30,000 school districts attended by 3,000,000 children were forced to shorten their terms by three months because of lack of funds. 2,400 school houses were closed for the entire year. 12,000 additional school houses would have been closed had the teach ers demanded full payment of their salaries. ary. 1,400,000 pupils sat in schoolhouses condemned as unsafe or unsanit 1,000,000 attended classes in tents or in buildings constructed for other than school purposes. 500,000 went to school only half a day because of lack of classrooms. 800,000 attended no school because their home districts were too poor to provide schools or because pupils were too poor to go. 5 WHO SHALL GO TO COLLEGE? In the post-war period, we shall want to provide the very best educational facilities for all deserving citizens, regardless of economic status, at all levels of learning. The census of 1940 revealed that only about 41⁄2 percent of the American population who are twenty-five years of age or over were college graduates. After the war, we must see to it that the opportunities for receiving a college education are tremendously expanded. This also will necessitate federal subventions to the various states for this purpose. We must not permit the hypothetical argument that federal aid to education will mean federal control of education to stifle the onward march of progress. This is no place in which to discuss the advisability of large federal grants to the states for educational purposes. Although blocked by selfish interests at the last session of Congress, federal aid to education is bound to come, and the sooner it comes the better. TAX-SUPPORTED PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS. My next proposal, to a large extent, marks a complete departure from past prac tice. I propose that the state (again aided by federal funds) set up free professional schools to train its future engineers, doctors, teachers, etc. If we want the best brains the country possesses to be made available for public service, we must see to it that they are not frittered away on minor tasks because they lacked the opportunity to train themselves for professional service. Thousands of potentially great doctors or teachers have been directed into fields for which 'Farnsworth Crowder. "Crossroads Schools," in Democracy's Challenge to Education. 1940, pages 149-165. Figures obtained from a study made by the National Commission for the Defense of Democracy Through Education. their natural endowments were not particularly suited. This is a form of economic and moral waste that we should no longer coun tenance. HOW LITERATE ARE AMERICANS? It is a truism that a people get the kind of government they deserve. It is equally axiomatic that a democracy will function well or badly as its citizens are politically and socially literate. The schools are society's best agency for inculcating political literacy. If this is so, the United States is still a terribly backward country. The 1940 census shows that 2,800,000 people in the United States above 25 years of age never went to school for even a single day; 7,300,000 went to school from one to four years; 8,500,000 had only five or six years of schooling; the median amount of schooling received by Americans as a whole is 8.8 years. The meaning of these figures in terms of the need for adult education is clear. The average American citizen, as measured by formal schooling, is not well educated. It is significant that in those states in which the inhabitants have received the poorest or most meagre type of education, democratic institutions are weakest. It is not a pure coincidence that Louisiana with one of the poorest records of state supported education (Louisiana has the largest percentage of citizens who failed to complete a sixth grade education) almost succumbed to the dictatorship of Huey Long. SCHOOLS FOR ADULTS. It is necessary that we abandon our thinking about schools as institutions for children. We must develop a well articulated program of education, which, like social security, shall be available to all citizens of all ages from infancy to the grave. The fact is that our grownups at the present time are probably in greater need of schooling than are the young ones whose educational needs are being met better now than ever in the past. As was well stated by the New York Board of Regents: "Education should not be viewed as an activity which ends at a fixed point in the life of the young person, but as a process to be continued throughout life."8 PLAYGROUNDS AND SOCIAL CENTERS. If, after the war, 'Figures prepared by the National Commission for the Defense of Democracy Through Education, Washington, D. C. 'Ibid, p. 11. we are going to enjoy once more (let us hope) an economy of abundance, the problem of how to spend leisure time constructively will again arise. A thorough-going system of community centers and playgrounds for children should be adopted. Furthermore, as a part of its program of adult education, society should provide art centers, theatres, music, etc. at a nominal cost to the consumer. A start in this direction has already been made in New York City by the inauguration of the New York City Center. NEED FOR GOOD TEACHERS. To man this much expanded system of schools, it will be necessary to train tens of thousands of additional teachers. Once again we shall have to tear up the roots of past practice. Except in the larger cosmopolitan areas, the nation's teachers are not of a very high calibre. In many communities, particularly in the South, a person with a high school education, and perhaps a year or two of college, is considered competent to teach. After all, how much does one have to know to teach reading, writing, and 'rithmetic? The salaries paid to the average teacher throughout the country are not calculated to attract the best talent. In many southern states the average pay of the elementary school teacher is less than $650 per year. In 1942-43 teachers' yearly salaries averaged $1550. Here again it will be necessary to call upon the federal government for considerable aid in paying more teachers higher salaries. Our educational system, in the last analysis, is as good as its teachers. We must require that teachers meet definite standards; that they be college graduates; that they receive some training in pedagogy; that they pass certain examinations before being hired. Finally our vision of the school of the future should call to mind, not the little red school house of ill-earned fame, but a spacious wellequipped building containing large sunny classrooms, each equipped with a separate library (in addition to the school library); laboratories and projection rooms for showing films; classroom radios; auditorium, gymnasium and playgrounds. WHO IS THE REALIST? I know that this plan for the schools of the post-war period will be condemned as visionary and unrealistic. Critics will point out that it will involve expenditures many times greater than those of today. To carry it out, taxation will 'N. E. A. Leaders Letter No. 9, Dec. 9, 1943. have to be high as compared with what it has been in normal periods in the past. But the best answer to this argument is that our citizens have been willing to shoulder a fabulous burden of taxation for war purposes. Are we so callous to our own true interests that we shall in time of peace refuse to bear only a small fraction of the increased taxation burden produced by the exigencies of war? To the argument that we cannot afford such an educational scheme, my reply is that we cannot afford not to afford it. Even conservative England, in the midst of the greatest war of all history, has realized this and is projecting a post-war system of education which is intended to be far more democratic and wide-spread than that of any other country in the world. Why are we so lethargic? Are our dreams for a bigger and better world to be confined, as they have been in the past, to the domain of machines and gadgets? Shall intellectual and spiritual architectonics continue to play second fiddle to mechanical and technological plumbing? Are we so blind that we cannot see that by neglecting education we are throwing away democracy's truest key to the good life and the full life? If this be dream-stuff, God save us from the realists! The Pre-Induction Program- After three terms of operation of the pre-induction program, it is possible to come to some conclusions with regard to the effectiveness of the war courses on the basis of experience in the armed forces and in the schools. The most authoritative recent source of such information is the report of the Industrial Personnel Division Headquarters, Army Service Forces, "Pre-Induction Training" is *A survey by the War Courses Committee of the Physics Club. Chairman, H. Ruchlis, Lafayette High School; M. Alpern, Seward Park High School, M. Davis, Boys High School; I. Hauptman, Curtis High School; J. Kaster, Lafayette High School; S. Levinson, Haaren High School; S. Meyers, Stuyvesant High School; N. Rosenhouse, Manhattan High School of Aviation; S. Weissman, Brooklyn Technical High School. Grateful acknowledgement is made to Dr. William Bristow, Herman M. Campsen Jr., and Dr. Morris Meister for their assistance and advice in compiling the material of this report. sued in January 1944. This report surveys the needs and accomplishments of the pre-induction program. NEEDS OF THE ARMED FORCES. The extent of the change in modern warfare is indicated by the change in the nature of tasks assigned to enlisted personnel in the armed forces. Approximately 90% of the enlisted personnel are assigned to jobs requiring some degree of specialized training in addition to basic military training. About 34% of the inductees are assigned to jobs in the armed forces which are similar to civilian jobs. And yet despite this need for prior training the Army has been receiving fewer and fewer men who have the appropriate skills, with the result that it is necessary to undertake extensive training programs in the specific skills needed. Whereas in June 1941, 43% of the inductees had a civilian skill useful to the Army, by January 1943 only 21% of the inductees had such skills. SPECIFIC SKILLS NEEDED IN THE ARMY. The following table shows the specific skills needed and the extent to which the needs are being met by the prior training of the inductees. The first column of figures lists the percentage of inductees that must be assigned to jobs requiring the skill, and the second column lists the percentage actually classified into such jobs on the basis of prior training. (It must be borne in mind that there is considerable overlapping in the above fields. Many skills require knowledge of others on the list. For example all of the more specialized fields of Aviation. |