SPAN: November 1974

SPAN A LflTER FROM THE PUBliSHER In all nations, the underworld of art seethes with intrigue and scandal, with daring feats of forgery, theft and smuggling. All the more reason, then, to applaud an act rare in the' annals of art history: the return by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts of an 11th-century bronze statue of Vishnu' (see opposite page photograph). The statue is already en route to its rightful home: the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad of Calcutta.

The bronze Vishnu, an exquisite example of the Bengal school, was found in Sagardighi village of Murshidabad District in 1909. It was stolen from the' Calcutta museum in 1965, then changed hands from one art dealer to another, until it was acquired in 1970 by the Boston Museum for $50,000. When reports reached the Boston Museum that their newly-acquired statue might be stolen goods, they sent an agent to India to investigate the story. The theft was confirmed, and the museum immediately made arrangements for returning the statue to Calcutta. The loss will be borne solely by the art dealer who sold the statue to the Boston Museum, a dealer who understandably prefers to remain anonymous. A press release issued by the Indian Embassy in Washington said the Boston Museum authorities "have shown exemplary courtesy in offering to return it [the bronze statue] to the museum without expense to that body. The Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Gandhi, already has conveyed to the curator of the Boston Museum her appreciation of this fine gesture on their part."

The actual handing-over ceremony took place in Washington a few weeks ago, when Dr. lan Fontein, Boston Museum curator, presented the statue to Indian Ambassador T.N. KauI. Thanking the museum for "the fine example they have set," Ambassador Kaul observed: "Human beings are happiest in their proper habitats, and we assume gods are also." He added: "To art collectors this piece may be worth $50,000; to us it is priceless."

In the Indian press, the Boston Museum's action did not go unnoticed. An editorial in the Indian Express said it was "worthy of praise": the National Herald described it as "a fine gesture to India"; and the Hindustan Times remarked that "Dr. lan Fontein has earned a well-deserved word of praise from Mrs. Gandhi." This appreciation was reflected even in the "Letters" columns of Indian newspapers. Readers said that Dr. Fontein should be "personally congratulated ... for his commendable gesture."

In Washington, Ambassador Kaul had said: "I hope this example will be followed by others and other countries." His words may prove prophetic.

*****

This issue of SPAN carries a Special Section on American Education. We cannot, of course, cover all aspects of this immense subject, but we do present: an overview of U.S. education [pages 5-11]; the experiences of an Indian professor in America [pages 16-17]; two stories on interesting experiments in U.S. education [pages 18-23]; a colorful spread on campus fashions [26-27]; and a controversial article [page 28] by the eminent educator Robert Hutchins, which we hope will generate many debates on the vital question: What is the role of education?

-A.E.H.

2 4 5 12 16 18 22 24 26 28 32

34 38 41 45

47

49

A President Steps Down P,~~.<d8Aij tJ

by Nelson W. Polsby

J'I((~jl

'y'

~

,,4If~f. 'd

As the Press Sees It • ~

•...',,"

fit/.4/.)

Changing Perspectives in American Education

by Frances Richardson -

ed.t (.~ ~ /I £,t

'Here Comes My School!'

Mobile Ul.e

by Beverly Mason

f;(,&ICI-iktt.e,,-

-Set..

I

Gd/~ U'4t

H

An "dian Teaches .En2lish in Am~rica'by Shiv K. Kumar 1t/).(Jt"~-t J't'. #I(:;~(I _/0 A University Without Walls by MichaeIN'IFedo-;:::' ed-lA.e u II 'I-/{JJII) Me r ~ ,·,slctu I' !l Cre tivity in Education: New Shapes in the Dunes #

'i

c;

a..ti (/11

Learning to Earn

~dtu

(;/'1

.

_I/oeal'[c/I.td.

Campus Fashions

rM-Mt? M_C('1,-("4tpu&

The Idea of a College

f3dtJ e ~ .' 't

A~icans

I /{

t~

I

by Robert

'I d

!If. Hutchins

I

."t ••• ~ t"7\ t'1 l.

f (

Are Tal~il!&.About"",- S ~!-(.()Ia(j(,f

Is Economic Growth the Way to a 'Better' Life?

U: Clfo..~

by Ezra J. Mishan,and Henry C. Wallich e (" It(:' il H e. C1l' tat /1.. ctf;f'nNWt

-Dev-d~'lof A D Yin the Life of AmerIcan Humor by Trivadi rxUL(''(-fll{(>':~., " ,\/n ..• Farming Without Land I ~f

R~YI'"

..; 'J iN

rlt'·USe5

Gerald Ford: What Kind of President? ~ _..

by Vermo t C. Ro)'S!er-f -({. '£.f. J) -F <->;~ f.JY~fil ;1,-{ I'!~tf 11610 ~ c",." ( T e Future of the Presidency by George E. Reedy t

;(..f.

t

II .

f. j

,

Touring America: San Francisco ta /f<' ~a 'I, It 76UJti• G IT! f,.t,ti.tw J~ <.Od1

,J

T'l-

,<:"'0>

C)?!)'

•••lf'''''n .

..,f'",

Front cover: Mickey Patel's imaginative illustration portrays education as a manyarmed goddess surrounded by-among other things-a bewildered egghead, a scarecrow-like graduate, and a dispirited Don Quixote tilting at windmills with a pen-holder. A Special section on American Education appears on pages 5-31.

B8ck cover: Long a symbol of California's grandeur, the Golden Gate Bridge, which spans the entrance to San Francisco Bay, is one of the world's busiest bridges, carrying more than 52 million vehicles a year. See story on page 49.

Managing Editor: Carmen Kagal. Assistant Managing Editor: S.R. Madhu. Editorial Stall: Mohammed Reyazuddin. Avinash Pasricha, Nirmal Sharma, Krishan Gabrani, M.M. Saha. Art Director: Nand Katyal. Art Stall: Gopi Gajwani, B. Roy Choudhury, Kanti Roy. Suhas Nimbalkar.

Chief of Production: Awtar S. Marwaha. Photographic Services: USIS Photo Lab. Published by the United States Information Service, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi-! 10001, on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Government.

Printed by Arun Mehta at Vakil & Sons Private Ltd., Vakils House, Sprott Road, 18 Ballard Estate, Bombay-400038.

Photographs: Front cover-Mickey Patel. Inside front cover-courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. S-1-eourtesy Bell Telephone Magazine. 26-Christopher Springmann; Tomas Sennett.

21, clockwise from left-Tomas Sennett, Christopher Casler, Christopher Springmann, Lowell Georgia (2). 4S-David Hume Kennerly. Inside back cover-Christopher Springmann, except top right by Bob Ellison, reprinted from TWA Ambassador © 1912 by Trans World Airlines, Inc. Back cover-Christopher Springmann.

Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged, except when copyrighted. For permission, write to the Editor. Subscription: One yellr, 18 rupees; single copy. two rupees. For chlUlge of address, send old address from a recent SPAN envelope along with new address to A.K. Mitra, Circuilltion Manager, SPAN magazine. 24 Kuturba Gandhi Marll. New elhi_llOOOl

A PRESIDENT STEPS DOWN THE BACKGROUND Last August, Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States, as his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate seemed a certainty. This article presents a capsule history of events leading up to Mr. Nixon's resignation, the first ever by an American President. The author notes that, unlike parliamentary rule, the U.S. system of government demands a combination of extraordinary facts and forces to make a President resign.

To understand the resignation of Richard M. Nixon from the Presidency of the United States one must understand the underlying thesis of the American governmental system. There is no kinship here with the fall of a parliamentary leader, a more or less common occurrence in other parts of the world. The American Constitution does not provide for parliamentary government at all but rather for a separation of powers.

Presidents of the United States are elected for a fixed term of office. During the four years of this constitutional term, they can take many political risks firmly assured that, come what may, they can reasonably expect to remain in office. Many Presidents have faced an eroded political base. Many at various times were unpopular in the country at large as, for example, in 1951 when President Harry Truman fired highly popular General Douglas MacArthur in a policy dispute over how to conduct the Korean war. Many disagreed with the U.S. CongFess over public policy. Some even strained the political tolerance of members of their own party such as when Franklin Roosevelt decided to run for his unprecedented third term.

None of these political disagreements for the last century ever approached the level of impeachment proceedings. The last and only time they did was in 1868 when, in the wake of a calamitous civil war, President Andrew Johnson was impeached in the House of Representatives and tried in the Senate for essentially political offenses: He was acquitted and served out his full term.

From then until the present, the impeachment process at the Presidential level played no meaningful part in American national politics. Thus its activation entailed a significant measure of constitutional rediscovery.

Mr. Nixon resigned at a moment when his impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate were regarded as certain.

In order to impeach a sitting President, a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives must vote in favor. In order to convict, two-thirds of the Senators present must vote for it.

Neither vote was in doubt. Congressmen and Senators who agreed' wholeheartedly with Nixon policies, long-time Nixon political associates and supporters and stalwart members of the Nixon wing of the Republican Party had announced themselves publicly in favor of his removal from office. This was

emphatically not a matter of political disagreement, or even of a change of heart by Nixon Republicans about what good public policy should be.

What finally demolished the President's support Was a unanimous decision by the U.S. Supreme Court requiring him to turn certain taped White House conversations in his possession over to a federal district judge trying a criminal case involving former Presidential aides. These conversations showed the President to have had early knowledge, previously denied, of an attempt to cover up from proper legal authorities information relating to a criminal act-an attempted burglary of Democratic Party headquarters in Washington's Watergate apartment complex. This revelation proved to be the decisive one in resolving what had expanded-under the generic term "Watergate"-into the worst scandal in the history of American politics.

How did the American political system respond to a challenge of such magnitude and character?

Many Americans ruefully admitted in the midst of their ordeal that parliamentary systems handle removals from high office with far greater dispatch. But then these systems suffer corresponding difficulties in forming secure majorities that can govern effectively. The framers of the American system, with its fixed and frequent elections, its staggered terms of office, its divided constituencies and constitutional commands that separate institutions share power, clearly meant to build into the everyday process of government and policy making the conflicts that parliamentary regimes must settle before they form their governments of the day.

A high constitutional tolerance for conflict within 'government means that criteria for removal from the arena must be extremely difficult to satisfy, far more difficult than in parliamentary democracies. And, indeed, they are difficult in the United States.

The question that Americans had to face as the drama unfolded was: Would these criteria be too stringent, the process too cumbersome and unfamiliar, to serve in an hour of acute need?

As so often happens in the American legislative process, the House of Representatives, by far the more complex and less' publicized half of Congress, became the crucial arena in which the issues surrounding impeachment were defined for final reso-

lution. The first formal impeachment step was institution of proceedings before the House Judiciary Committee. The closest analogy to the task of the committee is the role of the AngloSaxon Grand Jury, which meets in private, receives information beyond that which is admissible as evidence in a court of law, and decides only whether to bring indictments or accusations.

The committee hearings dragged on for six months behind doors closed to all outsiders except-as a special courtesy and in the interests of scrupulous fairness-attorneys for the President, who were also given special permission to call and to interrogate witnesses. For the final week of hearings, however, Americans were able to watch on nationwide television as the 38 men and women of the Judiciary Committee-I 7 Republicans and 21 Democrats-deliberated, debated and voted finally to recommend three articles of impeachment for consideration by the whole House. One accused the President of complicity in the cover-up of criminal acts linked to the Watergate affair.

This was passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan majority.

Every Democrat voted for it, liberal and conservative alike, including Southerners whose districts had given Richard Nixon very large majorities in the election of 1972. In a<;ldition,they were joined by seven committee Republicans, severa~ of them conservatives and Nixon supporters. Much the same majority appeared for the second article, alleging various abuses of power by the President and his close aides such as attempts to harass their political enemies through the Internal Revenue Service's power of audit. A third article, written by a conservative Republican, was passed by a smaller majority. This accused the President of unconstitutionally thwarting the committee's own investigation by denying it evidence it had subpoenaed.

Two other proposed articles of impeachment were voted down. They were judged by committee members to rest on mere policy disagreement or on argument with personal acts of the President which, however controversial, did not qualify as transgressions of the Constitution.

One powerful consequence of the televised Judiciary Committee proceedings was to lay before the country the elements of the case against the President. Another was to display to the country the high seriousness and considerable competence that this collection of lawyers brought to their work. Citizens all over the U.S. could with a glance at their television sets ascertain that this was no partisan political vendetta.

Even after the Judiciary Committee hearings ended, the President still had a strong body of Congressional defendersincluding a majority of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee-committed to fighting in the full House of Representatives and, if necessary, in the Senate, against impeachment, on the ground that a case of unlawful Presidential conduct had not been sufficiently proved.

But then, before the impeachment battle could reach full debate in the House of Representatives, came the fateful Supreme Court decision and the new taped information so detrimental to the President's defense. After that, all 10 Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who had refused to vote for impeachment on any count during the hearings announced that they would vote to impeach on the House floor.

Senate Republicans sent word that a trial there would mean certain conviction. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Nixon stepped down.

To assert that his departure was the result offull and thorough adherence to every nicety of constitutional due process is not to assert that this was done without politiqal calculation. The process of impeachment was, after all, confided by the founding fathers to Congress, a political body. The bringing of impeachment charges is, and should be, an exercise of political judgment, based upon understanding of at least three separate and distinct

kinds of politics. There is, first of all, the politics of official Washington. At another level, there is the politics of public opinion. Finally, there is the politics of community and regional leaders outside Washington. Each of these kinds of politics responds to slightly different cues and gives off somewhat different signals.

Public opinion for nearly a year before his resignation had been slowly turning against President Nixon. The way in which this happened can be described as a pattern of slow disillusionment, very much reminiscent of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's encounter with public opinion on the Vietnam war.

While majorities believed, according to the opinion polls, that Mr. Nixon had knowledge of wrong-doing, had been .less than candid, had participated in the Watergate cover-up, there was reluctance to ask for impeachment. But eventually the. growing number of Watergate revelations eroded a more generalized reluctance to rock the boat.

What seems to have speeded alo~g the crucial downward realignment of President Nixon's fortunes among the general public well before the impeachment hearings was the wholesale public release by the White House of an initial-but still inconclusive-batch of edited transcripts of Presidential conversations in the White House. At first no more "than a small fraction of the total American population read or heard any substantial portion of these conversations. Certainly few were able right away to sort out how these conversations related to the various claims and counterclaims about who said what, and who knew what, and who meant what.

Yet the response to the information contained in the tapes and their general tone was massive, unequivocal and greatly detrimental to the President's cause, particularly among community and regional leaders outside of Washington~and especially Republican leaders. The transcripts shocked and galvanized such long-time supporters of Mr. Nixon as the editors of the Kansas City Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Omaha World Herald, and led them to call for his removal from office.

In a political system where leaders are subject to frequent election, it is no wonder that many politicians in Washington who had to concern themselves with impeachment listened and were concerned at the shock waves emanating from public opinion and community leaders.

These taped revelations and those from other sources that had preceded them-all amid an atmosphere in which the usual give-and-take between the press and an incumbent administration had turned to bitterness on both sides-blended legitimate political concerns into constitutional concerns. What set the stage for the rediscovery of impeachment as a live option was precisely the breakdown of the long-standing practices of accommodation and co-operation that govern the interactions between Presidents and the rest of official Washington. When such practices are working, ultimate sanctions are unnecessary; it is a political judgment in the highest sense of politics to judge when such a system has broken down.

An adverse political judgment, while a necessary condition for impeachment, was not a sufficient condition. Only transgressions deemed to have reached constitutional proportion were sufficient. When that rigorous condition was satisfied, Americans discovered¡ in their Constitution a long-dormant resource to check such Presidential actions and used that resource in a prudent and responsible way.

0 About the Author: Nelson W. Polsby is Professor of Political

Science at the University of California at Berkeley. He has published many books, including Congress and the Presidency, The Modern Presidency and Community Power and Political Theory.

NELSON ROCKEFELLER: VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE The appointment of Nelson A. Rockefeller as the 41st Vice President of the United States was hailed by newspapers throughout the world. They unanimously applauded President Gerald Ford's nomination of the former Governor of New York State as his deputy.

Most newspapers took note of Nelson Rockefeller's extensive admi.nistrative experience both as Governor of New York and as a foreign affairs specialist under four U.S. Presidents.

The New York Times editorial echoed Nelson Rockefeller, then Governor of New the sentiments of many newspapers when York State, calls on Mrs. Gandhi at the it said: Carlyle Hotel, New York, on April I, "After careful deliberation President 1966. She was on her first official trip Ford has chosen his party's most ex- to the United States as Prime Minister. perienced state executive, a man wellversed in economic and foreign affairs a well-known and highly respected figure and in the domestic side of the Federal both nationally and internationally.

He Government. It is a responsible and enhas become a spokesman for state governcouraging nomination."

The Times went ments without in any sense succumbing on to observe that Rockefeller had had to parochialism."

Presidential aspirations and had once The Wall Street Journal wrote: "Mr. even turned down the offer of the Vice Rockefeller was the obvious choice for Presidency. "It is a tribute to Mr. Ford Vice President. If one were to run through and to Mr. Rockefeller that one was big the usual list of qualifications for high e'nough to make the offer and the other office-experience, intelligence, civic pride, big enough to accept." the ability to handle complex issuesIn similar vein, the Baltimore Sun the former New York Governor fills said: "The nomination of Nelson A. each to a degree not common among Rockefeller as Vice President tells us a current political leaders. . .. He is clearly great deal about the man who nominated a man of national stature ... [and] he has him. President Ford could have gone come into the mainstream of his party to a lesser-known man, a more pallid not through dogma but through expersonality .... Instead Mr. Ford showed perience.' , the inner self-assurance to pick Governor In India, though press comment was Rockefeller, who is almost sure to bring limited, much the same kind of sentiment to the Vice Presidency the energy, the was expressed. The National Herald of charisma, the love of politics, the penchant New Delhi said in its editorial: "Mr. for controversy and the ability to pick Rockefeller's biggest asset is of course talented advisers that have characterized his administrative experience buttressed his whole career." by political maturity."

M.V. Kamath of the Times of India "Few if any men in American public called the nomination of Mr. Rockefeller life today have more executive experience a "master-stroke"

by President Ford, for in government than Nelson Rockefeller," "Mr. Rockefeller brings along with him said an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer. "His record goes back to the as political dowry the solid support of eastern Republican liberals."

Kamath Roosevelt Administration, when he served as an Assistant Secretary of State. It warned, however, that his nomination includes other Washington assignments "should not be seen merely in terms of a and, of course, up until now was capped . political balancing act. He is there ... to by the 15 years he spent as Governor of keep an eye on what's going on in the campaign to fight inflation. Indeed, Mr. New York. In that career, he has become

Ford 'has suggested that Mr. Rockefeller should chair the committee set up to draw the blueprints for battling rising prices, falling incomes and growing unemployment.

That is .Mr. Rockefeller's forte."

"Mr. Rockefeller's appointment," wrote Krishan Bhatia, Washington correspondent of the Hindustan Times, "will almost certainly strengthen the Ford Administration by imparting to it an ideological .balance and much additional prestige.

Mr. Rockefeller is as well known and consistent a liberal as Mr. Ford is a conservative. He is liked and respected in the country [the U.S.] and the Republican Party by even those who do not share his liberal views. His family prestige is enormous and Mr. Rockefeller has an additional asset in his strong and bubbling personality."

Easwar Sagar of The Hindu noted that . the 66-year-old Vice President is "still a very sprightly figure." He is well-traveled and "is well-versed in foreign affairs.

It was also he who discovered the potentialities of Dr. Henry Kissinger and made him his foreign policy adviser in 1968."

In the Statesman, Warren Unna wrote: "Mr. Rockefeller through the years has surrounded himself with 'think-tank' men of distinguished ideas and used the vast resources of his enormous family fortune to further cultural and philanthropic causes, both at home and abroad."

Elsewhere in the world, press comments on Nelson Rockefeller's appointment were equally flattering. The Guardian of London said that "the President has shown sound judgment" in choosing Rockefeller to be his Vice President.

It added: "If public confidence (both outside and inside the U.S.) in the White House was to be restored, it was essential that the most qualifled man in his party was selected for the post. President Ford has selected such a man."

In West Germany, Die Welt of Hamburg called Rockefeller's nomination "good news" because "a Vice President with prestige, dynamism, experience and worldwide contacts is most urgently needed."

Paris's Aurore predicted that "the Vice President-perhaps for the first time in American history-will not be a figurehead."

And Beirut's An-Nahar called the nomination "Ford's wisest and best accomplishment."

0

The old one-room schoolhouse in America may have given way to computerized education, mobile schools and educational TV, but students' demand for relevance-education that will meet the needs of the times-is as strong as it has always been. In the article beginning overleaf, the author discusses why educational ferment is part of the ongoing social revolution in America.

American education is in ferment.

Paradoxically, this ferment comes at a time when the educational system in the United States appears to be experiencing unprecedented success:It has been providing more and more people with more and more education.

By almost any measure, American education is performing better now than ever before. For instance: • Institutions of higher learning are enrolling about 40 per cent of the college-age population. In 1972-73the number of college , graduates showed a gain of 56 per cent over 1967-68.

• In elementary and secondary public schools, more students are enrolled than ever before, both in total number and as a proportion of the total population. Expenditures per pupil have more than doubled since the end of World War n.

• Three students out of four now finish 12 years of schooling (elementary through secondary school), compared with three out of fouT who did not go beyond eight years of schooling in 1929.

• And it appears that young people today are learning more than their elders of even a decade ago. In achievement tests, teen-agers now score one class ahead of their parents at a comparable age.

Why, then-despite this extraordinary expansion and democratization of the educational system from kindergarten to postgraduate school-is it the object of such criticism? Why the stormy disagreements among educators? The st!1dent unrest? The, parent protest? The public agonizing?

Actually, the conflict now affecting the public schools, colleges and universities in the United States goes much deeper than mere numbers or statistics. It is basically a philosophical one. The whole purpose of American education is being questioned. And the question, stated succinctly, is: "Education for what?"

Historically, conflict is nothing new to education in America. And the popular catchword, "relevance," if it means meeting the needs of the times, is not exactly new either.

American education has always moved, however slowly, in the direction of meeting the needs of the times, once they've been clearly defined.

In colonial days, the first schools provided a limited education to fewer than one out of 10 of the settlers on the new frontier. Logically, the schools were established to preserve European culture, and Harvard College and others were formed to prepare clergy for the ministry.

But the republic's founding fathers asserted that democracy depended on a literate

citizenry. Not until the l830s, however, when the new nation was undergoing great changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution and by the swelling tide of immigrants, was there a popular clamor for universal free education.

Horace Mann, the first secretary of the state board of education in Massachusetts, articulated and led this reform movement in the early 19th century. It effected a nationwide educational renaissance. Mann's vision was to provide free schooling for all people, as part of the birthright of every child-rich or poor, of any creed, class or background. By tradition and constitutional arrangement, American education has always been a function of individual states and local communities; consequently Mann's partisans for public education encountered fierce resistance at every turn. It was 25 years before the majority of the state legislatures enacted laws to compel localities to set up and provide funding for school districts.

As one educator described the struggle: "In legislatures and at the polls . . . land-

'It is terribly important to teach a youngster the skills he needs to live ....

But it is critically important to equip that youngster to live his life as a fulfilled human being.'

owners ... opposed school taxes and ... religious groups ... viewed public education as a threat to orthodoxy .... Local elections were fought, won and lost on the school issue.

The tide of educational reform would flow in one state, only to ebb in another .... Time and again [they] encountered the bitter disappointments that accompany any effort at fundamental social reform."

The current turmoil in education has been a long time building, but in the last decade

its significance has gradually come into focus.

Just as a century ago when the drive to provide popular education was finally seen for what it was-a fundamental social reformso now the present ferment in education is beginning to be seen' in a similar light. There is a growing belief that the basic assumptions of American education must be re-examined, and the key to this public debate is whether public education is actually meeting the challenge of the modern age.

But the American educational scene is such a complex maze of diverse, sometimes interrelating but generally independent, institutions and groupings that re-examination is not a simple task. Diversity has always been the most notable feature of the U.S. school system. It might be said that almost any observation about the schools is probably true of some school somewhere in the 50 states.

Because the responsibility for elementary and secondary public education is vested in thousands of local districts throughout the nation-the great majority run by regularly

elected boards of local citizens-uniformity just does not exist and never has. Differing in size, support, control, type of 'student and other aspects, these school districts vary widely from simple country schools to huge metropolitan systems which may educate a person from childhood into old age. Some farm communities may consider adequate a modest education program offering the fundamentals of reading, writing, arithmetic, some history and some English. Some students may finish'secondary school and not aspire to higher education. But elsewhere, in an area where financial support is adequate and the school authorities are dedicated to providing the best possible education, innovative kindergartens may be an introduction to the educational ladder by which a student may move through a comprehensive secondary school to a community or junior college-at no expense to him at all.

Higher education presents an equally baffling picture of diversity. There is no common pattern of curriculum, instructional method or organization among approximately 2,670

degree-granting schools, colleges and universities in the United States.

Higher education-both public and private-includes two-year technical institutes, two-year junior or community colleges, independent and denominational liberal arts colleges, teachers' colleges, multipurpose state colleges, complex universities, land-grant colleges and universities, colleges for music and the arts, theological schools and highly specialized advanced scientific and technological institutions.

This listing is by no means complete, but it is enough to convey the idea that the American educational system is certainly not monolithic. It also suggests that there will never be "one right way" to meet the manifold challenges of educating a large, pluralistic society.

Further, the schools and colleges are also victims of complicating social conditions beyond their control: the population explosion, accelerating urbanization and a technological revolution.

Mter World War II, a sharp rise in the school-age population brought about the first major challenge. There weren't enough teachers, textbooks, classrooms, schools or school buses. Also, following World War II, with increased farm mechanization, rural migrants began crowding into the cities.

They were mostly poor and often illiterate.

This movement from country to city and from the agricultural South to the industrialized North induced a reverse migration .. Original city residents, mostly middle-class whites, fled to spacious, comfortable suburbs where there were usually better equipped school buildings, comparatively high-paid teachers and well-organized teaching programs.

In contrast, in the heart of the cities, schools deteriorated alarmingly because of the decreasing tax base. Rundown buildings, inadequate supplies and lagging teachers' salaries were all symptoms of mounting financial stress.

In the wake of the technological revolution, the mass media-in particulfu, television-were having for the first time an educational effect on the general population, both the poorly educated and the well-schooled.

Whether it was a variety show, newscast, President's speech, sports event or even an alluring commercial, TV was educating.

By the .mid-1960s it seemed that almost everyone had some question or complaint about education. Minority-group parents were disturbed at the low achievement level and high rate at which their children dropped out of school. Parents of middle-class children worried whether the quality of education

would be high enough to get their children into the better colleges. Everyone, including the students themselves, wanted to share in the decision-making process in the American schools.

Government and private foundations commissioned studies. Educators engaged in heated philosophical discussions. Experimentation and innovation became the order of the day.

Much attention and concern today center on the schools that are in racial and ethnic communities in the big cities. A great deal of this interest was stimulated primarily by the civil rights movement in the 1960s. A landmark study of this period, the U.S. Office of Education's "Equality of Educational Opportunity," referred to as the Coleman report, found that differences in school quality were not very closely related to differences in student achievement. In other words, the buildings, the equipment, the teachers didn't seem to make much difference in the learning results as shown by a comparison of student test scores. Although some of the methods used and the haste with which the report was prepared made it subject to criticism, subsequent studies confirm its main conclusions. " ... What a school should do and can do is determined by status and ambitions of the family served," wrote prominent educator Dr. James B. Conant in his book Slums and Suburbs. Conant called attention to the "social dynamite" contained in the failures of ghetto education.

One result of these discussions and studies was the introduction of a well-known program called "Head Start." It was designed to give disadvantaged children in a preschool program various learning and enriching experiences that other children normally enjoy. The hope was that when these children joined with other children in the first grade, the gap would have closed. The Federal Government entered into this program on a large scale through the' Office of Economic Opportunity.

Until very recently, the U.S. Government had not expended large sums in the field of education and traditionally its contributions have been to particular programs. Appropriations have usually been made through assistance to the various states. Citizens have always jealously guarded their local autonomy, fearing that federal aid to education might also mean federal control of education.

In the unusual photograph at left, photographer David Attie used multiple exposures to dramatize the new attitude of seriousness that U.S. college students are showing toward their studies.

(The use of federal authority and influence at the local level, however, is another matter.

Briefly, on a few occasions federal authority has been dramatically exercised, as in the case of the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in public schools and in subsequent rulings in favor of transporting children by bus to achieve racial balance in schools in different parts of a school district.)

* * * * *

One of the earliest federal aids to education resulted from the Morrill Act of 1862, which provided grants of government-owned land for a unique system of state-operated colleges. In an agricultural nation, these new institutions introduced academic instruction in agriculture, technology and home arts.

In 1914 the passage of the Co-operative Extension Service Act enlarged the scope of these "land-grant" institutions to provide practical information and services to the people of the various states. This was, incidentally, one of the first steps in a now rapidly expanding program of continuing education for adults.

'The whole purpose of American education is being questioned. And the question, stated succinctly, is: "Education for what?" ,

Particularized federal aid has usually gone to help the handicapped and for construction funds for college libraries, dormitories, science buildings and medical schools. There have been funds for special instruction in mathematics, languages and natural sciences and for student tuition loans for language and area studies at major universities.

The federal funds that made Head Start possible have also provided for a related program called "Follow Through." Studies of the Head Start program showed that gains that disadvantaged children made while enrolled in preschool programs tended to dissipate rapidly when they entered the public schools. Follow Through has been designed to determine whether changing the nature of primary schooling will prove more successful.

The U.S. Office of Education is now testing a wide range of approaches in a limited number of communities instead of using the mass approach of the Head Start program.

In cities such as New York and Washington, D.C., bitter debate has often erupted as parents, educators and politicians argue for one solution or another to improve the poor reading ability of many students. In Washington, the debate continues on whether or not to institute a program put forth by the eminent psychologist, Dr. Kenneth B. Clark.

Clark had presented a plan designed to raise students' reading and mathematics scores to national norms. Putting emphasis on standardized tests, the plan aimed at eliminating all classes that grouped students according to ability. It provided for merit pay for teachers based on how much their students improved.

Where there is some kind of community consensus, parents are willing to support a certain amount of experimental effort. One such program is now in its fifth year at the new town of Columbia, Maryland. There, a middle school of 750 students in grades six through eight is a prime example of how drastic changes can be carried out in a moderate way that minimizes confusion.

Quite different from the neat classrooms with their desks in rows and the hands-raisedbefore-speaking rule of traditional schools, the school at Columbia has three vast rooms called "pods." On carpeted floors, the students sprawl in clusters. Lack of old standards has enabled-and forced-the teachers to create new and demanding ones. Most teachers spend three hours a night planning the next day's work. Their goal is to give each child a special program aimed at goading him to learn by himself. Similar programs are in operation in nearly 500 public schools across the United States. And for anxious parents who want to be sure that their children are not victims of experimentation, standardized tests show that the Columbia students outscore those in all of the county's other middle schools.

Parents are not only taking an increasing interest in their children's education but an increasing hand in it. Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA) have long been the mainstay of parent-educator relations. The National Congress of Parent- Teacher Associations, founded in 1897, now numbers more than 9,000,000 members with associations in most of the public schools throughout the United States.

In California, where education has been hotly debated since the earliest rumblings of the student protest in the Free Speech Movement in 1964 at the University of California at Berkeley, the newly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction has suggested an accelerated curriculum. Superintendent Wilson

Economic considerations are not the only Riles proposes to start all of California's 4,408,000public-school children a year before stimulus for restructuring the school year. A the present kindergarten age of five. They year-round program offers opportunities to would do much of their first-grade work then. enrich the curriculum, school officials claim.

As adolescents they would be graduating a Many variations of the year-round school corresponding year earlier and could then exist, but two forms are most common. One move on to jobs or take a year off before col- plan divides students into four groups, each lege to explore their futures. The proposal of which attends school for nine-week periods is based on tests which show that today's followed by three-week vacations. Under this children know much more than their prede- plan, three groups are in session at anyone cessors before they enter schools. This is time, while the fourth is on vacation. The attributed to such factors as television and second plan, used mainly in secondary schools, to greater social and geographic mobility. involves four 12-week quarters with students ]n this way the whole educational program attending three out offour of these. A nationcan be accelerated. Riles would pay the pre- al school study committee has predicted that school bills with money now spent on the the year-round school is inevitable. final year of secondary school, inverting the pyramid of school financing, in which the lower the grade, the less money is spent per pupil. "A dollar spent on the very young goes further than a dollar for the not-so-young Among the many innovative who are in remedial classes," he explains. schemes to mold American The inevitable opposition says that the plan would throw more job seekers into com- education to the needs of petition for employment at an even younger the time is the idea age and that teachers would have to be re- of the year-round school. trained in order to teach younger children.

The retraining of teachers, whether for 'It has economical, younger children or for some other aspect educational and sociological of the changing educational scene, such as advantages to recommend it.' computer-assisted instruction ("teaching machines"), emphasizes again a basic fact: The most important element in classroom instruction is-and always has been-the teacher.

At the college level, students seem to be Teachers will always determine the success of any program. To this end, many teacher- in the vanguard as proponents of change. training institutions are revamping course While some parents and educators may apcontent, and the Federal Government is pro- pear to be more conservative and less eager moting better teacher education through for experimentation, many college students support of a variety of innovative programs. have been pushing for radical changes. They But it is in the school programs that inno- have even set up their own "free universities" vations are most observable. One idea that wherever they could find accommodations. is spreading rapidly is the year-round school. All kinds of academic or nonacademic subIt has economical, educational and socio- jects are taught by the students themselves logical advantages to recommend it. The pri- and at no cost to whoever chooses to enroll. mary reason is, however, economic efficiency. A more moderate change is being introduced There are currently about 100 school dis- by Beloit College in Wisconsin. Beloit's protricts in the United States trying some form gram would mesh nicely with California's of all-year program, while some 1,000 other proposed plan for early school graduation. districts are studying the feasibility of keep- Students who have completed secondary ing their doors open year round. When most school and do not want to enter college right of America's students were farm children, the away are being offered a delayed admission. winter months were for schooling, for sum- These students, weary of what President Kingmers meant work on the farm. Even the man Brewster of Yale University calls a spring vacation period was geared to plowing "lockstep procedure" that propels them and planting time. But more and more people through almost two decades of formal, conhave looked askance at school buildings that tinuous education, can take a year's break now stand idle for two or three summer from classes. In this year, while they are ha\ing a variety of unstructured learning expermonths and compare them with manufacturing plants, which could hardly find justifica- iences, Beloit College will provide special tion for closing down for a similar period. guidance for any of these students who wants

it. They attend a seminar on campus and during the year receive campus newsletters to keep them informed until they actually enter the regular college program. Their nonacademic experiences will include such varied activities as serving as seamen in the merchant marine, spending the whole year in nature and ecology studies along the Appalachian Mountain Trail from Maine to Georgia, or working in a farming community.

Other colleges are watching to see how this delayed admissions program works, but Ted S. Cooper, executive director of the National Association of College Admissions Counselors, believes that within a few years deferred admissions may become standard practice.

Another admissions policy that is attempting to meet the criticism that colleges are failing to provide equal educational opportunity is one instituted in September 1970 by the multicampus City University of New York (CUNY). Its "open admissions policy" guarantees a college place to every city secondary-school graduate regardless of academic record or quality of previous education.

The first year of "open admissions" was a traumatic experiment for CUNY with its huge, tuition-free student body of 240,000 full- and part-time students in 10 four-year and eight two-year community colleges. Resistance to this innovative admissions policy, set up in response to pressure from the city's blacks, came from both faculty and alumni, who feared that academic standards would be lowered. Nevertheless, proponents believed this system was both essential and workable, and after almost four years in operation, it is being regarded with cautious optimism.

Says CUNY Chancellor Robert J. Kibbee: "The quality of a university is measured more by the kind of student it turns out than the kind it takes in .... We want fewer prerequisites and requirements .... Our program will be no less intellectual or less rigorous, but it will be less rigid and less stultifying."

A study of 1,000 experimental compensatory educational programs of one kind or another throughout the United States considers "College Bound," also in New York City, one of the best. A rigorous academic program including counseling and remedial work before college, it is being offered to some 10,500 students in more than 30 New York City secondary schools. Many College Bound students are now being accepted at colleges and universities through normal admissions procedures rather than as highrisk students for whom regular standards have been lowered or waived.

Similar to Beloit's delayed admissions ap-

proach but more radical in execution is that of the University Without Walls [see page 18] which obtained planning support from the U.S. Office of Education and the Ford Foundation. The first class of 1,000 students enrolled in September 1971. Initiator is Professor Samuel Baskin, who envisions a program confined mainly to the campuses of 20 co-operating institutions throughout the United States.

Within each of these institutions, 40 to 100 interested students will pursue a distinct academic program with guidelines established by the University Without Walls, a kind of interlocking academic corporation. Part of the time students may take conventional courses on their own college campuses or move about to one of the co-operating institutions. It is also planned that students will serve supervised training periods in businesses, hospitals and museums, or study independently with the help of reading lists.

Professor Baskin rejects the traditional concept of college education with its exclusive stress on single-campus residency, classroom lectures and narrow departmental specialization. He thinks of "the faculty" as including experts and talented individuals from the "outside world"-artists, businessmen, musicians and government officials.

The State University of New York (SUNY) opened its own university without walls in 1971-Empire State University. Eventually it plans to open 18 units in other parts of the state.

The U.S. Office of Education is giving major emphasis to the refashioning of curricula to include careers for computer programmers and technicians, laser technicians and jet mechanics. For health occupations there are courses to qualify persons as laboratory technologists, dental assistants and occupational therapists.

Among the many experiments in career education is a prototype program in Seattle, Washington, which offers occupational information to students at all grade levels from kindergarten through secondary school and integrates career materials into every subject of the curriculum. In contrast, in the State of Maryland, not far from the U.S. capital, a classroom-on-wheels brings specialized instructional material and workshops to secondary schools in six counties.

Called "Jobmobiles," the vans are filled with desks, typewriters, adding machines, cash registers, automobile spark plugs and other parts, film projectors and sound equipment. These 12-meter trailers provide for the teaching of short-term (five-week) courses in typing, auto tune-up and merchandising,

thus training students for possible jobs in department and grocery stores, pharmacies and garages.

Vocational education-or career education, as it is now preferably called-is also receiving critical attention. Vocational education has always been the stepchild of an educational process that has concentrated on preparation for academic, college-level work, even though statistics show that eight out of 10 secondary students should be getting occupational training of some sort. Speaking about the "generalized failure of our public system of education to equip our people to get and hold decent jobs," Sidney P. Marland, Jr., former Assistant Secretary of Education, told a meeting of secondary-school principals: "It is terribly important to teach a youngster the skills he needs to live, whether we call them academic or vocational, whether he intends to make his living with a wrench or a slide rule .... But it is critically important to equip that youngster to live his life as a fulfilled human being."

Of the many studies on education which have appeared in recent years, one especially commands the attention of both academicians and laymen. It is the "Report on Higher Education" by a special committee appointed by the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and released in March 1971. The education editor of Saturday Review magazine calls it a "fresh and realistic perspective on a crucial area of national life." The recommendations of this report cover virtually every aspect of higher education, from the development of new and radically different institutions to achieving fully equal opportunities for women. But the focus of the study is on means by which institutions can be shaped to serve the needs of individuals more effectively.

Concern for the education of each individual as an individual dominates both the pragmatic experimental approaches and the philosophical discussions of the day. Proposals for how this individualizing can best be done come from the extremes of left liberalism and right traditionalism.

Current spokesman for the view that what society needs is less formal schooling is Ivan Illich, a Roman Catholic priest who has resigned from his clerical functions. He preaches his thesis from a "free university" in Cuernavaca, Mexico, called the Center for Intercultural Documentation. He is convinced that faith in formal schooling is misplaced.

His book, Deschooling Society, challenges the assumption that school learning certified by diplomas is the best preparation for worthwhile life and work.

Mortimer Smith, executive director of the

Council for Basic Education, challenges what he refers to as Illich's "life-adjustment approach." Throughout its 16-year history, the council has argued that the school's primary task is the training of the mind. It has stressed the critical importance of better reading instruction. Its strenuous campaigning has led to the increasingly accepted concept of "accountability" by the schools. In the council's educational bulletin, Smith has written: "The school is the one institution charged by society with the intellectual development ofthe child.

If its resources in time, money and personnel are diverted in any substantial degree to functions belonging to other agencies of society, it is bound to fail in its main purpose." Most teachers' and educators' views seem to fall somewhere between the polarity of views expressed by IIIich and Smith.

Probably the most comprehensive look at American education is contained in the book, Crisis in the Classroom, by Charles E. Silberman. It is the result of a three-and-ahalf-year study commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation. Silberman declares in his foreword that the crisis in the classroom-including the national "classroom" created by the mass media-"is both a reflection of and a contributor to the larger crisis of American society." He paints a confusing and often disturbing picture.

Still, it may be in this very confusion that an eminent observer of the American scene sees hope. In his book, Without Marx or Jesus: The New American Revolution Has Begun) French philosopher Jean-Fran<;ois Revel points to what he calls the "genius of American reform." He seems to perceive what Americans, in the midst of their educational ferment and frustrated by it, may not. It is a confusion that Revel suggests is "exactly what characterizes the specific nature of the American revolution." Revel believes that "the profound changes that transform American society can take place without wrecking its institutions-or at least it is a condition for success that the changes do not wreck them."

If Revel's insight is as acute as that of his compatriot, Alexis de Tocqueville, a politician and writer who made a study mission to the United States and wrote so understandingly of the young nation more than 100 years ago, then the educational ferment today is but one part of a wide, ongoing social evolution toward a better, more meaningfullife.

D About the Author: Frances Richardson, who is a free-lance writer, has specialized ill depth-reporting on new developments in American education.

'HERE COMES MYSCHOOLI' When children in America's rural areas live too far from a school, the classroom may come to them. A unique mobile school (photo at top) equipped with the latest teaching devices brings education to the doorsteps of isolated Appalachian Mountain communities in the eastern United States. Judging from the photographs at right, the youngsters love their school-on-wheels.

Top: Teacher Beth Miller (inset) drives the mobile school to a remote mountain community. Above right: Boy uses puppet to tell a story. Right: Little girls dance with teacher inside the mobile school.

Far right: Eager-eyed children at story time.

-Beth

Miller begins her day like the average schoolteacher in America: She rises early, eats breakfast, gets dressed and walks down her front steps, ready to face the day. But here's where the similarity ends.

For Mrs. Miller is a not-so-average teacher after all. Instead of walking to her car to drive to school, Beth Miller walks to her well-equipped "schoolhouse truck," climbs into the cab and drives the school to the children.

Mrs. Miller is one of many teachers involved in an exciting new way of teaching kindergarten children-ages three to fivein isolated Appalachian Mountain communities of the eastern United States. This method, devised by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory (AEL), reverses the traditional direction of education by taking the teaching facilities-which include daily television lessons and a mobile schoolhouse-to the children in or near their homes. As a result, Beth Miller must not only have the teaching certificate needed by all kindergarten teachers, but also must know how to drive a six-ton, nine-meter truck.

Preschool education has always presented something of a problem for America, but the near-crisis situation that existed in Appalachia some seven years ago had to be met. The roads are nearly impassable in this part of the country during the winter months when school is in session and one to two meters of snow can fall at a time. The population is so scattered that the children must often travel many miles to school-and when the weather is bad, the hour or so usually spent getting there turns into three or four hours. "Preschool youngsters simply couldn't travel several hours a day under such conditions," says Dr. Roy Alford, co-ordinator of this special nursery school program since its inception in 1967.

Studies have shown that the key learning years in a child's life are from ages three to six. Believing firmly in the importance of early learning, the AEL, funded by the U.S. Federal Government, began investigating ways to provide education for preschool children in these remote areas, taking into consideration such problems as the shortage of tax revenue, dispersed population, and the isolation imposed by geography and rugged terrain.

Researchers learned right away one very important fact in their attempt to find a solution: The parents of these youngsters very much wanted their children to attend kindergarten and were willing to help the laboratory as much as possible. A second factor soon assumed importance: 90 per cent of the families in the region owned television sets.

Now, the attempt to bring education to the preschoolers of Appalachia began to take shape. A television program geared to this age group would be ideal, the researchers felt. But some kind of guidance was needed to make sure the youngsters understood what was being presented on TV. And what about another fundamental, the opportunity for social growth provided by actual classroom experiences in which children learn to play and work together, follow rules in playing games and make new friends?

All of this, educators feel, is as much a part of a youngster's development as learning to read and write.

The laboratory's innovative solution to these problems: a once-a-week home visitor and a traveling schoolhouse that, along with TV lessons, offer rural youngsters a complete program of preschool education.

Still in the experimental stage, the program was tried out on a sample of 450 children. Of these, ISO-ranging in age from three to five-took part in all three phases of the pilot program.

Another 150 preschoolers were chosen just to watch the TV program and receive home visitation, and the others were enrolled

in the televised part only. A smaller group of youngsters, not taking part in any aspect of the program, was also observed. In this way each component could be evaluated separately and the progress of children in every phase compared with that of nonparticipating children. On follow-up tests, youngsters who had taken part in the full program-classroom sessions, home visits and TV teaching-scored higher than other boys and girls.

The program proved so effective that today more than 100,000 youngsters in five different states in the Appalachian Mountain region benefit from this unique educational plan. Moreover, its promoters point out, this form of preschool learning can be instituted anywhere, not only in areas of rough terrain but in crowded cities like Chicago or New York. Since the program requires fewer professionals-one teacher can do the work of seven in a conventionally operated system-it also costs less. Already, some

47 American states and four foreign countries have asked for information on the project.

Television, which plays a key role in many facets of American living, from medicine to space travel, has really come into its own in the field of education. "Around the Bend," the TV program seen five days a week, is the basic link in AEL's interrelated threepart method of education. The program's hostess, a certified preschool teacher, uses a very simple format in getting across concepts that children of this age should be developing. She encourages her young viewers to sing songs with her, "read" books, write letters and numbers and do simple handicraft. Each day's program has a theme, which is emphasized in stories and songs.

Through the medium of television, rural youngsters are introduced to new ideas and experiences. Says the mother of one five-yearold student: "David saw things on the TV show that he might

Left: Child watches educational TV program which is later discussed by a teaching assistant (With kids at far left). Such assistants are usually neighbors. who work part time for mobile schools.

Below: With the aid of little finger puppets, a teaching assistant tutors a child in arithmetic.

not have known about for years. Using his imagination, he went on a train trip and explored the inside of a brand new fire engine and police car."

Putting the TV programs into perspective and helping to interpret the unfamiliar is the home visitor, usually a neighbor or someone from the community who has been trained by AEL. This paraprofessional talks to each child individually (in some homes there may be two or three children in the preschool-age range) to get his reactions to the TV programs, and to his mother for more detailed comments. Changes in such things as the way a child sits in a chair, expresses himself or listens as the home visitor talks can often be revealing. Frequently children who at first experience difficulty speaking and making themselves understood learn to become articulate after participating in this project.

Each week, the home visitor brings the mother the material the child will use during the coming week and also instructs her as to what she should look out for or help the child with. Inexpensive items used in conjunction with the TV programs, such as buttons, coffee cans or cereal boxes, are usually provided by the mother. "Quite frankly," says Alford, "we have been amazed at the wholehearted co-operation received. Fathers, too, are showing interest and pride in their children's weekly progress. It's turning into a family educational project."

On Friday afternoons, the preschool population of Jumping Branch, West Virginia, a tiny community in the southern part of the state, is all aflutter. "Hurry, 'M~m,'" shouts an excited fouryear-old. "Here comes my schoo!!" He is right; this is mobile classroom day for his community. Children from within a threekilometer radius converge to attend a two-hour kindergarten session. The big van, converted into a well-equipped classroom and driven by either the teacher or an aide, is a wonder to behold: It is literally a school on wheels. It offers the preschoolers everything that can be found in a conventional kindergarten-books, phonograph records, games, educational toys, puzzles, puppets, film strips, bulletin boards and blackboards-in short, a provocative learning environment. The schoolhouse even has a refrigerator, stove and bathroom. One mother describes her child's reaction to the traveling kindergarten experience this way: "My little girl can't wait to go to the classroom, and then she doesn't want to go home. It's as if she's hungry and can't get enough to eat."

The traveling classroom is in many ways much more convenient than a traditional kindergarten room. Not only is it heated, but it also contains a television set, tape recorder and player with multiple headphones, small organ and chairs and tables built especially to accommodate a maximum of 15 youngsters per session. The activities in the mobile classroom are correlated with the television program, "Around the Bend."

This pioneering way of teaching preschoolers has brought rich dividends, demonstrating that kindergarten can be fun for children and educationally constructive at the same time. It has meant a new world for the youngsters of the Appalachian region.

Those participating in the program were found to be more outgoing and self-sufficient than those not taking part, and they consistently scored higher in tests of psycholinguistic ability, picture vocabulary and visual perception.

Children who were once isolated from social influences outside the home have been helped to develop basic skills and social behavior through games, exercises, toys and simple handicrafts.

Seasoned by this adventure in learning, they are equipped to enter their first year of elementary school on an equal footing with city children-ready to continue in what has become for them an exciting quest for knowledge.

0

Disconcerted by the questioning attitude of his students, an Indian professor learns to accept their criticism, even comes round to allowing 'the fullest possible play for disagreement and discussion.'

In Indian

~eJlCbAes Iqc1i!h, In merlca

A few yea" ago, when I fi"t landed United States on a cold winter morning to teach British literature at Elmira College in Elmira, New York, little did I realize that I was making an exciting voyage into a new world of creative teaching. The passage from the soporific climate of Hyderabad to the energizing winter of New York (with the mercury sinking to -37°C. and the wind gusting at 30 kilometers per hour) presaged an awakening to new potentialities.

At the airport a tall, handsome American in his early 50s emerged from the enveloping mist to greet me with a warm handshake. I was reeling under the weight of three overstuffed handbags and a woolen overcoat.

"Welcome to Elmira, Professor Kumar.

I'm Keith McKean," he said, taking one of the handbags off my shoulders.

"Thank you," I said, looking closely at the chairman of the Division of Languages and Literature, with whom I had earlier corresponded about my courses. "Very kind of you to take the trouble of coming to the airport."

"Not at all. It's a pleasure. We are delighted to have you with us at Elmira." As we moved toward the baggage counter, he added: "Incidentally, there has been a scramble for your Shakespeare and Lawrence coursesand you seem to have bagged all the goodlookers, too. Though I could still maneuver to save up something for my course on poor Melville."

At the baggage counter he grabbed one of my heavy suitcases, in spite of my protests, and hustled forward to his Impala parked outside the terminal. I was charmed by his warm courtesy and solicitude.

After tucking away my baggage in the trunk, he swung around to usher me gently into the front seat. "Call me Keith-just that -if you please," he said.

"And my name is Shiv," I replied, almost clipping off the last monosyllable, my lips still benumbed with the freezing cold. But as

by SHIV K. KUMAR

----------------he turned on the heat in his multigadgeted automobile, my tongue loosened up a bit.

"Lord Shiva, you know, is the Hindu Trinity.

He's the Lord of Preservation, Destruction and Creation. I prefer though to play the last role only."

"Delighted to meet a real Hindu god." He laughed. "And let me assure you that there'll be no impediments to your creativity at Elmira. You know you're teaching only thrice a week, and the rest of the time is all yours to do anything you like-read, write, move around, do yoga or transcendental meditation .... And as for the exams, term papers and student counseling, please feel free to organize yourself in any way you like."

I was assigned a classroom in the main teaching block, and dutifully I started off with straight formal lecturing in the true British style. Whenever a hand was raised to ask a question, I would let my professional petulance come down heavily with a snappy answer to shut out any further interruptions.

How dare anyone hold up the even continuum of my pontifical discourse?

And then one day something happened. It was a clear sunny morning and Janet, one of my irrepressibles, proposed an outdoor session near the campus pool. Before I could make up my mind, almost all my students had scrambled to their feet. Once out on the lawn, a sort of transcendental change came over everyone, including myself. In the free atmosphere, my students just took over. It was Janet again, launching a frontal attack on my critical stance. I had been lecturing on the opening scene of King Lear, expounding the conventional point of view-Lear's naive stupidity in asking his three daughters precisely how much each loved him. Cordelia,

emecgcd "' ilie lncamation of truth and uncompromising integrity.

"That woman, Professor: Isn't she really a little prig-self-complacent, conceited, rude and un-understanding."

"All that Lear wanted to hear," interrupted another student, "was a word of love and affection. And look, how your Cordelia digs into her poor old father: 'I cannot heave My heart into my mouth .... ' A mouthful of self-righteous pietism, for sure!"

By now everyone had joined in the animated discussion. The class was running itself, and there I sat mutely, watching the young faces glow with a strange upsurge of vitality. I was intrigued by their total involvement. They were obviously trying to relate literature to life, assess one in terms of the other, supremely unconditioned by the traditional Shakespeare scholarship.

This was my first encounter with the American system of education. When the term papers came in for grading, I found them all fresh and daring. There was a provocative multiplicity of points of view. So deeply moved was I by this intensely subjective and imaginative approach to literature that I wrote a poem titled "Lear to Cordelia."

It was, in fact, a tribute to my class of 1963.

Denuded of word or gesture the flower may sear into papier-mache.

Come, my dearest, feign some movement of the soul beyond the empiric point.

I know how much I may claim.

And yet this witless urge to scrape diapason out of dead oyster-shells.

My students responded warmly to this poem by remarking, "Why don't you just write poems on Shakespearean themes?"

And I knew they would have liked to add, "instead of pouring out your ponderous discourses."

My experiences on other campusesHarvard, Yale, Marshall, Minnesota, Northern Iowa, Drake and Hofstra-have reinforced my belief that, for the young American university student, instruction is a confrontation between himself and the subject, with the teacher acting only as a catalytic agent.

Not for him the trappings of academic rhetoric. He must test all insights on the pulse of his own experience.

To bring literature closer to actuality, the American instructor is increasingly relying on audio-visual aids in the classroom. Every college and university has a large collection of recordings, tapes and films-all carefully classified and catalogued. For instance, a course in contemporary British and American poetry may include recorded readings from T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, Robert Lowell and Allen Ginsberg, while a teacher of Elizabethan drama may play recordings of Richard Burton or John Gielgud, or break up his formal class into a playreading session, to ¡make his students participate in the experience of Hamlet or Dr. Faustus.

Nor is teaching confined to the classroom only; it usually spills over into the instructor's office. Every teacher is required to announce his "office hours" during which the student may drop in to discuss any academic problem.

These meetings often usually lead to warm, enduring personal relationships, since it is only in an intimate and cordial atmosphere that a student may reveal his inner self.

Although each semester is rounded off with a written test, this is not the only criterion for judging the academic attainments of a scholar.

Since it is the instructor who designs his course, chooses his texts, and sets the tone of his teaching, it is he who decides how to work out his grades. He may, for instance, give more credit to term papers, or participation in classroom discussions, and attach to the written test only peripheral importance.

But whatever the place assigned to the formal written examination in the over-all assessment, it is invariably designed to discourage cramming and test the student's inherent capacity for independent thinking and lucid exposition.

How are these formal written exams conducted? On many campuses an instructor does not police the examinees, who are left entirely to themselves, without any invigilator ..

The student is free to take the test in any manner he likes. He may go out of the examination room to stretch out on the

lawn, sprawl along a corridor, cuddle up on an isolated bench or even perch on a window.

Every form of freedom is allowed so long as the examination is taken with a sense of moral integrity and responsibility. How could any kind of cheating be possible in such circumstances? The e~aminee seems to come to terms with himself in the silence and privacy of his soul. The instructor may walk in only after the test is over to pick up the answer-books, or he may even ask one of the examinees to collect these papers and drop them in his departmental mailbox.

What is the average American student's capacity for work? How does he manage to concentrate when he is frequently seen lying on the campus lawns with an open book before him, but apparently looking at everything around him? His extracurricular interests such as baseball, movies and dating seem to be many and time-consuming. When does he get down to real work? These questions teased me during my first visit to the U.S. But soon I discovered that the young American student knows instinctively how to maintain the balance between play and work.

Particularly before the exams, a somber determination descends upon him as he gathers himself up to face the imminent ordeal. One of my favorite pastimes was prowling around the campus a few days before the final tests, and watching the young faces lost deep in study and contemplation with a sense of dedication akin to that of a yogi.

"Don't judge unless you are also willing to be judged," seems to be the attitude of every American teacher. My first experience of students' evaluation of the faculty was at Marshall University. Curious to know how my students had reacted to my teaching, I agreed to face their inquisition. Some of the comments that emerged from this evaluation were not too palatable. "He doesn't encourage much disagreement. . . . Is somewhat stiff and formal in his attitudes .... " Although I came out with a reasonable overall rating, such remarks hurt my professional ego. Was this attitude motivated by any kind of prejudice or malice? But I had always been received with great respect and affection. After deep soul-searching, I decided to change my professional attitudes rather than quarrel with what was obviously an honest judgment of my classroom performance.

With this resolve, I faced my next assignment at New York's Hofstra University, where a small group of graduate students wanted to do Keats and American fiction with me. This time I listened more than I talked, and allowed the fullest possible play for disagreement and discussion. When the

students' verdict came in, I felt flattered at having earned a most coveted grade"outstanding. " How is the faculty assessed? The students prepare an elaborate questionnaire, with questions covering everything from the instructor's personality to his professional competence. Each student is required to fill in this pro forma, and the data is then fed into a computer which rattles off a neatly organized chart, furnishing each instructor's over-all rating, his strong points and his shortcomings.

In sum, the game of learning and teaching played on American campuses is played in a spirit of freedom, integrity and boldness.

But was everything perfect on the American academic scene? I do not wish to imply that. There were times when I felt nostalgic for my Indian students whose affection could be very warm, deep and enduring. The American student, on the other hand, may be gracious and polite to his instructor, but once he moves on to another course, another campus, he shakes off his earlier commitments. Then there is the drug menace. In an endeavor to seek release from their personal neuroses, some American students take marijuana, LSD, and other drugs. Most of these misguided students, however, are now gradually returning to health and sanity through their growing interest in spiritual exercise-transcendental meditation, Zen Buddhism, the Hare Krishna Movement or the Jesus Movement.

To a foreign observer, it would seem that American education invites each individual to realize his own destiny with the full power and freedom of his soul even if this tempts him occasionally into the dark by-lanes of doubt, negation and revolt. In a sense, Emerson's prophecy, in his famous Phi Beta Kappa address to Harvard College 130 years ago, has come true: "Free should the scholar be-free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, 'without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution.' " 0 About the Author: Dr. Shiv K. Kumar, who has visited the U.S. seven times, is dean of the Faculty of Arts and head of the English Department at Osmania University, Hyderabad.

Author of four books, he has published many articles and poems in Indian and

boJ.v.'~'~

~m.aga'in".

SPAN NOVEMBER

1974

17

A UNIVERSITY WITHO WALLS Minnesota's new Metropolitan State College has no campus, holds no regular classes, gives no grades, requires no previous schooling for admission. A freewheeling alternative to the rigidities of traditional universities, it offers its students merely a good education and a bachelor's degree.

The director of information services at the new Minnesota Metropolitan State College (MMSC) recently received a letter from a woman requesting that a catalogue listing the college's classes be sent to her. At practically any other college this rather common request would be handled routinely. But not at MMSC. MMSC could not fill the request because it had no catalogue to send. Nor does it have regular classes or a laid-out campus or a tenured faculty. Yet without the trappings and trimmings that one normally associates with a college, MMSC offers a full education leading to a bachelor's degree.

The MMSC version of a "campus" encompasses the entire seven-county area around the neighboring northern cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and all the resources of these cities and their environs-people, buildings, institutions-go into making up this most unusual educational undertaking. The student body

is also one with the community: Ninety-six per cent of the students live in the metropolitan area.

Most of the MMSC faculty work full time in business, industry or government; some have never attended college and hold no degrees. Teachers are not recruited for their academic backgrounds, but rather for their proficiency in a particular craft or profession. Likewise, students receive no grades and degrees are granted not on the basis of credit hours passed, but upon demonstrated competencies.

MMSC began operations in February 1972 and is probably the newest school trying what is known as the "external degree" program, or the "University Without Walls." The idea is to provide off-campus independent study and internship degree programs for persons whose backgrounds and experiences and competencies can be counted as academic credits. The MMSC approach offers new roads to learning to students who have become disaffected by traditional education or to those older individuals who find themselves unable to benefit from it.

The external degree programs, in addition to the educational opportunities they open to many who otherwise would never even consider continuing their learning, are cost-savers. Students avoid room and board and transportation expenses as well as laboratory and activity fees. A college implementing such a program would not need to expand its physical facilities or, as in the case of MMSC, even establish any.

Funded by the Minnesota State Legislature, with a $150,000' grant from the U.S. Office of Education, MMSC now serves more than 500 students and is adding more at a rate of about 100 each month. Just-about everyone enrolled is seeking a degree. Each student determines what for him or her is a meaningful series of learning experiences and then plunges in.

The external degree approach may sound too idealized for some tastes and in fact may be too unstructured for some students.

But that didn't come about by accident, and at MMSC it works.

Says the energetic 40-year-old president of the college, David Sweet, "We feel the best architect for a person's education is that person himself. In effect we say to our students, 'It's your life; it's your education. What are you going to make of them?' " And at MMSC, he adds, the students are managing nicely, though it must be acknowledged that they do not fit the picture of the average collegian. For one thing, they are ready for upper division college training by the time they enroll. Many are transfers from two-year junior colleges or vocational-technical institutes. All must be at least 21. Tnpractice the average age is 33, with half of them over 30 and 26 per cent over 40. The oldest student is 69.

Some students are already established in business or politics; others are housewives, middle-echelon executives, cab drivers and policemen. Nearly all have full-time jobs, though many have been passed over for promotion because they lacked a degree. Few of these people could afford to take time off to return to ordinary classroom study.

If a person's background or experience merits what the school calls "equivalency," or experience equal to formal study, he or she is signed on without regard to previous schooling. One middleaged woman was admitted in part on the basis of a volume of poetry she had written. Nor is it required that the applicant's background have an academic air about it. One student-an auto mechanic-was judged to be appropriately prepared to work toward a degree that might help him achieve his goal of becoming an officer in his union.

Others. like Dick Mayer, have been studying at the college

'We don't ask students what they want out of education. We ask them to think about what they want out of life. Ultimately they understand that life and education are not separate entities.' level but have run into procedural hang-ups that commonly afflict conventional colleges. Mayer, who is in charge of continuing education for a large corporation in Minneapolis, had been attending extension and night classes at such an institution since 1957 in an attempt to graduate in business administration. But officials there would not recognize for degree credit a number of courses he had taken outside its jurisdiction, nor would they allow him creclit for his regular job experience. Moreover, he didn't want to take certain required courses that seemed to him irrelevant to his job. So he abandoned traditional education, enrolled at MMSC, mapped out a plan and now expects to graduate soon.

Mayer is fairly typical of students at MMSC who, instead of being told by the college what to do, tell the school what they wish to learn and accomplish. With the help of an adviser they are able to map out their own individual routes to the degrees they seek. Depending on previous college work or the amount of time they can devote to their projects, some students could conceivably graduate in six months. For others, five years or more may be necessary. However, the total tuition fee 0[$650 is payable only once, and upon payment the student is enrolled for as long as it takes him to complete his plan, which the college refers to as an "educational pact."

For his fee a student is entitled to 30 study-unit "shares" or subcontracts. These are agreements he signs for each "course" or learning experience. Study-unit shares might be loosely compared to the traditional "semester hours."

way. At least that's been our experience so far."

When a student completes a contract, another committee assesses the level of his performance. If acquired competencies measure at or near the level of the stipulated goals, the student can be graduated immediately. If not, the student-faculty committee spells out the shortcomings and calls upon the student for further work in areas where he is weak.

The "everywhere" college in which this novel approach takes place has its administrative offices above a drugstore in downtown St. Paul. As with most institutions offering external programs, there are no semesters or quarters at MMSC. Students are admitted year round.

There are now 20 faculty members at MMSC, and about a dozen of them at any given time devote all or nearly all their time to administrative matters. Thus most of the teaching is done by members of "the community faculty" -area residents with special skills or expertise-who now number more than 300. Some of these teachers possess no academic credentials whatsoever, a situation that MMSC's Dr. Piers Lewis, a Harvard graduate, finds unremarkable. "Absence of a degree isn't important," he says. "We like to use the professional practitioner. If a student wants to become a detective, let him get acquainted with a real detective on our community faculty. If he wants to learn about computers, we get a computer expert to work with him. We've succeeded in breaking the academic monopoly on teaching here.

Our theory is quite simple: Somebody knows something that somebody else wants to learn."

The relationship is not, however, a hand-holding operation. A fter gaining admission to MMSC, the student is assigned to young man interested in the community relations aspect of police an orientation group, which may turn out to be the only work may put in a three-month internship at a neighborhood formally organized class encountered during his or her period of drop-in center and learn the ropes from the people engaged in enrollment. "What we try to do in orientation," says Catherine that kind of work. A young woman may be interested in law Warrick, dean of learning development, "is to teach students how enforcement not as a career but as an aspect of how local govto learn. We stress goal-setting and task analysis so they will be ernment agencies perform. Such a student may spend several able to begin thinking about how they will structure their edu- week-ends riding in squad cars, observing officers in day-to-day operation. cation. If education is to be ongoing and serve people throughout In both these examples the students studying law enforcement their lives, they have to learn how to find answers to problemswould be expected to do independent reading, to interview auwhere to look them up, people who might know and so forth."

During the orientation period the students develop their con- thorities or those working in the field, perhaps to conduct an opinion survey-anything that might help them grasp the fundatracts-written statements of goals and how these will be attained.

A joint student-faculty committee must review the pact generally mentals of the study they have undertaken.

Behind all this, and implicit in the college's philosophy, is a before the student begins work. Most faculty members feel confident that general agreement exists on what constitutes a bac- down-to-earth pragmatism: Education should lead the student calaureate effort. Students who might try to find an easy way out to a productive role within the community. President Sweet says: would be confronted by student committee members who also "We try to help students appreciate the realities of the world as evaluate the pacts and who could be counted on to ask, "Is this they will find it and to equip them to function in that world. To us all you expect to do? Do you think you should get a degree this means that they must be able to obtain and hold a job."

The business of initiating an independent pursuit-of bearing for this?"

Such a situation has not yet arisen, and members of the faculty the responsibility for designing and carrying out a learning prodoubt that it ever will. As one put it, "Our students seem to gram-produces both pain and pride. Although educators would understand what a degree is worth. They often subject themselves contend that a degree program the student plans himself inevitato demands that no ordinary college would attempt to impose. bly lacks discipline, the students at MMSC vigorously disagree.

"The toughest thing I had to face," said one student, "was Since they know they're responsible for the end result of their education, they want to make sure they aren't cheated along the when my adviser said, 'Okay, you're on your own.' Planning the

A

program was probably the most difficult thing I ever did, and getting over that hurdle was a real accomplishment." Similar comments are heard over and over.

Older, more experienced students seem to find the planning stage a bit easier. For example, Leonard Lerberg, a counselor at a veterans' hospital, says, "I'd had the advantage of more than 30 years of adult experience in the everyday world. I knew what I wanted to accomplish, and I think I knew what my educational needs were. But a younger person may not be able to state his aims, at least not without considerable soul-searching."

Like Lerberg, most MMSC students have been away from school a number of years, a situation Sweet believes is often more helpful than harmful. "Most young people really haven't thought about what they want to do with their lives when they leave high school," he says. "For such youngsters and perhaps for others as well, higher education can mean a good deal more if it follows some exposure to the world of work."

"We don't ask students what they want out of education," says Susan Rydell, an educational psychologist and MMSC professor. "We ask them to think about what they want out oflife.

Ultimately they understand that life and education are not separate entities but are interrelated and ongoing."

T

o help students grasp that principle, MMSC established five areas of competency as essential for the educated person.

Each student must decide how he will achieve them. They are: basic learning and communication, civic involvement, vocational or professional competency, the wise uses of leisure and recreation, and personal growth and assessment.

Says George Ayers, assistant vice president at the college, "After a student comes to understand that the educational process is not a game in which the object is to outwit the professor, he becomes very serious about his objectives. In the U.S. it's axiomatic to equate a degree with competency. At MMSC we look first at competencies-the degree itself is secondary."

All degree-centered programs must come to grips with these five basic competencies. Many MMSC students have already achieved at least the minimum requirements in some of these areas before they enroll.

Phyllis Johnson is typical of many MMSC students. Her nearly 20 years of banking experience had won her a secure position, but she had no degree-and as a consequence, she said, "I had no real job mobility."

One of Mrs. Johnson's major undertakings at MMSC was a project carried out at a large corporation, where she spent many hours interviewing personnel managers and writing reports. In all, the project involved completing three separate study-unit contracts. Another unit was on investments, and that involved taking some traditional courses at the University of Minnesota.

"Some programs need structure," she says. "Like statistics, for example. It's pretty hard to get something like that on your own."

On the basis of her long experience in banking she was judged to have fulfilled the "vocational or professional competency" requirement. Her many years as a Girl Scout leader fulfilled the "civic involvement," and her active membership in a bridge club together with enrollment in a ballroom dancing course (both listed in her contract) helped her meet the "leisure and recreation" requirement.

To those who would question the latter requirement as frivolous, MMSC points to the widespread atrophy of intellect and spirit that occurs when people are suddenly confronted by large amounts offree time they don't know what to do with-a growing concern in a period of shorter work weeks and earlier retirement.

And perhaps of more immediate interest to the student at MMSC, Dean Warrick notes that survey findings show that people with a wide range of interests tend to have superior job records.

"Those who are only vocationally oriented," she says, "partiClllarly those in jobs that have considerable personal contact, such as human services, sales, personnel and so forth, are quickly exhausted. These jobs are personally taxing. The recreationally directed person proves to be more resilient, better able to bounce back after a tough period, because he or she can be refreshed by an outside interest, be it organic gardening or playing the cello."

Most students pursue work in public and business administration or in services such as counseling or social work. Specialized study in such a field as chemistry is not encouraged at MMSC because of the lack of laboratory facilities, but Dean Warrick believes that the school is sufficiently flexible that a student could in fact be trained as an industrial chemist at the bachelor's degree level. "It would have to be an intensive internship," she says, "perhaps at one of our local corporations that might have need for such a person."

As part of that flexibility, the crux of MMSC's success would appear to be its community faculty. Since these people are paid only according to the number of students requesting their services, they are not lured to teaching by money. Rather, they see themselves as good citizens who want to put something of value back into their communities by sharing their talents and experiences so that others may learn. And the students respond to this.

"I really dig working with a pro," says one student. "I'm sure the learning is richer. For instance, you tend to have more respect for a man who has published six books than a teacher of writing who never wrote anything except his thesis."

Among MMSC students, there are few reservations about not being on a conventional campus. "Unless you need a football team and fraternities to feel you're really in college," says a postal worker and MMSC student, "you're not missing anything."

Sidney P. Marland Jr., when he was Assistant Secretary of Education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, summed up the potential contributions of institutions such as MMSC: "We need new patterns in higher education, alternative methods and systems that will compete peacefully with traditional techniques, offering solutions to problems that defy conventional wisdom. This kind of student-designed-anddirected curriculum seems to me to be one of the very best answers to the problems of irrelevance and disinterest that plague so many of our more traditional institutions."

Such novel institutions of postsecondary education as MMSC obviously are not for everybody. But for students whose background is such that they feel alienated by conventional classrooms and administrative procedures that seem to function primarily as barriers to the achievement of personal goals, the external degree concept promises opportunities for advanced learning that no 0 traditional college can match.

About the Author: Michael W. Fedo, a/ree-lance writer, a/ten cOnlributes articles to such magazines as the Reader's Digest and Education Digest.

CREATIVITY IN EDUCATION

NEW SHAPES IN THE DUNES Standing on a mound of sand (right), it defies classification: 'Is it a shapeless form, or a formless shape?' 'An antenna!' 'But aren't those legs at the bottom?' 'It's uneartWy-a creature from another world.' 'Don't be silly. It must be someone holding an umbrella ... no, two umbrellas, only one's broken.'

'But it's not even raining.' 'Parasols then?' 'Modern sculpture -yes, a highly stylized tree!' Okay, just exactly what is it?

"It" is a California State Polytechnic College student who is carrying a dune tent made of cardboard, folded and accordioned. With his first-year design class, he had motored about 320 kilometers to test the semester's first big project. The class assignment: design shelters to form a community at Pismo Beach for a three-day camp-out by the Pacific Ocean.

The School of Environmental Design hoped to teach the students how to plan with nature, man and machine, while at the same time making them aware of the way in which a community functions.

The tents had to be collapsible and compact. Cardboard was chosen because it was cheap and it forced the students to design shapes that were self-supporting. Once the tents were up, the temporary town was in business. But living in harmony with nature, the students' primary objective, proved a difficult task. They had planned to use biodegradable materials, but almost none were available. They had wanted to recycle wastes, yet the paper company was all but indifferent when they returned their cardboard for recycling. They were to have experimented with

desalinating water and using solar energy for cooking, but both of these ideas proved impractical.

But if much went wrong, the designs themselves came off handsomely, astonishing the professors in charge of the project with their variety and ingenuity. Even more astounded were the vacationers at Pismo Beach who watched the ambitious burden-carriers build their new kind of community out of creativity and cardboard. What they saw was another example of the vitality and free spirit that 0 permeate American education today.

Dozens of cities and states all over the U.S. have set up bold new curricula in vocational schools to provide students with a greater variety of career options and instantly salable skills.

One noontime recently, as most students in the huge Atlanta (Georgia) Area Technical School lunched at their workbenches, David Farnum, 29, lovingly tended the scaled-down aircraft wing on which he had been working for nearly a month.

One of 125 students enrolled in Atlanta's aircraft mechanics course, Farnum attends classes until midafternoon every weekday, then works as a postal clerk until midnight, catching up on his homework and playing with

his toddler son whenever he can.

And even though he is unlikely to find employment in the aircraft industry when he graduates from Atlanta, Farnum is unworried; he is convinced that he has acquired enough practical skill in mechanics and welding to locate an interim job until the industry, now plagued by production cutbacks, starts hiring again. "Our students can always find something to fall back on," boasts Walt Pierce, who runs Atlanta's aviation program, "because our

program is actually 46 different courses wrapped into one."

Pierce can talk with that kind of assurance because the Atlanta school is specifically geared to producing instantly marketable skills. And if that seems a modest enough goal, it is nonetheless refreshingly new for United States vocational education. For though it has long been a routine part of the curriculum in almost every school system, vocational education traditionally has been dull and inadequate. For this and other reasons, vocational education has all too often failed to reach pupils who would benefit from sound job training. "Hundreds of thousands of pitifully incapable boys and girls who leave our secondary schools each

year ... have never seen the inside of a vocational classroom," says former Assistant Secretary of Education Sidney P. Marland, Jr. Educators and legislators alike have been aware of the inadequacies of vocational education for some time and have taken faltering steps toward solutions.

In 1963,the U.S. Congress passed a landmark Vocational Education Act and in 1968 added a host of substantive amendments to it.

Partly for that reason America's vocational enrollment has doubled since 1964, and total expenditures have increased eightfold.

But much remains to be done.

Often, the students in vocational programs are shunted into inferior buildings containing old equipment, where they are grudgingly taught skills that may already be obsolete. Hundreds of secondary-school vocational programs, in fact, are still primarily focused on traditional occupations with increasingly limited value in the job market-agriculture, manufacturing and homemaking. At the same time, such promising new career fields as the environmental sciences and health services are all but ignored.

The prospects for vocational education began to change sharply, however, in 1969 when the National Advisory Council on Vocational Education issued the first of five reports on the causes and cures of inadequate job training. Angrily condemning most existing programs as education "designed for somebody else's children," the council recommended vastly increased federal spending and bold new curricula that would provide more realistic job preparation and enlarge career options. Already many of these recommendations have become official policy of the U.S. Office of Education.

The burgeoning two-year college movement is becoming a keystone of the new approach to vocational education, and many of today's most effective programs can be found in such institutions as Oklahoma State Technical School in Okmulgee.

With more than 2,500 full-time students, Oklahoma Tech is the largest residential technical school in the nation. Its curriculum is distinguished not only by the I

sheer breadth of its 41 courses in 10 major fields but also by an incredible array of sophisticated equipment. In addition to such highly specialized subjects as diesel fuel injection, commercial art and boot and saddle making, Oklahoma Tech students also take a variety of general education courses. But as they pore intently over automobile transmissions and computer tapes, it is clear that what interests them most is mastering a salable trade.

More starkly utilitarian, the Atlanta Area Technical School requires of its 1,700 full-time and 4,000 evening students, including 800 Armed Forces veterans, neither secondary-school degrees nor nonvocational study. Students do not receive a diploma when they graduate, only a job-and it is up to their 125 "instructors to see to that. "There is no fooling around here," says 22-year-old Charles Beine, a former college student now taking a two-year course in electronics technology.

"If you work at it, you can get a better education here than in college. And it's more fun, too."

While Atlanta and Oklahoma Tech, as technical institutions, clearly have a jump on the vocational programs in most secondary schools, an increasing number of public school systems are working hard to catch up. In Quincy, Massachusetts, for example, a remarkably sophisticated cluster curriculum provides highly individualized instruction for more than 250 jobs in II different career programs. In Georgia's Cobb County school system, a comprehensive "career development program" begins at the elementary-school level and extends all the way through secondary school. "From the time they're in kindergarten," one school official says, "we want youngsters to be aware of job alternatives."

D Top: An aviation maintenance student inspects a helicopter.

Center: Students at work in an architectural drafting class. Right: Helped by an instructor, a trainee learns to dismantle and reassemble compressors in a course on refrigeration. Opposite page: An electronics student ponders the intricacies of television set he is repairing.

"Move over, bluejeans! Hello, everything!" That's the cry of fashionable students in the United States today, who wear anything and everything to express their own sense of individuality. College clothes may look wacky, but they're comfortable and fun-as this campus kaleidoscope demonstrates.

Above: This student may not have the world at her fingertips, but sbe does have a mountain range on the seat of ber jeans. Embellished or not, jeans are still a great favorite on any U.S. college campus.

Right: A plaid sweaterjacket with ribbed trim and short Oared skirt leaves tbis pretty coed with breezy knees, but she doesn't seem to care.

Opposite page, left: Weighted down with books and fur coat, a tall student walks to her class in knitted stretch pants and matching scoop-neck pullover. She wears an antique necklace over a white body-sbirt.

Far right, top: Fun-fur coats, made of synthetic fibers, are popular on campus-they are warm, durable and inexpensive.

Far right, center: Sweater vests are popular with students, especlaIIy if they have patterns and colors oftbe U.S. Bag. Far right, bottom: A short jacket wom over a wool sweater takes the place of bulky coats, makes cycling so much easier.

THEIDEAOFA COLLEGE "

Should the aim of higher education be vocational training? No, says one of the great educators of the 20th century, who contends that colleges should concentrate on developing the intellectual powers of understanding and judgment, 'to give the student the habits, ideas and techniques which he needs to continue to educate himself' all his life.

I should like to try to make clear what I mean by a college and a college education. This I shall have to do chiefly by saying what I do not mean. Educational discussion in America, like the discussion of everything else, is based on headlines. Hence it is possible for an educator who says he favors the abolition of football to be accused of being against health; if he says that the aim of a college is intellectual, the rumor will spread that he is against morals; if he says that he is against making the college either a vocational school or a place where the young are adjusted to their environment, he is charged with indifference to the fate of countless millions who have to make their own way in the world; if he says that he is for liberal education, the conclusion is that he is undemocratic. Yet a moment's reflection will show that none of the consequences assumed to follow from these positions actually does follow from them.

For example, big-time football, the symbol of the noneducational aspects of educational institutions, confuses the public mind about what education is and contains elements of injustice, hypocrisy, and fraud that run counter to the high ideals that Am~rican educational institutions profess. It is perfectly possible to be against football of this type and to b~ for health and exercise. As for me, I am for exercise, as long as I do not have to take any myself.

It is not the object of a college to make its students good, because the college cannot do it; if it tries to do it, it will fail; it will weaken the agencies that should be discharging this responsibility; and it will not discharge its own responsibility. It is possible to say this and still be for goodness. A college can make a highly important contribution to goodness by supplying the intellectual foundations of morality in an atmosphere conducive to the maintenance of good habits. But the family and the church have the main burden of inculcating these habits. I may say in passing that I am for the family and the church.

A college should not aim at vocational training, because going through that routine is too easy and lulls the conscience of a faculty that does not want to face the enormously difficult task of educating the young; because an educational institution cannot do a good job of vocational training; because the shifts in technology and the migration of workers may make such training at one time in one place useless at another time in another place; because jobs are easier and easier to do and require less and less training of any kind; and because the great problems of our time are the right use of leisure, the performance of the duties of citizenship, and the establishment of a community in the United States and the world, to none of which vocational training makes the slightest contribution.

I never tire of telling the story of that dean of Christ Church at Oxford who was asked by a student what was the use of studying Greek. The dean replied, "It is not only the immediate language of the Holy Ghost, but it leads to positions of great dignity and emolument." The study of Greek now leads only to positions in the teaching of Greek, which, though of great dignity, are not of great emolument. It was a mistake to seek to justify Greek on the ground of its vocational value, for that has now disappeared. And in a world of rapid change the same fate may at any moment overtake any subject that is taught because of the emoluments achieved by those who have studied it in the past. It is possible to say this and at the same time feel concern for the economic future of college graduates. The question is not whether it is necessary to learn how to earn a living, but where it is desirable to learn it. In general the way to learn how to do anything is to do it; and industry is the place in which the young should learn how to work in industry.

A college should not seek to adjust its students to their environment, because it cannot tell what their environment will be. It cannot predict where they will live, or what social,

This article, reprinted with permission from The Center Magazine, originally appeared in Measure, a quarterly published

by Henry Regnery in collaboration with the University of Chicago. It is reprinted here with the permission of Henry Regnery.

economic, or political conditions will prevail when they have reached maturity. The world is now changing so fast that current information has little value because it will not remain current. What the father knows of the facts of life is almost useless to his son. If the present demand for instruction in current events succeeds, it can lead only to one result: It will fill the students with miscellaneous dead facts.

The college that wishes to adjust its students to the environment is likely to teach facts miscellaneous in the highest degree, for adjustment to the environment may mean anything, from how and when to dress for dinner to how and when to vote for President.

And certainly our object must be not merely to prepare our students for any possible environment, but also to induce and prepare them to try to get a better one. To do this they must' chiefly have some standards of judgment, some idea of good and bad. If it is charged that the effort to prepare students to bring about a better environment will lead to a crop of maladjusted, neurotic youths, I reply that Socrates and Gandhi are worthy ideals for the rising generation, and that I have little fear that America will ever produce too many men of this type. The charge is in any case absurd, because I am urging nothing more than what is inherent in any democratic system, namely, that by the exercise of the intelligence of the population the community should struggle forward toward a better world. To struggle forward to a better world you have to know what kind of world would be better.

It is possible to say all this without being a reactionary, or a medievalist, or a theorist. In fact, if he will only think, the contemporary, practical, democrat will see that he cannot say anything else. The power we want our graduates to have is power in and over the unpredictable future.

The power the college is best equipped to help them gain is intellectual power. It is the power of understanding and judgment.

unions and the ambitions of parents have raised the schoolleaving age to heights undreamed of by our democratic ancestors. The policy of the United States is to the effect that schooling is a good thing, that being in school is better for everybody than being anywhere else, and that the more schooling everybody has the better everything will be. But the hordes of students let loose upon the educational system by reason of this policy, the difficulty of obtaining competent teachers to staff so vast an enterprise, and the great differences in the ability of pupils to get an education in any definition of it that our ancestors would recognize have led some of the most vocal advocates of democracy to propose, in the name of democracy, the most undemocratic educational ideas.

For example, we are urged in the name of democracy upon a course that divides the population into the mass and the elite. The mass, we are told, since they are not really capable of being educated, should not be allowed to clutter up existing educational institutions, because they are not bright enough. Two-year community colleges are established for them. They should go to these colleges because everybody should go to school as long as possible. But they should not be educated, because they are not capable of it.

The two-year community college is therefore a kind of waiting room, or housing project, in which the young are to be kept out of worse places until we are ready to have them go to work.

'Deeply convinced democrats ... most undemocratically assume that the mass of the people are incapable of achieving a liberal educationbut they have no evidence for this.'

* * * * *

The object of an educational system is to supply this power. It may, perhaps, do many other things that are interesting and useful; but it fails to the extent to which it fails to supply this power. Its contribution to the moral, physical, and spiritual natures of its students and to their "success" in the world are made by way of this power. No other agency in the community has the responsibility of supplying the intellectual power that the community requires. If the educational system does not discharge this responsibility, it will not be discharged.

In a democratic community every citizen should have as much power of understanding and judgment as he can develop, because every citizen has a voice in the management of the community. The progress, and even the safety, of a democratic community depends in part upon the intelligence of the citizens, and by this we cannot mean the intelligence of some citizens, but the combined intelligence of all. For this reason democrats since the earliest times have advocated universal free compulsory education.

In the last 50 years a remarkable reversal has taken place among democrats. They are still for universal free compulsory schooling. They seem to feel that it would be undemocratic not to be. At the same time the demands of labor

Perhaps we need waiting rooms or housing projeds for the young. Perhaps we need the mass equivalent of those girls' finishing schools of the last century in which young ladies were accommodated with genteel occupations in that difficult period between the time at which they reached physical maturity and the time at which they could get married. But it would be helpful if things were called by their right names. To call a waiting room or a housing project a college or an educational institution is to cheat the student and his parents and to confuse the public still further about what a college, or an educational institution, or an education is.

The doctrine that educational opportunity should be open to all is the great American contribution to the theory and practice of education. But you will notice that the opportunity that should be open to all is educational opportunity, not the opportunity to spend two years doing anything that occurs to you in a place erroneously denominated a college. The advocates of the two-year community college either keep silent altogether about what its curriculum is to be or say that it is to be whatever the students would like to have it. This is based on the hypothesis, which I regard

as wholly undemocratic, that these students cannot be educated, and therefore they might as well do anything they care to. It is assumed that their interests will be largely vocational and recreational. Hence those offerings of American universities which we have hitherto regarded as somewhat eccentric, offerings in embalming, cosmetology, and janitoring, would become the normal course of study in the community college.

Meanwhile it is supposed that those colleges and universities which now exist, freed of the burden of struggling with the vulgar mass, will go on educating the elite. It is suggested that the pre-existing colleges and universities will assist the community colleges by supplying them with teachers and administrators. This is of course fallacious, since the pre-existing colleges and universities are not prepared, and apparently do not intend to prepare, to turn out teachers of embalming, cosmetology, and janitoring.

If democracy is to work, every citizen must have the education that rulers ought to have. If we do not know how to give every citizen this education, we must find out how.

The choice before us is clear: Either we should abandon universal suffrage or we should give every citizen the education that is appropriate to free men. We cannot say that we are for democracy and at the same time protest the impossibility of preparing all the citizens to take their part in a democracy. In a democracy the people rule and are ruled in turn for the good life of the whole community. If democracy is to work, every citizen must have the education that rulers ought to have. If we do not know how to give every citizen this kind of education, we shall have to find out.

* * * * *

Liberal education is the education appropriate to free men. Since it originated at a time when only the few were rulers, it was originally an aristocratic education. Hence deeply convinced democrats assume that you cannot be a democrat and be for liberal education. They most undemocratically assume that the mass of the people are incapable of achieving a liberal education-but they have no evidence for this, because the mass of the people have never had an opportunity to achieve it. It is true that, as large numbers have come into the American educational system, education has deteriorated and liberal education has almost vanished.

But this is the result of the indolence and inattention of educators rather than the ignorance and incapacity of students.

To teach a boy who does not care about being educated how to read, write, figure, and understand the ideas that have animated mankind is hard; it is far easier to forget that he is going to be a citizen and set him to learning, or to think he is learning, a trade.

We must applaud the notion of education for all; but we must deny that this ideal is achieved by having everybody in school. Everything turns on what is done there. To the

extent to which the pupil is acquiring the power of understanding and judgment, to that extent he is being educated.

It is impossible that too many people can be educated in this sense. We hear a great deal today about the dangers that will come upon us through the frustration of educated people who have got educated in the expectation that education will get them a better job, and who then fail to get it.

But surely this depends on the representations that are made to the young about what education is. If we allow them to believe that education will get them better jobs and encourage them to get educated with this end in view, they are entitled to a sense of frustration if, when they have got the education, they do not get the jobs. But, if we say that they should be educated in order to be citizens, and that everybody, whether he is a ditch-digger or a bank president, should have this education because he is a citizen, then the ditch-digger may still feel frustrated, but not because of his education.

Nor is it possible for a person to have too much liberal education, because it is impossible to have too much understanding and judgment. But it is impossible to learn to understand and judge many important kinds of things in youth. The judgment and understanding of practical affairs can amount to little in the absence of experience with practical affairs. This indicates the limitations offormal, institutional, liberal education in youth. It indicates, in short, the limitations of a college. Subjects that cannot be understood without experience should not be taught to those who are without experience. Or, if these subjects are taught to those who are without experience, it should be clear that these subjects can be taught only by way of introduction and that their value to the student depends on his continuing to study them as he acquires experience. Such subjects as economics, ethics, politics, history, and literature may be studied by young people, but they cannot be comprehended by them. Young people may enjoy them and they may get something from them, particularly from literature and history; but they cannot understand them, because the full lessons of these disciplines can be grasped only in maturity.

The tragedy in the U.S. is that these subjects are studied in youth and never studied again. Therefore, our college graduates never understand them. Yet these are the subjects which in the present crisis the democratic citizen most urgently needs to understand.

The basic error is that of supposing that a college can give its students all the education they will ever need-that when they receive their degrees they are educated men and women and can stop worrying about getting educated. The effect of this on the college curriculum is to jam it with all kinds of courses representing the assumed needs of adults, without regard to whether or not a young person can comprehend them. A course in business, for example, is useless to a boy or girl who has never been in business. In the American tradition a businessman would never think of taking such a course; yet only to a businessman can such a course have value.

We are concerned here with the college and not with the education of adults; but we see that there is the most intimate relationship between the two. In fact the idea of a college depends upon our understanding this relationship.

If we say that education is a process that is to go on chiefly or exclusively in youth, then we are likely to say that the object of the college is, as the cant phrase has it, to prepare for life. If we say that education is a process that must go on through life, then the object of the college is to give the student those habits, ideas, and techniques which he needs to continue to educate himself. Then the object of the college is to prepare the student for more education. In view of the impossibility of understanding the most important subjects in youth, the attempt to do more than initiate the educational process in youth is bound to fail in the most important respects.

I have said that the great problems of our time are the right use of leisure, the performance of the duties of citizenship, and the establishment of a community in America and the world. The idea of a college that I have attempted to outline solves the problem of the use of our leisure by proposing that it should be used for the continuation of education in adult life. The idea of a college that I have outlined tries to solve the problem of the duties of citizenship by proposing that the college help its students to develop the intellectual powers of understanding and judgment insofar as it is possible to develop them in youth. I must now say a final word about the contribution of the college to the establishment of a community in the U.S. and the world.

'The great problems of our time are the right use of leisure, the performance of the duties of citizenship, and the establishment of a community in the United States and the world, to none of which vocational training makes the slightest contribution.'

The college should have a common curriculum, prescribed for all the students. The common prescribed curriculum is at least a partial answer to those who say that a large fraction of the population cannot achieve a liberal education and must be relegated, for this reason, to vocational training.

The elective system deprives the student of one of the greatest contributions that could be made to his education, namely, the contribution of his fellow students. Under a common prescribed course of study the education of the student proceeds through discussion with his fellow students throughout his waking hours; under the elective system it goes on only when he is in class, for it is an accident if he finds another student who is following the same program with whom he can discuss it. The disintegration of the course of study under the elective system, popularly called the "enrichment" of the curriculum, has impoverished the colleges by depriving them of any common intellectual life.

Extracurricular activities have achieved their exaggerated importance partly because the students have only these

activities in common. So an undergraduate of a great university wrote to the student newspaper and complained that the curriculum of his university had now reached such richness that one student could not talk to another unless they both happened to remember the score of last Saturday's football game.

The accomplishments of college students under a common prescribed course of study are amazing to those accustomed to the listless performance that is the normal reaction of the young to the dreary fragments of the elective system. The multiplication of the power of the student is such that those who have seen it are entitled to say that it is possible to give the whole population a liberal education.

We cannot hope to build a community, collegiate, national, or international, without understanding. Of course we may not have a community even if we do have understanding, for men may determine to shoot one another even if they do understand one another. We cannot hope for agreement on all the important issues of life. We must have faith, however, that understanding will minimize the areas of disagreement and moderate the passions of those who disagree. A common training that leads to a common understanding would appear to be the most promising foundation of a community of any kind. Hence our democratic ancestors established the common schools.

* * * * *

The advance of specialization in the last 75 years has brought with it great gains and great losses. The gains are more spectacular, but the losses are more important. The gains have come chiefly in our power over nature. The losses have come in our power to control ourselves and understand one another. Unfortunately we have recently discovered that we cannot be trusted to use our power over nature wisely unless we can control ourselves and understand one another. Specialized education has now reduced us all to the level of students who cannot talk together unless they both happen to remember the score of last Saturday's game. The human community has been split in a billion fragments, which the cults of nationalism, racism, or regionalism are constantly re-forming into more and more dangerous combinations.

Now at last we shall have to think. Now, if we have the power of understanding and judgment, we shall have to show it. Now we must have intelligent citizens who know how to rule and be ruled in turn for the good life of the whole community. Now we must apply ourselves to the task of creating a community in America and then throughout the world. The education that will help us toward these ends is liberal education, the education of free men. This education is the task of the college.

0 Aboutthe Author: Robert M. Hutchins,

75, one of America's most distinguished educators, was appointed dean of the Yale Law College at 29, president of the University of Chicago at 30 and its chancellor at 46. Perhaps he is most famous for originating the concept of a college education based on the Great Books of the Western World, a 54-volume compendium of Western culture containing 443 works by 74 authors from Homer to Freud, edited

by Hutchins himself, He has published scores of books and is now president of the Center for Democratic Institutions, and editor of The Center Magazine, from which this article is reprinted.

A TENNIS ROMANCE The king and the queen of tennis, Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert, are to wed this November-appropriately enough, they will emerge from church under a canopy of tennis rackets. Sports-loving Americans are sure this is one marriage made in heaven: Evert and Connors first met in 1972 at Wimbledon, which is more than heaven for tennis players.

Both won Wimbledon the same year, 1974-a rare event of high drama that should find place in a Hollywood script, except that no one would believe such a script.

The Evert family wanted the wedding in May. But Jim Connors's mother pointed out that Wimbledon time would then also be honeymoon time, "and no one wins Wimbledon on their honeymoon." Connors and Evert were determined, however, to be man and wife this year. "I want to be where Jimmy is," said Chris. "It is stupid to put it off." Connors agreed. "I've traveled around by myself for too long. I want to have Chris there, to talk to and be with me and to share."

Connors and Evert will not exactly be like the average newly wed couple. Their combined earnings last year amounted to $300,000, and might approach $500,000 this year. Evert makes $50,000 merely lending her name to a collection of women's tennis wear ensembles-provoking the nickname "Little Miss Moneybags." Evert wears a 2l-carat, $20,000 diamond on her engagement ring. Her engagement present for Connors was equally grand: a ring and bracelet set made of gold and

entwined black elephant hair.

The Evert-Connors romance is tennis proof that in marriage, opposites attract. Cool, pretty, well-mannered Chris has many friends and millions of fans and no foes-and has inspired such endearing appellations as "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Sweetheart of the Courts."

The mercurial Connors, on the other hand, has a reputation as a loner in the grand style who does not mix with other players off the courts and displays cockiness and dubious sportsmanship on it. (Connors says others' reaction to him reflects the tension of top tennis.

"One little item can tick off an explosion. It's murder-the concentration. My methods are just different from others. They don't bother me. Why should what I do bother them?")

Though temperamentally poles apart, Evert and Connors do have a few obvious things in common-a passion for tennis, a yen for big money, a determination to reach the top.

Whatever the reasons, their "vibrations" have been excellent.

After their first Wimbledon together in 1972, they have been constant companions.

They were often forced apart, however, by tennis travel. This resulted in new records for the number and duration of long-distance calls. At one time their combined telephone bills exceeded $10,000.

Both Evert and Connors have been big names in tennis for the past three years, and both of them peaked in 1974. Tennis experts predict that Americans will be talking about Jimmy and Chris for quite a few years more.

GREAT WAY TO RUN A RAILROAD Trains are back in business in America. The gasoline crisis that gripped the U.S. some months ago took many autos off the road, hit plane travel and sent passengers flocking to trains. Result: Up went the revenues of the governmentsubsidized Amtrak, officially known as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. Today,

although the energy crisis has eased, Amtrak has retained many of its customers. People have discovered anew the virtues of the train, and more and more Americans have discovered the delights of traveling on Amtrak, the "government railroad."

Speeding through the country with smart young male and female stewards attending to their comforts, passengers read, laze, gaze at the scenery or chat happily. An infinitely more civilized form of travel, they conclude, than the ulcerinducing rush of planes or the maddening traffic of autos.

The views from trains include some of America's most breathtaking sights. The Chicago-toSeattle express, the "Empire Builder," takes its passengers through Glacier National Park.

The "Hiawatha" skirts the legendary Yellowstone National Park. The "San Francisco Zephyr" winds its way through the snow-capped Colorado Rockies, the Great Salt Desert of Utah and the piney canyons of California's Sierra Mountains.

The "Coast Starlight" hugs the rocky Pacific shore for its run between San Diego and Seattle.

To meet with the surge in demand for seats, Amtrak has ordered new locomotives, renovated old stations, modernized rail tracks. A $450 million program approved earlier by the U.S. Congress was revised and a new $750 million program of capital improvements submitted. Some new coaches designed by Amtrak use typical airline ideas-such as adjustable leg rests and eating trays that drop from the backs of seats. Soon, there will be "bilevel" cars with 70 seats at the top and restrooms, luggage space and a lounge

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii:--'~

~ERICANS"I ~ ~RE TALKING" .\ ~BOUT~~~ ~~~~~iiiiiiiiiii~~\

below. Though Amtrak has standardized food and beverage operations all across its national network, it continues to offer specialties of a particular region.

In Florida trains, one can have deep-South country ham for breakfast. Rocky Mountain trout is the specialty on the Zephyr, and the Coast Starlight serves fresh salmon.

Amtrak has been increasing such attractions since its creation by the U.S. Congress in 1971, which ended the woes of America's insolvent private railroad companies. While Amtrak assumed responsibility for most intercity passenger travel, the private rail companies continued to own the track and to haul and repair trains, under a contract with Amtrak.

Amtrak does have its critics.

They say that though it has succeeded in rejuvenating passenger rail transport in America, which for years was insignificant compared to air and auto transport, Amtrak's performance needs improvement.

Trains run late, often without air conditioning, seats are oversold, and service isn't always prompt. Roger Lewis, chief executive of Amtrak, takes such criticism good-humoredly. "I'd feel an abject failure if there weren't any criticism of Amtrak .... If we have not offended, we haven't done anything." He points out that Amtrak has become "almost universally recognized as a permanent and growing entity," and that in the years to come it will be a well-extended rail passenger system, serving a lot more people than it does now. "Hell of a way to run a railroad," is an old American metaphorical expression of dismay and disgust at inefficiency in anything (not only in a railroad). Not many

would say it about Amtrak which-compared to what Americans were experiencing before 197I-is proving to be, indeed, "a great way to run a railroad."

THE VITAMIN CONTROVERSY They will prevent colds, cure schizophrenia and overcome impotence-among other things-according to their believers, who are legion in America. "They" are megavitamins, or vitamins taken in enormous doses, amounts much larger than doctors normally prescribe. "A whole new industry has grown up around megavitamins," says a New York Times article.

Whatever their health benefits, the value of vitamins as moneymakers has been well established. Sales have boomed.

Books about vitamins make the bestseller list more often than not. Says one salesman: "Vitamin E is the current rage.

One book extols it for vitality.

The other book recommends it for heart conditions. Both have been questioned. But the fact that books have been written on this vitamin is enough to cause a run on it."

Vitamin faddists are strongly backed by no less an authority than Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling. Dr. Pauling noticed an improved sense of well-being in himself after taking large doses of vitamin C over a period of many months. He then published a book titled Vitamin C and the Common Cold which delighted all vitamin lovers. Pauling wrote: "Vitamin C can improve the health of everyone. It may turn out to be the most valuable of all the substances that we can use in

our efforts to decrease the amount of human suffering caused by disease."

This wholehearted endorsement by a world-famous scientist is one cause of the nationwide fad for "megavitamin therapy" in general, and vitamin C megatherapy in particular. It is a fad that has left both physicians and pharmacists bewildered. All over America, people have been reporting positive responses to their own trials with vitamin C. One typical reaction: "I read books, tried the pills and they worked!"

Vitamin E pill-poppers also make strong claims for their favorite vitamin-that it cures diabetes, leg cramps, aching feet and impotence; and that it heals burns and wounds.

Dr. Pauling finds "some evidence" that "increased intake of vitamin E may be effective for preventing heart diseases."

Other authorities who back the vitamin E users are Dr. W.E. Shute, author of Vitamin E for Ailing and Healthy Hearts, and Adelle Davis, who contends that vitamin E helps cure heart ailments and a host of others as well-even cancer!

Critics of megavitamins, however, contend that claims about them are inflated. Some critics go further and say that excess doses of two well-known vitamins, A and D, might positively harm health. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has no doubts; it imposed limits on the amount of vitamins A and D that could be put into a nonprescription capsule. The FDA's action brought down upon it the full fury of a diverse group of Americans-health food faddists, left-wing radicals, right-wing libertarians, retail pharmacists

and manufacturers.

Bumper-stickers proclaimed: "God gave us vitamins-the FDA wants to take them away."

Many Congressmen are said to feel that FDA's action was unnecessary, but the American Medical Association sided with t4e.FDA. "There's no doubt that excessive A and D can be harmful," says Dr. Alexander Schmidt, FDA director. "That's been known a long time. With the megadose craze, there's a real danger people may harm themselves." Overdosage of vitamin A, it is said, particularly among the young, could retard growth, enlarge the liver and spleen, deplete hair, cause headaches and pain in the joints. Overdosage of vitamin D, it is alleged, could damage the liver and kidneys.

No such criticism, however, has been made of vitamins C and E. In fact, controlled studies carried out independently in Canada, Ireland and the U.S. state of Arizona tend to support the theory that ascorbic acid (vitamin C) does indeed reduce the unpleasantness of many cold symptoms. The Arizona investigators suspect that vitamin C fights colds not by correcting a nutritional deficiency-as Dr. Pauling theorized-but by a druglike property that reduces inflamed mucous membranes.

What all experts are now agreed on is that the whole subject warrants detailed and systematic study. "There is mega-ignorance in the scientific community on the subject of megavitamins," a doctor remarks. And this is why the big vitamin controversy is a good thing: It will engender more scientific research that will hopefully dispel some of the ignorance.

0

ISECONOMIC GRO

HTHI

WAY m A'BETTER'lift II EZRA J. MISHAN: An answer to the question whether economic growth is necessary for survival requires only a glance at the historical record. For thousands of years prior to the last 200, civilizations rose and fell.

There were times of prosperity and times of hardship. But in none was there an era of prolonged economic growth.

The question that exercises thinkers today is not whether society can survive without economic growth. Since economic growth is an exceptional state-an aberration perhaps -the question at issue is just how long economic growth can be sustained on the small planet earth.

We of this generation are already being pressed against the inescapable limitations of a finite planet. Whether or not we succeed in time in stabilizing population, we cannot much longer continue to use up space, to exploit the earth's resources and to fill its air and waters with effluent with the reckless abandon that has characterized our activity since the Industrial Revolution.

Two hundred years of scientific discovery and innovation have imbued us with faith in technological progress. Yet, that technology has been based on physical conditions that no longer obtain: virtually unlimited resources and a virtually unlimited capacity of the biosphere to assimilate the effluents of technology. It remains to be seen how technology will cope when abundance in these vital respects gives way to constriction.

If eventually we conclude that economic growth cannot continue much longer, or if we conclude that the existing growth momentum will result in a decline in social welfare, we may elect to move off the growth trajectory toward a more stable economy. If we do so, a number of economic, administrative and social problems arise, none of which, however -were we in earnest-would be difficult to deal with.

And, though it would be of some interest to speculate on the extent and form of government intervention that would be necessary during the transition to a stable economy and on the alternative schemes for rationing the use of raw materials, such discussions would be premature in the present climate of opinion. They will be pertinent only when society is prepared to regard seriously the proposal

that we move off the growth path.

In the circumstances, it would seem to me more sensible to contribute to the debate by uncovering some of the unhappier consequences of continued economic growth in the affluent societies of the West.

Consider first the motive forces behind economic growth. As George Bernard Shaw once remarked, "Discontent is the mainspring of progress." This discontent is woven into the ethos of the consumer society. If continued discontent with what they have is required to keep people buying the increasing outputs of modern industry, and if continued discontent with their status is necessary to keep them working the machine, can we really believe that people can somehow be made happier as they absorb more goods?

In an affluent society people's satisfactions, as economist Thorstein Veblen observed, depend not only on the innate utility of the goods they buy but also on their status value.

To a person in a high consumption society, it is not his absolute real income that counts as much as his relative income-his position in the structure of income. Thus, he may feel aggrieved receiving a 10 per cent rise in his income if incomes of others have risen by 20 per cent.

The more this attitude prevails-and the ethos of an affluent society tends to promote it-the more futile is the objective of economic growth for society as a whole. For it is obvious that over time everybody cannot become relatively better off: Once people's satisfactions come to depend almost wholly on relative income, or on some other index of status, a sustained rise in the levels of consumption-though it may well be necessary for maintaining the momentum of powerful corporations-yields little additional satisfaction to society, even in the absence of all spillover costs. Indeed, obsessive concern with status and income and, in consequence, a lifetime devoted to nursing one's prospects go far toward draining the joy from one's spirit.

Secondly, we might want to ponder briefly some of the unexpected repercussions of a number of much-heralded inventions. The automobile, in addition to producing congestion, noise, stench, visual distraction, has been responsible also for the monotony, sameness and ugliness of vast urban areas the world over.

The airliner, in addition to plunging us into an era of shrieking skies, has been responsible for a tourist explosion that has destroyed irrevocably all the once-famed resorts. This process of erosion continues year by year.

Alas for our grandchildren who are on the way to inherit a world almost bereft of scenic beauty and grandeur.

Thirdly, we might wonder in a general way whether the untoward consequences of commercially inspired technology are inescapable.

Does not universal plenty itself breed a "throw-away" attitude to things? Gifts lose the power to move when a person has "everything" and when wealth is such that no sacrifice is entailed in bestowing them. The laborsaving innovations at which technology excels have the effect of transferring people's dependence on others to dependence on the machine. Yet is it not true that human interdependence is the source of mutual affection, of giving and receiving?

It is sobering to wonder seriously if more and more of what is innately trivial is being gained at a cost of more and more of what is innately valuable. Allowing that the machine is incomparably efficient, can its efficiency in yielding services compensate for the inevitable loss of authentic human experience? Can anyone reasonably expect technological innovations in the future to be more humanizing?

Surely it is more likely that the main thrust of product innovation associated with economic growth in already wealthy countries will act to diminish over time opportunities for direct communication between people.

For such innovation seeks overtly to reduce their need of the direct services of other human beings.

Thus, personal contacts have already declined with the spread of more efficient laborsaving devices such as supermarkets, cafeterias, vending machines, transistors, television sets and, of course, the automobile. And they will continue to decline with the trends toward computerization in offices and factories, toward patient-monitoring machines and computer diagnoses in hospitals, and toward closed-circuit television instruction, automated libraries and teaching machines.

And what of the other attributes by which men live? If it is conceded that once subsistence levels have been passed-as they have in the West-the sources of men's more enduring satisfactions spring from mutual trust and affection, from sharing gladness and sorrow, from giving love and accepting it, from openhearted companionship and laughter; if it is further conceded that in a civilized society the joy of living is augmented primarily by the sense of wonder inspired by the unfolding of nature, by the perception of beauty inspired by great art and by the renewal of faith and hope inspired by the heroic and the good; if this much is conceded, is it possible to believe also that unremitting attempts to harness the greater part of men's energies and ingenuity to the task of amassing an ever greater assortment of material possessions can add much to people's happiness?

IS ECOID ICIRD HENRY C. WALLICH: Economic growth

has had many deleterious effects. Pollution of air and water, overcrowding of cities and highways testify to the emerging dangers. Ecologists, physicists and economists are working to remedy the consequences of past growth.

They are asking whether further growth can take place without magnifying these consequences and running into far more dire results, such as shortages of food, raw materials and energy.

It seems only yesterday that economic growth was praised as the genie that would solve our social problems. In the developed nations, growth was to lift the poor out of their penury and provide the resources for modernization. In the developing nations, growth was to move them along the path toward higher living standards. How is it that the genie has so suddenly turned into a monster?

The answer depends very much on whom you talk to. Ten years ago, when the American economy was not nearly as rich as it is today, the economists were highly influential.

Dissatisfied with the state of affairs, they chose growth as their favorite strategy to combat the ills of the day.

The economy grew by more than 50 per cent, but dissatisfaction, instead of diminishing, grew even faster. Today the ecologists have their turn. They stress the environmental damage already done, warn of much more serious blight yet to come and demand that drastic action be taken. Many of them say that not only population growth but also economic growth must be halted. Else, they say, the pollution and the shortages will eventually bring on collapse.

Similar warnings have been voiced since the early 1800s when the Reverend Thomas Malthus first preached his doctrine that world population was bound to outrun food supplies and that the world was destined to misery and

A' ETTER' ¡FE starvation if it did not succeed in limiting the along with everybody else as power bills rise, necessary to clean up and to provide for the growth of numbers. gasoline becomes more expensive, automo- future. Why not turn the resources provided Since then, such storm flags have been biles become less efficient and all the rest. by economic growth to doing those jobs?

It would mean diverting some of our growhoisted from time to time, always to be hauled Continued growth of the economy, raising down as events proved them wrong. There their income steadily, would help them to ing output from its principal use, which is to have been famines, but on the whole the world bear these costs with something left over. An raise consumption. But we would then have a has managed to produce food ahead of pop- end to growth means freezing them into their clean environment, assured supplies for the ulation, particularly in the United States, present position, unless government drastical- future, livable cities and most of what the enwhere, at least until very recently, the problem ly redistributes income through heavy taxes vironmentalists fear growth will destroy. has been surpluses, not shortages.

This will of course cost a lot of money. But on the rich and gives to the poor.

This time, however, the flags are being Without growth, there would be little to if growth continues, that money will be availraised over a wider front. It is not food only, . justify the prevailing inequality of income. It able. As production and incomes grow, some but all natural resources, including energy gives the poor some hope that gradually they fraction of the gain can be used to protect supplies, air and water, that are declared in will work out of their condition. Without and improve the environment. Conceivably, danger. Some of the evidence is obvious: foul growth, there is no promise to relieve poverty. the cost of doing so might become so high air, unsanitary water, crowded streets and Redistribution of the existing incomes be- that nothing is left over after a thorough clean-up job. At that point, clearly, growth endless traffic jams. After having cried "wolf" comes the only hope of betterment. many times in error, we finally seem to be We face an even more dramatic confronta- would have to come to a halt. To continue it would add nothing to consumable output. within sight of the animal. tion as we look at the developing countries.

But though all this is true, does it mean Among countries, they are the world's But at the present time it looks very unlikely that we must stop everything in order to save poor. If they keep increasing their popula- that this iinpasse would be reached soon. ourselves? Some people talk of stopping tions and raising their living standards as they Consider the consequences if we were to growth as if it were something like stopping are trying to do, stopping economic growth slow down economic growth drastically or a habit of smoking or overeating. in the United States would accomplish little even bring it to a halt. There would still be For people who are comfortably off it may in an interdependent world. And how would more mouths to feed and people demanding indeed amount to not much more than that. we persuade the developing countries, set on "more." There would be some air and water A middle-aged man with a good job, a com- speeding up their growth, to reverse gears and pollution to clean up, although not as urgently as if growth were to continue. But there fortable home, well set in his habits of work- stop growing? ing, playing and vacationing, may not care That confrontation was evident at the 1972 would be little or no additional money.

What priorities then are likely to develop? much whether or not he makes still more conference on the environment held by the money, so long as others don't get ahead of United Nations at Stockholm, Sweden: Many Would we take resources away from conhim. But to stop growth and start giving up of the developing countries took the position sumption in order to devote them to the hope and plans for the future is very different that the environmental issue was simply a clean-up? Or are we more likely to ignore the for people in the lower income brackets. new form of imperialism and exploitation by clean-up job in order to meet the importunities of the consumer?

Recently, at a hearing before the public the industrial countries.

In my judgment, the environment would service commission in a New England town, In the face of all these consequences of environmentalists attacked the local power trying to stop growth, it clearly takes an run a poor second to consumer demands. In company for its plan to string transmission enormous decision to go that way. We had either case, obviously there would be a bitter lines across the local scenery. The critics better be completely sure that the environ- political struggle fraught with great risks. We wanted the line put underground, although mentalists are right before we follow their can avoid this by continuing to grow, keeping this would have trebled the cost and raised advice. There are some very good reasons for the environment in better shape than we the price of electricity. Then an alderman thinking that they vastly exaggerate. Conse- have done.

Some day the time might come when we from a black section of the town argued quently, it would be unwise to take drastic simply: measures that may turn out to have been un- no longer could do this. The cost of cleaning "My people don't care whether you string necessary. Equally, however, it would be un- up and the cost of digging and drilling ever that line above ground, above water or below. wise to ignore warnings that may turn out to deeper for ever scarcer minerals and oil might There is just one thing we do care about: We be true. Is there a way to protect the world exceed the gains from growth. That would don't want our electric bills to go up." That against resource shortages, starvation and indeed be the time to stop. The political difargument won the day. pollution without going to the extreme of ficulties of readjusting society to such a condiA confrontation in the United States is in stopping economic growth? tion are enormous. But at least we would have the making between the environmentalists There is indeed. Obviously we cannot go reached a standard of living at which such and the poor. Even if growth continues, the on as heretofore, disregarding pollution and changes could be made more easily than is poor will have to pay for the coming clean-up exhaustion of resources. We must do what is possible today.

0

A DAY INTHEllFE OFAMERleAN HUMOR In 'Life With Father,' Clarence Day created perhaps the most unforgettable character in the history of American comedy. On the occasion of Day's lOOthbirth anniversary this month, humorist Trivadi analyzes Father's never-failing appeal, and the play's phenomenal success on Broadway.

Talking about the other fellow's reminiscences, one is entitled to indulge in one's own. I remember that I first savored the joys of Clarence Day's Life With Father on the same long, lazy afternoon 22 years ago that I first read, eyes popping, the adventures of Adolf Hitler's winsome maid. The former was punctuated, in the manner of the time, with the exclamation mark; the latter, with a device known as "three dots" which in my early years passed off for pornography. ("He folded her in a warm embrace, switching off the lights at the same time, and ... "-a feat which we boys found utterly salacious.) I was, I must confess, enchanted with both books.

Today, the exultant shrieks of the dictator's slave are only a dim memory, and with good reason. We are now ruled by Harold Robbins and "three dots" do seem an excess of avoidable punctuation.

Father's saga struts around still, however, rather like the man himself: cock of the walk, a little dictator in his own right because he is, all said and done, Father, pillar of society, supporter of good causes, controller of the budget, as much an American institution as whistle-stop electioneering, doughnuts and Davy Crockett and "this call is for you, Dreamboat" (spoken to a freckled six-yearold in a Saturday Evening Post cartoon).

If as man and boy I have enjoyed Life With Father it is because Father has been both play and pageant. Its success on Broadway has far outstripped all others and those who invested $23,000 (in 1939) reaped more than a bumper harvest of charmed notices, they picked up money, and the hawks of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service smiled with them. (Life With Mother, a latter-day Day, a near afterthought, a by-product, if you please, was doomed to go down with its cash outlay of $85,000.)

The other day I reread Life With Father and enjoyed it more than ever before. The reason is simple. I now live in New Delhi where cultural life is sub-zero, almost subhuman, and bureaucrats wander up and down asking: "Father? Oh, Father. Father, of course. Now let's have his full name in block letters, his designation, his age and (I'm not inventing this) his sex." Father would just love Delhi. He prided himself on his ability to cut red tape, as lesser men might cut colored ribbons with silver scissors. He would have full scope here, in this ancient city of the Pandavas, where an accretion of government rules has taken place, thanks as much to Babar as to the British.

In New York it was nothing to see Father march into a hiredhelp agency, brushing aside protocol and palaver, look the girls over and say: "I'll take that one." That one turned out to be young Margaret, the incomparable cook, who stayed with the Day family until she graduated to being called Old Margaret. How would her employer react to a notice, which I solemnly swear I saw on a piece of sarkar property saying: "In case of a sudden fire in this building, or to any government property, please inform the CPW (0) in Room No. 412 on the fourth floor, after obtaining a pass from the Reception Officer on the first floor. In case the regular lift is out of order, the service lift may be used with prior permission from the P.A. to the C.LE. on the second floor." Father, J suspect, would just say "Bah" and holler up the stairs: "Fire, damn it!"

That is, if he recognized a sudden fire as an unexpected calamity.

Maybe he wouldn't have understood it, his own life was so well ordered, the past stored away, and the future precisely and beautifully anticipated and provided for.

Or (Round 2) if Father were a government pensioner and they refused him his April pension because he had not attached his "life certificate" but gave him his May pension because he had?

My guess is that he would have called it a lot of folderol, and a thousand pities if you think folderol is the name of some patent medicine, a sure cure for your own depression whilst others are clear-headed and worry-free. (To Create Confusion, Use Folderol.

Five Rupees a Bottle. Sales Tax Included, Excise Duty Extra.)

Folderol's maker would also have added the immortal words: "I'm here, damn it! Alive and kicking and I'll kick you all the way to hell if you don't pay me in 60 seconds flat." He was the one-remember?-who felt he wouldn't be refused admission into heaven on a mere technicality, the technicality being some serious doubt about his religious status. No, sir, he had never been baptized, and he was proud of it! These instances may be multiplied without end, Delhi being the seat of government, and government functionaries running helter-skelter as Father went into them with his cane. Father always was a roaring success because he was always roaring, like Bernard Shaw. When his wife Lavinia (Vinnie) was lying critically ill he roared the following prayer and there was no doubt about whom it was addressed to: "0 God! You know Vinnie's not a miserable sinner. She's a damn fine

woman! She shouldn't be made to suffer. It's got to stop, I tell You, it's got to stop! ... Have mercy, I say, have mercy, damn it!" The Good Lord, our Father in heaven, heeded double-quick, and Vinnie, the damn fine woman, recovered from the aftereffects of the poison in her tea-well, not poison really but Barlett's Beneficent Balm, a Boon to Mankind, which her sons had added to the brew after the following conversation: CLARENCE (eyeing JOHN): Mother wasn't feeling well this morning.

JOHN: What was the matter with her?

CLARENCE: I don't know-she was just complaining.

JOHN (getting the idea immediately and consulting the bottle): Well, it says here it's good for women's complaints.

Nobody, says Satyajit Ray, analyzes a success,.-or needs to.

Presumably success is in the same category as the smile on the face of the Mona Lisa. But Life With Father ruled the hearts of theatergoers for so long that one must. How did it "pack 'em in and wow 'em" day after day, performance after performance, in its 3,224 performances. Grander plays had failed on Broadway.

Gore Vidal's Romulus had exactly 300 performances. Christopher Fry once had six plays going on in London at the same time but his Broadway productions were too mortifying for words. We must analyze the success of Father, though we all know that there is just a one-in-a-million chance of repeating the alchemy.

The story of Life With Father is simple. It revolves around Father-Clarence Day, Sr., or Clare-and his family consisting of his wife Vinnie, and four sons, Clarence, Jr., John, Whitney and Harlan. In the larger sense, the family also consists of Old Margaret and a maid, a new maid practically each new day.

Father's needs are simple in a day when simple needs amounted to what we would think of today as luxuries: good food; clean entertainment; a home run in a businesslike way, with profit as the chief motive; occasional visits to the opera merely for appearance's sake; a total avoidance of horsecabs; orderliness, warmth and affection; respect for elders; and regular visits to the family barber.

It need hardly be added that Father is a businessman, a stockbroker, who has around him men rather like himself with money to invest but none to splurge. He is healthy. His blood pressure is neither high, nor low, nor level. In fact he has no b.p. at all, and he cannot be bothered to have it measured from time to time. He gets younger every day. His suits are from a London tailor and the measurements have not changed in years. (If occasionally Father wonders why there is some tightness around the waist, he wonders only occasionally.) He believes in his Maker as much as he does in his Tailor, but he is most assuredly not God-fearing.

He knows he has a soul and he is convinced that if there is one thing the Church should leave alone it's a man's soul.

Alas for him, his wife is of the opinion that there is no harm in exchanging .cash for goods, or even goods for other goods, and that Father's chances of getting into heaven are pretty slim since he hasn't been baptized. She also thinks-O Revolution!-that relations are for inviting over and having a powwow with at a time (mind you) when New York is full of hotels built expressly for the purpose of housing these nuisances. Naturally, a tussle develops, and may the best man, the only man, lose. ';'

Just as it seems that Father would have his way after all, particularly on the vexing question of his religion, or lack thereof, Vinnie falls ill and Father, just to get her well again, promises to be baptized-baptized, damn it. Vinnie recovers and it's time for Father to redeem his pledge. "Nonsense," says Father. But Vinnie fears for his immortal soul and, as a corollary, wonders whether he truly loves his family. Father is stubborn still. And stays stubborn, making fairly frequent references to folderol, until, right out of the blue, he sees a horsecab standing outside his door.

Learns that the cab has been called to take him to the church.

Learns, too, that it is going to cost him the atrocious sum of two dollars every hour, waiting or not. Such unbridled profligacy!

Decides there and then that he would be baptized. The play ends with Clarence Day, Jr., asking innocently whether Father was leaving for the office and Father roaring: "No! I'm going to be baptized, damn it!" He slams his hat on angrily and stalks out.

Vinnie gives a triumphant nod and follows him.

Clarence Day was 'a replica of his immortal father â&#x20AC;˘.. choleric ... warm..;hearted... impetuous, except that he added objectivity and selfrealization to the older man's make-up.'

American audiences are said to have taken Father and Mother to their hearts because they represent the Average American Father and the Average American Mother. Clarence Day, Sr., would never have agreed, but his eminent son did, and recorded the fact for posterity. To those of us who are not Americans they seem to be the Average Indian Father and the Average Indian Mother. They fight often, and good luck to them. Good luck to them again when, on being told that they fight needlessly, they decide to refight old battles with the same pure, unalloyed joy that marked the earlier happenings. Substitute the sacred ash and thread for baptism or what-have-you, and it will pass anywhere.

Woman is the constant link in the chain of tradition; man, more practical, and practically no Kiekergaard-not God-intoxicated but deeply, movingly, in love with woman. Sooner or later he will descend to lovey-dovey talk-it's a universal phenomenon.

Could Father's universality of appeal be the answer? Perhaps.

"Boy Meets Girl" did well but nowhere near as well as Father Meets Mother. Could it be that it ~old domestic bliss as we know it today: the wife running her fingers through where her husband's hair used to be? A certain kind of happiness, the family notwithstanding, or because of it? Maybe this is our answer. Life With Father was filmed with a most happy choice for Father: William Powell. No figures are available, but it was most successful around the world. Powell had the suavity of David Niven, and Niven's perfect timing. He played Father as Father should be played. He enjoyed himself and his enjoyment rubbed off on his audiences.

He made domestic felicity as the Divinity made it: a thing of joy but of dubious virtue, a delightful dream but a dream nevertheless.

People, as Saroyan said, believe dreams sooner than statistics.

In our case the most cherished dream of all is that Father is like a rock. He is every woman's conception of the ideal man, and every man's conception of himself. We men are really lions under our sheepskin suits. BUJ we fight our battles in our minds-on

our way to work and back, between the second and third floors in the office lift. We were and still are winning our battles-with our bosses, our wives, our children. When we yield-oh yes, we do sometimes-we do it with grace incomparable. The moral is clear: The strong must be the first to yield. We stoop to concur and Woman, dear Woman, exits with a triumphant nod. It's thus with us who kiss and shake hands; it's thus with the Eskimos who rub noses and feed you blubber,for breakfast and their wives for dessert. It's thus everywhere. And that's because, however much Man may pride himself on being omniscient, it's Woman who is omnipotent. Father knew all about women: FATHER: Now you take a woman-a woman thinks-no a woman doesn't think at all! She gets stirred up. And she gets stirred up over the damnedest things! ... Clarence, if a man thinks a certain thing is the wrong thing to do he shouldn't do it. If he thinks a thing is right he should do it.

Now that has nothing to do with whether he loves his wife or. not.

CLARENCE: Who says it has, Father?

FATHER: They do!

CLARENCE: Who, sir?

FATHER: Women! They get stirred up and then they try to get you stirred up, too. If you can keep reason and logic in the argument, a man' can hold his own of course. But if they can switch you-pretty soon the argument's about whether you love them or not. I swear I don't know how they do it! Don't you let them, Clarence! Don't you let 'em!

Clarence Day, Jr., was to let 'em, however. At close he is kneeling at Mary's feet. Earlier on, Mary had used the same devious logic that Vinnie was always using-to turn Clare's coffeepot into an umbrella for herself and to buy a pug dog on credit, exchange it for a suit for Clarence, and decide that the suit was therefore costing nothing. When Father says: "But they'll charge for the suit or the pug dog," she says grandly: "Don't you let them." Father let 'em too. And Clarence Day, as an obituary notice said when he died in 1935, was "a replica of his immortal father ... choleric ... warm-hearted ... impetuous, except that he added objectivity and self-realization to the older man's make-up."

He added another thing too. Curiosity. He studied everything and everybody (except Woman). He left behind a lot of drawings -drawn wherever, on whatever, as one critic puts it-worked all night on his essays, breakfasting when others dined. And though bedridden as a result of arthritis, he never let his suffering show.

Perhaps no. humorist suffers in the real sense: His humQr won't let him. He wouldn't be an ironist otherwise. For it is true-isn't it?-that an ironist without humor is only a sourpuss while a humorist can get by without irony, as P.G. Wodehouse does.

Wodehouse is a good comparison. Clarence Day was so like him: He didn't write predictably, but what he wrote was predictable. He knew that his readers must be led on-and on. The idea was not to surprise them but to make their¡dreams come true.

"You name it, we have it" is not just a slogan of shopkeepers.

It's Clarence's motto as well.

0 About the Author: It was much more than "a day in the life oj Trivadi," says the author about his research for this article. A free-lance writer, Trivadi says he has done "a lot -of funny and unfunny writing." His contributions to SPAN, however, have usually been of the first variety.

FARMING WITHOUT LAND H(3:?'r) '~N

+ Ir r

Cultivation of plants without soil may seem revolutionary. But in America, fruits and vegetables are being grown in greenhouses in which plants' roots rest not in soil but in saturated gravel beds.

In a big greenhouse known as the "Magic Garden" outside of Glendale, Arizona, clusters of 2!-meter-high vines, thick with tomatoes, are suspended on vertical cords. Their roots spread out in a substratum of inert gravel lying in vinyl-lined concrete trenches. The plants are fed inorganic nutrients dissolved in water, which is supplied by a plastic pipeline running the length of the trench.

Electronic sensing devices determine when the plants are hungry or thirsty. The sensors relay messages that automatically activate the water and nutrient delivery systems. When it is sensed that the plants have had enough, the system shuts off automatically. Nothing is left to chance or nature's whim. Tem-

perature, humidity and air circulation are carefully controlled.

No entry is given to wind, hail, frost, drought, weeds or insects.

The result is an annual harvest from that greenhouse alone of 13,500 kilograms of high-quality tomatoes commanding a premium price at the market place.

This unconventional growing ~echnique is known as "hydroponics"-the cultivation of plants in water. Revolutionary as it may sound, plants do not need soil as such; they need only the nutrients and moisture contained in soil, and these can be supplied through water-saturated gravel just as well. Hydroponics is not a new process; as far back as the l690s an English physician tried growing plants in water as a laboratory experiment, and in the

l800s German researchers used the method to develop many of the formulas for plant nutrient solutions still in use today.

But it was not until the '40s that hydroponics moved out of the research laboratory into commercial use. A California physiologist, W.F. Gericke, had published guidelines for hydroponic agriculture in 1936. Since then, research projects and commercial ventures in hydroponics have gone forward in a number of countries around the worldincluding areas where water is in short supply and temperatures are too extreme for ordinary agriculture.

A leading American company in the field is Hydroculture, Incorporated, which operates the Magic Garden greenhouse men-

Above left: A fisheye view of the interior of a greenhouse where plants like the 30-day-old tomato seedlings shown above are grown hydroponically.

tioned earlier, together with some 200 counterparts on a 48-hectare spread in Glendale. J:lere are grown almost three million kilograms of produce each yearmostly tomatoes, but also cucumbers, lettuce and melons. Crop yields are excellent, Hydroculture says. For example, each mature tomato plant produces an average of 12 kilograms of marketable fruit a year in two growing cycles.

This compares with about nine kilograms for two crops of the average soil-grown plant. And, its producers say, the watergrown tomatoes are as tasty as

FARMING WITHOUT LAND continued

The potential of soilless farming lies primarily in those regions of the world where water is scarce.

Above: An aerial view 0/ hydroponic greenhouses framed with steel and covered with a reinforced plastic film that stands up to any kind o/weather and lets in maximum light.

Far left: Tomato seeds are placed in special cellulose planting blocks.

Le/t: Tomato plants are nurtured in the seedling house, where roots are supported in gravel or a cinder mixture.

their soil-grown counterparts.

Hydroculture's greenhouses measure 8 by 39 meters. They are framed with steel and covered with a reinforced plastic film that stands up to weather and lets in a maximum amount of light. The automated feeding and watering system recirculates both nutrients and water. Air conditioning and heating equipment keep the temperature at 29 degrees C. by day and 18 degrees C. by night.

The company also has a more modest-sized unit, 2t by 31 meters, that is designed to produce grasses for feeding livestock.

Called "Magic Meadow," it can grow enough grass to satisfy the daily feed requirements of 70 horses, the company says. A half kilogram of seed (usually oats or barley) normally produces three to four kilograms of grass 20 to 25 centimeters high. Time from seed to feed is just seven days. A third type of greenhouse produced by the company is a small home unit that sells for $1,995 (the price of a small car in the United States) and, Hydroculture says, can grow ~ll the vegetables and flowers the average family can use.

In recent years, hydroponic farming has been experiencing a moderate boom in America. Soilless greenhouses have sprung up in a score of states, from California in the West to Minnesota in the North and Florida in the South. A Las Vegas, Nevada, company grows squash and cucumbers, and Hydrokist, a company in San Bernardino, California, is experimenting with strawberries. Several universities are carrying on extensive research in the method and offering courses in its commercial use.

A similar expansion in both

FARMING WITHOUT LAND continued

Hydroponic farming grips 'those who have an enthusiasm for making unconventional things work.' research and application is occurring in other parts of the world. An Italian company operates Europe's largest hydroponic installation-50,OOO square meters of greenhouses in Sicily producing tomatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables. A hydroponic farm operated by the Government of Kuwait produces fresh tomatoes at a desert site near the capital city. Hydroculture, Inc., recently received a United Nations grant to set up a pilot hydroponic system in Lebanon. At Puerto Penasco,Mexico, and at Sadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, experimental hydroponic farms use desalted seawater.

Despite these multiple examples of development, soilless agriculture remains, of course, only a minor competitor to the traditional open-field way of growing crops, accounting for only a tiny fraction of world output of food and fiber. Its potential is primarily in regions where water is in short supply or for the production of high-priced specialty crops that reward costly investment and intensive care. And a machinery breakdown or a nutrient imbalance, critics point out, can wipe out an entire hydroponic crop almost immediately.

But the promise and novelty of the idea still grip those who have an enthusiasm for making unconventional things work-and who are willing to take the risks involved.

0

I

Above: These huge and firm tomatoes, which require a total growing time of 90 days, demonstrate the effectiveness of hydroponic farming. Left: Cucumbers such as these can be grown all winter in greenhouses.

Far left: Lush grass for cattle takes just seven &lYsfrom seed to feed.

GERALD FORD WHAT KIND OF PRESIDENT? On the eve of his taking the oath as 38th President of the United States, Gerald R. Ford kept a long-standing appointment with the¡ author to discuss his views on domestic and foreign affairs. Although demands on his time mounted hourly as the transition neared, Mr. Ford stuck to his schedule. From their talk came the following revealing portrait of the new President. ,

Gerald R.FQrd, President of the United States. What sort of man? What sort of President?

In a way it may seem surprising that the questions should be asked about someone who has been in the U.S. Congress for a quarter-century, and his party's leader in the House of Representatives for nearly a decade. But he is the first President-byappointment in America's 200 years, the first to sit in the Oval Officewithout having been elected to any nationwide office, and so the first never to have been exposed and tested in the crucible of a national political campaign. The only voters who have had a chance to judge him are those of the Fifth Congressional District of the state of Michigan.

Inevitably, then, there are things to wonder about. As President, how will he be at negotiating with the Soviet leaders, at using U.S. power and influence in the world; what is his grasp of foreign policy? How deep is his understanding of economic problems; can he grapple with inflation? And beyond such specific questions on specific issues, there are the more intangible-but no less important-questions about the general quality of leadership Gerald Ford offers the U.S. The first impression an interviewer gets is one of a man who does not easily get "uptight" when all about him may have. It bespeaks the quality of a man either unaware of the cause for excitement or of a man sufficiently self-assured not to yield to it. He is also clearly one who enjoys people and the interaction with people in times of stress, being probably the most extroversive U. S. President since Harry Truman. It is hard to imagine Gerald Ford brooding long alone over his troubles, although they are many, already.

In surveying his tasks as President, Mr. Ford says publicly that the number one problem today is inflation, and privately thinks that it is matched by the problem qf regaining public confidence in

government in general and the White House in particular after the shocks of Watergate. As President he clearly intends to devote his energies to both.

On inflation, for example, he feels that for years (he says since 1965) the United States has simply tried to do too much, spending money without regard to the resources available. The word "spree" is one that recurs. And he thinks this process must be reversed. The government must put its own financial house in order.

Until recently his involvement in foreign affairs has been limited to that of a Congressional leader supporting Administration policies as they involve the House of Representatives, which is less than they do in the Senate. He is, in his own phrase, a "reformed isolationist," the reform coming as much from his intuitive feeling that the United States cannot withdraw from the world as from any profound analysis of the world's troubles. This shows through when he discusses the need for, and the problems of, detente with the Soviet Union. He knows the world will be better off if it can be achieved-that true success in the second-round SALT talks, for example, can both ease world tensions and save the United States thousands of millions of dollars in defense appropriations.

He is wary, though, of unilateral concessions in the name of detente.

His instinct is that the United States can only negotiate with the Soviets from a position of strength, and his strong support of military appropriations is a derivative of this.

Most of his positions on current issues seem to derive from instinct-from what his friends call common sense.

When he talks about civil rights in the United States, for example, he sounds neither like a sociologist nor a Supreme Court justice. He simply thinks it is wrong to have a dual standard in society-whether as between whites and blacks or men and women -on voting, housing, jobs or anything else. While some aspects worry him, he supports the civil rights laws and thinks they should be enforced.

The first impression an interviewer gets of President Ford is of a man 'who does not easily get uptight when all about him may have.'

He believes in equal opportunity for all qualified people and thinks government should protect that opportunity.

But in his mind the key word is "qualified." For a school, a business or a profession to lower its standards for the unqualified [i.e., to give preferential treatment to minority groups] seems to him to degrade the whole process. To him the approach to the problem of racial and sexual balance in the United States is education and training to enable more to be qualified.

And perhaps some other things can be surmised about the Ford Presidency. For as he talks about many problems of the day you keep hearing phrases like "too much" or "too fast."

Americans got into troubles abroad (Vietnam, for example) because we tried to do too much, thinking we could and should manage the world. We are beset by inflation because we tried to spend too much with too little regard for the costs. In other areas, from civil rights to welfare, we have created problems in rectifying ancient problems not solvable overnight.

So the surmise would be, watching what he does and listeningto him talk, that the Ford Administration is trying to give America a time to breathe, a time to recuperate, a time to heal some wounds.

This implies that it is not to be an adventurous time in foreign affairs nor a time of great new experiments in domestic legislation.

This does not mean it is not to be a time of change, of new policies; after all, Gerald Ford is a politician and as such is responsive to the changing needs of the country. It suggests only that he prefers to be cautious at a time when the country has been wrought up.

'There is no real preparation for the job of the President of the United States. It is mostly all on-the-job training, which is why so few Presidents have turned out to be as predicted.'

Political views apart, what sort of "style" is Gerald Ford bringing to the White House?

The first clue here is that he is' basically a friendly, outgoing man. This suggests that he will not retire into isolation, surrounding himself only with cronies. A President's door can never be as open as a Vice President's but Mr. Ford will certainly keep it ajar.

This should help him tremendously in dealing with other politicians, and Mr. Ford like Mr. Nixon has to deal with a Democratic Congress. One will find few on Capitol Hill who dislike Gerald Ford. But prophets should be cautious.

There is no real preparation for the job of President of the United States. It is mostly all on-the-job training, which is why so few Presidents have turned out to be as predicted.

No one expected Franklin Roosevelt, that pleasant country squire, to be the dominant figure of the first half century. Who expected Harry Truman, scornfully labeled an ex-haberdasher, to be a strong, forceful and controversial President? Dwight Eisenhower, ex-general, was supposed to be the barking-order commanding type; Lyndon Johnson was supposed to be the great compromiser. Neither lived up to their billings. And everybody naturally wonders about Gerald Ford, the more so because he came unknown, untested and unelected by the voters.

Make no mistake. Gerald Ford is not a man wanting in intelligence or in the varied experiences that shape political leaders. His law degree is from Yale; he has served under every President from Truman to Nixon, much of the time as a member of the key.

House Appropriations Committee. He sufficiently impressed his peers so that in due time they chose him for party leadership.

Finally, of course, any President must be measured against the needs of the time, and it is possible that the times do not call for a great philosopher or a towering political giant. What the United States needs now is some calm, some common sense and most of all some simple, straightforward talk from the President.

0

About the Author: Vermont C. Royster is a well-known journalist , and former editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1953, and is co-author of A Pride of Prejudices and Journey Through the Soviet Union.

THE FUTURE OF THE PRESIDENCY POWERFUL -BUT ACCOUNTABLE

How will the historic events of 1974 affect the U.S. Presidency? The author says that while the President will remain the focal point of America's political system and primary maker of foreign policy, he will be more accountable than before to the Congress and the people.

In the aftermath of Watergate, the United States finds itself confronted with many pressing questions, both immediate and long range. Not the least of these is: What has happened to the office of the Presidency and where does it go from here?

To begin with, a new element has been added to the Presidential equation. It lies in the clearly demonstrated possibility that a President can be forced out of office between elections.

By resigning under fire, Richard Nixon set a precedent which will certainly modify the conduct of his successors.

Technically this possibility has existed all along through the impeachment process set forth in the U.S. Constitution. But since the unsuccessful attempt to unseat President Andrew Johnson following the Civil War it had come to be regarded as a dead letter. Presidents generally operated on the assumption that, barring death, they would stay in office for their entire term providing they had sufficient toughness to ride out political storms. Now, however, it has been established that a President who overreaches himself runs the risk of losing his position.

Some outer boundaries on Presidential conduct have been set.

And it is probable that they will be respected for many decades.

What will happen to the office of the Presidency structurally is open to greater question. Inevitably, there will be demands to cut down the Presidential powers. However, these demands will run headlong into a basic reality. It is that the powers of the Chief Executive cannot be reduced without a revision of the Constitution and the whole organization of American Government. That is a heavier dose than most people are willing to swallow at the present time.

The difficulty is that the power of the President to act and the power of the United States to act are synonymous. If the nation needs to move against inflation, it is the President who must move. If the nation needs to fight environmental pollution, it is the President who must fight. If the nation needs to assert its

position in foreign affairs, it is the President who must make the assertion. In short, to reduce the President's powers is to reduce the nation's powers, a condition which will be accepted by few in the modern world. The obligations of the Presidency are of such a character that they cannot be assumed by the U.S. Congress. This does not derogate the legislative branch of the United States Government in the slightest. It simply means that the House and the Senate do not have an action role under the Constitution. Their function is to resolve political differences and to determine long range policy. They can act as a check on executive branch excesses and they can set the limits of Presidential action through control of the purse. But 535 Senators and Representatives cannot undertake the day to day management of policy. They must operate through a consensus, 'which takes a long time to achieve.

The prediction that the President's power to act will remain at a high level, however, should be accompanied by the statement of another possibility. It is that ways and means will be found to increase the President's accountability for his actions.

This is a far more likely outcome and one which should be studied with great care. In point of fact, one significant step to . increase Presidential accountability has been taken already. It was the passage, over former President Nixon's veto, of the War Powers Act. This measure emerged from CongressioI)al frustration over legislative inability to end the American presence in Vietnam. And even though it has not yet been applied, it is the most significant move in many decades to strengthen requirements for Presidential accountability. It may well become the pattern for future Congressional action. The legislators agreed that it would not be prudent to tie the President's hands by requiring him to seek Congressional authority in every instance where he proposed to commit forces to action outside the United States. In the modern world there are far too many circum-

tioning. All too often, these officials would genuinely be in the dark as to the elements of the policy under consideration. The people in the executive mansion who had the information could the actiot:l unless the House and the Senate specifically authorized not be interrogated. The executive agencies themselves are far continuation. The full significance of this law should not be more vulnerable to legislative inquiry. Their policy-making underestimated. It is inconceivable that future Presidents will officials must be approved by the Senate before they can assume ignore the statute, regardless of any advice they receive from office. They must make frequent trips to Congress on Capitol their lawyers about loopholes in it. The political consequences Hill to plead for their appropriations. They can refuse to answer of flouting Congress would be disastrous and would create so questions only when specifically directed to do so by the Presimuch turmoil in the nation that a second Presidential resigna- dent. In short, the ability of the Congress to gather information tion could well occur. There are times when political realities increases as the information itself spreads through the agencies. override juridical hairsplitting and this would be one of them.

Again, there are no serious proposals to strip the President In assessing the War Powers Act, it should also be realized or his staff of the executive privilege. Most legislators would that its mere passage is significant. Traditionally Congress has regard such a move as an intolerable intrusion into legitimate been reluctant to interfere in any manner with the President's Presidential prerogatives. It would certainly violate the "separaconduct of foreign or military policy. Both have been regarded tion of powers" doctrine that is fundamental to the American as peculiarly within his jurisdiction. For at least 30 years, Constitution. But there is a detennination to whittle down the both Republicans and Democrats have boasted of America's number of people to whom executive privilege can be applied "bipartisan foreign policy"-a phrase which should be translated on a blanket basis. It is probable that the determination will be as signifying the willingness of all major political factions to translated into action. follow the President's leadership. The passage of such a measure The probability is enhanced by President Geral~ Ford's against forceful Presidential opposition (and before the culmi- obvious determination to improve relations between the execunatwn of Watergate) is the best evidence of the deep unease tive and the legislative branches of the government. These relawith which the office of Presidency has come to be regarded. tions have been deteriorating rapidly in recent years and reached Even in this instance, however, Congress did not attempt to a stage of open warfare when former President Nixon impounded diminish the President's powers to take the initiative. Instead, appropriations that had been passed over his veto. This action the law was designed to shorten the time gap between the so enraged the legislators that they took the extraordinary step of bringing it to the courts. Mr. Ford is fresh from the House initiative and accountability.

There are many indications that Congress will seek to extend of Representatives. He is well aware that his basic task is to this principle into other fields. One that is very interestingrestore some sense of unity to the nation. Since this unity cannot because the application of the principle is not immediately be restored if he indulges in two years of battling with the Conapparent and requires some explanation-can be found in the gress, he is quite likely to be very co-operative with Congressional current efforts to cut down the size of the President's staff. The efforts to increase the accountability of the Presidency as long objective is not to hamper the President in carrying out his as they do not seek to cut down the powers of the Presidency. duties but to increase the accessibility to executive branch inWhen all of these factors are added together it is reasonable formation that is required if accountability is to have any to predict that the powers of the Presidency will not be lost even meaning. though the conduct of the office will probably be changed in One of the most striking phenomena of the American Govern- the aftermath of Watergate. The American people will still look ment has been th~ rapid growth of the White House staff since to the White House for leadership. The enforcement of the laws the Administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. At one time the will still be in Presidential hands. The armed services will still President's immediate entourage consisted of a few secretaries be under the direct control of the Chief Executive and when other nations seek to negotiate with the United States, they will and domestic servants. Today the staff numbers in the thousands and occupies offices not' only in the White House but in two still find that the man to whom they must ultimately talk is the adjacent-and large-buildings. The number of people working President.

The difference will lie in the probability of a more open Presiin those offices is a closely held secret and no one is certain how many there are because the largest proportion are on the payrolls dency-a Chief Executive who will proceed more cautiously and who will be more careful about securing Congressional assent of other executive agencies. Technically they are "borrowed help"; in reality they are as bound to the President as anyone to his moves.

This cannot be equated with paralysis. It will merely mean a . on his official roster. This huge staff has given modern Presidents better balance than the United States has had during the past an opportunity that was denied to those who preceded Franklin 40 years of virtually unchecked Presidential government. The Delano Roosevelt. They now have the technical help to plan shock of Watergate has been extreme. And it would be naive their initiative without resorting to such agencies as the State, to pretend that no damage has been done. But-always barring Treasury, Justice or Defense Departments. The staff system has reached a point where it is possible for the White House to a catastrophe-,-there is every reason to believe that the damage launch major initiatives without the knowledge of cabinet can be repaired and that the office of the Presidency will remain the focal point of the American political system.

0 secretaries.

From the Presidential standpoint, the advantage was that the White House staff-at least until recently-was invulnerable to About the Author: George E. Reedy,formerly President Johnson's legislative scrutiny. The members were covered by "executive. Press Secretary, is now Dean of the College of Journalism at privilege"-the assumption that the President was entitled to Marquette University, Wisconsin. He has published two books: The maintain secrecy on personal communications to him. This Twilight of the Presidency and The Presidency in Flux; both are meant that it was often futile for House or Senate committees analyses of the many pressures that converge upon an American to call members of the State or Defense Departments for ques- President and shape his conduct of domestic and foreign affairs. stances in which the lapse of time that would be required could be fatal. The Congress instead required him to make a full report on the action within a limited time period and to cease

TOURING AMERICA

San Francisco For many Americans, San Francisco is their nation's most romantic city: a city famed for its spectacular scenery of hills, bays and bridges; its superb restaurants; its exotic potpourri of different peoples; its cultural vitality, especially as a spawning ground for the avant-garde in life-styles and in the arts. The mixture of races and nationalities that founded San Francisco during the Gold Rush of 1848-both oriental and occidental-gives the city a cosmopolitan sophistication unrivaled in the American West. It is a city where gold made wealth. wealth made leisure and leisure made culture. It is a city that loves "being different" and this nonconformism is evident even in its literary figures-from Jack London to Allen Ginsberg. San Francisco offers its 32,000 weekly tourists such a memorable melange of sights, sounds and flavors that a large percentage pf.. foreigners find it their favorite American city.

..~l~

...

I~

11- 10 -?2-.

Some of he $edal charms of San Francisco (clockwise from left): The old-world elegance of Sheraton Palace Hotel; quaint cable cars that clank up and down steep streets; music sessions at North Beach; and streets that corkscrew their way uphill. Overleaf: Golden Gate Bridge.

TOURING

AMERICA

San Francisco