Mars kept its secrets securely from man for thousands of years- until the launching of America's Mariner series. After a 200-million-mile flight, two craft flew by and unveiled last August a new view of Mars.
IF THE MOON is within man's reach, how long can Mars elude him? American space scientists are already looking towards the day when manned spaceships will set out for the red planet. Apollo-II commander Neil Armstrong summed up the situation thus: "It is just a matter of time-not whether, but when American astronauts go to Mars." Recently President Nixon committed America to the goal of a manned Mars mission. The spadework for such a mission has already begun. Close on the heels of Apollo-II last July, the two unmanned spacecraft Mariners 6 and 7 flew past the planet and transmitted some 200 photographs and other scientific data. From this has emerged a new view of Mars. After examining the fascinating television pictures, an American scientist exclaimed: "Mars is a gal who wears no cosmetics." He was highlighting the fact that the Martian surface seems to display little colour contrast, apart from that of its polar ice caps. He compared the bleakness of Mars with the beauty of earth as seen from space-the blue of its seas, the brilliant white of its clouds, the browns and greens of its continents. The closeup photographs, which covered some 20 per cent of the planet's surface, . also exploded some Mars folklore. Specifically, they knocked down the old legend that intelligent Martians had built canals to bring water from the polar ice caps to irrigate the desert that envelops the bulk of the planet. American astronomer Percival Lowell mapped a veritable cobweb of these controversial canals, numbering as many as 700 and first discovered in 1877 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli. From the new data sent by the recent Mariner probe, the famed Martian canals have emerged as a string of dry lakes, seas, plateaus and craters across the waist of the planet. More significant is the finding that
Mars' south pole is covered with an icc cap made primarily of frozen carbon dioxide, popularly known as "dry ice." The discovery of a virtually waterless ice cap further reduces the likelihood of any lifeexcept the most primitive and microscopic. On earth, all forms of life require water for their sustenance. Various electronic sensors attached to the two Mariner craft revealed the Martian atmosphere to be extremely thin-air pressure one per cent of that on earth-and to contain at least 98 per cent of suffocating carbon dioxide. There are no traces of lifesustaining elements such as nitrogen and oxygen. With these key chemical elements missing from the Martian environment, scientists agree that the red planet seems incapable of supporting life as we know it on earth. "There is nothing in the new data," says biologist Dr. Norman Horowitz, "to encourage the notion that the planet is an abode of life." The small amount of water vapour present in the Martian atmosphere is not enough to make liquid water. He coneeded a slim possibility of a life form evolving that bypassed the need for water. A nother team of scientists, headed by Colorado University physicist Charles A. Barth, reported that earth-type life could not withstand the assault of unfiltered ultraviolet sunlight on Mars. Although forms of life could develop with protective skeletons, it seems unlikely, according to
Dr. Barth, because the harsh sun would keep breaking down aggregates of molecules that would form the bases of life. But this Mariner probe was not planned to solve the riddle of life on Mars. "We don't expect to determine whether life exists on Mars with these missions," said Dr. Robert Leighton, scientist i:l charge of Mariners' TV cameras, "but we may be able to establish whether it could exist or possibly even whether it did." A preliminary examination of dramatic closeups of the red planet revealed a new image of Mars. Scientists pointed out that it more closely resembled the arid, cratered moon than earth. One of the photos, covering an area of some 560 miles by 430 miles, showed a bleak forbidding landscape dotted with about 100 craters, half of them 10 miles or more in width. One of them was 160 miles wide. "If no one told you," commented Dr. Robert Richardson, a planetary expert, "you wouldn't know if the pictures were of Mars or of the moon." However, Mars has its own distinctive features. Scientists discovered a vast region of chaotic terrain-a wasteland of collapsed and jumbled land, unlike anything on earth and covering an area that could hold both Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. They also found a featureless region ~an extensive plain of unrelieved flatness except for a rare scarp or long, dry valley. In one locality such an area extended for 1,200 miles. "It means," says Dr. Leighton, cOlllill/lPd
before Mariner mission: Till the space age dawned, scientists had only a hazy view of Mars, opposite, as photographed through the Mt. Wilson telescope. Only/eatures larger than 100 miles in size could be seen. Mariner's cameras photographed details 900 feet wide.
Mars
Plan for planetary encounter: Mariners 6 and 7, launched last February 24 and March 27, flew by Mars' equatorial awl south polar regions on July 31 and August 5 respectively after a space voyage of some 200 million miles. The unmanned craft had on board six scientific experiments.
Some 200 photos and other data sent by the two Mariners make up a Martian atlas that will keep scientists busy for decades. "there is activity in that region which is obliterating craters as fast as they're formed." Just what that activity might be is yet to be found out. Mars is a very cold place-the daytime temperature ranging from 62 to minus 63 degrees F. and the night temperature from minus 63 to minus 153 F. A final judgment on the Mars probe is being reserved pending close scrutiny of this mass of new scientific material. Some 200 photographs and other technical data of the Martian atmosphere and surface beamed to earth comprise pages of a Martian atlas that will keep astronomers and planetary scientists busy for decades. The Mariner-to-Mars 1969 adventure began last February 24 with the launching of the twin-camera-equipped, windmillshaped Mariner 6 on its five-month-Iong, 226-million-mile voyage. It was followed by an identical twin, Mariner 7, that took off on March 27 on its four-month-long, 190-million-mile journey. Mariners' paths through interplanetary space were so charted that the ,two craft arrived near Mars with a gap of just five days and so provided a comparative picture of many variable features of the red planet. In a journey 800 times as distant as the earth from the moon, the accuracy of the craft's encounter with Mars was dependent on many factors. During the midcourse manoeuvre, an error of one mile an hour would have resulted in moving the spacecraft away from Mars by some 5,000 miles. As it happened, both Mariners flew by the planet within a range of about 2,000 miles. The $148-million Mariner Mars mission was conducted for NASA by Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California. It came as a follow-up to the flight of Mariner 4, the world's first spacecraft to rendezvous with Mars on July 14, 1965. The new technology proved by Mariners 6 and 7 will pave the way for launching a pair of Mariner-type craft to orbit Mars for three months in 1971. At that time Mars will make one of its 15yearly close approaclies to earth, coming within 35 million miles. Its eccentric orbit takes the red planet as far as 250 million miles. During the 1969 Mariner flyby, Mars was some 60 million miles from earth. In 1973, under Project Viking a pair of sophisticated, life-detecting, camera-equipped robots are scheduled to land on Mars. The coming decade of the 'seventies will offer launch opportunities for a series of "gravity-assist" missions for exploring the solar system. Mariner-type unmanned craft could probe as far as Pluto, the outermost planet some 3,700 million miles from the sun, compared to earth just 93 million miles away. In fact, the U.S. Nat~.onalAcademy of Sciences has recommended to NASA that at least two "grand tours" be planned of outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto in the mid'seventies. At that time these planets will be so aligned that an instrumented space probe could sweep past at least three of them in a single, multi-billion-mile journey. This rare planetary configuration will not occur again for another 179 years.
Distinctive Martian feature: Mariner 6's closeup photo led to the startling discovery of a "jumbled and chaotic land" over a vast region some 300,000 square miles in extent. According to geologists, such a terrain, below, is "unlike anything on either the earth or the moon."
Evaluation and prediction of the effects of prolonged weightlessness, and the study of measures to counteract them, have added to our knowledge of the physiology of the circulatory system, the muscles and the bones. One result has been the development of volumetric sensors for the determination of blood-flow; another is a more detailed understanding of calcium metabolism. Research on the elasticity and resistance to strain of bones and tissues has made it possible to establish tolerable load-limits to a considerable degree of precision. This enables us to forecast the mechanical reactions of different parts of the body to stress and strain. Study of the effects of vibration and noise has demonstrated the limits of tolerance. In man, as opposed to some animals, no conditioning to loud noise would seem to be possible. The various means developed for protecting astronauts against shock can be applied to reduce the effects of air, road and rail accidents. Special anti-acceleration clothing, which can regulate the compression of the lower members, has been used successfully in treating certain postural hypotensions. Astronauts in flight must be given the best possible working conditions. Their work-load has been considerably diminished and simplified; the volume of information provided has been reduced, and its presentation improved, so as to avoid over-loading the sensory system; also, continual technical improvements have been made in control systems. These advances can be applied to conditions of work and safety in aeronautics and in road-traffic. The human organism at work produces excess heat which must be evacuated. When heat-loss is hindered, in hot workplaces or in space capsules for example, people generally complain of great discomfort. This has led to a constant effort to improve the design of undergarments which allow for the elimination of excess heat and the maintenance of a suitable heat-balance. Aircooled and-a more recent development-water-cooled undergarments can be adapted to suit a number of medical and industrial requirements. General measures of protection against the effects of gases and toxic agents have benefited from research on the toxicology of the various volatile substances which are used in space technology. The astronaut is obliged to remain shut up in an air-tight space capsule under conditions that may produce behavioural disturbances. Some disturbances are caused by isolation and by the separation of the subject from his habitual environment. Others.'are due to disorientation and to disturbances in sensory perception. Separately, but especially in combination, these factors may produce hallucinations. Living in a small group can also lead to additional problems and tensions.
A compilation was accordingly made, of medical literature concerning the isolation and disorientation of explorers, prisoners, sick people, lost airmen and seafarers, as well as astronauts. Experiments were made with volunteers in simulators and with persons obliged to remain in bed for long periods. So far as astronauts are concerned, the adverse effects of isolation and disorientation are counteracted by their highly developed sense of mission and by their permanent contact with the earth, as well as by careful planning of their work. The study of the physiological effects of psychological shock should also lead to improvement in psychiatric methods for the prevention and treatment of disturbances resulting from mental trauma. The application of computers in medicine has made great headway, thanks largely to space research. To mention two examples, the use of punched cards carrying full medical and psychological information on individuals has greatly improved the procedure for evaluating the physical and mental fitness of candidates for specific tasks. Photographic information can be "computer-enhanced" to obtain better contrast, to extract the "noise" and thus bring out much detail that was previously obscure. The use of these methods to improve the quality of X-ray photographs has brought out details that were imperfectly visible and has already produced very promising results; the techniques are being further improved. It is hoped, moreover, to use computers for recording and studying bone densities, either for diagnostic purposes or for automated anthropometry. The combined use of miniaturized transducers, of transmission over great distances and of data-processing by computer has introduced the possibility of medical care being given at a distance. The public was provided with an example of telesurveillance, telediagnosis and telemedicine when the American astronaut Frank Borman was taken sick in the early stages of the Apollo flight round the moon. The Texas Medical Centre in Houston already possesses a telediagnosis system and can make its expertise available to physicians at a distance. The computer programme provides "instant" consultative diagnostic services including electrocardiography, electroencephalography, X-ray, tissue pathology and hematology. It should not be long before these methods can be put into general use to the particular advantage of countries where highly qualified medical personnel are in short supply. The techniques of frequency analysis and data compression used in the electroencephalographic surveillance of space teams are a considerable advance on the older techniques as regards presentation, interpretation (continued) and the amount of information obtained.
19hehouse that
(./\t1ark 19wain built
by JO ANN'LEVINE
MARKTWAIN,HUMORIST, added a patch of tin to the roof of his house because he liked to hear the rain drumming. He directed his architect to build a window over the dining-room fireplace so he could see the flames meet the snowflakes. The one-time Mississippi riverboat captain installed a vast porch resembling a deck around his custom-built house. In the walnut-panell~d hallway he installed a compact, riverboat-style square staircase. Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, the famous author grew up in a two-room clapboard house in Florida. He appeared to need more than books to feed his fame. Reprinted by permission from The Christian Science Monitor. Š 1968 The Christian Science Publishing Society. All Rights Reserved.
Frontiers that
shaped Americans To THE HUNDREDS of visitors from abroad who have recorded their impressions of the United States during the past two centuries, the Americans are a strange and inexplicable people. They demand more economic freedom for the individual than is allotted in most urban-industrial countries. Whatever their wealth or social status, they refuse to recognize the existence of class lines or, if they do, proudly proclaim themselves in the middle class. They are forever moving about, exhibiting none of the attachment to place that lends stability to older societies. They are prejudiced against time-tested ways of doing things, preferring to experiment with the new when the old is still usable. They labour so incessantly that the relaxing leisure enjoyed in other lands is not only avoided but scorned. They are shockingly wasteful, squandering their natural resources with an abandon that is incomprehensible to more frugal peoples. That these traits are uniquely American is, of course, untrue; all are exhibited to a degree by the people of other nations. Moreover, national differences between inhabitants of industrialized nations are today rapidly disappearing; everywhere the rate of mobility is accelerating as men drift from job to job, and everywhere wastefulness, hard work, and an inclination to technological experimentation are increasing as the urge for profits dominates (
Contemporary drawing at left shows Meriwether Lewis, William. Clark and their teammates crossing a river during their trail-blazing journey to the Pacific in 1804.
behavioural patterns. But one fact remains¡ clear. These characteristics have for more than two centuries appeared in such exaggerated form in the United States that travellers have branded them distinctly American. When an Englishman remarks, as many have, that despite the language difference he feels more at home in Paris than Chicago, he reveals that the Americans do think and act differently from their cousins beyond the seas. These differences are the product of a multitude of factors. The mingling of peoples from many lands has helped create a distinct culture differing from that of any of the ethnic groups who have contributed to its growth. The relative isolation from the remainder of the world during the nation's formative period stimulated the evolution of unique traits and institutions. So did the lack of an enervating feudal tradition that would serve as a brake on change. Social experimentation was also encouraged by the abundance of natural resources; the high level of prosperity demanded new value judgments and new tecJ;miques. But of the many forces helping create a distinct American culture, none was more important than the existence of a frontier during the 300 years needed to settle the continent. Because of that unique experience, tpe term "frontier" has been endowed with a new meaning in the United States. Suggest the word to a European or Asian or African and you conjure up in his mind a vision of customs barriers, passport controls, and other troublesome hindrances to his freedom of movement. Propose the term to an American and he thinks at once
of beckoning opportunity. That frontier was born when the first English settlers carved their homes from the wilderness in the early seventeenth century. Until the end of the nineteenth century it advanced steadily towards the Pacific, usually in the form of a broad geographic area in which a variety of pioneers applied their separate skills to subdue the wilderness. Some were fur trappers and missionaries roaming far beyond the settled areas; others were cattle herders, miners, small farmers, propertied farmers, and the speculators and merchants who laid out the first villages. They followed no sequential pattern but ranged haphazardly, sometimes led by townsmen, sometimes by farmers, sometimes by miners. All were heralds of civilization, and as they marched westward civilization followed in their wake. Their progress created a distinctive social environment within the frontier belt in which they laboured. This resulted from a fortunate combination of men with an unusual degree of ambition and physical conditions uniquely suitable to that ambition's fulfilment. The first settlers helped establish the human phase of this equation; they. came from an England in which an emerging capitalistic system and a relative degree of economic, religious, and political freedom whetted the appetite of individuals for self-betterment. On the successive frontiers they found a physical environment that furthered these ambitions, for there land was cheaper and labour dearer than in settled communities. Almost for the asking, pioneers could secure virgin fields for farming, lush grasslands for pasturage, and prospective fortunes in mineral and continued
while a pioneer housewife who put on airs with a fancy rug on her cabin floor was told by a neighbour who had waited three years to call: "I woulda come before but I heard you had a Brussels carpet on the floor." Servants in the traditional sense were unknown in such an atmosphere; even . the term was obnoxious and those who worked for others were called "helps" or "hired hands." They demanded complete equality; visitors from more aristocratic lands were repeatedly amazed to see the serving maid join the family for dinner or the evening's conversation, or to witness the tavern waiter as he removed his apron to join the guests in a game of cards. In the successive Wests, where self-betterment was inevitable, all men felt equal, and acted the part.
his home, and enlarge his farm as a duty to society as well as to his own family. They consumed all of his time' and energy for years on end, leaving little opportunity for cultural pursuits. "There is," wrote one pioneer, "so much work to be done, and so few people to do it, that the idea of labour is apt to absorb the entire area of the mind:; This attitude has persisted, and Americans today have the reputation of being more materialistic and more neglectful of cultural goals, than their European neighbours, though the current vitality of the arts in America would seem to belie this notion. Enduring, too, was the habit of wasting natural resources that shocked visitors to the frontier. Wastefulness came naturally to the pioneer, partly because he lived amidst such an abundance of nature's riches that he could never envisage their he universally held belief that life on depletion, but more because wasteful the frontier made progress inevitable methods would hurry his self-advancement. for both the individual and the social With land cheap and both labour and order altered the behavioural patterns of the fertilizers expensive, higher profits could frontiersmen, and to a lesser degree of all be earned by soil exhaustion than by soil Americans; persons who lived on an escala- conservation; farmers "mined" their fields tor that was carrying them to a higher and then moved on. Old-timers in the social plane naturally developed different West, one story goes, bragged to younger values and beliefs from those whose status men: "Why, son, by the time I was your could not be changed. With advancement age I had wore out three farms." Destrucinevitable, most became impatient to tion became a habit with the frontiersmen. hurry the process. Many of the characteris- Millions of acres of stately forests fell betics branded by travellers as uniquely fore their axes; millions of acres of farm lands were despoiled by their wasteful American originated in this ambition. The frontiersman, as his descendants methods. The translation of nature's riches after him, was inclined to be mate~ialistic into personal riches was more important in his philosophy, with less respect fo~ than their preservation. The frontiersman was as disdainful of aesthetic values or abstract thought than tradition as he was of conservation; he was persons in older nations. Material tasks far more inclined to experiment or to were essential on the frontier; the pioneer must clear his land, plant his crops, build discard time-tested techniques and imple-
T
ments than his counterpart in more tradition-governed societies, This seemed logical to him, partly because the unique problems that he faced demanded unique solutions, partly because the lack of manpower encouraged a search for mechanical devices that would do the work of men. This did not mean that the frontier was an area of invention; the leisure, the wealth and the education necessary for the inventive process were lacking there. It did mean that the frontier created a market for inventions in America that was lacking in the Old World, and that the frontier's disdain for tradition generated a social atmosphere in which change was acceptable. In established societies obstacles must be overcome before any new product could be accepted: The resistance of established producers whose profits were threatened, the opposition of organized workers whose jobs were endangered, the strong influence of habit which made anything new suspect. These barriers were lacking in the frontier's plastic social or~er, and innovation became the way of life there. ust as frontiersmen were willing to experiment in their pursuit of self-betterment, so were they ready to move about whenever opportunity beckoned; the true pioneer had no more attachment to place than to tradition. Many were perennial movers, changing residence seven or eight times in a lifetime as neighbours pressed in upon them or the dream of affluence failed to materialize. "Wandering about seems engrafted in their nature," wrote a Virginia governor in the eighteenth century, "and it is a weakness incident to it, that they should even imagine the lands further off, are still better than those upon which they have settled." Charles Dickens, who visited the MississippI Valley frontier in the mid-nineteenth century, saw the West as peopled by a great human army, ever on the march, and led by wandering pickets whose lives were dedicated to extending its outposts, leaving home after home behind. Frontiersmen moved for many reasons, but one motive transcended all others: the desire for self-betterment. Further west, they knew, were better lands, richer pastures, more productive farms or mines or ranches. They knew also that they could sell their land or "improvements" at 20 times the price they would have to pay for a similar acreage on the outer fringes of settlement. So they drifted onward. The
J
continued
ability of rags-to-riches progress for all who are competent. Faith in social mobility stimulates physical mobility in the United States as people move about in quest of better jobs. The difference in the degree of movement is today diminishing; in all developed countries the increased employment opportunities created by industrialization, relaxing class distinctions, improved transportation and the rise of cities, send Europeans and Americans scurrying about at approximately the same rate. But in America people move more readily, and with a greater disregard for distance. Especially in the American West, where the frontier tradition remains strongest, migration is almost a compulsion; in northern California one of every three persons changes his residence each year, and in southern California one in two. For the nation as a whole, of the 178,000,000 residents in 1960, no less than 82,000,000 had moved during the past decade. Americans live on wheels. They watch motion pictures at drive-in theatres, deposit funds at drive-in banks, eat at drive-in restaurants and sleep in drive-away trailers. "If," wrote a recent visitor from Latin America, "God were suddenly to call the world to judgment, He would surprise two-thirds of the American people on the road like ants." The habit of hard work has also persisted to a degree unknown in more stabilizednations, even though this too is declining as machines which assume the tasks of men are endowing leisure with an unaccustomed respectability. In the United States no noontime siesta eases pressures as in Latin lands, no leisurely lunch period closes shops as in Britain, no lingering conversation at a sidewalk cafe provides an interval of relaxation as in France. Instead the American works long hours, broken only by a hurried meal gulped down at a quick-lunch counter, and sometimes closes the day with a stiff drink designed to achieve a maximum degree of exhilaration in a minimum amount oftime. The respectability of labour was too firmly enshrined by the frontier experience to be easily dislodged. So was the habit of wastefulness. The Uriited States is the land of the throwaway; paper towels and paper handkerchiefs,-metal cans and plastic containers, disposable tissues and wear-once clothing, are all made to be used and discarded. Thrifty visitors have pictured the American
home as a reverse assembly line skilful1y designed to reduce expensive objects to rubble, and the American factory as a creation cunningly contrived to produce gadgets that will disintegrate after a brief interval. The tall tale of the Texan who threw away his Cadillac car because the ash trays needed cleaning may not be true, but it could be told with appreciation only in the United States. Americans continue to be unimpressed with tradition and compulsively prone to experiment. Only the optimism that sustained the pioneers has proven a victim of modern times. So long as a continent awaited conquest, so long as sheltering oceans protected their land from the politi- . cal storms of the Old World, so long as democracy was the wave of the future everywhere, Americans sustained the buoyant faith in progress they inherited from their pioneering ancestors. The Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II altered their perspectives. No longer did they firmly believe they were masters of their fate. Faced with unfamiliar condi-
tions, Americans today are slowly substituting a philosophy of expectation with a philosophy of realism. But this alteration comes slowly and painful1y to a people accustomed to frontier optimism. That these vestiges of the frontier heritage alone shape the American character or even playa major role in determining the attitudes and behaviour of today's Americans is obviously untrue. The modern United States is an industrialized-urbanized nation, control1ed by the impulses that govern all developed countries, and little influenced by its rural past. Yet some influences remain, and these must be recognized to appreciate the differences that distinguish Americans from peoples of different backgrounds. Their materialism, their devotion to hard work, their veneration of democracy, their refusal to recognize class divisions, their faith in progress and the "go ahead" spirit, their excessive mobility-all these are relics of an era where frontier opportunity generated an excessive desire for self-betterment. END
Trail blazers ofa
continent
The Lewis and Clark Expedition sent out by Thomas Jefferson to explore the vast Louisiana Territory and find a navigable route to the Pacific, faced many challenges and unknown hazards. The article on the following pages includes sketches by an unknown artist and published in 1811 by Sergeant Patrick Gass, a member of the expedition.
)"====== ..••• ~===== ......• ( ',,*,3 ,
gramme, unless it has a well-thought-out plan of learning to present and knows at which step to present what idea to each student. In an elementary reading programme, for example, which the student might be able to complete in a half-hour, the computer must be given about 9,000 commands in order to function efficiently. According to reports, Dr. Patrick G. Suppes of Stanford spent something like six years in devising a computerized elementary mathematics programme. Dr. Suppes was one of the early experimenters with computers in instruction. That was in the early 1960's at Brentwood School, Palo Alto, California. Today at Brentwood, a first class student taps out his code number and first name on an electric typewriter hooked to a computer. The machine responds by typing the student's last name. Then a taped voice built into the machine asks: "If you have three pineapples and two grapes, how many pieces of fruit do you have?" The student has 10 seconds to respond. Then the machine offers its congratulations on a right answer, its condolences on a wrong one, or, if there was no answer within the time limit, may simply invite the student to "Try again." On a higher level of mathematics, the computer may ask a question and tell the student to choose from several possible answers displayed on a cathode-ray tube by touching it with a light pen, really a small flashlight to whose rays the tube responds. If the student fails to respond correctly to a number of similar questions, the machine may branch off from the main line of the programme and switch the student into remedial work to clear up whatever difficulty he may be experiencing or to help him learn something he somehow failed to learn before. Once the difficulty has been corrected, the computer goes back to the point it began its remedial branch and continues to follow once more the main line of the programme. The machine is indefatigable. It never gives up. It never loses patience. It's persistent, never tired or cranky. It's alert for feedback from the student using his answers to questions as triggers for its operations-its swift run-through if the student is quick, or its slow thoroughness if the student is slow. A slow student may see a brief movie or hear a tape recording,
view a diagram or see a printed explanation, all provided by the computer. The swift student may never know-or need to know-that these additional learning aids are there at all. The strong suit of the teaching machines and the teaching computers has been in teaching facts or operations. Learning to judge, to analyze, to get along with others, to create through writing or art-these are still largely outside the province of the machine, although they are being worked on. One computer has experimentally been programmed to criticize spelling and grammar in student themes. You might think that B.F. Skinner, whose findings provided a major push to the new education, would be delighted with the more sophisticated computers that have been developed. But not so. Computers for teaching, Skinner has been quoted as saying, are merely "a fad .... Economically, computers are out of this world. A simple programmed work-book will do what these computers can do and do it better at one-tenth the cost. As a means of storing information, like a library, to quickly bring forth some audio or visual materials, or as part of a school and classroom management system, a computer can do ajob. But as a teaching device it's ridiculous." But Brentwood School, where computer-assisted instruction began early, reports that first class students taught by computer had learned to read much more rapidly than a control group taught by conventional methods. And the computertaught students remembered far morenearly double-than the conventionally taught students. The Skinnerian ideas themselves have not been sacrosanct, either. Noam Chomsky, a scientific linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has criticized Skinner's belief in learning-as-behaviour and his assertion that verbal behaviour can be taught like any other behaviour. Chomsky asserts that "Skinnerian-type training is appropriate only to industrial workers who need to develop complex technical skills. Is growing up and learning no more than the shaping of behaviour? If that's what education is all about, authoritarian figures shaping people, then maybe we don't need it." When Skinner-type teaching machines were first developed, teachers became
worried. They-and many others-thought the teaching machine would replace the teachers, take over completely in the classroom and, what's more, possibly do a better job. But it soon became evident that the machines were not foolproof. If the programme that went into the machine was poor, no amount of flashing lights would make it any better or make the student learn. It soon became evident that new teaching devices could, in fact, free the teacher for better things-for planning more creatively, for planning more thoroughly, for devising exciting learning situations. But planning took time and, before the advent of the machine, there wasn't enough time. Today, teachers are still somewhat worried, because the machines have grown in complexity and sophistication. The students, of course, have generally been delighted with the machines, excited by them, stimulated by them. Perhaps in many instances their increased classroom performance, attributed entirely to the machine, came because of the machine, but not intrinsically from the machine. Psychologists in industry found some time ago that when any change is made in the working environment, if only the colour of the walls were changed, the fact of change and the knowledge they were part of an experiment had a stimulating effect on the workers. It is possible the same effect occurs with school-children in experimental programmes. More important than the computer's help to student learning, some educators believe, may be its use in learning about learning. Educational researchers hope to use the machines to discover more precisely how people learn. In doing so, the teaching process as we have known it may itself be changed radically. While the arguments go on, the developers of the computers and' teaching machines and programmed books and recorders and projectors and games and kits and other equipment and devices by the score continue their work. And perhaps Robert W. Sarnoff, president of RCA which makes computers, is right. Sarnoff says: "One day man will look back and consider the introduction of computers in the classroom as significant a development as the introduction of textbooks some two centuries ago." END