Trouble at T. C.

No. 1 teacher-training institution and most potent single influence in U. S. public education for some 30 years has been Columbia University's Teachers College. One of its most original ideas is its seven-year-old New College, an experimental undergraduate institution, which sends its students to get a liberal education in factories, on North Carolina farms, in Europe.

Two years ago educators began to hear of strange happenings at famed Teachers College. At a memorable faculty meeting, professorial sympathizers with the college's striking cafeteria workers were tongue-lashed by quick-tempered, conservative Dean William Fletcher Russell.

Dean Russell is a candidate for president of Columbia when 76-year-old Nicholas Murray Butler retires. Irked by businessmen's reference to his college as "The Big Red University," he last year retired liberal, 65-year-old Professor William Heard Kilpatrick. Since then Teachers College leftists, notably Professors George Sylvester Counts and Jesse H. Newlon, have held their tongues.

Last fortnight Dean Russell took a step that shocked education's liberals even more than his retirement of Professor Kilpatrick. He announced that New College would be closed at the end of the year.

"No experiment has been more valuable to Teachers College than New College," said he, but T. C. cannot afford to ante up $35,000 for its anticipated annual deficit.

In the eyes of libertarians, who sniffed at the idea that T. C. (current budget: $3,865,000) could not afford this experiment, New College was to be liquidated for too keen an interest in contemporary social problems. Teachers and students also charged that Dean Russell had consulted only his trustees and administrative officers, undemocratically ignored the faculty.

As New College students and faculty last week indignantly organized commit tees, with slogans and verse campaigned to keep their college open, many an edu cator wondered whether Teachers College's pioneering influence over U. S. education was beginning to crack up. Progressive Edu cation Association's directors urged T. C.

not to drop "one of the most important experiments . . . in teachers' education." Cried New College's faculty: "The passing of New College will destroy the position of Teachers College as a leader. . . ." Snapped Dean Russell: "Any talk about ulterior motives is bunk."

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