The Thread of Discontent

Mortimer Smith, who once served as a Connecticut school-board member, is the author of some scorching criticism of U.S. public schools (TIME, Dec. 5, 1949). Writing last week in the Christian Century, he lit into the schoolmen's countercharge that their critics are mostly just religious zealots and neo-fascist superpatriots.

"There is," wrote Smith, "one thread that shines through all the fabric of current criticism: discontent with the schools of education and the teachers' colleges ... [which] now completely dominate public education . . . The critics claim that under the aegis of these institutions . . . common standards of learning are being abandoned, the standards being adjusted to the supposed interests and abilities of the students; that discipline, in the sense of both control of conduct and the process of directed training, is frowned upon as coercive and damaging to the personalities of students. In short, the critics say that under the impact of modern education, the schools are turning out an inferior product."

This sort of criticism, says Smith, does not come from any single source. It comes partly from such prominent educators as "Robert M. Hutchins, Bernard Iddings Bell, Jacques Barzun, Mark Van Doren, Stringfellow Barr, and the Harvard Committee--all nonfascist sources ... It comes from school people themselves, most of them humble teachers in the field . . . and it comes from thousands of parents who want to cooperate with the schools but are rebuffed by superprofessional educators when they have the temerity to question theory . . ." To prove his point, Mortimer Smith had a few exhibits of his own--letters he received after publishing his own critique of education:

From a teacher in California: "Here we are so 'informal' that manners as such have practically disappeared . . . The students know that even if I fail them, which I am definitely not encouraged to do, they will be passed on to high school . . ."

From a teacher in a Southern city .-"Last year I inspected teeth, swabbed throats . . . patrolled the aisles of concerts, kept order at hot-dog roasts, solicited subscriptions for magazines, collected tin cans and scrap paper, fumbled at operating a movie camera, and was interrupted almost daily by the order to file in with my class to see a dull, poorly done film because audiovisual education is on the beam."

From a Virginia teacher: "Teaching I love, but I do despise being made into a clerk devoted to changing record cards as fast as children are allowed to change courses 'because they wanted to.' "

Concluded Critic Smith: "I would not deny that there are genuine enemies of the public schools, antidemocratic organizations and persons having no objective interest in the improvement of public education . . . Unfortunately, the loudness and articulateness of this minority deceive some [educators] . .. into thinking it represents the chief body of objectors ..."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.