Almost daily dispatches from Ambassador Bowles to President Johnson and State Department officials inform the Administration of events in India. The Ambassador also visits Washington twice a year for meetings with President Johnson (be/ow) and members of the U.S. Congress to gain support for AID programmes.
Agreement assuring two million tons of foodgrains to meet
India's urgent needs was signee( recently by Ambassador Bowles and Mr. S. Jagannathan, Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. Since 1951 the United States has shipped some fifty million tons of foodgrains to help meet India's foodgrain requirements.
The dynamic world of
Chester Bowles SECTIONHEADS of the American Mission to India enter the conference room at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and take seats around the large rectangular table. For the next hour Ambassador Chester Bowles meets with his staff to review events which influence friendly relations between India and the United States. As discussion moves around the table it becomes apparent that Ambassador Bowles sees one important task for the American Mission in India: to help India become a strong, viable and self-sufficient democracy. In his other activities he rarely misses an opportunity to assert this policy. In scores of meetings, discussions with Indian Government leaders, in speeches throughout the country, in newspaper and magazine articles, press conferences and in conversations with villagers and farmers he makes clear the United States wants to help India help herself. The photographs on these pages show some of Chester Bowles' activities as he pursues his duties as U.S. Ambassador to India.
Chester Bowles presides over weekly meeting with heads of Director John P. Lewis (smoking pipe) and Peace Corps Director David H. Elliot, extreme right. Ambassador
u.s. agencies in India including AID
Personal relationships betwcen Ambassador Bowles and India's leaders have always been cordial. Below left, presenting credentials to President Rajendra Prasad in 1951 ceremony at the time of his first assignment as Ambassador to India; at right with Prime Minister Shastri at 1965 dedication of Sharavathi hydroelectric p.roJect. The Ambassador enjoyed scores of constructive meetings with Jawaharlal Nehru (bottom left) before the Prime Minister's death in 1964, helped plan Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's successful visit to the United Sta.tes last year.
During Ambassador Bowles' frequent trips around India, Minister Joseph N. Greene Jr., Deputy Chief of Mission, (left), directs Indian and American members of Embassy staff.
"If people want to live in a just society, they must work for it."
Opportunities for fishing in Kashmir are rare but enjoyed whenever possible. Also an avid sailor, Ambassador Bowles plans to spend large part of home leave this summer on a sailboat.
A former journalist, Ambassador Bowles enjoys frequent meetings with reporters. He answers questions frankly, explains U.S. policies thoroughly to help keep newsmen fully informed.
WHENPresident Harry Truman named Chestel Bowles as U.S. Ambassador to India in 1951, the appointment was greeted with enthusiasm. For more than a decade Bowles had been a key figure in both State and Federal Government. And with hundreds of magazine articles and countless speeches he had been instrumental in moving America from its pre- World War II isolation to a prominent role in world affairs. In hind sight, America's post-war prominence in world affairs appears logical, even inevitable, but in the late '40s there were still powerful voices urging a withdrawal from international responsibilities. It was men like Chester Bowles whose efforts to make the U.S. a leader in the struggle for freedom and peace brought an end to America's isolation. The struggle was long and bitter. Asked recently if he would again commit himself so deeply to the struggle for peace and freedom, he replied characteristically: "Progress doesn't come easily; if people want to live in a just society they must work for it and help create it. That is all I have attempted to do."
Dictating at what Secretary Norma Jaeger describes as an "incredible pace," Bowles attends to official correspondence from his first-floor office in the Chancery.
An education for excellence The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, which celebrates its sesquicentennial this year, is an outstanding example of vastness-cum-excellence.
IN A RECENT review of higher education in the United~States, a New York Times editor commented: "The combination of quality and mass is not a utopian dream." The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michiganwhich is now celebrating its sesquieentennial and where Dr. Zakir Hussain, Vice President ofIndia, is expected to deliver the convocation address this month-is a good example of an American university which has effectively blended quality with mass. Founded in 1817, when Michigan was sti1l a "territory," the institution started as a preparatory school. In 1837 it was re-chartered by the newly created State of Michigan and located in Ann Arbor, thirty-five miles west of Detroit. The first college class of seven students, taught by two professors, opened in 1841. Today the university has some 36,000 students and more than 2,000 faculty members. Including non-academic staff-administrators, secretaries, maintenance personnel-the total number of employees is about 13,000. The main campus sprawls across an area of more than 2,000 acres. These are impressive figures. But even more impressive is the fact that, in spite of the pressures of a steadily increasing enrolment, the university has not only maintained its academic standards but is keeping in the vanguard of educational progress on all fronts. Provision of uptodate teaching and research facilities has kept pace with the rapid increase in enrolment. The seventeen colleges and graduate schools comprising the university are not only adequately and competently staffed but are equipped with the latest teaching aids available anywhere. To cope with the vast number of students, electronic
TWICE A DAY the greatest mass land from an agrarian economy, in movement of people in the world which cottage handicrafts were the takes -place in Japan. It is rush hour only industry, into a major industrial in Tokyo, most populous of all cities, state. These are the people you see at and workers jam the commuter work in modern factories (there are over 50,000 in Tokyo and its envitrains. rons) or planting rice by hand, as Tokyo, capital of a remarkable nation, mirrors the two faces of they have for generations, on terJapan. For this modern industrial raced paddy fields etched into the giant, striding purposefully into the sides of hills. The fields have fed the future, is a land in which ancient tra- nation for centuries, but today teledition is strongly ingrained. The old vision aerials rising above the strawand the new live side by side in thatched farmhouses and the reJapan-ancient stone lanterns and frigerators in the kitchens bespeak brilliant neon signs (Tokyo is said to the new prosperity that has come have more neon lights than any to Japan. other city); the boom of old temple Tokyo, symbol of the nation's bells and the clang of modern indus- progress, throbs with the activity of try; the fragrance of cherry blossoms a busy metropolis. Because of the mingled with the billowing smoke danger of earthquakes (some 1,000 from factories; young ladies in col- tremors are registered by seismoourful kimonos learning the ancient graphs each year) there are no skyritual of the tea ceremony while scrapers and the city spreads outsecretaries in Western-style dresses ward rather than upward. In the distance, through the mist, feed data into electronic computers. Yesterday and tomorrow meet in looms Mt. Fuji, ever changing, ever Japan, reflecting the peculiar genius beautiful, a miracle of nature that has inspired poets and painters and of the Japanese people, throughout their long history, for assimilation ordinary people for centuries. Near and adaptation as well as for crea- at hand, through the narrow, twisttion and preservation. Spared inva- ing streets move the people and the sions from abroad, they developed traffic. Adjacent to the Marunouchi business centre is the SOO-year-old institutions, customs and characteristics that have given them a strong moat circling the Imperial Palace sense of national identity and com- Gardens.Not far away, in downtown mon purpose. This strength and sta- Tokyo, is the SO,aDO-seatKorakuen bility helped Japan weather two Baseball Stadium, adjoining the major revolutions in the last century Korakuen Garden built 300 years without losing its ties with the past ago for a feudal lord and still in its original form. Tokyo is the home of or shattering its social structure. As a people the Japanese are, five great universities, the hub of too, a study in contrasts. They love finance, the centre of transport and crowds, yet seek quiet contempla- communications. Yet its houses, one tion. They have mastered the intri- or two-storeyed, are numbered hapcacies of precision instruments, and hazardly and, as a recent visitor rehave one of the highest per-acre calls, "One gets about almost solely rates of rice production in the world. by memory." They possess over thirty million At the Tsukiji fish market, largest radios, some twenty million televi- in the world, over 2,000 tons of fish sion sets and are among the world's are sold every day and food inspecmost avid readers-the literacy rate tors examine more than 400 different approaches 100 per cent-but they varieties. In Tokyo bookshops one also take pleasure in such pastimes may discover rare Sanskrit or Tantas moon viewing, snow viewing and ric texts. After dark, the city's main shopping area, the Ginza (named for flower viewing. These are the Japanese people, a a foundry that produced silver coins nation of more than ninety-seven 300 years ago) is a kaleidoscopic million ranking seventh in terms of blaze of lights and a maze of people. Tokyo, reportedly, has more world population, a people who in less than a century transformed their movie theatres than any other city. continued
Much of Japan's success in agriculture results from intensive cultivation, use of fertilizers and active support given by government to agricultural research. seen as a reproduction of nature sifted through the artist's spiritual vision. Its simplicity is associated with purity, one of the most important Shinto virtues. Art is also intimately connected with daily life and offers a continuous source of pleasure and satisfaction to the Japanese. The elaborate ritual of the tea ceremony is an art emphasizing an appreciation began as a floral offering at the Buddhist altar and is today a means of bringing the beauty of nature into the home. Bonsai, the ancient art of cultivating miniature potted trees, and the reproduction of tiny landscapes on trays reflect, again, an affection for the wonders of nature. Landscape gardening and landscape painting, both centuries old, are in the same tradition. Elegance and refinement typify Japanese artistic tastes. Visual and performing art forms emphasize a controlled simplicity, delicacy and precision of execution. Such precision finds expression, also, in the field of science where Japan's contributions in medicine, biology, optics and theoretical physics are notable. Symbolic of Japan's progress in this area, perhaps, is the Japanesemade transistor radio that has made its way to the far corners of the earth. Japanese technicians have recently assisted India in organizing the manufacture of transistor radios,
now being produced here at the rate of 60,000 per year. But progress is measured, also, in achieving, against great odds, what a less resourceful people would hesitate to attempt. Japan's entire agricultural structure rests on an arable area totalling only sixteen per cent of the country's land. The soils are of many kinds but not naturally fertile. Land holdings are uneconomic, averaging about two and a half acres. Yet crop yields in Japan are among the highest in the world; the country produces about eighty per cent of its food requirements, and harvested acreage, as a result of multiple cropping, exceeds cultivated acreage. Despite a decreasing supply of both farm labour and land, agricultural production has risen at an increasingly rapid rate. In the decade since the early 1950s, farm production rose more than thirty per cent. Production of rice, staple food of the nation, increased more than twentyfive per cent in this period and has averaged over twelve million tons for several years. Japan's agricultural production is not only increasing; it is changing in emphasis. Fewer acres of such traditional crops as barley, wheat and soyabeans are being planted. More resources are going into the production of fruits, vegetables and dairy
Japan is one of world's major producers of fish. Fishermen haul a catch aboard ship of large fishing fleet. ,f'. .••..
puddling (working the soil to a thick products. As the people's standard of living has risen, their eating habits paste) after flooding. Most of Japan's have changed. The per-day per-perrice is grown on irrigated paddy son caloric intake has increased some fields; upland or un irrigated rice cultivation is minimal. eleven per cent over the pre-World As the name implies, wet-rice War II period. People are eating less cultivation needs a lot of water for starch and more protein. Consumption of meat, milk and other dairy the puddling process before the products has risen. Fruits and vege- young plants can be transplanted tables are more popular. from the seedbeds to the paddy Japanese farmers reflect the rise fields. Usually there is only enough in living standards, although they water to flood a few fields at a time. are not yet at the level of their urban Hence the fields are small and surbrothers. Twenty-five per cent of rounded by shallow dikes. They are Japan's nearly six million farm flooded in rotation and only a few households have transistor radios, hours are allotted for planting each eighty-five per cent television sets, field. The seedlings are pulled from fifty-one per cent washing machines the seedbed and planted in the paddy by hand, three or four shoots at it and seventeen per cent refrigerators. The investment of fixed capital time, at carefully spaced intervals. for the mechanization of farming Family groups frequently join forces methods has increased. The number for the transplanting, moving from of cultivators owned by farmers field to field until the work is done. rose 3.5 times in the period between 1960 and 1963, when there were an average of thirty-one cultivators per 100 farm families. In the same period purchases of producer and consumer goods by farm families rose by seventy per cent and sixtytwo per cent respectively. How has this remarkable record been achieved? The answer may be found in two words: Intensive cultivation. Within about two generations Japan's cultivated land increased from eleven to fifteen million acres and productivity doubled. Multiple cropping, introduction of new crops, use of improved seeds, better control of weeds and insects and more advanced methods of cultivation were Japan is one of world's characteristic of this period. Human labour continued to be the main leading producers of tea. A form of energy used. worker gathers tea leaves. The abundant input of labour and the heavy use of fertilizer are Next comes the weeding, another two major factors accounting for important step in rice cultivation. the high yield of Japanese agricul- Each field is weeded twice by hoe ture. It has been estimated, in fact, and once by hand, although chemthat to produce the three tons of ical weed killers are now simplifying rice per acre that represent the this operation. The frequency of Japanese average, there is an input dusting and spraying with pesticides of 734 hours of labour and as much and fungicides increases as the as eighty-four pounds of nitrogen, plants reach maturity. Daily attensixty-seven pounds of phosphate and tion is needed to keep the water eighty-four pounds of potash, in- level even and gradually diminishcluding manure. ing until, once the ears are formed, Labour is provided by the family the field is drained. Harvesting in group. The smallest fields are culti- October or November is by hand vated by hand, larger ones by horses sickle. The sheaves are bundled and or oxen and, in recent years, by dried, either on the ground or on power cultivators. Ploughing is fol- tall wooden frames erected beside lowed by harrowing once or twice . the field, and then are fed into a and, in rice cultivation, by careful thresher and huller, now usually
driven by electric or oil power. The intensive use of fertilizer (accounting for about twenty per cent of the cost of agriculture and about thirty-five per cent of the cash expenditures of the average farm family) has evolved over the centuries. Night soil, green manure, animal manure, burnt soil, mud from canals and ponds, silkworm excrement, mineral water, bird guano, soyabean cakes, dried fish and fish waste have long been known. Today chemical fertilizers are widely used -and widely produced as well, for Japan possesses one of the world's most modern fertilizer industries. Wherever possible, especially in the south, multiple cropping is practised to compensate for the scarcity of arable land. About one third of the cultivated land, it has been estimated, is double-cropped. The fantastic complexity of multiple cropping is described by Richard K. Beardsley and John Whitney Hall in Twelve Doors to-Japan:
"Probably no form of agriculture is more intensive than that which grows two crops of rice on a single field. When double-cropping is practised on rice-paddy land, seedbeds are prepared and flooded in April; rice shoots are nurtured there for forty days, to the point of harvest of winter crops in June. Then the shoots are transplanted in perfectly straight rows in the flooded fields and carefully weeded, fertilized and cared for until the harvest in late October or November. Threshing and polishing go on for the next month, but not before the fields are replanted as they were in June. Where crops other than a second planting of rice follow the first, the paddy fields are kept dry and hoed up into ridges and furrows. On the ridges a fastmaturing plant, such as radishes, may be planted immediately and harvested when the major winter crop, usually wheat or barley, is planted along the ridges. In the furrows another crop, such as eggplant, may be growing. After its harvest, while the grain is still maturing, a further crop, perhaps cucumbers, can be put in its place, so that
in the winter alone the paddy produces four crops-radishes, eggplant, grain and cucumbers-each occupying half of its area for part of the period." Improved crop varieties, particularly of rice, have greatly contributed to Japan's farm progress. By 1957, for example, more than 120 varieties of paddy rice were in use and about forty of upland rice. Some of the newer strains are resistant to diseases and cold and have helped extend the growing season. Even more useful in extending the season Land reform included new houses and land for farm families. is the early transplanting of rice About seventy-five per cent of them own the land they cultivate. seedlings, made possible by the use of oil paper and vinyl plastic to overall economy is declining. Agri- dem~nstrated not only in Japan but protect the seedbed from cold. This culture has, in fact, become a partalso in the countries of Westpermits earlier seeding, thus moving time occupation. Japan's 5.6 mil- ern Europe. the transplanting period forward lion farm families now get a bit more For an industrialized society, by several days. In the colder dis- than half of their entire income from Japan continues to have a large tricts and those subject to ty- non-farming sources. The farm agricultural population-although, phoons, this method has parti- population is decreasing as more as has been noted, it is decreasing. and more young people go to the The government is encouraging a cular importance. cities, and farm lands, despite gains "selective increase" in farm producMuch of the success of Japanese are losing tion, in such areas as livestock, fruits agriculture results directly from the through reclamation, ground to encroaching lll'ban areas. and vegetables. Production of rice support which the government Nevertheless, investment in farm- will be maintained, but that of other gives to agricultural research. Extension work, carried on in close ing has grown fifty per cent in the grains and oilseeds will probably co-operation with experiment sta- last five years and average annual show a down trend .. incomes of farming households rose Perhaps, however, the most imtions and research institutions, brings the fruits o(research to the fourteen per cent between 1963 and portant chapter in the story of Japfarm family. The widespread co- 1964. The government's rural home anese agriculture has already been programme, with written, for Japan's success in operative movement, also, has con- improvement 2,500 home improvement workers, intensive rice cultivation has been tributed to agricultural progress. truly remarkable. Recognizing the Another significant aspect of the contributes to better living standards on the farm and has had considerneed of other countries, the JapaJapanese agricultural scene-one that has changed radically in the able success in promoting better nese have embarked on a technical assistance programme of their own, last twenty years-is land owner- nutrition in rural areas. Despite gains in agricultural pro- to sh~e their experience with others. ship. In 1940 only thirty per cent In India, their "farmers in resiof Japan's farmers owned all of the duction, Japan depends on imports land they cultivated and forty-six for about twenty per cent of its food dence" programme places a Japaand is one of the leading world nese farm family in an Indian village. per cent of the land was tenantmarkets for agricultural products. In an age when more than one operated. Under the Land Reform Act of 1946, the government pur- Fortunately, her increasing ability third of the world's people depend chased more than four million acres to buy is founded upon a large in- on rice for their staple food, the of land from landlords, many of dustrial plant, an abundant supply lesson of Japan's success has particular meaning. For one of the overthem absentee, and resold it on easy of skilled labour and a relatively terms to working farmers. The pro- adequate supply of investment cap- riding questions in the world today gramme was largely completed by ital. Plans have been resolutely im- is: Will there be enough rice to feed the more than one billion people 1950. Now some seventy-five per plemented by a strong government who need it? cent of the farmers own all of the in co-operation with a resourceful Rice-producing countries are enland they cultivate and only three business community under a private gaged in a massive effort to produce per cent are wholly tenants. The enterprise system. Japan emerged from the total more rice. Their aim is not so much proportion of land operated under defeat of World War II with its to increase rice acreage as to get tenancy is about twelve per cent. Although rice production has strongest economic asset intact: A more out of present acreage-to been at the level of over twelve mil- bountiful labour force with a high harness modern technology to the lion tons for the last several years level of skill, education and useful task of boosting yields through and agricultural production in gen- technology. With capital and access better use of fertilizer, better rice seed strains, improved water maneral is increasing (total farm pro- to new and additional technology, agement, disease and pest control. duction for 1966 is expected to be made available chiefly by the United The lesson of Japan gives hope about 4.5 per cent above 1965), States, such a society had great END that this can be done. the position of agriculture in the resiliency and ability to recover-as
CIRCUS FOR HIGH-FLYING STUDENTS 1W(/ ~ PHOTOGRAPHS
It-t BY ED FINLEY
TODAY, as university curricula expand almost by the hour, students must choose from a vast and sometimes startling range of subjects. They can, for example, attend courses in aerothermo-chemistry, traffic engineering, orchid culture, land use patterns, sediment transport technology, and terminal markets, not to mention countless others in the more orthodox of the humanities and sciences. How much further can this proliferation go? One ~ answer, at least, may be found in Tallahassee, 0 Florida. Here, since 1944, Florida State Uni- " versity (FSU) has offered a physical education ('Il degree credit to students who enter a circus! I The only one of its kind in the U.S., the university's "Flying High" circus has grown f' into a major campus activity. Trials for the ~ athlete-performers are held each autumn, and ~ the thirty or so students displaying the greatest V\ co-ordination, poise, daring and showmanship are enrolled in the course. An equal numAbove, a team of five acrobats on a bicycle circle before ber annually join the circus as an extra-curaudience in precarious balance. Below, another cyclist traricular sport. But showmanship and athletic verses high wire as his partner climbs atop his shoulders. skill are not enough. All sixty students must maintain high averages in their other academic courses to stay in the programme. Over the years, "Flying High" acrobats have sharpened many of their acts into classics that are in great demand with crowds. Among these are the "Wheeling Wonders": a pyramid of five students riding a bicycle; the "Skating Whirlwinds": teams on roller skates in which the male swings his girl partner through lightning-fast spins; the "Flying Seminoles": daring trapeze artists whose skills are of the highest professional calibre. These acts and others equally hazardous, added to the festive atmosphere of band music, jugglers and clowns, have made the FSU circus a regional attraction, a travelling company that has toured the U.S., Spain, France, Italy and Greece, and a' sUl;cessful television entertainment whose national network performances have thrilled millions of viewers at a time. END
7
Poised just ten feet above ground, duo tries show's most hazardous act. Skating athlete whirls his partner amidst a sequence of climactic spins.
ON BY ALBERT ROBERT EINSTEIN Opp H I ~~f,~L1
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A man of great goodwill and humanity, Einstein had a deep distrust of power. His attitude towards all human problems was that of "ahimsa."
sense, it followed from the long tradition of European philosophy, you may say starting with Descartes-if you wish you can start it in the thirteenth century, because in fact it did start then-and leading through the British empiricists, and very clearly formulated, though probably without influence in Europe, by Charles Pierce: One had to ask how do we do it, what do we mean, is this just something that we can use to help ourselves in calculating, or is it something that we can actually study in nature by physical means? For the point here is that the laws of nature not only describe the results of observations, but the laws of nature delimit the scope of observations. That was the point of Einstein's understanding of the limiting character of the velocity of light; it also was the nature of the resolution in quantum theory, where the quantum of action, Planck's constant, was recognized as limiting the fineness of the transaction between the system studied and the machinery used to study it, limiting this fineness in a form of atomicity quite different from and quite more radical than any that the Greeks had imagined or than was familiar from the atomic theory of chemistry. In the last years of Einstein's life, the last twenty-five years, his tradition in a certain sense failed him. They were the years he spent at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, and this, though a source of sorrow, should not be concealed. He had a right to that failure. He spent those years first in trying to prove that the quantum theory had inconsistencies in it. No one could have been more ingenious in thinking up unexpected and clever examples; but it turned out that the inconsistencies were not there; and often their resolution could be found in earlier work of Einstein himself. When that did not work, after repeated efforts, Einstein had simply to say that he did not like the theory. He did not like the elements of indeterminacy. He did not like the abandonment of continuity or of causality. These were things that he had grown up with, saved by him, and enormously enlarged; and to see them lost, even though he had put the dagger in the hand of their assassin by his own work, was very hard on him. He fought with Niels Bohr in a noble and furious way, and he fought with the theory which he had fathered but which he hated. It was not the first time that this has happened in science. He also worked with a very ambitious programme, to combine the understanding of electricity and gravitation in Portrait of Albert Einstein, at left, by Karsh of Ottawa, seems to reflect "the sense of grandeur which never left him."
such a way as to explain what he regarded as the semblance -the illusion-of discreteness, of particles in nature. I think that it was clear then, and believe it to be obviously clear today, that the things that this theory worked with were too meagre, left out too much that was known to physicists but had not been known much in Einstein's student days. Thus it looked like a hopelessly limited and historically rather accidentally conditioned approach. Although Einstein commanded the affection, or, more rightly, the love of everyone for his determination to see through his programme, he lost most contact with the profession of physics, because there were things that had been learned which came too late in life for him to concern himself with them. Einstein was indeed one of the friendliest of men. I had the impression that he was also, in an important sense, alone. Many very great men are lonely; yet I had the impression that although he was a deep and loyal friend, the stronger human affections played a not very deep or very central part in his life taken as a whole. He had of course incredibly many disciples, in the sense of people who, reading his work or hearing it taught by him, learned from him and had a new view of physics, of the philosophy of physics, of the nature of the world that we live in. But he did not have, in the technical jargon, a school. He did not hav.e very many students who were his concern as apprentices and disciples. And there was an element of the lone worker in him, in sharp contrast to the teams we see today, and in sharp contrast to the highly co-operative way in which some other parts of science have developed. In later years, he had people working with him. They were typically called assistants and they had a wonderful life. Just being with him was wonderful. His secretary had a wonderful life. The sense of grandeur never left him for a minute, nor his sense of humour. The assistants did one thing which he lacked in his young days. His early papers are paralysingly beautiful, but there are many errata. Later there were none. I had the impression that, along with its miseries, his fame gave him some pleasures, not only the human pleasure of meeting people but the extreme pleasure of music played with Elizabeth of Belgium and other notables. He loved the sea and he loved sailing and was always grateful for a ship. I remember walking home with him on his seventy-first birthday. He said, "You know, when it's once been given to a man to do something sensible, afterward life is a little strange." Einstein is also, and I think rightly, known as a man of very great goodwill and humanity. Indeed, if! had to think of a single word for his attitude towards human problems, continued
For children in a Montessori school, learning becomes an adventure, full of sudden and exciting insights.
an Italian physician-educator, Dr. Maria Montessori, introduced some revolutionary concepts into the world of education. In her classrooms there was no grading, no competition and no testing-only learning. A child's early years, Dr. Montessori believed, are periods of unequalled intellectual curiosity. But they are often wasted. The Montessori approach makes SIXTY
bUdoing
YEARS AGO
C"ontinued . ".
Subject proficiency
better teachers
Students are encouraged to supplement theory with practice in a chosen field. In a metal workshop one of 105 students preparing to teach science makes a balance base.
Visual aids
Teaching competency
Students are taught to illustrate thezr lectures with audio-visual aids which are being increasingly used in Indian schools. In art studio, lecturer Y.K. Bhat helps student improve a sketch.
Dr. Praful N. Dave discusses the psychology of teaching with his class. The courses being developed in the RCEs integrate teaching competency and subject proficiency.
his subject; he must be able to communicate it effectively to his class. More important, he must plan his teaching to suit the varying abilities of slow as well as bright students. Four-year courses in technology, science, commerce and English, designed for students who have completed higher secondary school and to attract them to the teaching profession. Simultaneously, one-year courses are also being worked out in agriculture, science, commerce and home science. A demonstration secondary school for students from VITI to XI classes which offers elective subjects in technology, commerce, agriculture and science. The Demonstration School, attached to each of the RCEs, serves as a laboratory for RCE trainees. A students' bank in the Demonstration School for the school students who pay their fees with cheques signed by them. To School's commerce students who run it, it gives practical shape to classroom studies. A forty-acre farm on the campus for agriculture students who tend crops and raise poultry, blending learning with practice.
Miss A. Chari, principal of the RCE at Mysore, points out that through such activities, the Regional Colleges are serving as a standard for all teacher-training institutions in the country. Modernization will meet the urgent need for more breadth, depth and competency in technical craft training. In this task of transforming secondary school education, the RCE project is being assisted by the United States Government through a contract with the College of Education, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. More than thirty RCE staff members have already received advanced training at Columbus. Presently, fifteen American consultants are in India, attached to this project. "This is probably one of the most exciting programmes going on in Indian education," one of the American consultants said recently. Mr. Daryl C. Sharp, consultant in agriculture at Mysore, summed up the challenge he and his colleagues faced. "Although the situation in India is not similar to that in the United States," he says, "the basic problem before the teacher is the same-how to motivate
students in his class to better themselves." A good teacher, he explained, teaches his students, and not just the subject. By relating his teaching to everyday life situations, a teacher can get his students excited about what they are learning. Dr. Ivan Hostetler, American consultant in technology, who works closely with Headmaster T. G. Satyanarayana of the Demonstration School, spoke warmly of the response to the new ideas being used and tested at the RCEs. "Many schools," he declared, "teach words, words, words; as a result, many students are schooled, but few are educated. A good teacher is interested in students. It is not what he himself does that matters, but what he gets his students to do." Within three years of its establishment, the RCEs have made an impressive beginning in giving a new outlook to secondary school education. Through their innovations the RCEs are demonstrating, in the words of Miss Chari, "all that is associated with good teaching, while helping to bring forth a new generation of enlightened teachers." END
"Field projects blend theory and practice of technology. Theory without practice is not understandable, while practice without theory is indigestible." Prof. C. V. Govinda Rao Head of Technology Dept.
"The sy'Stem of teacher talking and students taking down notes must give place to a twoway trafficking of ideas in a classroom." Dr. M. S. Murari Rao Reader in Technology Dept.
"A vocation school should set for its students standards of achiel'ement in keeping with the job requirements in the community. A student's performance on the job will reflect the quality of vocational training."
P. M. Sapre Head of Commerce Dept.