs for 1965 would approximate $7.5 billions compared with just over $4 billions today. By way of offset, it should be noted that the loss in Federal tax receipts due to health disability is probably at least this large: heart disease alone costs us half a billion in lost taxes each year. In addition, as the number of our middle class income receivers rises, we can expect our total private health expenditure to expand considerably. But this does not rule out the immediate need for an expanded health program, both for those who cannot afford private medical care, and as an added factor of security for those who can.

No less important a problem than health, particularly to the lower middle third of the nation with which we are now concerned, is that of

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income security. Typically this group does not have substantial
savings, other than a modest amount of insurance which it is rightfully
loathe to cash in. Any extended period of unemployment therefore
comes as a potential threat to the financial security of the family group.

We have long recognized this fact and sought to counter it with
income insurance. As Mr. Arthur Larson has said: "We insist upon
having the advantages that flow from a risk economy, but we also know
that a risk economy leaves in its wake victims. The socialists and
communists propose to remove the risk itself. That solution we reject.
But having rejected it, we have an inescapable duty of contriving our own
solution, consistent with free enterprise. That solution is income insurance.."

Income insurance has now penetrated our economy in many ways.
Unemployment insurance today covers approximately 80% of wage and salary
workers. Over ______ millions have retirement benefits under our Social
Security laws, while another ______ million come under other Federal,
state, and local retirement plans. A growing private pension movement has
provided supplementary assurance for yet another ______ million, while the
new (and still untested) "guaranteed annual wage" seeks to offer additional
avenues of security against economic setback.

Our task now is to complete and reinforce this web of protective
insurance. For where loopholes exist, they may spell private tragedy.
For example, some 12 million workers -- 40% of them employees of state

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and local governments -- have no unemployment protection. Migratory
workers, who are particularly vulnerable, are still almost totally uncovered
by such insurance. The self-employed have no shelter from the vicissi-
tudes of adverse economic conditions. Workman's compensation schedules
are also badly out of date, and do not even include most agricultural
workers whose injury rates are higher than average.

Meanwhile some Social Security provisions need improvement.
Payments to aged pensioners are often inadequate to assure the modicum
of decency to which old age is entitled. Totally disabled persons are
ineligible for Social Security benefits if under fifty, which excludes
precisely the younger worker with dependent children who most needs help.
And what is perhaps most inequitable of all, Social Security benefits --
although earned and paid for -- are not available if a man earns over $1,200,
whereas his eligibility is unimpaired no matter what his dividend or
interest income may be.

This is by no means a full examination of the problems and oppor-
tunities of our system of income insurance. Many of the changes we have
suggested will have to be made gradually, as our actuarial experience
grows. Precipitate action, no matter how well intended, can be costly or
even disastrous in areas where social responsibility must come first. But
the nature of the task is clear. Income insurance is one of the bulwarks of
the American economic structure. It helps provide a security of outlook

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which enables men to follow their best interests rather than to bow
before economic pressure. As a foundation on which personal achievement
can be based, the insurance of income must be widened to include all
gainfully employed and strengthened to be of more aid to those in acute
distress.

IV

Large and complex as are the several barriers to individual achieve-
ment which we have hitherto examined, nonetheless they have a common
simplifying element. All of them are susceptible to -- indeed inseparable
from -- a mobilization of effort under public auspices. Hence they lend
themselves easily to unified attack. Now we must face a second line of
barriers, and one far more difficult to overcome, since it lies primarily in
our individual attitudes. These are not the objective barriers of environ-
ment, or health, or even income. They are the invisible barriers of
prejudice and indifference -- barriers which lead us to deny achievement,
and what is perhaps worse, to ignore its worth.

Primary among the groups whose abilities are thus being squandered,
is the Negro, and to a lesser extent the other ethnic minorities whose
plight he symbolizes. It is hardly necessary to point out that the problem
of the Negro is the gravest moral flaw in the American fabric. It is also the
most serious handicap we have imposed upon ourselves. One tenth of our
nation is non-white. To flout the abilities of this one tenth is to cripple
the nation by this amount.

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We do not delude ourselves that racial discrimination will disappear overnight. The prejudices and fears of racial difference are too deep to yield to moral suasion alone, and too explosive to allow equality to be uncompromisingly imposed. We shall have to work towards the elimination of prejudice with a flexibility as well as an intensity of effort and with an earnestness of purpose which is not so blindly self-righteous that it only exacerbates the evil. The end of segregation, in the schools, in our rebuilt cities, in the factory, is of course the first necessary and difficult step. Legislation such as Fair Employment Practices Acts or non-restrictive covenants in public housing grants will add a necessary stimulus to a private reorientation of attitudes. The impact of Negro sportsmen, teachers, airline hostesses, diplomats, government officials will help to symbolize the breaking of old patterns.

All of these are only partial solutions, but together they can gradually effect an essential change in our social climate. For until the Negro has been offered an absolutely equal opportunity with the non-Negro to develop and use his individual talents to the utmost we shall not only have failed in achieving an important material objective. We shall have lost a critical moral battle.

The Negro is the most crucial but not the sole group in which prejudice coupled with indifference has led to a denial of achievement.

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A persistent discrimination against women -- particularly in the upper echelons of managerial effort -- has deprived America of a large reservoir of first rate talent. A bias against the use of older workers has not only imposed the severe psychological strains we noted in an earlier chapter, but has removed from social usefulness the unexpended creativity of a large section of our population. Perhaps even more critical has been the misuse of our pool of top-grade ability. In business, government, and academic life alike scarce and rare talents are often hoarded and tied to parent organizations which have no immediate problems worthy of their time or skill.

To these and yet other areas of abuse and misuse of human creativity there are no simple solutions in a voluntaristic society. Yet what has marked our efforts to cope with the problem thus far has been an almost total lack of awareness that the problem existed at all. Many corporations refuse to allow women to take executive training courses, even when there is an expressed desire on their part to remain in employment. A national draft policy stubbornly refuses to recognize that our national interest may be injured rather than served by the induction of talented students into the armed forces. A lack of serious appreciation of the value and rarity of high talent enables universities to apply for and foundations to grant funds which engage first-rate minds on second-rate projects. A disregard of the capacities of more mature workers, reinforced

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by inflexible insurance and pension schemes, frequently sets the age
limits for new employees as low as thirty-five for secretarial work,
forty for management positions, and forty-five for skilled operatives.

A few of these shortsighted policies can be remedied by
appropriate legislation. But for most we shall have to look for a response
which arises from a widespread reorientation of attitudes. We shall have
to remind ourselves that we live in a society where it is easy to ascribe to
institutions a capacity for thought and action which in fact lodges in the
human beings lost to sight within those institutions we shall have to
remember, when we speak of "government" or "science" or "education"
as the key to many of our problems, that government consists of men and
women coping with the tasks of governing, that science is a loose
fraternity of individual scientists, and that education covers an army of
school teachers. Such a reflection, trite though it may be, reminds us
that national achievement, no matter in what it consists, cannot be more
than the achievements of the individuals who constitute the living substance
of a nation.

V

In the vistas we have now sketched out -- a redirection of
impoverished rural life, a massive onslaught against slum conditions,
a new departure in private and public programs for health, an improved

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income insurance structure, and not least a diminution of prejudice
and indifference to creative ability -- lie some of the great challenges of
the American future. These are the opportunities against which we will
measure our national accomplishment twenty years hence, noting with pride
the problems which we have put behind us, and questioning our failure to
do as well with others.

But varied though these challenges be, the limiting factor in each
is the same. The potential achievement in every case is not the amount we
will be able to accomplish. It is the amount we will wish to accomplish.
There is no objective, from the eradication of our slums to the eradication
of prejudice, which is not largely within the reach of our capabilities.
The question is whether it is within the reach of our concerns. The
accomplishment of America -- at least so far as the problems we have surveyed
heretofore -- will essentially measure one thing: our aspirations.

Ironically before some aspects of the basic problem of aspiration
itself we must admit to very scanty knowledge. We know very little about
such small but important aspects of the problem as why many young people
with high potential are not motivated to pursue a college education; why
only a few of the highly talented students are willing to proceed with graduate
studies; why some able people are attracted 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

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Chapter IX Over-all Report

January 20, 1958

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earnings. More effective cultivation and utilization of the nation's human
resources depends on the expansion of our basic knowledge of such human
behavior. This in itself is a basic challenge alike to universities,
foundations, business and government.

Because we do not yet have any more reliable method of raising
aspirations or shaping them, in point of actual fact, our aspiration cultivating
mechanism is the educational system itself. To make a broad but tenable
generalization, it can be said that the cultivation and direction of our
national human potential is more importantly affected by its educational
experience than by any other <u>controllable</u> influence. Our educational
apparatus is the primary mould in which the American talent is shaped.
Right now we are educating one-fourth of the nation's work force of 1965.
Not only what our young people are taught, but how they are taught, what
attitudes towards self-education are implanted in them, what conscious and
unconscious estimations of learning and of excellence they acquire are all
matters for which our school system must assume a basic social responsibility

Yet we have already seen that the effective discharge of this
responsibility is gravely imperiled. Our schools are overwhelmed by a
flood of young people. Their finances are poor. Their level of teacher
remuneration is dangerously low. The range and quality of instruction
is accordingly far below what it could and should be. If these intercon-
nected defects are to be remedied we shall have to support education on

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January 20, 1958

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several fronts at once. Only a few years ago such an exhortation would
have been regarded by most Americans with polite disinterest. Today, the
sudden awareness of our failure to develop scientific personnel at the
same rate as the Russians gives the question an almost frantic urgency.
But to approach the cultivation of talent and creative ability as a "task"
imposed upon us by the pressures of competition is already to set an
environment in which the best will not be forthcoming. To be sure, our
national survival itself may hinge on the creative abilities we are able to
identify and nurture. But the very creativity we seek will be jeopardized
by an overemphasis on survival with its "crash programs," its wasteful
hurry, its impatience with leisured reflection. What is essentially at
stake when we seek to raise levels of performance and to inspire creative
effort is a widening and deepening of the life purpose of the performers and
the creators themselves. As we now review the needs of our educational
system, it is well to keep in mind that our need for a more intensive
cultivation of talent as directly concerns the conditions of the good life as
it does those of the strong and well-functioning nation.

Without doubt we will not be able to improve our educational system
unless we succeed in strengthening its finances. Certainly from an
economic point of view the United States is in an excellent position today
to provide financial support to education. Yet our outlays for education have
failed to keep pace with our rising national income.

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January 20, 1958

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In 1955 total educational expenditures in the United States ran just under $14 billions. This total was made up as follows:

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Billions</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Public Elementary and Secondary</td><td>$ 9.4</td></tr><tr><td>Private Elementary and Secondary</td><td>1.2</td></tr><tr><td>Public Higher Education</td><td>1.5</td></tr><tr><td>Private Higher Education</td><td>1.9</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>14.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

This total expenditure was approximately 3.5% of our Gross National Product -- a relationship which has remained relatively constant since 1930. 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.

By 1965 this "traditional" school budget will be totally inadequate. School populations will have increased from 15% in elementary grades to 100% and over in colleges. School plants, already overcrowded, will have to be vastly expanded. School salaries, deplorably laggard today, will have to be brought into an equitable parity with other fields. If we aggregate these demands economically but realistically, we are forced to the conclusion that 10 years hence our schools and colleges will require double their present financial support. Our whole educational effort in 1965 will cost us $28 to $30 billions -- or over 5 per cent of our estimated Gross National Product of $550 billions.

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January 20, 1958

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A significant rise of this sort in the proportion of Gross National Product devoted to education would involve a sharp departure from the past pattern. Traditionally, school finances have been borne by local communities 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.

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 ocompetitive 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 make inescapable some sort 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),

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January 20, 1958

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there is no question that 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, by differential grants 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 one. One relevant fact 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. Perhaps the best known of these is the G.I. "Bill of Rights" under which thousands of veterans pursued a college education. Complaints of Federal intrusion upon local autonomy under these previous programs appear to have been exceedingly rare, though this, of course, does not mean that the risk is not real. It does suggest, however, (as does past experience with Federal aid programs in other fields), that the risk of Federal control varies greatly with the particular form which the aid program takes. Certainly we do not wish to allow the Federal government to allocate the internal use of funds within the state or local community. But local autonomy over the disposition of funds is fully compatible with Federal assistance at the state level.

In addition to this careful use of Federal funds to supplement local education, there are other contributions which the Federal government can

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January 20, 1958

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make in a different form. One is Federal aid to merit scholarship programs, particularly aimed to capture the 100,000 talented high school students whose further education is impeded for financial reasons. A system of national loan programs for outstanding students is another highly desirable contribution. Yet another is the strengthening of the Office of Education 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. And finally a vigorous program of national publicity must alert our nation to the continuing importance of the educational crisis.

VI

One of the more important question marks in education is the future of private colleges and universities. The private institutions of higher learning have been one of the most illustrious social achievements of our nation; it is a matter for genuine national pride that private contributions have succeeded in creating institutions which rival the great state-supported seats of learning abroad. But the contribution of our private colleges is by no means limited to the major universities. What we have achieved as well is a marvelous diversity of education, both geographically and with respect to academic climate. The small private college has often pioneered in the establishment of a new social milieu for education.

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January 20, 1958

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An important contribution to education which our private
institutions of higher learning can make lies in the continuation and expansion
of educational diversity by the creation of new private colleges under their
aegis. Such new colleges would not simply be carbon copies of the older
parent ones. One very valuable service they would perform would be the
pioneering of new educational techniques and the meeting of new education
needs. Drawing on the resources of their parent institutions, their own
buildings could be more functional and less expensive; their utilization
of faculty and facilities could be more efficient. It is possible for example
that there would be no large-class lectures -- the necessary ones being
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 documents. The parent colleges could, for a period
of years, supply the nucleus of the faculty of the new institutions who would
be given the challenge of an opportunity to create something new. The :
"feed-back" effect upon the old colleges would undoubtedly be wholesome and
substantial.

But this enlargement of the function of private colleges will be impos-
sible unless we are able to remedy the financial plight of the private educa-
tional venture. Indeed a continuation of their current contribution is already
in danger. Due largely to a lack of financial strength the private colleges

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January 20, 1958

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share of total enrollments has declined to less than 50% of all higher
education (and far below this in many states). If this trend is not offset, their
share of the total students could readily fall to less than 20% within 15 years --
a waning influence which we should look upon with misgivings and regret.

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 repre-
sents 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 super-
imposed 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 _full_ cost of instruc-
tion and each student would receive whatever amount of scholarship 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

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January 20, 1958

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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
subsidies to students whose families could 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
scheduled steps, most of these difficulties might be avoided. It would be
aided further by some form of tax deductibility for the expenses of higher
education. In any event, the fact remains that much of the financial plight
of private colleges today is directly traceable to their pricing policies.
Until these policies are substantially revised, their plight is likely to
continue.

VII

The financial difficulties of our educational institutions are pressing
and immediate, but at least they are susceptible to vigorous remedial action.
A more elusive but no less critical part of the educational problem concerns

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January 20, 1958

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the estimation of the teaching profession itself. So long as teachers are not
only underpaid but undervalued, we can hardly expect a spontaneous flow of
high talent into teaching. We are entrusting the selection and encouragement
of our future leaders in all fields to a profession which is accorded neither
adequate material rewards nor a compensatory respect and admiration.

The underestimation of teaching is in part a social and cultural
attitude carried over from 19th century American life. We did not enjoy a
tradition of and respect for learning such as characterized much of Europe.
In an age which admired vigorous business enterprise above all else we tended
to look upon formal education as something "genteel" and out of the central
current of life, and to regard "the teacher" as a figure of impotence and
unimportance.

Such attitudes change -- and we are today witnessing a belated
awakening to the role of the educator. To some extent our attitudes may be
expected to change further as teachers' salaries improve, for we are still a
very reward-conscious people. To some extent our estimation of education
and educators should rise as we become increasingly aware of our national
dependence on talent. But these are necessarily slow developments.
Meanwhile we can make an immediate contribution to raising teacher prestige
by clearing away some of the unnecessary handicaps and drawbacks of the
profession itself.

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January 20, 1958

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One of these is the recruiting mechanism. The route to teaching through the normal school, is rigid and formalistic. The calibre of training of many of these schools is not good. Hence the challenge of being a teacher is often overweighed, to bright minds, by the dull prerequisites of becoming one. Fortunately there has been some renewed interest on the part of liberal arts colleges in assuming once again an active role in the preparation of teachers -- a mission which was once important to them but on which many of them had turned their backs. Another hopeful development has been the emergence of a fifth year of education which leads to a Masters Degree. These programs are designed to provide roadways into school teaching for those who lack the standard undergraduate professional courses, or who do not wish to travel by the routine path.

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

Better recruiting is only a first step, however. Even more important is better utilization of teachers. Perhaps no profession has suffered such a general neglect of specialized abilities as that of the teacher. Teachers tend to be handled as interchangeable units in an educational assembly line. The best teacher and the poorest in the same school building may teach the

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January 20, 1958

- 33 -

same grade and subject, use the same textbook, handle the same number
of students, get paid the same salaries and rise in salary at the same
speed to the same ceiling. Clearly, if the content of the teaching task is
to be made more attractive, this routinization of education will have to be
greatly changed. This task must be made as individual, as personal,
and as creative as can be. Such innovations as the teacher aide and
television may be extremely useful adjuncts in freeing the teacher from
time-consuming non-teaching chores (which have been estimated
. to take up as much as a third to half of a teacher's time), and in greatly
enhancing the impact and inspiration of an unusually gifted teacher.

But in a deep sense the prestige of the teacher transcends anything
which improvements in salaries or the utilization of personnel can affect.
At the core of the teaching problem is a communal recognition of the contribu-
tion which teaching itself makes to the continuance of a society. In the
great cradle-civilizations of Greece and Rome, the teacher enjoyed a position
of great eminence because it was recognized that he was the font of great
eminence among his pupils. To a profound degree the accord we give to
education is a measure of the expectations of greatness we anticipate as its
result.

VIII

But how much greatness do we expect of education? What are the
horizons of aspiration in our society? To arrive at these questions is to

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Draft Chapter IX Overall Report

January 20, 1958

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confront again a challenge which towers above even the opening up of
opportunities of achievement for every American. For these opportunities
must then be availed of, and unless the aspiration is great, the achievement
will be small.

We have noted in an earlier chapter the narrowing vistas of striving
with which our ever more organized, bureaucratized, conformist society
must contend. There are no pat solutions, no easy resolutions of a profoundly
rooted state of affairs with whose realities we must each of us cope as best
we can. But it may help to give us a needed perspective if we look again at
the problem of aspiration in a somewhat different light.

For the danger ahead lies not only in our environment but in
limitations, even within this environment, which we place upon ourselves.
Let us instance the educational process itself. At the present moment we
are more interested in increasing the number of students who will be able
to boast of a "college degree" than in evaluating the content and worth of
that degree. In a larger view, our educational system has evolved into a
chronological lock step under which all young people start off together and
march forward one grade per year, to emerge twelve years later with a high
school diploma and possibly four years after that with a college degree.
This relentless treadmill 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

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January 20, 1958

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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 personal 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 of a kind which we have already mentioned. Those which
reflect inadequate financial school strength may have to be remedied by
indirect Federal aid. But the core of the problem lies fundamentally in a
recognition that variation, difference, diversity are essential to the cultivation
of excellence, and that our educational system must strive to foster such an
individualized, aspiration-conscious environment for our youth.

Yet there is more here than an academic question. For at the bottom
the struggle between the exceptional and the average within education only
mirrors a larger tug of war between these two directions in our democratic
society.

This root dilemma of our society has been brilliantly expounded by
John Gardner:

"...On the one hand it is the form of society which says most convincingly, 'Let the best man win,' and rewards winners regardless of origin. On the other hand, it is the form of society which gives losers the

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January 20, 1958

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widest latitude in rewriting the rules of the contest. No one who has not
thought long and hard about these paradoxical facts is in a position to
understand the tug of war between equality and excellence in a democracy.
When the rewriting of the rules is prompted by the standards of fair play, by
elementary considerations of justice, by basic value judgments as to what
sort of a 'best man' the society wants, democracy can have no quarrel with
it. Indeed, it is the core process of a democracy. But when the rewriting of
the rules is designed to banish excellence, to rule out distinguished attainment,
to inhibit spirited individuals, then all who pray for the continued vitality of
democracy must protest.

"Every democracy _must_ encourage high individual performance. If it
does not then it closes itself off from the mainsprings of its dynamism and
talent and imagination; and the traditional democratic invitation to the
individual to realize his full potentialities becomes meaningless. Because of
the leveling influences which are inevitable in popular government, a
democracy must, more than any other form of government, maintain what Ralph
Barton Perry has called ' an express insistence upon quality and distinction.'
When it does not do so, the consequences are all too familiar: the deterioration
of standards, the debasement of taste, shoddy education, vulgar art, cheap
politics, and the tyranny of the lowest common denominator.

"...For whatever reason, there are large numbers of individuals who
will not necessarily find unrelieved exhilaration in a system that emphasizes

will not necessarily find unbelieved explanation in a system that exhausts
the possibilities of the human mind, there are fable numbers of individuals who
... for whatever reason, there are fable numbers of individuals who
believe, and the authority of the fewest common denominator.

When it does not do so, the consequences are all too familiar: the deterioration
Barton Perry has called an exasperate instance upon quality and distinction,
democracy must, more than any other form of government, maintain what Ralph
the level of influences which are inevitable in popular government, a
individual to realise the full potentialities become meaningful. Because of
 talent and imagination, and the traditional democratic invitation to the
does not then close itself off from the mainstream of the dynamism and
every democracy (if there is any) enshrines individual performance, if it
democracy what broker.

to inhibit an aspirated individual, then all who play for the combined vitality of
the rules is declared to possess excellence, to rule out distinguished appointment,
if. Indeed, it is the core process of a democracy. But when the rewriting of
sort of a 'past man' the society wants, democracy can have no channel with...
elementary considerations of justice, by due value judgements as to what
when the rewriting of the rules is prompted by the standard of fair play, by
understand the end of what between equality and excellence in a democracy,
thought long and hard about these paradoxical factors is in a position to
which latitude in rewriting the rules of the context. No one who has not

January 20, 1928
Draft Chapter IX Over-all Reports.

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January 20, 1958

- 37 -

high performance. If these large numbers come to believe that the system exposes them unnecessarily to frustration and defeat, and if they enjoy the freedom of social action characteristic of a democracy they will create elaborate institutional defenses to diminish the emphasis upon performance as a determinant of status. We can observe such institutional defenses not only in education but in every aspect of our national life.

"Such defenses -- in one form or another -- always will be with us. In their origin they are often healthy reactions to excessive or exclusive emphasis upon performance. But carried far enough these defenses too can constitute excesses and can contribute a fatal rigidity to the society."

No more crucial task confronts the American people today than to reconcile the conflict between aspiration and averageness, between excellence and equality on all levels of national existence. There is no profounder question than that which asks how best we can distribute widely the opportunities for self-esteem and self-respect which release the energies and provide the motivations of the whole population, while at the same time dedicating ourselves to that cultivation of distinction and that striving for excellence which alone can produce great achievements.

If there is an answer to the profound dilemma of an excellence-seeking, equality-bound society it lies in the recognition that excellence must differ; that any attempt to mold excellence into a single form, to subject aspiration

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January 20, 1958

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to a common conditioning and to point individual achievement to a common
goal is the sure defeat of quality and the equally sure victory of its enemy --
mediocrity. In the encouragement of the diversity and uniqueness of the
individual lies the goal for a democratic society which seeks a truly egalitarian
cultivation of excellence.

cultivation of excellence.

individual like the goal for a democratic society which seeks a truly egalitarian
mediocrity. In the encouragement of the diversity and uniqueness of the
goal is the same defeat of diversity and the equally same victory of its enemy --

to a common conditioning and to point individual achievement to a common
game is the same defeat of diversity and the equally same victory of its enemy --

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January 30, 1928
Draft Chapter IX Over-all Report

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January 20, 1958

- 38 -

Individual lives the goal for a democratic society which seeks a truly egalitarian
 medicity. In the accompagagement of the diversity and uniqueness of the
goal is the same defeat of diversity and the equally pure victory of the enemy --
to a common conditioning and to both individual achievement to a common

January 30, 1968
Draft Chapter K Over-all Report