President Eisenhower, in his commencement address at the United States Naval Academy last week, noted that fifty percent of the United States' diplomatic service has little or no ability in tongues other than English. Here is another result of America's deemphasis of the so-called "impractical" aspects of education; such an apparent lack of interest in foreign countries cannot help but give an unfavorable impression to the rest of the world. At a time when the United States needs friendly allies more than ever before, such an educational lacuna may assume considerable importance.

All this appears like little more than a listing of support for George Bernard Shaw's famous dictum, "Nothing is ever done unless people will be killed if it is not done." Unfortunately this is to a large extent true. The current reevaluation of the American school system, such as it is, is attributable mainly to the fear of Russian military power.

Series of View-points

In the following eleven pages, the Crimson presents a series of viewpoints on this system. It does not pretend to be a comprehensive account of the educational problem as it stands. It is, rather, an attempt to achieve some sort of understanding through a number of, hopefully, representative cases. Contrasts between these cases and an examination of several special problems involved will perhaps have more effect than a lengthy accumulation of generalization about "Education."

Private Schools

The possible contrasts are many. Representing the best in American secondary education, the independent preparatory school sacrifices the natural social atmosphere of the high school to achieve a high degree of academic discipline and rigor. The Exeter "round table" system, with a faculty member holding discussions with ten or twelve students, is one of the finest products of secondary education, but this small student-faculty ratio is possible only because of a multi-million dollar gift from Edward S. Harkness. In most of America's public schools, the unwillingness of communities to submit to higher taxes keeps school budgets low and student-teacher ratios high.

In many high schools only one language is taught to any considerable extent, while at Andover, another one of America's large private schools, four years of training in Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, and German are available and a new series of courses in Russian is being started.

High School Contrasts

But the contrasts do not exist merely between public and private schools. American high schools range all the way from Scarsdale High and Newton High (above right) which have many advanced courses of the college freshman type for able students, to the poorer high schools which spend a disproportionate amount of time in driver training, cooking, shop, home-making, and other such pursuits, to the very worst institutions in the country such as the school shown above (left).

Negos vs. Putney

Within the circle of private education one finds such boys schools as Andover and Exeter which breed a rather abnormal social animal, described in his own terms as "nego," and at the same time an institution like the "progressive" Putney School which emphasizes coeducational group learning and community adjustment, qualities conspicuously lacking in most private academies.

Along with these contrasts there are specialized problems which apply equally to all parts of the system. Such questions as "What can be done for the exceptionally bright student?" "What can be done to further the development of science in secondary schools?" and "What is the proper role of organizations such as the P.T.A. in the educational system?" have never been satisfactorily answered in America.

This supplement will attempt to consider in detail a few of these problems and also reveal in detail the nature of several contrasts mentioned above. It is hoped that in so doing it may show the problem in a clear--if oversimplified--light.

Secondary Schools

This is the tenth in a series of annual CRIMSON Commencement Supplements, in all of which the Editors have discussed, though rarely have solved, weighty problems confronting American education.

It is the most recent in a line of distinguished, if somewhat pompous, forebears. For seven straight years, the CRIMSON ground out a yearly State of the Union message on Academic Freedom after sweeping its nets across the country in search of Injustice in colleges both great and small.

In 1956 CRIMSON minions were dispatched to the Southland, seeking out the full story on the segregation problem and the influence of racial antagonism on the quality of public education. And last year the CRIMSON turned its eyes back into the University itself with a lengthy diagnosis of Harvard's troubles and a few guarded prescriptions for cures.

Our search for the source of America's educational woes never flags. This year we turn back to the secondary schools where are sown the problems that Universities like Harvard later fall heir to, through no fault of their own. We will not stop there you may be sure. Tomorrow, kindergarten; the next day, the womb.