examine and perhaps copy the way they make use of Government grants to bring about higher educational achievements. He thinks we should follow her example in setting our children a national scholastic goal by providing a variety of permissive national examinations leading to national accreditation of diplomas and degrees. What he has in mind is for Congress to set up a National Standards Committee, a small committee composed of eminent and scholarly persons, who would do two things:

They would keep the American people informed on the state of American education: Does it meet the needs of our times? Is it competitive with education in countries at similar levels of culture and technology with whom we compete economically, politically, or militarily? How do American children compare in academic knowledge with children in Europe or Russia, say at age 12, or 16, or 18; taking, of course, into consideration different ability levels. The Admiral thinks we need an unbiased, disinterested body of intelligent and well-educated people to keep us continually informed on these

matters.

The committee would as its second assignment work out various examinations that could be taken by anyone who wished to do so; those who passed successfully would obtain accreditation from the committee. He thinks this would be particularly valuable for certification of teachers, who are unfortunately not as well qualified as we would wish them to be. The committee would in no way interfere with established institutions now granting various diplomas and degrees. It would simply set up a higher standard, offer it to anyone who wished to meet this standard, and accredit those who had successfully done so.

The Admiral believes that the English Certificate of Education examinations offer us a pattern. They are closer to our educational ideas than the maturity or baccalaureate examinations of the Continent. They are far more flexible, since they come at three levelswith a fourth to be added presently; each student can decide for himself how many subjects he wants to take and these will be noted on his certificate. They are of course entirely permissive. The manner in which the examinations are set up seems to him most suitable to our own needs. His proposed Standards Committee would do this cooperatively with schools, colleges, universities, and the existing private examining bodies.

He has given a detailed description of how the English set up their GCE examinations and how they evaluate or mark them. In his opinion they are an eminently fair yet searching means of testing a person's real knowledge and ability. Employers as well as higher educational institutions must be able to find out what an applicant has learned and how well he is able to apply what he has learned to the solution of unforeseen problems. Otherwise, they cannot decide intelligently and fairly whether to accept him.

We in the Congress are fully aware that in the world of today a nation's position is largely determined by the respect accorded its science and technology; preeminence in science and technology as in all cultural matters depends upon a good system of general education. Here quantity is no substitute for quality. A public school system must be open to all children, regardless of the affluence or social circumstances of their parents-this is fundamental to democ

racy. But it must also be qualitatively first rate. We know that over the past decades the custodial side has been overemphasized and the intellectual side neglected in American education. We know that our schools must raise their scholastic sights. But we are also conscious of the difficulty of giving Federal assistance in education where we have so long depended on local and State initiative.

The committee believes the admiral's comments will be of interest to the American people. The Nation's greatest resource as well as its most cherished treasure is our children. We want them to have the best possible preparation for life. The admiral urges that the best possible preparation a democratic school system can give them is to develop their innate mental capacities through challenging study programs. He pleads eloquently that our nonacademic children need basic education as much as do our abler children. He thinks we ought to set all of them definitive intellectual goals leading to nationally accepted academic rewards. This he feels is the best spur to intellectual effort we can provide.

That our children must be brought to higher intellectual levels is his deepest conviction. Our frontiers are now in the mind. We proved in the past that ordinary men and women were capable of superbly pioneering our uncharted continent; he wants us to prove that our children can be intellectual pioneers as well. But we adult Americans must set them the goal; we must provide the stimulus, the challenge, the atmosphere that will induce children to rise to the best that is in them. The Admiral is never at a loss for an appropriate quote. He calls for support of his program on Jefferson who said: "We must dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity."

The committee hopes the Admiral's remarks will stimulate a national debate on the question of whether there shall be set up an agency of some kind to provide permissive national standards by way of national examinations leading to national accreditation of diplomas and degrees.

CLARENCE CANNON,

Chairman, Committee on Appropriations.

EDUCATION FOR ALL CHILDREN

What We Can Learn From England

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 1962.

WITNESS

VICE ADMIRAL H. G. RICKOVER, CHIEF, NAVAL REACTORS, U.S. ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION AND ASSISTANT CHIEF OF BUREAU FOR NUCLEAR PROPULSION, BUREAU OF SHIPS, U.S. NAVY Mr. CANNON. We have with us this morning not only one of the most indispensable men in national defense but one of the most remarkable men in our history and in world science.

In the last decade or so, Admiral Rickover has found time to make for himself a name both as Director of the Naval Reactors Group which supplies the United States with a nuclear Navy and directs the Shippingport Atomic Power Station program, and also in his chosen avocation of American education. We have asked him to come here this morning to speak in his latter capacity.

Three years ago Admiral Rickover talked to this committee on Russian education, a report that evoked a great deal of public interest and response. We had more requests for those hearings than for any hearings in the history of the committee. It was one of the six best sellers. It evoked both praise and criticism.

He recently wrote a book on Swiss education which has been published by the Council for Basic Education under the title of "Swiss Schools and Ours-Why Theirs Are Better." In an earlier book, "Education and Freedom," and in several of his speeches, he has described Dutch and German systems of education in some detail. Today he will speak on English education, a subject which he has been studying intensively for the last 2 years.

Admiral Rickover's reports do not make comfortable reading for Americans. They dispel illusions about the superiority of our school system which have made us complacent and therefore unaware of the fact that scholastically our position in the world is not what it should be. Our intention has always been to offer all our children the best. in formal schooling. To make certain this objective is attained, we must be informed on what school systems in other countries of similar culture and industrial stature accomplish, for how otherwise can we know what is the best?

sys

The Admiral likes to quote the statement of Victor Cousin, who in the 1830's was sent by the French Government to study the school tem of France's old rival, Prussia, throughout the 19th century acknowledged to be scholastically the best on the Continent. Cousin recommended to his countrymen that they study the Prussian pub

1

lic school system and adapt its best features to their own needs. "The true greatness of a people," he wrote

does not consist in borrowing nothing from others, but in borrowing from all what is good and in perfecting whatever is appropriate.

When Admiral Rickover reported to us on Russian education, it was such a wide departure from his life's profession and his remarkable achievements that we asked him on the record to state his qualifications for talking about education, and here is what he said at that time. You doubtless will recall it, but I will remind you of it again.

As to my qualifications: I graduated from grammar school, high school, and the U.S. Naval Academy; I took 2 years of postgraduate engineering and received a M.S. from Columbia University, and I spent another year taking a graduate course in nuclear physics and reactor engineering at Oak Ridge.

I was instrumental in setting up the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology. I also assisted in setting up the first nuclear engineering course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and I am presently on the advisory committee to Princeton University to help them revise their mechanical engineering curriculum. It is true, however, that on the basis of these qualifications, I would not be permitted to teach even a course in "general science" in any grade of the District of Columbia school system, or anywhere else in the United States for that matter. That, of course, would be true also of such eminent educators as Dr. Killian, president of MIT, who was the President's scientific adviser, President Griswold of Yale, President Pusey of Harvard, or President Goheen of Princeton.

"From that standpoint and in the judgment of the National Education Association I am completely unqualified"-he makes a clean breast of it here "I am completely unqualified to talk about education to your committee, sir. I was forced into the educational problem because I saw the poor products of our educational system. That is what got me started. I am a customer for the products of our schools, I tried to get people to help me do a job in nuclear power development, and I found the product of our schools quite unsatisfactory, so I set out to find the reasons.'

Admiral Rickover, we deeply appreciate your being here this morning. We are honored in having you with us. Knowing your heavy work schedule in your proper professional field of nuclear power, some have considered it presumptuous for you to criticize a system built up through more than two centuries and with such beneficent results. Admiral Rickover, may I ask how can you evaluate an entirely different professional field? Leaving aside the question of your "certification" to teach in our schools, I trust it is not an imposition to ask you to tell us how you have the requisite knowledge to criticize our schools?

Admiral Rickover, we shall recognize you, and we will not interrupt you until the close of your statement, when members of the committee will be afforded an opportunity to question you.

Admiral RICKOVER. Thank you very much, Mr. Cannon, for being so gracious as to invite me to talk with your committee. I should also like to thank all the members of this committee, who have always been so kind to me and who have given me so much help. I will be happy to answer questions.

WHO IS QUALIFIED TO CRITICIZE AMERICAN EDUCATION?

The first part of your question, sir, is, how can I, who am not an educator, criticize education, specifically American education?