search into basic principles underlying natural and social phenomena. Everything becomes academic if group pressure can get it into a university.37 Europe with its longer experience is familiar with this kind of educational inflation and does not mistake it for democracy. If we persist in looking at the continental university through egalitarian spectacles that focus only on numbers of students and blind us to the quality of the education they obtain, we shall continue to delude ourselves that the American college is equivalent to the continental university, the American high school (college-preparatory course) to the continental maturity school. This neat piece of semantic juggling produces a statistical superiority 38 in our favor that may be satisfactory to our national ego, but whom do we think we are fooling?

We never cease admiring ourselves for our feeless high schools and our State universities. Once they were something special, but fees are disappearing rapidly abroad, not only in secondary schools but even in some universities (for example, in Denmark and some German states; also the famous Grandes Écoles where young Frenchmen, chosen strictly on merit, receive the highest kind of professional education are not only free but pay students' living expenses as well). Even where maturity schools or universities charge fees, they will rarely exceed half a dollar a week for the former, around $50 to $100 per year for the latter, less than the usual "incidentals" at many of our high schools and State universities.39 Consider how steeply college costs have been rising in this country, beyond anything imaginable abroad. It costs much less to become a physician or lawyer abroad than here. Of course, neither we nor other democracies have found a way to overcome lack of motivation and the inequalities that come through differences in home backgrounds. Nor has any democracy as yet been willing to take on the entire job of housing, feeding, clothing, and educating all her university students-only Russia does that.

We are now faced with an overwhelming numbers problem; "the college doors are closing", and we must somehow find ways to educate a rapidly expanding student population. Perhaps the time has come to give thought to the possibility of cutting the cost of higher education by providing more (nonresidential) community colleges and by reducing the time it now takes to complete one's general education in the liberal arts and be ready for graduate professional studies.

Leaving aside such immeasurables as personal satisfactions and social connections, acquisition of poise and of a marital partner, why could not a nonresidential college be made scholastically as good as Ivy League colleges? It would be much less expensive, and we must find ways to cut expenses. Residential colleges are the most costly and luxurious institutions in which to acquire a general preuniversity education. Here we have gone even beyond the idea of providing residential quarters; we feel that college students should not only be given a liberal education but that the "whole" man must be cared for, which means he (and his wife and children) must be entertained as well as housed. Jacques Barzun, in his Princeton lecture on "The Tyranny of Idealism in Education," remarked that American students were in search of a father, companionship, and a sweetheart. To facilitate this search, an elaborate community had to be created at great expense on every campus, so that now the main fixed charge of a college or university is not the cost of its faculty and library, but the cost of this social, remedial, and recreational apparatus (my italic). Is it not time we give serious thought to the question whether residential colleges are really suitable for a mass education system where the college population numbers several million?

37 Most of our universities appear to consider themselves public service stations where anything anybody wants must be taught and awarded a doctorate. As with all our degrees, the doctorate varies from excellent to poor, and means nothing unless one examines which institution has awarded it and for what type of studies. Many American doctorates are awarded for work that abroad would be considered wholly below academic levels. This is particularly true of the doctorates in education or school administration. No Swiss or other continental university would accept any of the following "learned" dissertations in part fulfillment of the requirements for a doctorate-as did one of our oldest and foremost universities: "Field Hockey in American Education with Special Emphasis on the Colleges of the Northwestern United States," "The Organization and Administration of College Bands," and, since the subject apparently had not been exhausted, also "The Organization and Development of Bands in Privately Controlled Colleges With Student Enrollment of Less Than 1,000 Students." Not only do we demand less of the doctoral candidate in education as far as his dissertation is concerned, we even waive for him the minimal requirement of possessing some slight reading knowledge in two foreign languages. In our academic world, education ranks with business and agriculture at the bottom of the scholastic totem pole. It is significant that in Switzerland, the doctorate of maturity schoolteachers is considered scholastically more difficult than doctorates in the social sciences, even law.

39 As when we lump together all our 1,800 so-called "higher" educational institutions and come up with something like 25 percent of Americans pursuing academic studies, compared to 5 or 6 percent attending universities abroad. Someone ought to make a careful study of the content of American degrees and put an end to this irresponsible bragging.

39 As with us, children of nonresidents who pay no local taxes are charged fees based on what it costs to educate them.

It seems doubtful too that we will much longer be able to afford the educational stretchout that needlessly keeps our bright young people from beginning (graduate) professional studies at the time when this is normal abroad (age 18-19). One solution we might consider is to leave the present leisurely sequence to those who prefer it, but to set up a parallel course for students who wish to get more rapidly through their general liberal arts course and into professional studies. We now have to provide new educational facilities for some 2 million additional children each year, with the number increasing steadily. This gives us an opportunity to set up such a parallel course without interfering with the jobs of teachers and administrators holding positions in the present system and without robbing any child of the opportunity to obtain diplomas and degrees in the present easy

wav.

The annual increment of school children is now about 5 percent of total public school population. We could thus give that many of our young people an opportunity to pursue an educational program equal to the best that is available to their contemporaries abroad and to do it in approximately the same length of time. Since it costs much less to teach calculus or French than vocational subjects and life-adjustment trivia, funds would be available to pay better salaries and thus attract better teachers without having to spend more tax money. Additional teachers are needed anyway, hence one may hope there will not be enough educationist opposition to scuttle the program. It should not be difficult to convince the American public that it is not “undemocratic" to permit our children a choice between easy life adjustment and tough basic education, especially when nobody else's education is thereby slighted. Some consideration ought to be given to the possibility of devising a combination of junior and senior high school and junior college that would be comparable to the continental maturity school and get students ready for graduate study no later than age 20. The reader may judge for himself how the maturity diploma compares with the average American bachelor degree by turning to the next chapter.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.-In subsequent chapter of the book an attempt is made to assess the scholastic levels achieved by Swiss students who complete academic secondary schools and pass the difficult maturity examination that earns them the Swiss baccalaureat or maturity degree. In the annex to the book numerous examination questions, as well as a detailed curriculum of one such higher secondary school, are given and these are contrasted with scholastic achievements of American bachelor degree holders.

It seems to me important that we recognize the true position of the American bachelor's degree. In this connection I might mention that this was well understood before World War I when thousands of American college graduates went abroad to study at European, most often at German universities. We did not at that time have adequate graduate facilities and our professional schools were quite inferior, especially our medical schools. As long as our students came with degrees awarded by old established Eastern colleges, they had no difficulty matriculating in European universities; their bachelor's degree attained in 16 years was given equivalence to the continental baccalaureate at that time attained in 12 years. But so many of our newer colleges, especially in the West, were awarding degrees for work that abroad was considered far below baccalaureate standing that in 1905 the University of Berlin announced it would recognize only degrees of colleges that were members of the American Association of Universities. The University of Berlin was prepared also to recognize degrees of any college for whose scholastic standing the association was willing to vouch. This was a ticklish responsibility and the association procrastinated. Later it did, however, begin to accredit colleges. When it stopped the practice in 1948 it had given its stamp of approval to but one-fifth of our institutions of higher learning.

In 1910 Congress appointed a specialist in higher education to the U.S. Bureau of Education. The first appointee, Kendric C. Babcock, decided to try to classify our colleges. The need for some such classification had become pressing. Without Federal or State standards in higher education, the value of a student's college work was wholly indeterminate. The student not only had difficulty being admitted to foreign universities, but he had equal difficulty transferring credits from one American college to another. Babcock chose as his criterion for evaluating a college the quality of the work done by its bachelor's degree holders in graduate and professional studies; a very practical and sensible means of judging the scholastic value of the degree. After the most painstaking research his report was ready for the printer when, unfortunately, the press got wind of it, and so much political trouble ensued that President Taft decided to stop publication.

This was our first and last attempt at setting a national standard for the college. As a later specialist remarked ruefully, "The Bureau learned that there are no second- and third- and fourth-class colleges; that it was an outrage and infamy so to designate institutions whose sons reflected honor on the State and the Nation" (William K. Selden, Accreditation, Harper's 1960, p. 47). What abroad is considered a matter of factual information takes on emotional overtones here. It will doubtless be difficult for many Americans to face educational reality. By equating our college with the European university we have for many years been able to feel immensely superior to Europe. Witness the absurd boast, "England has only 2 universities, France has 4, but in Ohio alone we have 37 colleges." Sorokin quotes it in his book The Crisis of Our Age (p. 71). I have seen statements by educators to the effect that more American Negroes go to college than Englishmen get a university education. Recently a professor of sociology compared English education unfavorably with education in the Philippines on the grounds that three times more Filipinos were enrolled in college than Englishmen in their universities. He also noted with pride that in proportion to population we had as many persons on our college faculties as England has students enrolled for a first university degree (Seymour Lipset, "Sex, Age, and Education," The New Leader, Nov. 21, 1960, p. 17).

This sort of careless reportage is prevalent; it is rooted I think in colossal ignorance of European education. One might argue that it is a harmless selfdelusion and makes people happy, so why force the truth on them. The truth, alas, must be brought out or we shall not be able to mobilize public opinion behind school reform, and today excellence of schooling has become an absolute necessity for our own future well-being and that of our children.

I notice that in his recent book, Slums and Suburbs, Dr. Conant proposes that "the leading professional schools of law and medicine and graduate schools of arts and sciences should in the future require candidates to pass a set of examinations which would demonstrate a mastery of subjects, somewhat comparable to that for entrance into a European university" (my italic); that is, an examination comparable to the European baccalaureate or maturity degree. He outlines suggestions for such an examination, pointing out, however, that the level of accomplishment proposed by him "is less than that attained by Europeans.' Thus he appears to recognize that after 16 years at school and college young Americanseven those bright enough to wish to undertake graduate professional studies are scholastically less advanced than young Europeans after 12 to 13 years of schooling.

EUROPE SURPRISINGLY UNITED IN EDUCATION

40

Mr. CANNON. Admiral Rickover, you say European children are several years ahead of ours. How do you account for that? Admiral RICKOVER. It seems to me inevitable that they should be scholastically ahead of ours since their schools concentrate on what we call the "solids." This is universally the case abroad. You would be amazed how closely European school curriculums resemble each other. Europe is surprisingly united in education. Whether it is the curriculum of a primary school or of any of the several types of secondary schools they have over there, you find the same subjects. in the various national school systems, and usually they are given for just about the same number of periods a week.

This similarity is not produced by deliberate agreement. It stems from common educational aims which were first formulated in the Middle Ages when Europe was united under its common educator, the church. Continental universities resemble one another so closely that "wandering" of students from one university to another across national borders, as was so common in the Middle Ages, is still quite easy. And since in every national school system the university caps the whole educational enterprise, it has a unifying influence. All schools, even those not university preparatory in intent, try to keep the road to the universtiy open for their students. They can only do

40 (Slums and Suburbs, New York, 1961, pp. 94-95.)

this by setting their students a scholastic program that may differ in learning pace and in depth and breadth of learning, but not in the kind of knowledge that is pursued. In such school systems lifeadjustment training finds no place.

EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION AMONG EUROPEAN EDUCATORS

Then, too, it is common practice among European education authorities to keep informed on what goes on in neighboring countries. Education is highly valued, and no country wants to fall behind in school standards. Booklets are available that describe the various national school systems and, I may say, they do so with admirable objectivity and a total absence of the bragging we find here. European educators rarely take the position that their own schools are unique and that what other school systems do has no relevance.

An official publication of the English Ministry of Education offering suggestions to teachers as to how to teach English, for instance, devotes an entire chapter to a detailed description of how French teachers teach French-together with a curriculum showing how much time French schools allot to study of their mother tongue. The voluminous Crowther Report of 1959, which discusses the current status of English education from ages 15 to 18 and submits proposals for expansion of educational opportunities and facilities, has in its annex a detailed report on "Technical Education and Vocational Training in Western Europe"-Germany, France, and Holland.

A century ago, when England was debating whether or not to establish a state system of education, the central education authorities repeatedly sent Matthew Arnold, one of their school inspectors, to the Continent to observe and report on public school systems across the channel. In the 1830's the French Government sent Victor Cousin to Prussia to report on the Prussian schools. And, incidentally, we too followed that custom. In 1837 the Ohio State Legislature, then contemplating establishment of common schools, sent Professor Stowe to report on common schools abroad.

SCOPE OF AMERICAN EDUCATION TOO BROAD

When one confronts them with evidence that our schools do not do as well scholastically as the schools of other advanced countries, American educationists counter with the claim that our schools do better in other respects; that our children are more socially poised, date earlier, and speak in public with greater ease. I think they could excel in all this and still know how to spell and do their sums and know history. As for teaching them things normally learned at home, it makes no sense to my thinking to use such expensive institutions as schools to do these family tasks. Schoolchildren who come from defective homes and need mothering or after-school care ought to receive this in social welfare agencies, settlement, or community houses. A teacher is too valuable a national asset to be diverted to chores someone else can do. Moreover, the qualities that make a good teacher are not identical with the qualities that make a good mother substitute. Few teachers will possess both.

Countries shift places in the educational lineup, moving forward or falling behind as they succeed or fail in keeping their school systems

in line with the changing needs of changing times. But at all times those countries are in the lead that put the school's technical task ahead of any other objective they wish the schools to pursue. Nineteenth century England was educationally behind the Continent, partly because the English wanted their schools to serve particular social classes. Social homogeneity was more important to them than the intellectual caliber of students or the content of the curriculum. What the students learned in class seemed to the English less important than what they might learn by boarding together with children from the same social background.

SOCIAL PURPOSES EMPHASIZED OVER THE SCHOOL'S TECHNICAL TASK

I will discuss it later.

I don't want to go into this in detail now. The point I want to make now is that today we are educationally behind Europe because we want our schools to serve a social purpose that we put above the school's technical task. This is exactly what the English did a century ago, only our purpose is the opposite one. Our schools are being made to level out social differences among the children. They are being used to put an end to class differences. Seymour Lipset, professor of sociology at the University of California, expressed the official attitude of our school system when he wrotethe American high school system has been designed for many generations to socialize the barbarians, that is, to take into the larger social system children from *** lower class backgrounds, and to give them the same educational background as those from the privileged classes. In a sense, the latter have been held back in order to permit the others to advance.

Now this would be a splendid idea if the educators were speaking of equalizing our children's educational chances by giving every child the same opportunity to realize his innate potentialities through first-rate school instruction in basic subjects-with each child being urged to go as far as he is willing and able to go, and society picking up the tab for the total cost of schooling. But this is not what the educators want. They would like to use our common schools for the purpose of wiping out all the inequalities children suffer, whether because of differences in native endowment or because of differences in home background. Equalization, in other words, appears to be the primary function of the American public school system, to which education itself is to be sacrificed when the two cannot be reconciled. And, since our schoolmen consistently confound social and economic differences with intellectual differences, they make it extremely difficult for our schools to do their technical task, for they demand, in effect, that the principal factor in education, the human mind, be disregarded.

SCHOLASTIC POTENTIAL INDICATED BY IQ

To any sincere democrat it is distressing that individuals should vary so greatly in the particular kind of intelligence that determines how far they can go scholastically. Using the Stanford Binet IQ classification, we find that just 30 percent of our children have an IQ level above 110, pretty much the minimum required for any kind of academic success. A few points in the IQ scale can make a great difference. Thus children with an IQ of 115-about 15 percent of the population have 115 plus-have a much better chance of doing well in an academic school program. Contrariwise, those with 105