7. Chronological age, effort, and degree of improvement, plus attitude are considered bases for promotion in various schools.

8. Although very few studies have been made to discover pupil needs, the observant teacher finds the individual needs through: 1. Personal contact and interviews. 2. Home Room Period. 3. Choice of clubs.

4. Interviews with parents. 5. Guidance records-guidance counselors. 6. Reports of truant officers.

9. Cooperative planning is practiced in many schools. 1. Conference of Junior High School teachers from all schools by grades and subjects. 2. Conference of 7th year teachers with 6th year teachers. 3. Grade and subject conferences-planning of practical problems and topics to be covered and methods used for different types of classes.

In Defense of Mr. Hutchins:

A Reply to Mr. Collins

Mr. A. H. Lass

Editor, High Points

Dear Mr. Lass:

Whatever one may think of Robert Hutchins' educational principles, it is absurd and rather contemptible to dismiss them by accusing the author of fascism. Anyone who reads Education for Freedom with an open mind-or with a mind at all—must respect Hutchins' democratic ideals. Your contributor, Mr. Collins, has apparently responded only with his emotions, and got himself all tangled up in a tantrum.

Since you have devoted some six pages to a gratuitous accusation against an eminent American educator, you should, in justice to your readers and to Mr. Hutchins, open your columns to a defense. I submit therefore a passage from Education for Freedom, which, while it was not written to answer such an amazing indictment, will give a fair view of the author's ideas on democracy and at the same time show how that view has been distorted in Mr. Collins' article.

The passage I quote is particularly significant as your contributor has lifted from it three separate and distinct proofs that Hutchins is a fascist. One sentence, in fact, shocked him so much that he had to catch his breath, as he puts it, "at the sheer audacity of it." The sentences which Mr. Collins quoted are here italicized so that the reader may catch his breath at the proper moment; also, so that

the reader may consider whether such statements, lifted from their context, can legitimately be used to prove the thesis that ". . . Mr. Hutchins does not believe in freedom, at all . . . he does not believe in democracy either."

I offer the passage verbatim, without omissions, from the chapter "Education at War" (with a few footnote quotations from earlier portions of the book, to clarify the references):

"The great problem of our time is moral, intellectual, and spiritual. With a superfluity of goods we are sinking into poverty. With a multitude of gadgets we are no happier than we were before. With a declining death rate we have yet to discover what to do with our lives. With a hatred of war we are now deeply engaged in the greatest war in history. With a love of liberty we see much of the world in chains.

"How can these things be? They can be because we have directed our lives and our education to means instead of ends. We have been concerned with the transitory and superficial instead of the enduring and basic problems of life and society.

"Since the freedom of autonomy is the end of human life, everything else in life should be a means to it and should be subordinate to it as means must be to ends. This is true of material goods, which are means, and a very necessary one, but not an end. It is true of the state, which is an indispensable means, but not an end. It is true of all human activities and all human desires; they are all ordered to, and must be judged by, the end of moral and intellectual development.

"The political organization must be tested by its conformity to these ideals. Its basis is moral. Its end is the good for man. Only democracy has this basis. Only democracy has this end. If we do not believe in this basis or this end, we do not believe in democracy. These are the principles which we must defend if we are to defend democracy. "Are we prepared to defend these principles? Of course not. For forty years and more our intellectual leaders have been telling us they are not true. In the whole realm of social thought there is nothing but opinion. There is no difference between good and bad; there is only the difference between expediency and inexpediency. We cannot even talk about good and bad states or good and bad men. There are no morals; there are only the folkways. Man is no different from the other animals; human societies are no different from animal societies. The aim of animals and animal socie

ties, if there is an aim, is subsistence. The aim of human beings and human societies, if there is one, is material comfort. Freedom is simply doing what you please. The only common principle that we are urged to have is that there are no principles at all.

"All this results in a colossal confusion of means and ends. Wealth and power become the ends of life. Men become merely means. Justice is the interest of the stronger. This, of course, splits the community in two. How can there be a community between exploited and exploiters, between those who work and do not own and those who own and do not work, between those who are weak and those who are strong? Moral and intellectual and artistic and spiritual development are not with us the aim of life; they receive the fag ends of our attention and our superfluous funds. We seldom attempt to justify education by its contribution to moral, intellectual, artistic, and spiritual growth.

"If everything is a matter of opinion, and if everybody is entitled to his own opinion, force becomes the only way of settling differences. And of course if success is the test of rightness, right is on the side of the heavier battalions. In law school I learned that law was not concerned with reason and justice.* Law was what the courts would do. Law, says Hitler, is what I do. There is little to choose between the doctrine I learned in an American law school and that which Hitler proclaims.

"Precisely here lies our unpreparedness. Such principles as we have are not different enough from Hitler's to make us very rugged in defending ours in preference to his. Moreover, we are not united and clear about such principles as we have. We are losing our moral principles. Hence we are like confused, divided, ineffective Hitlers. In a contest between Hitler and people who are wondering why they shouldn't be Hitlers the finished product is bound to win.

"To say we are democrats is not enough. To say we are humanitarians will not do, for the basis of any real humanitarianism is a belief in the dignity of man and the moral and spiritual values that follow from it. Democracy as a fighting faith can be only as strong as the convictions which support it. If these are gone, democracy

* "One may regret as well that no serious attempt is made in the law schools to have the student learn anything about the intellectual history or the intellectual content of the law. At only one law school that I know of is it thought important to connect the law with ethics and politics." (page 8)

becomes simply one of many ways of organizing society, and must be tested by its efficiency. To date, democracy looks less efficient than dictatorship. Why should we fight for it? We must have a better answer than that it is a form of government we are used to. or one that we irrationally enjoy.

"Democracy is the best form of government.* We can realize it in this country if we will grasp the principles on which it rests and recognize that unless we are devoted to them with our whole hearts democracy cannot prevail at home or abroad. In the great struggle that lies ahead, truth, justice, and freedom will conquer only if we know what they are and pay them the homage they deserve. This is the kind of preparedness most worth having, a kind without which all other preparation is worthless. This kind of preparedness has escaped us so far. It is our duty to our country to do our part to recapture and revitalize those principles which alone make life worth living or death on the field of battle worth facing."

Mr. Hutchins reveals himself in Education for Freedom as an idealist who differs sharply with the principles of Progressive Education. His criticisms are important enough to warrant rational treatment on educational and philosophical grounds. The cause of Progressive Education will not be helped by that attitude which converts its principles into an inflexible dogma and persecutes dissenters as heretics.

PHILIP J. GUCKER

Yours very truly,

Brooklyn Technical High School

"The reasons why democracy is the best form of government are absurdly simple. It is the only form of government that can combine three characteristics: law, equality, and justice. A totalitarian state has none of these, and hence, if it is a state at all, it is the worst of all possible states." (page 82)

Intercultural Education Vitalized

CELIA SIEGLER, Junior High School 73, Queens

The following is a brief example of an emergent program in Intercultural Education which developed in Junior High School 73, Queens. During a discussion of India's struggle for freedom from

England, some remarks were made about color and the inferiority of certain groups of people. These remarks were followed by other statements concerning the American Negro. Since this school is in an all-white community, the teacher realized that this was a splendid opportunity to clear up popular misconceptions about Negroes. At the end of the session, the teacher summarized the discusssion which pertained to Negroes and translated the summary into questions which were placed on the blackboard. The children voted for one of the questions which became the topic for the following session. Soon there evolved a project pertaining to Negroes. After the children "aired" their opinions and feelings, they realized their need for statements from experts. Having provided suggestions and materials for study and having arranged for interviews with authorities such as Pearl Buck, the teacher gave the children an opportunity to express their findings in creative form. The teacher has on hand the following concrete materials which pertain to this unit and which were all done by the pupils; they may be obtained by communicating with the writer of this article.

1. Recordings of a broadcast given by the pupils over WNYC. Topic: Are Prejudices Between Races A Necessary Part of Human Nature Or Can They Be Overcome?

2. An exact stenographic report of the broadcast.

3. A reproduction of an interview with Pearl Buck: the children's questions and Pearl Buck's answers.

4. A volume of illustrated stories and poems giving the white child's view of the Negro's achievements and accomplishments, and of his problems and tensions.

5. A motion picture scenario pertaining to the same topic as the stories mentioned in item 4.

The writer has found the use of the forum method and the emergent program very successful in handling intercultural problems, for this method has been applied not only to education pertaining to Negro-White relationships, but has been used to establish a better relationship and understanding between children of Jewish and German ancestry. A study of propaganda analysis and the use of such devices as name-calling, transfer, glittering generalities, card stacking, and band wagon led the children to see that every Jew is not an international banker or a Communist, and that every German is not a Nazi.

To those teachers who wish to initiate a program in Intercultural Education the following unit may be suggestive.