Muckers & Scholars

Three observers who were worried about the state of U.S. education long before Russia's metal moons made the subject generally popular offered some observations last week about what is wrong. The three: Dr. James R. Killian Jr., Massachusetts Institute of Technology president and special assistant to the President for science and technology; Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover. father of the atomic submarine; and Dr. Merle Antony Tuve, director of the department of terrestrial magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Killian, who spoke with the others to an audience of high school principals and math and science teachers in Washington, B.C., said it is futile to accelerate science education without raising the level of education in general, and that first there must be an end to "the mucker pose that it's smart to be anti-intellectual." He called for "a weeding out of the trivial, narrowly vocational subjects."

Said Physicist Tuve (rhymes with prove), concerned over the possibility of well-meaning overemphasis of science: "I believe that science must firmly be included among the liberalizing humanities in any honest assessment of modern thought." He proposed that teachers get pay raises for the quality of their teaching, "not only for longevity and for more degrees from schools of education."

Annapolisman Rickover denounced progressive education, which "makes its pernicious influence felt in the steady deterioration of the secondary school curricula, and overlong elementary schooling." His remedy: "Turn back to the home what is properly the function of the home, and permit the public schools to concentrate on what is properly their function--the education of young minds."

Most striking notions of the evening: 1) Tuve's suggestion that love of learning be rekindled among high school teachers by giving them time off for their own scholarship, and 2) Rickover's observation --prompted by a remark on the "union card" restrictions for teacher .certification fossilized into law by pressure from the teachers' colleges: "I hope this audience knows that neither Dr. Killian nor Dr. Tuve could qualify for a permanent teaching job in the high schools of this city."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.