V - Report

March 17, 1958

# I - INTRODUCTION

A nation's greatness is rooted in the capacities and prevailing values of its individual citizens. It is well to remind ourselves of this, for we live in an age in which it is easy to lose sight of the ultimate private origin of all social accomplishment.

Thus a nation which aspires to greatness must cultivate individual excellence; and in this sense, the present report constitutes an inquiry into the foundations of national greatness -- into the identification, encouragement, and utilization of the creative abilities of the American people. The report will examine the means by which our common level of effort and our exceptional peaks of performance may be raised to the highest degree of attainment of which they are capable.

Conditions in the world require that we think in terms of our performance as a nation; but it is not only in terms of national objectives that our task acquires its significance. Though we seek to raise levels of performance and to inspire creative effort, our aim is as importantly that of widening and deepening the life purpose of the individuals themselves as it is to add to the success of our national effort. In a basic sense our aim is relevant to the conditions of the good life as well as those of the well-functioning nation. The central objective is the maximum realization -- within the context of our values -- of the individual's potentialities; and this is a goal which Americans have always understood and honored.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

In exploring this subject, we have sought to avoid the risk always present in dealing with large-scale problems of human values and objectives, of simplifying matters by reducing individuals to the level of manipulable things. There is a delicate line to be drawn: on the one hand there is the legitimate need to assess our creative resources and to offer suggestions for their development; on the other hand there is the dangerous temptation to look upon human resources as the subject of systematic manipulation.

This is true of any attempt to influence human striving and aspiration in an open society such as ours. For while we may speak of the human resources available to us, we cannot -- as can some authoritarian societies -- talk of the human resources "at our command." Though we may see the need for new directions of individual effort, or for new patterns for the utilization of human effort, we cannot legislate that effort or those patterns of use into existence -- nor would we wish to.

Hence we have tried to define the proper boundaries of our task with clarity and to approach it with diffidence. Our discussions have concerned themselves as importantly with the profound dilemmas of the problem of human excellence itself as with concrete recommendations for dealing with some of the more critical immediate issues it presents.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

II - THE CHANGING DEMANDS OF SOCIETY

One of the most striking features of contemporary life is the growing
range and complexity of the tasks on which our social organization depends.
This is dramatically apparent in science and technology, but is no less a
reality in nearly every field of endeavor. It can be seen not only in the skills
demanded of the doctor, the teacher, and the soldier, but in the constantly
expanding knowledge required of the government administrator or the business
executive.

The reasons are not far to seek. They lie in the technological advances
we have experienced and in the ever-increasing complexity of our social organi-
zation. Perhaps more important than the sheer level of technological and social
complexity which we have achieved is the rate of technological innovation and
social change. The tasks which must be performed in order to keep our society
functioning are not only intricate and demanding, they are constantly changing
their character.

As a result, we have experienced a variety of shortages in fields involv-
ing high competence and extended training. We have had to become more and
more concerned with the identification and cultivation of talent. Education, and
particularly advanced education, has come to play a more strategic role in our
society than ever in the past.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

- 4 -

In current discussions of shortages in high talent manpower considerable attention is usually given to precise quantitative appraisal of the shortage in a given field at a given time (or whether a shortage exists at all). We are not concerned here with such appraisals of the moment, which are much less significant than the long-term -- and still continuing -- upward trend in the demand for trained manpower. The demand for educated talent is not an overnight development in our society. It has been coming for a very long time. Certain critical manpower shortages of the past few years have forced it on our attention rather abruptly, but it is anything but a recent trend. Indeed, if we compare the distribution of selected skills and occupations today with those of 1910, the trend becomes vividly clear:

Occupational Distribution of Labor Force*

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th colspan="2">per cent</th></tr><tr><th></th><th>1910</th><th>1955</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Professional and technical workers</td><td>4.4</td><td>9.8</td></tr><tr><td>Proprietors, managers and officials, excluding farm</td><td>6.5</td><td>11.1</td></tr><tr><td>Clerical workers</td><td>10.2</td><td>14.2</td></tr><tr><td>Skilled workers and foremen</td><td>11.7</td><td>14.1</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>32.6</td><td>49.2</td></tr></tbody></table>

*Statistics for 1910 from America's Needs and Resources, Twentieth Century Fund, N.Y. 1947, p. 549. 1955 from Statistical Abstract of the U.S. 1956, p. 209. Note: 1955 figure for white labor force only. The tables are not strictly comparable, but accurately reflect orders of magnitude.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

The table illustrates the increase in the degree of preparation and training demanded of our labor force. If we take the occupational categories listed in this table as having in common considerable prerequisites of skill or education, it is evident that whereas in 1910 these requirements were demanded of less than a third of our work force, by 1955 they were necessary for almost half the work force. And within the table, it may be noted that the increase in demand has been greatest for precisely those categories which require the highest competence and most extended training.

These long-term and deeply rooted trends are very different from the rise and fall of demand in a given professional field from one year to the next. This latter demand is at the mercy of a great variety of circumstances in the manpower market. It is possible that in the near future we shall actually experience an oversupply in certain categories which now seem to be suffering shortages. This is not incompatible with the long-term upward trend in demand for talent. And it is important for the purposes of the present discussion to recognize that gross quantitative data on supply of manpower conceal a deeper and more perplexing issue: the problem of quality. This is a problem that will preoccupy us throughout this report.

In this day of technologies which become antiquated overnight, it is hazardous to predict a favorable future for any narrow occupational category. One consequence of this is that there will be economic advantage to the individual in

V - Report

March 17, 1958

acquiring the kind of fundamental training which will enable him to range over
several occupational categories. Individuals so trained will find a favorable
market for their talents under most circumstances. The individual more narrowly
trained will be at the mercy of circumstance.

Some observers have feared that we will produce too many educated men. But the dramatic examples we have of such overproduction have been in societies where educated men have highly specific notions of the kinds of jobs in which they may properly exercise their gifts. Any society producing large numbers of college graduates is obviously in danger if these graduates are convinced that possession of a degree entitles them to a specific kind of job, at a specific level of prestige, and surrounded by a specific atmosphere of professional dignity. The complex forces which affect the demand for manpower in a given field will never accommodate themselves to such rigid and specific expectations. But men whose education comprises not only depth in specialization but breadth in fundamental training, and who do not have rigid preconceptions about the type of employment in which they must use their education -- such men may face the future with confidence.

The trend toward the increase of skill and training needed by our labor force can be expected to accelerate in the years ahead. One of the most widely publicized aspects of this trend is the impact on the labor force of the so-called automation "revolution" whose first substantial effects will probably be felt in the next decade.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

The exact degree to which self-regulating machinery will replace human labor, and the ultimate economic consequences of this replacement, are still matters for debate. But there is no debate over the immediate impact of automation on the level of occupational skills. The consensus of engineers and economists who have considered the problem is that automation will reduce the number of routine jobs and will replace them by more demanding tasks of supervision, maintenance and regulation. Thus automation lends new impetus to the trend away from unskilled labor and toward skilled and semi-skilled employments -- a trend that had already gathered considerable momentum with our spectacular gains in command of energy sources. And automation is adding this impetus in precisely those areas where the level of work is now least challenging -- in the factory and large office.

Automation is not the only factor that will exercise an upward pressure on the level of skills in our work force. An equally powerful factor is the increasing high-level specialization of our society. Specialization has now reached the point at which no scientist can hope to encompass more than a small sector of scientific knowledge. The same refinement and fragmentation of function and skill has taken place in other fields as well. Military strategy is no longer a matter of generalized knowledge but rests importantly on the advice of scholars and technical experts in matters far removed from military operations as such. The conduct of government depends heavily on the talents of the economist, the agronomist,

V - Report

March 17, 1958

- 8 -

the public health expert and similar highly specialized experts. Industrial psychologists, market research specialists, tax lawyers, accountants, personnel officers are indispensable to the successful operation of a large corporate enterprise.

Whether this atomization is conducive to the development of intellectual versatility and to the emotional range of a rich life is another and by no means reassuring question. Specialization need not handicap the individual in any way. Some of our wisest and most versatile men and women have been specialists at one time in their lives; and there are signs that this will be increasingly true in the future. But it is unfortunately true that for many individuals specialization is a dead end rather than an avenue to deeper and broader understanding. One could write a substantial treatise on the extent to which specialization fosters in many individuals a sense of impotence vis-a-vis general questions; or the extent to which it may become a device for avoiding responsibility.

The trend toward specialization has created among other things an extraordinary demand for gifted generalists -- men with enough intellectual and technical competence to deal with the specialists and enough breadth to play broader roles -- whether as managers, governors, teachers, interpreters or critics. Considering the complex role played by such individuals, it should not be surprising to find that such individuals will be drawn increasingly from the ranks of those whose education and experience have included both depth and breadth -- who have specialized but have not allowed them to become imprisoned in their specialty.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

But such large questions must not divert us from our present discussion. Suffice it to say there can be no doubt of the increased pressure on our level of skills and capacities which the rapid rise of specialization is bringing about.

To this must now be added the effect of yet another contemporary trend: the recognized value of research. Two distinct pressures have led to the high estimation of research. First is the awareness that we stand at the threshold of "breakthrough" progress in a dozen fields and the consciousness of the immense gains to be won by each new step beyond the frontiers of knowledge. It is to research -- which is to say, to the efforts of the men and women who are probing the boundaries of thought and technical experience -- that we look not only for new technologies but for new glimpses of the universe.

But a second reason is equally compelling. This is the necessity of meeting the Soviet threat of military superiority. It is unfortunately a fact that the chances for national survival may hinge on the vigor of our research effort; and this creates a national reliance on intellectual effort that is without parallel in history.

It is not only in research fields that there is a premium of men with a talent for innovation, men who can move beyond the limits of present practice. In a time of breath-taking technological and social changes there is a need for men particularly at every level of leadership who understand change and can cope with change. One of our great strengths as a people has been our flexibility and

V - Report

March 17, 1958

- 11 -

we have competent and highly motivated people in a wide range of key professions;
we must also have an alert and informed citizenry. Among the tasks which have
increased most frighteningly in complexity is the task of the ordinary citizen who
wishes to discharge his civic responsibilities intelligently.

In this context it becomes clear that the achievement of our objectives
with respect to the cultivation of human resources is almost synonymous with our
capacity to maintain the strength and vitality and growth potential of our society.
At this level there is no conflict between our survival needs of the moment and
our enduring needs as a society.

Before leaving this discussion, which has touched so heavily on the value
of research, it is worth noting that a great many of the questions covered in this
report -- questions of human capacities, human motivations, human learning --
are themselves seriously in need of systematic investigation. Research on
human behavior should have a high place in our list of priorities.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

III. EXCELLENCE IN A DEMOCRACY

It is now widely recognized that our society has given too little attention
to the individual of unusual talent or potentialities. To make such an assertion
is not to deplore the unprecedented time and money we have devoted to raising
the general level of achievement. It will serve no purpose to replace our neglect
of the gifted by neglect of everyone else. We are all too prone to such wild
swings of the pendulum in our national life. We must learn to view these matters
in some sort of embracing perspective which will permit us to repair one omission
without creating others.

Nothing illustrates the absence of such perspective more vividly than the
arguments one still hears from time to time over "elite" versus "mass" education,
or over "quantity" education versus "quality" education. Behind such arguments
is the assumption that a society can choose to educate a few people exceedingly
well or to educate a great number of people somewhat less well, but that it cannot
do both. But a modern society such as our cannot choose to do one or the other.
It has no choice but to do both. Our kind of society calls for the maximum develop-
ment of individual potentialities at all levels.

Fortunately, the demand to educate everyone up to the level of his ability
and the demand for excellence in education are not incompatible. We must honor
both goals. We must seek excellence in a context of concern for all.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

There are misguided people even today who seem to assume that every argument for excellence conceals an "undemocratic" sentiment. Such people, though they think themselves friends of democracy, could in the long run be its downfall. A democracy, no less than every other form of society must foster excellence if it is to survive. True friends of democracy will believe that it is possible for our kind of society to foster excellence and will bend every effort to insure that end. Democracy will have passed an important milestone of maturity when those who are most enthusiastic proponents of a democratic way of life are also the most vigorous proponents of excellence.

Every democracy must encourage high individual performance. If it does not, it closes itself off from the well-springs of its dynamism and talent and imagination; and the traditional democratic invitation to the individual to realize his full potentialities becomes meaningless. More, perhaps, than any other form of government, a democracy must maintain what Ralph Barton Perry has called "an expressed insistence upon quality and distinction."

This is easy to say but difficult to accomplish. At the heart of the difficulty is a seeming paradox in democracy as we know it. 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 those who do not come out on top the 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

V - Report

March 17, 1958

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.

The eighteenth-century philosophers who made equality a central term in our political lexicon never meant to imply that men are equal in all respects. Nor do Americans today take such a view. It is possible to state in fairly simple terms the views concerning equality which would receive most widespread endorsement in our country today. The most fundamental of these views is simply that in the final matters of human existence all men are equally worthy of our care and concern. Further, we believe that men should be equal in enjoyment of certain legal, civil and political rights. They should be, as the phrase goes, equal before the law.

But men are unequal in their native capacities and their motivations, and therefore in their attainments. In elaborating our national views of equality, the most widely accepted means of dealing with this problem has been to emphasize equality of opportunity. The great advantage of the conception of equality of opportunity is that it candidly recognizes differences in endowment and

V - Report

March 17, 1958

motivation and accepts the certainty of differences in achievement. By allowing free play to these differences it preserves the freedom to excel which counts for so much in terms of individual aspiration, and has produced so much of mankind's greatness.

At the same time one must admit that the conception of equality of opportunity has its limitations and ambiguities. In practice it means an equal chance to compete within the framework of goals and the structure of rules established by the society in question; and this framework tends to favor certain kinds of people with certain kinds of gifts. This is unavoidable, but it is only proper that it be recognized. We must also recognize that in a society in which there are substantial differences from one family to another in wealth, learning, and concern for education, the formal "equality of opportunity" represented by free schooling may never erase the tremendous variations in opportunity represented by home background. In other words, we cannot assume that we have put our perplexities behind us when we assert our devotion to equality of opportunity.

But the important thing to recognize is that our conception of equality is not in conflict with the pursuit of excellence. In committing ourselves to that pursuit, we must not make the mistake of adopting a narrow or constricting view of excellence. We will want to commit ourselves to a conception of excellence which embraces many kinds of achievement at many levels. There is no single scale or simple set of categories in terms of which to measure excellence. There

V - Report

March 17, 1958

is excellence in abstract intellectual activity, in art, in music, in managerial activities, in craftsmanship, in human relations, in technical work.

We must not assume that native capacity is the sole ingredient in superior performance. Excellence, as we shall later have occasion to note, is a product of ability and motivation and character. And the more one studies high performance in the dust and heat of daily life, the more one is likely to be impressed with the contribution made by the latter two ingredients.

IV - THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

The formal educational system offers only part of the purposeful
education that goes on in a society. Family, church and school are the
institutions that share the broadest responsibility for education. But in
a sense every institution within a society is constantly teaching its
members, remolding their behavior, contributing to their development;
in childhood it may be the scout leader, the playground director, the cop
on the corner; in later years the employer, the union, the mass media.

Family life is of basic importance in providing the emotional
nurture and moral guidance the child needs if he is to develop fully as
a person. Social circumstances which disrupt or degrade the quality of
family life put in hazard this all-important emotional and moral nurture.

Clearly then, the social agencies, religious or secular, that
concern themselves with the integrity of family life are insuring the
soundness of the human material that will flow into our schools. In
the same category belong the efforts of those who concern themselves
with the physical and mental health of children. And here too one must
list the contributions of those farsighted individuals who have fought
to provide for the adequate education of our young women, since it is
the young woman who largely creates the atmosphere of the home.

In short, the church, settlement house, day nursery, supervised
playground, boys' club, Boy or Girl Scouts, and many other agencies

V - ?Report
March 17, 1958

- 18 -

contribute to the process by which a sound community delivers at the door of the school a reasonably healthy, reasonably law-abiding, reasonably tractable child. As our great cities have learned to their sorrow, if the community delivers boys and girls too warped, criminal, or intractable, there is little the school can do to save itself from havoc.

Seen in this light, even the city planners working on slum clearance and the governmental agencies engaged in public assistance programs are contributing to the conservation of those human resources which are the school's raw materials.

The important contributions of these out-of-school influences to the emotional and moral life of the child are reasonably well known and understood. Less widely recognized is the fact that these out-of-school influences have considerable effect upon the strictly intellectual motivations and academic fitness of the young person. Each year some 200,000 young people with the ability to do well in college fail to go beyond high school. There are many reasons why they do not go on, but for a good many the primary reason is that their family and neighborhood environment have not provided them with the sort of motivations and values which produce educational ambitions. We shall return to this point later when we consider the talent lost to society through economic disadvantage.

Let us now turn to the formal educational system. In this country we have always told one another, sometimes with an all-too-shallow piety,

V - Report
March 17, 1958

that education is a vital element in the strength of our society. The
times have grimly underscored the truth of that view. We can no longer
merely repeat it to one another: we must explore its full implications,
with all of the vigor and devotion we can muster. If we are truly con-
cerned to nurture talent we must recognize that the most powerful instru-
ment for that task is a vital educational system; and we must admit that
one source of talent loss today is the existence in many areas of poor
educational facilities and slovenly educational efforts.

Our schools are overcrowded, understaffed, ill-equipped. In
order to correct these conditions, the schools need more money. They
need greatly increased public support and attention. They also need
something more difficult to achieve, something that cannot be bought
with money: an unsparing re-examination of objectives, of current
practices, of patterns of organization, and of educational technology.
We need more teachers, but we must also learn how to make more
effective use of the teachers we have. We need expanded facilities
but we also must also achieve a more enlightened approach to the
design and use of facilities.

In the past 75 years we have heaped heroic assignments upon
our educators. In the years between 1870 and 1950, while our popula-
tion was increasing somewhat more than three times our school popula-
tion was increasing approximately a hundredfold! We have taken into

March V - Report

March 17, 1958

the school system a greater proportion of our youngsters than has any other nation and we keep more of them in the system longer than any other nation. At the same time that we have forced this reckless expansion upon the system, we have pressed our educators to serve up an incredible variety of fare, to take over more and more of the functions of the home, and to accept a sense of responsibility for every psychic or civic crisis involving individuals below the age of consent.

That our educators did not founder completely under these chaotic pressures is impressive. That they may be credited with Gargantuan achievements in creating a system of universal education is a simple fact. And that their failures are in some measure failures of the American people is undeniable.

Having said that, we can without self-castigation or recrimination, demand much of ourselves and much of our educators in the days ahead. We do not wish to absolve our educators of the mistakes they have made, nor do we wish to absolve ourselves. But we do wish to emphasize what remains to be done rather than to appraise what has been done. The fateful question is not whether we have done well, or whether we are doing better than we have done in the past, but whether we are meeting the stern demands of the times.

There is much that needs doing. We need mention only a few of the most spectacular needs.

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 21 -

In the fall of 1957, the shortage of public school classrooms stood at 140,000. There were 1,937,000 pupils in excess of "normal classroom capacity." Some elementary and high schools and colleges had found it impossible to hire well-qualified teachers in such basic subjects as English, languages, and social sciences; some had even had to drop chemistry, physics and mathematics from their curriculum since there were no teachers to teach them.

Such problems threaten to become more severe in the years ahead. For the population bulge of the future will then press even more urgently on already overburdened facilities. Elementary school enrollments, which rose from 20 million in the nineteen forties to some 30 million today, will reach about 34 million by 1960. By 1969 high schools will be deluged with 50 to 70 per cent more students than they can now accommodate; by 1975, our colleges and universities will face at least a doubling and in some cases a tripling of present enrollment.

## A. Teachers

### 1. Demand and Supply

At the same time that this unprecedented demand will materialize, our supply of teachers is apt to fall even further behind.

One figure widely quoted is that the number of new school teachers needed in the coming decade is equal to about 50 per cent of all the four-year college graduates of every kind

V - Report

March 17, 1958

- 22 -

in that same period. These figures are slightly misleading, because recent college graduates are not the only source of teachers; but the comparison suggests the magnitude of the problem. Since only about 20 per cent of college graduates enter school teaching, the severity of the shortage is apparent. At college levels, the teacher shortage is even more critical. The number of new college teachers needed to 1970 is roughly three times the total number of Ph.D. graduates likely to be turned out in the same period.

The danger of a decline in the quality of our corps of teachers is obvious. Even today it is in need of upgrading: as of 1956, some 33 per cent of elementary teachers did not hold an A.B. degree; and more than 21 per cent of all public school teachers had less than four years of college. At the level of college teaching, far from upgrading our corps of teachers, we are slipping backward. The National Education Association reports that "since 1953-54, holders of the doctor's degree among newly employed full-time teachers have decreased 25.2 per cent and those with less than the master's degree have increased 26.9 per cent." With the impending shortage, this may become worse.

The dangers are clear. If not enough highly qualified teachers are available, less qualified ones will be hired. If

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 23 -

even the poorly qualified ones run out, incompetents will be drawn into the system. This decline of quality will not always reveal itself clearly in the statistical charts. But our children will get the full impact of it.

## 2. Recruitment

Obviously the need to recruit more and better teachers holds the highest priority in current efforts to strengthen education. We must begin by admitting the present low status of teaching as a profession, and agree that until we make it a more attractive calling, both in terms of working conditions and financial rewards, few will seek it out.

The recruitment of teachers at elementary and secondary levels is difficult enough; recruitment of college teachers is even more difficult. A much longer period of training is called for; and the graduate schools, which are the primary suppliers of college teachers, have been more interested in their research and research training functions than in teacher preparation. Also, men and women sufficiently gifted and well-trained to be college teachers often have a high market value, so that they cannot be kept in the academic world.

The college teacher occupies a peculiarly strategic role distinct in the production of high talent manpower. Our entire supply of educated talent -- scientists, engineers, teachers, physicians,

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 24 -

writers, executives, lawyers -- all pass through the hands of the college teacher. Any failure either in supply or quality of college teachers will reflect itself in the total output of educated talent. The irony of the college teacher shortage is that the industrial and governmental organizations which are outbid-ding the colleges for the bright young people who might have gone into college teaching are precisely the organizations which stand to lose the most -- in the long run -- if the output of the colleges deteriorates.

Of the various measures needed to facilitate recruitment of superior teachers at all levels of the educational system, two stand out. One is to increase the attractiveness of the profession, chiefly by raising salaries. This is a point to which we shall return. The other measure is immediate expan-sion in the number of graduate fellowships for able individuals preparing for teaching.

### 3. Preparation

Problems of recruitment are inseparable from problems of preparation. If the programs for the preparation of teachers are rigid, formalistic and shallow, they will drive away able minds as fast as they are recruited. Unfortunately, preparation for pre-college teaching, has come all too close to that condition.

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 25 -

Indeed in some states the requirements for certification as a teacher are such as to make it exceedingly unlikely that individuals with a first-class education would even apply -- or be eligible if they did apply!

Fortunately, there appears to be a lively movement to correct these difficulties. The Educational Policies Commission has recently re-emphasized that "every teacher should have both a liberal education and a knowledge in depth of the field in which he teaches." Colleges of teacher education are re-examining their curricula with a new awareness of the problem. Groups concerned with teacher certification are reviewing their regulations in a similar spirit. The liberal arts colleges are once again accepting some responsibility for teacher preparation. Hopefully, all of these groups may collaborate to strengthen and enrich the process of teacher preparation; to clear away the deadwood of formalistic requirements; and to provide a variety of stimulating and challenging paths to pre-college teaching.

As for the preparation of college teachers, the problem is one of reforming and expanding graduate education. We need not dwell on the details of necessary reform. The most farsighted leaders in the graduate schools have pointed out with great force the conditions which make graduate education

V - Report

March 17, 1958

an interminable process for many students, which degrade
the Master's degree, and which belittle the importance of
the teaching function. We can only hope that the graduate
schools have the courage and flexibility to correct these con-
ditions. As for expansion it is essential that ample funds be
made available to the graduate schools for construction of
new facilities and remodeling of old facilities. It is essen-
tial, too, that increased funds be available for the general
operating budgets of the graduate schools.

4. Utilization

Even with aggressive recruitment there appears to be
little or no likelihood that we can bring into teaching -- even
with good luck -- anything approaching the number of qualified
and gifted teachers we need. In the light of that hard fact,
there are two things we can do: (a) upgrade teachers now in
the system and (b) make better use of the most gifted teachers
we now have.

Let us look first at the matter of upgrading. The teaching
profession includes a great many individuals of less than ade-
quate preparation, and more are entering every year. Earlier
this year, the Educational Policies Commission reported:
"the present school year, well over 80,000 teachers in Ameri-
can public schools have substandard or emergency credentials."

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 27 -

Clearly there is need at both college and pre-college levels for the continued education of teachers in the course of their careers. Such continuing education is a firmly established tradition for elementary and secondary school teachers. But it is not always carried out at a high level of quality. Those who are engaged in the continuing education of teachers must raise their sights. At the college level, continuing education is given lip service but as a matter of practice it is often neglected. Both schools and colleges should provide incentives and other encouragement for the continuous improvement of teachers.

The second path open to us in view of the limited supply of teachers is better utilization of superior individuals now in the system. There will never be enough teachers with the extraordinary human gifts that make for inspired teaching. We should use them well, and at present we do not.

Teachers at the pre-college level tend to be handled as interchangeable units in an educational assembly line. The best teacher and the poorest in a school may teach the same grade and subject, use the same textbook, handle the same number of students, and get paid the same salaries -- and rise in salary at the same speed to the same ceiling! Clearly, if the teaching profession is to be made more attractive, this will have to be changed.

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 28 -

One way to make better use of the ablest teachers is to eliminate many of the petty tasks which occupy a teacher's time. Less highly trained classroom assistants may accomplish much in the lightening of this burden. Another measure is the employment of such devices as television to bring about extraordinarily effective teachers into contact with larger numbers of students than they would otherwise face. Films may be similarly useful. And even that good old-fashioned aid to teaching, the textbook, could have vastly increased usefulness if it were subjected to an imaginative working over.

Such innovations as the teacher aide and television should not be thought of as stopgap measures to surmount the immediate teacher shortage, but as the beginnings of a long overdue revolution in teaching techniques. The emergence of techniques that make it possible to reach large numbers of students economically (e.g., television) has led some observers to decry a "mass" approach to teaching. This is not a necessary consequence. All such techniques should only be used to extend the impact of rarely gifted teachers, or to perform teaching tasks that may best be performed by such techniques, so that the teacher may be freed for creative attention to tasks which can only be accomplished through personal interaction.

- 29 -

V - Report

March 17, 1958

It is not important whether one agrees or disagrees with any specific measure in this process. One may take any of several views of the usefulness of television in teaching. It is important to recognize that present patterns of utilization just are not going to work (except in a few institutions which are sufficiently prosperous to preserve them). It is important to accept the desirability of a rigorous re-appraisal of present patterns and courageous experimentation with new patterns. This must include a candid weighing of essentials and non-essentials in the curriculum; more flexible and imaginative approaches to the problem of class size; and -- at the level of higher education -- the trying out of approaches which place more responsibility on the student for his own education.

## 5. Salaries

Inseparably connected with the problem of the recruitment and better utilization of teachers is their economic reward. More perhaps than any other profession, teaching needs the sort of dedicated men and women to whom pay is not an overriding consideration; but until we pay teachers at least as well as our middle echelons of executives we cannot expect the profession to attract the full range of talent it needs. Salaries should be raised immediately and drastically. And almost as important as the level of pay itself is the nature of salary and

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 30 -

promotional policy. In most school systems today, advancement is routine and depends more on time than on merit; and the top salary is not far enough above the beginning salary. Those with more than the most modest financial needs or responsibilities can only solve their problems by becoming administrators or by leaving teaching altogether.

## B. Curriculum

### 1. Priorities

Next in importance to teachers is what they teach. Reform of the curriculum is too big a subject to deal with here, but we can suggest some of its dimensions.

At the pre-college level, the gravest problem today is to reach some agreement on priorities in subject matter. We have been extraordinarily tolerant of any and all innovations in the kinds of subject taught in the schools. In the great "democracy of subject matters" which we allowed to develop, it is only a moderate exaggeration to say that any subject was accepted to be as important as any other subject. In retreating from these excesses, we need not heap scorn on any specific subject matter. We just need to decide what is more important and what is less important. That may involve some hard decisions, but unless we try to run away from the problem it

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 32 -

secondary schools, what kinds of courses were designed, or
what sorts of textbooks were being written. In the past half
dozen years, it has come as a shock to such people to realize
that a poor harvest at the college level is often directly trace-
able to a failure of sound cultivation at earlier levels. This
realization is spreading slowly among the college-level fields.
Upon its continued spread may depend the future of the pre-college
curriculum.

## 2. Science

The public discussion of science education in recent months
has been such as to confuse all but the most clearheaded laymen.
The simplest way to avoid confusion is to keep a few basic ideas
firmly in mind.

First, the crisis in our science education is not a hysterical
invention of the newspapers, or scientists, or the Pentagon, or
visitors returning wide-eyed from the U.S.S.R. It is a real crisis.

Second, the U.S.S.R. is not the "cause" of the crisis.
The cause of the crisis is our breathtaking movement into a new
technological era. The U.S.S.R. has served as a rude stimulus
to awaken us to that reality.

The heart of the matter is that we are moving with headlong
speed into a new phase in man's long struggle to control his

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 33 -

environment. We read the portents in every morning's news-
paper; but with the practised (and necessary) insensitivity of
the newspaper reader, we move quickly to other matters. What
the portents say, even to those who are half-willing to listen,
is that we are moving swiftly into a period of change beside
which the Industrial Revolution may appear a modest alteration
of human affairs. Nuclear energy, exploration of outer space,
revolutionary studies of brain functioning, important new work
on the cell -- all point to changes in our lives so startling as
to test to the utmost our adaptive capacities, to say nothing of
our stability and wisdom.

The immediate implications for education may be briefly
stated. We need an ample supply of *high calibre* scientists,
mathematicians and engineers. Quantitative arguments over
the shortages in these fields are beside the point. We do
undeniably need quality, and we need it in considerable quan-
tity!

Much has been said about the dangers of overemphasizing
science, mathematics, and engineering. Dangers exist; but it
is important to be clear as to their exact nature. It is some-
times said that these are not "cultural" subjects and that they

V - Report
March 17, 1958

must therefore be accepted with caution. This is misleading. Science and mathematics are liberal arts. They are as "cultural" as any subject taught in our schools and colleges. Modern science and mathematics are among the most elevated achievements of the human mind and spirit. Engineering -- an "applied" field -- is as cultural as most other applied fields, certainly as cultural as business education, which attracts a much higher number of students today.

A more relevant consideration is whether we want to have scientists, mathematicians and engineers who know only their own special field and are not liberally educated. The answer is unequivocally no. We cannot afford to have men in any field who are ignorant of their heritage, ignorant of the world outside their specialty, and unprepared for their roles as citizens.

Just as we must insist that every scientist be a broadly educated man, so we must insist that every educated man or woman be literate in science. This may in the short run be essential to our survival. In the long run it is essential to our integrity as a society. It is dangerous, absurd and unnecessary for a large portion of our most highly educated people to live in a state of scientific illiteracy.

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 35 -

Attempts to broaden science education traditionally founder on the rock of mathematics. It is not necessary that this be so. The most farsighted mathematics teachers are exploring new ways of teaching the subject that may re-establish it as the great intellectual experience that it was considered to be in the times of Plato and Pythagoras.

There have been so many proposals for the improvement of education in science and mathematics that it may be worthwhile to state very simply the essential goals.

As with everything else in education, teachers come first. Able young men and women must be persuaded to prepare for teaching careers in science and mathematics; colleges and universities must strengthen their programs in these fields and must have fellowships to attract talent. The profession must be made more attractive through higher salaries and better working conditions. Teachers now in mid-career must have opportunities to upgrade their teaching in summer sessions and extension work -- and should have incentives to do so. School systems should retain "consultants" or "coordinators" in science and mathematics whose task is to work with all teachers in the system to improve their teaching. And constant efforts should be made to improve both content and methods of teaching in these fields.

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 36 -

Second priority is the attraction of able students. Science teachers in various school systems have already worked out ingenious arrangements with neighboring science laboratories or industries so that students may learn of career opportunities and expand their horizons. But any effort to interest superior students in science comes best as an integral part of a well-developed guidance effort designed to reach all able youngsters and to serve all fields requiring high talent. At some point in the process, economic obstacles will present themselves for a certain proportion of able youngsters, and these obstacles must be removed. This means college scholarship programs, loan funds and work-study programs.

Finally, there is need for major expansion of facilities for science teaching. In certain fields, laboratories and teaching equipment represent a key item of expense.

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 37 -

C. The Uses of Diversity

Another subject that has recently come prominently to public attention is the identification of talented students. In his Oklahoma speech in the fall of 1957, President Eisenhower said, "We should have ... a system of nationwide testing of high school students."

Used with a sound understanding of their strength and limitations, present testing procedures can contribute significantly to an intelligent program of talent identification. When large numbers of young boys and girls are involved tests uncover talents that would otherwise go unnoticed. And even when large numbers are not involved, a particular youngster's aptitude may be such as to defy easy diagnosis, and may escape the attention of all but the keenest of teachers.

But testing procedures unwisely used can do harm. To insure wise use, a number of considerations must be kept firmly in mind.

First, tests are most effective in measuring academic aptitude and achievement. There are certain other kinds of aptitude and achievement that they can measure, but with less assurance. And there are many kinds of talent that must go unmeasured because no adequate measuring instruments exist. In short, the tests are effective on a limited front. Decisions based on test scores must be made with the awareness that there are still many imponderables in human behavior. We cannot measure the rare qualities of character that are a necessary ingredient of great performance. We cannot

V - Report

March 17, 1958

measure aspiration. We cannot measure courage and vitality. A generous
helping of humility must be the portion of all who make decisions respecting
the young.

Second, there should be no "one-shot" testing as a basis for
important decisions. A series of scores obtained over years enables teachers
to achieve a reliable perspective on the young person's aptitudes, and
minimizes the possibility of false diagnosis based on a single test.

Third, test scores are one kind of data to be placed alongside
other kinds of data. The test score is not to be worshipped as a datum so
decisive that it alone can be used to settle an individual's fate: it is a
useful addition to other data but should not replace them. Unfortunately,
the most powerful influence making for excessive dependence on test scores
is the willingness of adults to evade their responsibility for complex and
difficult decisions concerning the child. The test score should be regarded
as an aid in making — not a device for evading — such decisions.

The identification of talent should be only one part of a strong
guidance program in our schools. The word "guidance" is given various
meanings in educational circles, and it is necessary to specify what we
mean by it here. We mean advice concerning the young person's educational
problems and concerning the most appropriate course of study for him. It
cannot be emphasized too strongly that such guidance is essential to the
success of our system. As many teachers as possible should have special
be trained to take part in it. As many high schools as possible should have special

V - Report
March 17, 1958

- 39 -

guidance officers to supplement the teachers where greater technical
knowledge is required.

The objective of all such educational guidance should be to make
the most of the individual's potentialities. The fact that 30 to 40 per cent
of the top quarter of high school graduates fail to go on to college poses
precisely the sort of problem with which guidance should concern itself.
It is not surprising that teachers, trained as they are to deal protectively
and hel pfully toward young people, should find a major portion of their
guidance efforts focused on those who seem most spectacularly in need
of help, such as the retarded and the delinquents. But the statistics on
talent loss in high school suggest that there are students at the high end
of the scale who present an even more important problem as far as society
is concerned. Within the framework of concern for all, guidance should
give particular attention to abler students.

But the schools cannot do full justice to every youngster in
developing what gifts he may possess until they face frankly the need to
provide different programs for different types and levels of ability. Our
schools have made far more progress in *identifying* different levels of
talent than in the *development of programs* for these different levels.
Adequate attention to individual differences means rejecting a rigid policy
of promotion by age; and it means sensible experimentation with various
kinds of flexibility in the curriculum to meet the varying needs of young
people.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

Too many of our school systems have fallen into a chronological lock step under which all young people start off together at a given age and march forward one grade per year. This 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 abilities. The result is to dampen or destroy their native curiosity and their enthusiasm for learning.

The most significant outcome of a flexible policy would be a solution to the problem of providing unusually able boys and girls with rigorous and challenging experiences.

The general academic capacity of students should be at least tentatively identified by the eighth grade, not on the basis of a single test given at that time but as a result of repeated testings and classroom performance in the elementary grades. An adequate guidance system would insure that a very high proportion of the academically talented boys and girls (perhaps 15-20 per cent of the group) would then be exposed to the sort of high school course which would prepare them for college. Such preparation would mean five solid subjects (i.e., subjects such as English, mathematics, science, foreign languages and history or related social sciences) every year for four years of high school.

In courses in which there is a wide spread of student ability (e.g., in English and other courses required of all students) there should be sections arranged according to aptitude in that subject. And it is important to note that a student might be in a fast-learning group in mathematics, in a

v - report

March 17, 1958

- 41 -
second group for history, and a third group for French. Note that this is a very different thing from arbitrarily separating out all students with intelligence scores above a certain figure and placing them in a separate curriculum as a block.

Some critics of our high schools have urged that we adopt the European pattern of two entirely separate school systems fit after approximately the sixth grade -- one system college preparatory and the other more vocational in character. But such separation would be unpalatable to most Americans. And in any case separate school systems are unnecessary.

There is no reason why youngsters at all levels of scholastic ability should not sit in the same homeroom, play on the same teams, act in the same plays, attend the same dances and share in the same student government. And there are many reasons why such a common experience for all young people is important. The fact that they attend different sections of the English course, the fact that one is taking physics while his neighbor is taking mechanical arts need not be a conspicuous feature of the school organization.

The argument against two entirely separate school systems need not rule out the possibility that in our larger cities we may develop special schools to meet special purposes (e.g., the famed Bronx High School of Science). Our best guide in such matters is our American habit of varying the rule to fit the circumstances.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

- 42 -

We have been speaking of the top 15 to 20 per cent of the high school population, a group we have referred to as the academically talented. We cannot leave the subject without touching at least briefly on the top one per cent of the high school population. These are the young people who will account for a high proportion of the intellectual achievement and creativity that we can look forward to in the years ahead. They should have special opportunities for challenging study and for rapid advance in subject matter.

It is for this group particularly that the Advanced Placement Program is important. Under this program, which is now sponsored by the College Entrance Examination Board, an expanding number of secondary schools, both public and private, are offering college-level courses to their best juniors and seniors. Many colleges are prepared to permit such students to "leapfrog" freshman college courses and get credit for them. Another approach is represented by the experimental Program for Early Admission to College, under which about 1,000 able students have entered twelve different colleges over the last five years before completing the last year or two of high school. An evaluation of the first two groups to graduate from college under this experiment shows that, on the whole, they have far outperformed their classmates academically; and despite their lower age, their social and emotional adjustment to college compare favorably with that of students generally.

The important thing is to rid ourselves of the notion that either a flexible promotion policy or flexible curricular arrangements are undemocratic

V - Report

March 17, 1958

in spirit. We cannot escape the fact of individual differences, and we
cannot escape the necessity for coping with them. Whether we like it or
not, they are a central fact in any educational system -- and indeed in any
society. The good society is not one that ignores them but one that deals
with them wisely and compassionately.

If we are really serious about equality of opportunity, then we
shall be infinitely serious about individual differences, because what
constitutes opportunity for one man is a stone wall for the next man.
Individuals differ vastly from one another and differ in innumerable ways.
If we are to do justice to the individual, we must seek for him the level and
kind of education which will open his eyes, stimulate his mind and unlock
his potentialities. The only way to do justice to human potentialities is
within a framework of equality of opportunity is to deal constructively with
each individual at his own level of functioning.

We should seek to develop many educational patterns -- each
geared to the particular qualities of the student for whom it is designed.
This is not an endorsement of educational chaos. Though the educational
patterns may differ, the goals remain much the same for all: enabling each
young person to go as far as his aptitude will permit in fundamental knowledge
and skills, and motivating him to continue his own self-development along
similar lines.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

- 44 -

If we recognize the necessity of diverse educational paths, it may then be easier to accept the fact that college education is not the only road to a full and useful life. Americans who honestly believe in full realization of every man's potentialities find themselves engaged in a two-front war. On the one hand they must fight to make college education more widely available to those who are fitted for it. On the other hand, they must deny that college is the only key to success, happiness and moral integrity.

In seeking to stress the many kinds of achievement of which the human is capable, we should encourage people to discriminate among many kinds of abilities. The sort of capacity measured by the conventional scholastic aptitude test is very important, but instead of putting a more and more monolithic emphasis upon this particular talent, we should encourage all kinds of individuals to run on all kinds of tracks. In this way we can distribute very widely the rewards of self-esteem and self-respect which are the healthiest preconditions prevents of leveling reactions and can encourage on the broadest scale the release of energy and positive motivation on the part of the individual which have been the great strength of our society. And we can insist that democracy is not to be conceived as an invitation to share a common mediocrity but a system that allows each to express and live up to the special excellence that is in him.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

D. <u>Financing</u>

All of the problems of the schools lead us back sooner or later to one
central problem -- the problem of financing. It is a problem which we cannot
afford to cope with halfheartedly. Education has always been essential to the
achievement of our political and moral objectives. It has emerged as a necessary
ingredient in our technological and social advancement. And now -- though
further emphasis was hardly necessary -- events have underscored its value in
terms of sheer survival.

It will not be enough to meet this problem grudgingly or with a little more
money. The nation's need for good education is great and immediate; and good
education is expensive. That is a fact which the American people have never
been quite willing to face up to. Good education costs money. In order to meet
the national need, support for education must rise to a completely new level. If
the American public is not prepared for this, then all interested and responsible
groups -- political leaders, business leaders, educators, unions, civic organiza-
tions -- must join in a national campaign to prepare them.

But first our national leaders will themselves have to grasp the true scope
of the task. Perhaps the greatest problem facing American education at all levels
is the widely-held view that all it needs is a little patching here and there, a few
more teachers, a few more buildings, a little more money. Such an approach will
be, in the simplest terms, disastrous. We are moving into the most demanding
era in our history. Events are running away from us. An educational system

- 46 -

V - Report

March 17, 1958

grudgingly and tardily patched to meet the needs of the moment will be chronically
out of date. We must build for the future in education as daringly and aggressively
as we should build for the future in space technology.

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

| | Billions |
| :--- | ---: |
| Public Elementary and Secondary | $ 9.4 |
| Private Elementary and Secondary | 1.2 |
| Public Higher Education | 1.5 |
| Private Higher Education | 1.9 |
| **Total** | **14.0** |

Since 1930 this relationship of educational expenditures to GNP has remained relatively constant, about 3.5 per cent. This has meant, of course, a large increase in total dollars spent on education as national product has risen, but the increase has not been adequate to outstrip the rise in enrollments. The result is a smaller expenditure per pupil. Meantime the proportion of national productive effort devoted to other socially important programs, particularly defense, has risen considerably.

Even allowing for considerably greater efficiency in the use of educational funds, it would not be unreasonable to assume that ten years from now our schools

V - Report

March 17, 1958

and colleges will require at least double their present level of financial support to handle our growing student population. In other words, by 1965 the whole educational effort might require something on the order of $28 to $30 billion. It may be conservatively estimated that the Gross National Product by 1965 will be on the order of $525 to $550 billion, or from $135 to $165 billion above the 1955 level (measured in 1955 prices). Thus, 10 per cent of this increment -- somewhere between $13.5 and $16.5 billion -- would be sufficient to double the 1955 level of educational outlay. This would mean, however, that educational expenditures would absorb 5.4 per cent of Gross National Product in contrast with its 3.6 per cent level of the past.

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 per cent in 1930 to over 41 per cent in 1954. The reasons are many -- not the least compelling of which is the fact that sole reliance on local financial capacities alone results 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

V - Report
March 17, 1958

variety. Indeed, there are educational problems gravely affecting the national interest which may only be soluble through federal action. That is a stark fact.

Under the circumstances, it is important for those who are apprehensive about the growth of federal support of education to examine the *directions* which it takes. There is no chance at all that we can turn back the clock and eliminate federal support of education. There is a chance that farsighted and intelligent men may influence the direction of federal support or the *kinds* of federal support.

Fortunately, in the very large number and variety of proposed federal programs now being discussed, there are a good many which sensible citizens might wisely endorse. It would not be profitable to review here the specific proposals under discussion. It *is* more important to be clear about the principles to be kept in mind as in appraising such proposals.

The first principle is that the proposal should address itself to a genuinely high priority need in education. This might seem a bit obvious, but the truth is that the most important needs of education are not always those which have the most irrestible political appeal.

The second principle is that the federal government should lend itself only to those forms of support which strengthen local autonomy and initiative and should eschew those forms which diminish or obstruct local initiative. This means that the federal government should not become involved in local decisions with respect to personnel, curriculum, or other matters of educational policy.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

The third principle is that wherever possible federal funds should constitute one source of support among many. Wherever possible, federal financing should not be the only source of money for a given program. State, local and private sources of funds should be used to balance the federal influence.

Working with these three principles and with a broad understanding of both governmental and educational functioning, it may be possible to discriminate intelligently between the kinds of federal support which would work to the detriment of freedom and diversity and those kinds of support which hold a minimum of danger in such directions.

Perhaps the most popular form of federal support for education is the scholarship program. Aside from the fact that scholarships appeal powerfully to our concern for providing opportunity to young people, it is obvious that one of the great attractions of such programs is that they involve a minimum hazard of federal interference. The money goes to the young person, either directly or through a state agency, and he decides which university he wishes to attend. It may be public or private, it may be religious or secular; the thorny problems which arise in connection with direct governmental dealings with certain kinds of institutions simply never present themselves.

But there is a critically important point to be made with respect to federal scholarship programs at the college level. The great popularity and political appeal of such programs makes it necessary to point out that there is no long-run gain in sending more and more youngsters to weaker and weaker institutions; in

V - Report

March 17, 1958

other words, in the financing of education, scholarships are important but scholarships aren't enough! To be specific, no first-class institution charges tuition covering the full cost of education; a scholarship program which gives the student enough to pay his tuition should provide the college with a supplementary sum to make up the full cost of education.

In thinking about federal programs in education it is important to remember that the government inevitably exercises a certain leadership function in whatever it does. The effect of a government scholarship program, for example, might go far beyond the immediate impact of the grants -- which would be limited at best. The fact that the government chose to recognize high talent would have far-reaching consequences in the attitudes of young people. Similarly, a willingness on the part of the government to recognize the hidden costs of college education by granting cost-of-education supplements in connection with scholarships would have a salutary effect in emphasizing the true cost of education.

Another much discussed form of federal aid which involves a minimum of hazard to local initiative or autonomy is funds for building construction. The planning of new physical facilities is undeniably a major need in education. In the years immediately ahead, great expansion of physical plant will be required at every level of the educational system. To the extent that the federal government can assist in this problem either through loans or outright grants, it will be engaging in one of the most helpful and least hazardous forms of federal support to education.

V - Report

March 13, 1958

In planning new facilities it is important to avoid the creation of schools or
colleges too small to be economical. Half of all our secondary schools have fewer
than 175 students. Below a certain minimum of size it is exceedingly difficult for
the modern school or college to offer the strong diversified program which the times
demand. For example, most of the students who are unable today to take a course
in physics or chemistry are in very small rural schools. In many cases such con-
solidation of these schools into larger units would be an important step ahead.

New facilities should be planned with an imagination and an understanding
of the great changes which education has undergone and will continue to undergo.
It has often been remarked that the typical new building on a college campus is a
half-century behind the typical new factory building in imaginative and economical
functional planning. Physical facilities should provide for maximum flexibility
in use and should take into account foreseeable changes in educational technique.

Expansion of facilities at the higher educational level should take into
account the needs of the area and should explore possible cooperation with neigh-
boring institutions. The sort of regional cooperation represented by the recently
developed interstate compacts in the South, the West and New England can be
an important aid in this connection.

One of the important questions in the financing of higher education is the
future of privately-financed colleges and universities. Their share of total enroll-
ments has already declined to less than 50 per cent of all higher education; and

- 53 -

V - Report

March 17, 1958

within fifteen years their share of students could readily fall to less than 25 per cent.

To the extent that this decrease in percentage of students is accompanied by a waning of influence, one must view it with misgivings and regret. Publicly-financed and privately-financed institutions have each made distinctive and essential contributions to the vitality of American higher education. And we have come to recognize that the existence side by side of these alternative patterns of support and control is a healthy thing for all concerned. Here as in so many other aspects of our national life we find that diverse sources of control make for freedom and vitality in the system.

Some have urged that the solution of the problem lies in reform of the private college "pricing system," Today tuition charges frequently represent 50 per cent or less of actual instructional costs, so that every student automatically receives a large "hidden scholarship" financed out of endowment income, current gifts, and low faculty salaries. Overt scholarships are then superimposed upon the "hidden scholarships" for those students who cannot even afford the "cut rate." XXX

Some have argued that the privately-financed institutions should consider an alternate pricing and scholarship policy under which tuition would be set at the full cost of instruction and each student would receive whatever amount of scholarship assistance he needed and would pay whatever proportion of the full

V - Report

March 17, 1958

tuition he could afford. This would eliminate "hidden" scholarships, put all student subsidies out in the open, and place all student charges on an ability-to-pay basis. No student would be kept out for financial reasons, none would receive a subsidy if he did not need it, and not a dollar of alumni gifts or other income would be wasted on hidden subsidies to students whose families could well afford the real cost of a good college education. But unfortunately there are substantial difficulties in such a plan.

Unquestionably the solution for the privately-financed institution lies not in any one clever device but in the simultaneous exploration of numerous paths -- both for cutting costs and for raising money: for example, eliminating unnecessary frills in the curriculum; sharing facilities with neighboring institutions; dropping out the extravagant notion that every institution must offer a carbon copy of the curriculum offered by every other institution; making radically better use of physical facilities; raising tuition; cultivating increased corporate and alumni giving; and obtaining certain kinds of federal support.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

# V. THE CONTINUING SEARCH FOR TALENT

## A. The Supply of Human Resources

A sound approach to the development of individual potentialities must concern itself with all groups in the population and include all people without regard to their sex, color or age. The interest in identification and nature of talent must be extended upward until it covers the whole life span.

It will be useful, then, if we step back from our close preoccupation with the educational system, and look at the whole broad canvas of human resources.

A good way to begin is to examine the American population and some of its pertinent characteristics. For this is our supply of talent as a "resource."

The population of the United States is today over 170 million -- and increasing rapidly. On an average day there is a net rise of 7,400 in the population; over the year, a rise of some 2.5 million. This will very likely give us a population of nearly 225 million by 1975.

We can also make reasonably firm estimates of the age composition of the population in 1975. Everyone who will be twenty or more years old in 1975 has already been born, so we know with accuracy the age composition of the older portion of the population in 1975; and by extending present birth rates we can arrive at estimated for the younger age groups.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

Here are the estimates:

POPULATION OF THE U.S. BY AGE: 1955 AND PROJECTED FOR 1975*

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

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

As the table shows, the age composition of the population in 1975 will differ markedly from that of 1955. In recent years, as a consequence of the low birth rates of the twenties, we are short on young adults; while the high birth rates of the late forties and fifties make children plentiful. In 1975 the situation may be radically changed. The recent baby boom will have resulted in an enormous increase in age groups 15 to 24; and as our present middle ages attain the later brackets, there will be a large increase in the age group 65 and over.

This pattern of future population points up two problems. One
concerns the flood of young people who will place an immense pressure

V - Report

March 17, 1958

on educational institutions in the next twenty years. The other involves
the social and individual problems posed by a rapidly expanding older
group.

In addition to these changes, there will be a continuance of
long-term trends in the geographical distribution of population. We are
a people on the move -- 20 per cent of us change our address each year,
and there are great slow currents, northward and westward, which de-
scribe the drift of our people. In 1975 California will probably be the
most populous state and Nevada no longer the least populous. In certain
respects, these migration trends make us a more homogeneous people.
For example, they tend to diminish regional distinctions. The Negro will
lose, to a greater extent than he has already, his southern regional
character, as a result of his steady migration to northern, midwestern
and western cities.

There are other signs of increasing homogeneity. Farmers, for
example, are being transformed and reduced as a recognizable group:
not only are successful farms increasingly "businesslike" in their
operation, but a million of the less successful rural residents leave the
farms each year. Among those who remain, many hold down a second
job in a neighboring plant.

Thus in some ways we appear to be becoming an ever more *national*
community in which regional loyalties and sharp regional differences are

V - Report

March 5, 1958

diminishing. Furthermore, the fact that we permit only small numbers
to immigrate has removed what was once an active force for heterogeneity
in the population.

Another striking trend is the rise of the great metropolitan areas.
In 1900, the average American lived in the countryside; by 1930, he lived in
a small town of from five to ten thousand population. Today, he lives
in a big city or its satellites; by 1975, he will live in its suburban outgrowths.
four-fifths of the nation's growth between 1950 and 1955 was concentrated
in the urban fringe that rings each of the great cities and extends far into
the countryside. Thus in a sense the typical American is on his way back
to the country town -- but with the difference that he is no longer a rural
person. The tempo of his life and work is determined by the great metro-
politan areas to which he commutes and toward which he is culturally
oriented. In short, we may expect for 1975, a more uniform America --
a nation both less diverse regionally and less diverse in style of living.

## B. Human Resources Inadequately Used

Our traditional concern for development of the potentialities of
the individual and our concern for effective use of manpower are both
incompatible with the wholesale disregard or callous degrading of human
talents. Yet this is precisely what we are doing in some areas of our
national life. These areas offer major opportunities to improve our use
of the human resources available to us.

V - Report

March 17, 1958

The first major opportunity lies in the fuller use of our
underprivileged minorities. Primary among these groups is, of course,
the Negro, who has been disadvantaged economically as well as politically
and socially in the United States. Occasionally one hears it said that
"the talented Negro will always make out all right." But this misses
the point. The smothering of talent under such circumstances is not an
explicit, direct, observable act or series of acts; it is a cumulative pro-
cess. It isn't so much that developed talent is turned away at the door but
that talent isn't allowed to develop. It withers under the cumulative
impact of poverty and ignorance at home, degraded neighborhoods, poor
educational facilities, limited job opportunities, and the ever-present
fear of rebuff.

What has until recently been thought of solely in terms of an abrogation
of moral principle now takes on a second meaning in an economy in need
of talent. The denial of opportunity to the Negro results in the loss of
potentially creative and skillful manpower. It is tantamount to a 5 per
cent crippling of our human resources.

The end of segregation, with all the difficult adjustment it imposes,
is of course the first necessary step in the right direction. Legislation
such as fair employment practices acts will add a necessary stimulus
to private reorientation of attitudes. The migration trends which are

V - Report

March 17, 1958

distributing the Negro population throughout the nation will contribute to the alleviation of the problem. The Negro athletes, teachers, airline hostesses, diplomats, government officials not only symbolize the fact that the problem is already on its way to being solved, but will serve to accelerate the trend. Yet all these are only first steps. Until the Negro has been offered equal opportunity with the non-Negro to develop and use his individual talents to the utmost, and until he can be encouraged to make the most of his opportunity, we shall have failed in a critical area to achieve our moral and material goals. Whether in the Negro will in fact profit from expanding opportunities will of course in some measure depend on the effort that he himself puts forth.

The second opportunity for better use of human resources concerns womanpower. As a recent report of the National Manpower Council made clear, women are playing an increasingly important role in the American economy: one out of every three workers in our regular labor force of nearly 70 million is a woman. To this already large contribution of womanpower, we can expect a substantial potential increase over the next decades due to the age composition of our population. The average American woman is today married before she reaches voting age and frequently completes her family of two or three by her late twenties. Thus by her early or mid-thirties her children are in school and she may be in search of meaningful activity outside the home. Some women may

V - Report

March 17, 1958

find satisfaction in volunteer work, but many others will prefer (or need)
a paid job on a part- or full-time basis. In the case of college-educated
women, not only are they capable of making a significant contribution in
various fields, but the opportunity to "put their education to work" would
in many cases be eagerly sought. They could provide a considerable
addition to our supply of talent, and might be particularly useful in aug-
menting our educational staffs.

However, the availability will go to naught -- despite the eagerness
of many married women to work -- if we do not take active steps to utilize
this "potential resource." In the educational, nursing and welfare fields --
all characterized by shortages -- rigid training and increasing requirements
make it difficult for able women to qualify for available openings. Outside
of these professions women are faced with other handicaps of a less
formal but more prejudicial nature. There are still relatively few professional
fields in which women participate extensively. Many firms still hesitate
to use women in executive capacities or to include in executive training
programs even those women who expect to remain in employment.

Finally, it is still true that women are typically less well prepared
for careers than men. To a degree this reflects the continuance of nine-
teenth century attitudes toward women; to a degree it reflects a still
ambivalent attitude toward "work" on the part of women themselves.
Whatever the reason for the inadequate preparation no improvement is
likely to occur until there are substantially better opportunities for the

V - Report

March 17, 1958

gifted woman to find an occupation niche suitable to her capacities.
This is a situation which must be remedied if we are not to lose a valuable
source of creative effort. There is a growing need to provide educational
opportunities for mature women on a part-time basis to help them qualify
themselves for professional employment when their child-rearing respon-
sibilities begin to ease.

The third major opportunity lies in the rehabilitation of economically
depressed areas of the country and segments of the population. When
President Eisenhower asked Congress for legislation to assist the depressed
areas of the country, he stressed the need for action on grounds of equity:
why should a child born in the backwoods of Tennessee be deprived of
opportunities available to children whose parents are fortunate enough
to be living in more prosperous regions?

The nation is paying a high price for its depressed areas in terms of
the wastage of human abilities. Children who grow up under conditions
that do not stimulate development not only suffer personal deprivation
but are all too apt to be social liabilities. During the first year of the
Korean conflict the national failure rate on the Armed Forces Qualification
Test was 19.2 per cent, but the failure rate for men from nine states where
incomes and educational expenditures are relatively low ranged from 34
to 58 per cent. This illustrates the truth that poor education in any one
area of the nation should be of serious concern to the whole nation. The

V - Report

March 17, 1958

The constant movement of population from one part of the country to another makes the problem even more obviously one of national concern.

Still another area of inadequately used manpower is represented by our older workers. This problem has gained prominence because of the changing age composition of our population, but it is not a new problem in our society. In our society the role of the older person is difficult, perhaps more for psychological than for material reasons. The grandparent is not a figure of authority as in some cultures, but is relegated to the periphery of family life. Part of the problem is that health and longevity standards have improved so markedly that the 65 year old has far higher potentialities than might otherwise have been the case. Neither our houses nor our values are such as to accommodate the old. They must largely fend for themselves.

These facts have had consequences that are not negligible. The spectre of dependent old age has surely been a powerful influence in the development of and the stress on pensioned retirement as a goal of American life. Retirement security in all its various forms has made enormous gains in recent decades. But as these gains were achieved, the problem has unexpectedly shifted in focus. It was not foreseen in the thirties, when many of our retirement ideas became widely accepted, that the man facing economically secure retirement at 65 would fear boredom as intensely as an earlier generation had feared want. Nor was it foreseen that the

V - Report

March 17, 1958

enterprise, public or private, which had lost his services, might find
itself not rid of a burden but deprived of a still active personality.

The truth is that only for a portion of older people has retirement
with economic security become a treasured period of leisure when one can
do "what one always wanted to." For others it is a dreaded break in the
texture and tempo of life, leading to personal dissatisfaction on the
one hand, and to wasted ability on the other.

To a certain extent this is unavoidable: in a highly organized
society there must be compulsory retirement, not only to provide security
for the individual, but to assure a steady turnover of opportunity at the
top. Yet the waste of human talent in the premature retirement of still
vigorous people of 65 clearly calls for remedial action. In some instances
this action might take the form of a later retirement age. Or it might
involve the extension of special job opportunities for people over 65.
Such opportunities have already been developed in college teaching:
The professor retiring from one campus may be hired on special status
by some other college.

A final example of wasted manpower is the underutilized talent
in many of our great organizations. An imaginative policy for the nature
of talent would include not only an effort to identify talent at all age
levels, but what one might think of as a continuous "salvage" operation
designed to rescue able people -- at whatever age level -- from those