universities. The education of teachers is properly the task of the entire faculty, not simply of those who specialize in the teaching art and its related sciences.

It is a national scandal that large numbers of our teachers are inadequately prepared in the subject matter that they teach. We should not be satisfied until this situation is entirely corrected, as its perpetuation is the surest guarantee of mediocrity in the classroom. There will never be a substitute for a teacher's full mastery of his subject.

Finally, education in the art of teaching has too commonly been narrowly conceived in terms of psychological studies descriptive of the learning process. Teaching is an art that must be rooted in the entire gamut of the behavioral sciences as well as in psychology, involving such disciplines as sociology, descriptive ethics, and cultural anthropology. But far more than this, even a simple comprehension of the proper aims of education involves necessarily an intimate knowledge of the value structure of the culture and entails some acquaintance with the essentials of its intellectual and moral tradition. For the meaning of education is found in part in the great task of understanding, appreciating, criticizing, and perpetuating the culture of which we are a part and in which are lodged our value traditions and commitments. To put it briefly, there is no easy road in the preparation of teachers of the kind that we must now guarantee our schools. Our society will make heavy demands upon them in the future.

Mr. Chairman, we may take much satisfaction in the fact that American education has firm foundations and has cultivated numerous precious virtues and has made solid and notable gains. That many of our schools at all levels are institutions of outstanding quality is entirely obvious. And there are instances among them of surpassing excellence. Our primary asset is the firm tradition of freedom that is the foundation of our intellectual life and that unfailingly supports the open and uninhibited quest for knowledge that generally characterizes our schools and colleges. And our most important advance, of course, has been the achievement and implementation of a democratic ideal in education. We have virtually effected a general literacy and have created abundant opportunities for advanced education on many levels and in a variety of directions. In the matter of quantity we have done well. And although our quality often leaves much to be desired, we must turn a deaf ear to those reactionaries among us who are forever insisting that we abandon our democratic ideal and model our education on the aristocratic patterns of some European nations. There can be no turning back from what has been a high and sacred purpose. We must dedicate ourselves to the improvement of our intellectual life within the context of an educational philosophy that is native to our culture and appropriate to the ends that have been defined by our democratic commitment.

The real values of the modern American curriculum are another notable instance of our educational achievement. But it is not necessary to devote precious time and energy to trivial studies and activities to demonstrate our concern for the student as well as for the subject or to prove our emancipation from the classical European education. It is not necessary to abandon genuine learning just because we have discovered that schools should be congenial to students as well as to books, information, and ideas. We have done well to

encourage broad general education. But it is wise to remember that one cannot know anything in general without knowing something in particular. Nor, as I have already urged, is it a demand of our democratic ideal that we direct our educational effort so commonly toward average talent and intellectual capacity and thereby involve our Nation in mediocrity while betraying countless numbers of persons of high intelligence and creative ability.

We are progressing well on many fronts, in educational research and experimentation, for instance, where notable achievements are becoming common, and in the upgrading and updating of the basic courses of our secondary schools, where important work is being done in the sciences and must be done in the social and humanistic studies. And in our graduate work and research seminars and laboratories great advances are being made in the extension of knowledge on all fronts. Moreover, progress is being made in adult and vocational education, areas of immense importance to a democratic society. The increased involvement of the Federal Government in educational matters, as evidenced, for instance, by the National Defense Education Act of 1958, has given to American education a new strength and a new promise of future accomplishments. The President's legislative proposals now before the Congress would add immeasurably to that strength and promise.

We have made real gains-great gains, of which we can be justly proud. It is a pride in which all our people may share, just as they must all share the responsibilities for our educational failures. But now the hour is late and we must move ahead with an even more firm resolve and dedication.

There is a sense in which our crisis in education may be said to have a spiritual dimension in that it relates to the uncertainties and anxieties that now so frequently characterize our people in their quest for meaningful and purposeful endeavor. Education is an important bearer of the spiritual life as this is broadly conceived as a life of purpose and value. It is a creator, protector, critic, and continuator of those values that mark our culture in its higher reaches, that impart to it its distinguishing character and determine in large measure what will be precious to the individual and worth the price of his commitment and pursuit. It is inevitable, therefore, that any radical disturbance or confusion in our educational life reflects the condition of our society and culture at their very center and that the resolution of major educational difficulties will affect with utmost importance the spiritual foundations of our Nation.

There are perhaps two things more, Mr. Chairman, to which I would like to draw your attention. First is the genuineness of our commitment to education. It would seem initially that there is no justification for questioning that commitment. The achievement of a general literacy would alone testify to the seriousness of our educational enterprise, to say nothing of our obvious accomplishments in many directions and at every level of the educational process. Nevertheless it should be equally obvious that our commitment is not what we would like to believe it to be, that it has proved inadequate to guarantee our full success in the tasks that are upon us, and that we are not yet willing to invest in education that measure of our resources that will give us such a guarantee.

By resources, of course, I do not mean simply financial resources. It is too characteristic of us to assume that money will solve all of our problems money for more buildings, more research equipment, more scholarships and fellowships, more teachers, and higher salaries, Money will solve no problems whatsoever without talent, energy, creative initiative, inspiration, and plain hard work. But our problems will not be solved without more money, and far more, than is now being invested in our educational establishment. They will not be solved without those student loans, fellowships, and higher salaries. If we continue to pay only the price of second- and thirdclass education we will deserve to suffer the comparative decline of our intellectual life that will inevitably be upon us. If we intend to remain in the first rank of intellectual achievement, of scholarly and scientific and technological advancement, we must accept the fact that a much larger share of our national income than the allowance now made must be invested in education.

But by resources I refer also and especially to those human resources already named, resources that are so commonly misdirected or left unidentified or uncultivated and therefore wasted-wasted both for society and the individuals who possess them. What achievements would not be possible to us, and to what heights could we not aspire if we were to fit our educational patterns to the real abilities of our people, from the preschool age through secondary schools, vocational and technological institutes, colleges and universities, and graduate schools.

If our commitment to education were what we like to think it is, we would move rapidly and more directly toward the expenditure of our resources on it for the high rewards that this would bring. The Soviet Union has here set for us an important example, the example of a generous investment in education. I do not suppose for a moment that the generality of Russian people are more genuinely devoted to education than are we. But those few who determine Soviet public policy have invested a remarkably large proportion of their nation's resources in education and they are reaping a high return on their investment. Let us not make such decisions in terms of the affairs of other nations; but also let us not live indefinitely in ease and luxury while convincing ourselves that we cannot afford to pay the price in human energy and talent to achieve the best education of which we are intellectually and spiritually capable.

There is a second aspect of our educational predicament that deserves notice. I refer to our growing sense of failure, of having been wrong in something of utter importance where we should have been right. No doubt it is healthy to recognize and frankly admit our errors. But for a nation to accuse itself, as ours is now doing, of having erred fundamentally in a matter central not only to its well-being but to its very security, and erred where error was by no means inevitable and might well have been avoided this is a matter of the greatest moment. We in America are accustomed to assume that whatever temporary ups and downs of our fortunes and whatever occasional criticisms from our conscience may be our lot, our collective fate is secure in the hands of a benevolent God or at least under the dominion of an encompassing providence, and that with us or without us our Nation and our culture will be preserved and will move forward inevitably. We are accustomed to the belief that we are

on the side of righteousness and whatever our individual wisdom and effort, righteousness will prevail.

But it is evident to us now, and our national spirit is affected by this evidence, that if it is true that we are on the side of righteousness it is yet not inconceivable that we may fail and fail profoundly and that righteousness may fail with us.

A generation ago the eminent philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, dramatically and with great prescience insisted on the profound danger of failure in education. His words have been quoted often in recent years, but they are no less important for that:

When one considers in its length and in its breadth the importance of this question of the education of a nation's young, the broken lives, the defeated hopes, the national failures, which result from the frivolous inertia with which it is treated, it is difficult to restrain within oneself a savage rage. In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all your heroism, not all your social charm, not all your wit, not all your victories on land or at sea, can move back the finger of fate. Today we maintain ourselves. Tomorrow science will have moved forward yet one more step, and there will be no appeal from the judgment which will then be pronounced on the uneducated.

The facts become increasingly plain. The handwriting on the wall is there for all to read. If the United States is to continue to move forward and to make its proper contribution to its children and to the world, its people must be willing to dedicate a much larger share than ever before of their human and material resources to the support of education. There is no point in searching for an alternative. There is none if we are serious in our determination to educate our people in such a way that through their collective assertion of the autonomy of human freedom over the otherwise meaningless drift of history they will secure the future life and enrichment of our culture.

TYPICAL PRO AND CON ARGUMENTS ON FEDERAL AID TO

Pro

EDUCATION

1. Education is a Federal problem

Con

Education is a Federal problem, Constitution does not assign involving the future of the Na- power to Federal Government tion's economy, defense, and gen- to concern itself with education. eral welfare and it is therefore a The several States are responsible national responsibility to promote for education and each of them educational excellence. Federal devotes a considerable portion of assistance has been an accepted its own budget to public education. part of our tradition since the Local governments can best deLand Ordinance of 1785 and termine the needs of their schools. continuing through the Vocational Federal control would likely follow Education Acts and the National Federal aid.

Defense Education Act.

2. Classroom shortage is critical

Survey in fall 1960 showed Different authorities give widely shortage had climbed to 142,000 differing statistics on magnitude classrooms, as compared with a of classroom shortage nationally. 135,000 shortage in fall 1959. State and local agencies have done Present rates of construction much to meet needs for new school barely meet growth in school-age construction in many areas. Rate population and necessary replace- of increase of enrollment is exment each year, but do not pected to taper off in next few diminish the backlog of classroom years, so that new construction can shortages we have had ever since then have effect of eliminating World War II. We have nearly backlog before too long. 2 million pupils in excess of

normal classroom capacity.

3. Teachers' salaries are very inadequate

Teachers' salaries are notori- Over the past 8 years the ously low in relation to those of average of teachers' salaries went other occupations requiring college up 52 percent as compared with a training and have resulted in 32 percent rise in per capita shortages of qualified teachers. income generally and a 34 percent By fall 1960 there were 91,000 increase in industrial wages. persons teaching with substandard Higher salaries won't guarantee credentials. Many teachers who better teachers. Federal money leave the profession for other for teachers' salaries on an emeroccupations cite their low pay gency basis would be dangerous. as a principal reason. and difficult ever to discontinue.