A COLLEGE EXIT EXAMINATION
Pitkin, Royce S.
A COLLEGE EXIT EXAMINATION by ROYCE S. PITKIN Ours could be called "The Age of the Examination." As soon as a baby makes his appearance in this world he is subjected to an examination, and before...
...No longer is the lecture limited to a group of twenty-five...
...I won't argue the point, but surely status is no substitute for stature...
...We seek national security through greater military expenditures...
...One can devote his life to the acquisition of facts and still feel, quite properly, that he has made only a beginning...
...How do you intend to deal with this issue...
...In the last two decades, despite the decline in child mortality, the decrease in economic contribution of children to the home, and a frightening growth in population, early marriages and large families have again become popular...
...Now there is response...
...It is with them that we must work out our destiny...
...But even in a democratic society the popular thing is not necessarily the right thing...
...It is reported that in many homes the most frequently employed nurse and babysitter is the television set...
...Because they were so highly cherished by our forefathers, they were enumerated in the first ten amendments to the Federal Constitution and have become known as the Bill of Rights...
...We have become members of a world community—a community of conflicting ideologies and traditions...
...How do you plan to meet these two demands...
...The salesman needs buyers and the manufacturer consumers...
...And now the final question: When humanity says, "Give us patriots who believe heart and soul in the brotherhood of man"—how will you respond...
...The demands of childhood are numerous and persistent...
...This was the beginning of a trend that received powerful impetus during World War II and was brought to frenzied heights by McCarthyism and the accompanying fear of Communism...
...Conversely, the right thing may not be popular...
...The question is: By what means will you fortify your knowledge with wisdom and inform your actions with understanding...
...But high taxes are not popular...
...To achieve this aim, vast amounts of energy and money are spent in the creation and popularization of styles, in food, clothing, drink, furnishings, appliances, vacations, and travel...
...among the Communist and the non-Communist societies...
...Now he engages the wizards of Madison Avenue to coach him in making a good television appearance so that he will sound like a statesman and look like a man of distinction while avoiding the enunciation of principles and declaration of policies...
...Children cannot be left to grow by themselves—to find their own food, to build their own society—engaging as such a prospect might be...
...And the search for wisdom is painful...
...Witness the dearth of statesmen in state and national affairs and the failure of college presidents to rise above mediocrity...
...This one, a sort of pilot operation, is designed to be self-administering...
...through the activities of a host of secret police...
...The public relations people, aided and abetted by the anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists, have made us aware of the importance of status...
...to an institution it may bring prestige, honor, acclaim, and a sense of well being...
...My first set of observations is concerned with some of the problems that confront the individual in what is known as "mass culture...
...Moreover, the American patriot knows that there are billions who want and need what America can give in materials, ideas, and ideals...
...We seek a kind of mental security by trying to think the right thing and by avoiding adverse criticism...
...And a democratic society requires leadership in public affairs—a leadership that may be painful and arduous and threatening to one's personal security...
...The explosion of knowledge now taking place entices the erudite mind...
...Anyone familiar with the activities of an American college campus is aware that personal rights are the veritable stock in trade of college students...
...Acquiring knowledge without concern for its use is a comfortable and secure occupation, well suited to those who shrink from public responsibility and the tough business of making decisions...
...Western tradition has exalted the role of parenthood...
...They include freedom of speech and press...
...And so on...
...Because the evils of nuclear warfare are so great, America cannot afford to be wrong in its foreign policies...
...The accreditation of a college is by no means synonymous with the achievement of educational excellence...
...But when success really begins to come, no matter how long it takes, it becomes seductive...
...Modern economic systems depend for their successful operation on mass production and mass consumption...
...We note that speakers at conferences and conventions are often selected not because they have something to say but because they have Won television contests and have been seen day after day by ninety million people...
...Fires of patriotism burn fiercely around the world, in new nations with old cultures, and in old nations with new cultures...
...The question: How can you maintain a reasonable balance between personal well-being and contribution to the public weal...
...These are the nations that constitute the United Nations...
...He cannot so easily lay aside the responsibilities of membership in the brotherhood of man, for he is forced to remember that there are literally billions of other patriots who are as convinced as he of the righteousness of their causes...
...Theirs are the ways of mankind...
...Innumerable examples could be given of situations in which personal freedom, as understood by the founders of the nation, has been curtailed as a means of insuring the security of the state...
...we need more teachers...
...The Twentieth Century is witnessing a massive search for security...
...Do you think one must forsake principle to be popular...
...By their very nature television and radio and the newspapers are mass productions and are known, of course, as mass media...
...Reverence in academic circles for the Ph.D...
...Through pageantry and ritual designed to attract and hold multitudes, the church endeavors to guide the moral and spiritual lives of the masses...
...Pitkin's articles have appeared in many publications, including The Saturday Review, Parents Magazine, The Nation's Schools, The NEA Journal, and The New York Times...
...Thus the first question in the College Exit Examination is: Given these conditions, what happens to individual integrity, to the ability to think for oneself, to the ability to make intelligent decisions, and to originality...
...This emphasis upon private material well-being finds expression in the claim that people will not reside in a state where taxes are high and in the precept that unless the income tax is kept low personal initiative will be destroyed...
...Through the use of amplifiers it is readily extended to hundreds, and through the use of television to thousands...
...And we seek emotional security by togetherness, looking for love and affection, and through the use of tranquilizers...
...Patriotism in this kind of world takes on a new meaning...
...There seems to be an irresistible urge to bring more and more children into the world...
...Yet the course of society depends not only on the amount of knowledge but even more on the uses to which it is put...
...A school boy who has never known success is frustrated, feels defeated and unwanted, and seeks attention and status in socially unacceptable ways...
...A full scale war would mean the end of a free society...
...This will be expensive, which in turn will require higher taxes...
...In the market place and the factory, the counterpart of the erudite mind is the master of know-how, the one who knows the technical aspects of production and sales but is unaware of their impact on the character of culture...
...To the individual it may bring power, wealth, status, praise, popularity...
...For example, we know how to split the atom, but to determine the uses to which we shall put this knowledge requires wisdom and the ability to anticipate consequences...
...One also has to be popular...
...It is as if delay in launching one more new family would result in the dying out of the strain...
...For example, full manhood suffrage was first guaranteed in an American state by the Vermont Constitution of 1777...
...It is submitted here for trial and criticism by any who may be interested...
...Creativity and originality lose their appeal as the urge to conserve and preserve the fruits of success takes over...
...Success for an idea or institution or a career may come slowly or not at all...
...For example, the way to a man's heart is not through one's character but through the kind of things that are given to him...
...Private opulence starts early...
...Consequently, few politicians will speak frankly about the costs of educational improvement...
...It involves the testing of knowledge, subjection to criticism, and constant and continuous reconstruction of experience...
...It is so with the nations of South America and with nations of the Western world—France, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden...
...One of the issues that precipitated the American Revolution was the insistence of Americans that certain rights of individuals were more important than the security of the state...
...Election to high office, whether in academic, business, or political communities, may give status to the elected but brings no stature to the office...
...We even celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day with flowers, and sentiments enshrined in decorative cards, and gifts...
...There is considerable evidence to show that as the physical condition of children in America has improved with prosperity and wider knowledge of nutrition, the emotional life of the child has been impoverished and damaged...
...It has not yet been achieved in several Southern states...
...In the old days the candidate for public office resorted to back-slapping, cider-drinking, and baby-kissing to win public favor...
...Colleges in turn seek accreditation and endowments and expensive buildings to give status to trustees, administrators, and faculties...
...So far has this trend developed that disclosure of scientific discoveries has been withheld in the name of national security...
...Even religious organizations direct their appeals to the masses...
...How do you propose to cope with this condition...
...The question is: Are you ready and willing to run the risk of criticism and unpopularity and to "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" in service to the public...
...Too many of them try to obscure their abandonment of principle through repeated utterance of such heroic phrases as "holding the line...
...Thus, personal opulence increases while public needs go unmet...
...It hardly needs to be pointed out that modern communication is itself largely a mass operation...
...among the light-skinned peoples and the dark-skinned peoples...
...One seldom gets elected to office solely by being virtuous...
...A politician cannot practice his profession without some success...
...These are the people who share the earth and its resources with us...
...There is without doubt a great and growing need for knowledge...
...Freedom of people to associate with others has been restricted in the name of national security...
...One of the paramount aims of management, whether in a capitalist or socialist economy, is to persuade people to want the product that is produced, whether it is cereal that snaps, crackles, and pops, or cars that are wider and longer or more compact, or lipstick that is more alluring...
...We long ago quit judging a book by its cover, or its content, in favor of its popularity, as judged by its position on the bestseller list...
...peals are made to status, comfort, happiness, and luxury...
...Along the way the individual encounters a varied and numerous assortment of tests and examinations...
...Drive-in services in the summer, ski-slope services in the winter, and nationwide radio programs the year around attest to the mass character and appeal of religious activity...
...But around the world hundreds of millions of children are suffering from lack of food, medical care, and proper shelter...
...There is urgent need for more adequate medical care...
...Happiness, according to the advertisements, is equated with possession of things...
...If one exercises the right to drink cokes and beer without exercising responsibility in the disposal of bottles, injury to persons and machines may readily follow...
...Here, then, is the question: When the nation is confronted by another powerful nation which seeks to impose its economic and political sys^ tern on us, can individual freedom and the rights of man, as defined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, be preserved...
...With the advent of World War I, the United States for the first time in a hundred years felt threatened by a foreign power, with the result that concern for the security of the nation began to take precedence over concern for the rights of individuals...
...If there is any subject on which college students are prepared to speak with force and frequency, it is personal rights...
...We seek job security through the guarantee of seniority rights, tenure systems, and conforming to the ways of organization man...
...These rights include the right to believe as one chooses...
...Success seems to be essential to healthy development...
...It would be folly to pretend that these conflicts are not deep-seated or that a few meetings at the summit will cause our differences to disappear, or that we can overcome Communism with sweet reasonableness...
...To become the head of a family, whether in name or in fact, appears to be one of the most appealing prospects of the times...
...The arts, too, are mass-produced and are produced for the mass...
...How will you reconcile the urge for status with the need for stature...
...This universality of status-seeking suggests that it is essential to a well-ordered society...
...Even young children are now being given tranquilizers to help them deal with vicissitudes of their troubled lives, and juvenile delinquency continues to rise along with national productivity...
...The format is simple: It consists of a series of observations on the nature of our life and times, each observation being followed by a question or questions, to be answered by those who choose to be examined...
...It is now evident to every informed person that population is growing faster than our ability to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate the children of the world...
...protection against excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment...
...Emerging from this urgent need for knowledge and understanding is a curious interest in undigested information, tragically illustrated in the rise of Charles Van Doren to momentary fame...
...The surgeon and the dentist want patients, and so do the psychiatrists and the psychologists...
...If one says what he wants to say but in doing so spreads false rumors and defames character, it is evident that the exercise of rights has infringed upon the rights of others...
...They include also the right to talk, to say what one wants to say, to choose an occupation, and in some colleges to select one's program of studies...
...If one enjoys the right to smoke but exercises no responsibility in the disposal of the burning cigarette butt, lives and property are placed in jeopardy and beauty is despoiled...
...The effort is to make people think alike enough to think that they will be different and distinctively different by buying the same things...
...We are advised to open a bank account for a child at his birth and to keep it growing in order that one may always be prepared to buy that extra something that one needs to make himself or his family happy...
...Parents select colleges for their sons and daughters on the basis of prestige rather than the quality of the educational experience for the particular student...
...freedom from search and seizure without warrant...
...It can no longer be "my country, right or wrong" any more than it can be "my city, right or wrong...
...freedom of religion...
...The shackles of colonialism, illiteracy, subjugation, and poverty are being thrown off...
...But a society founded on personal security is not enough...
...Books, periodicals, and letters from foreign countries have been seized and confiscated by postal officials on the grounds that they might subvert the minds of the readers and bring about the downfall of the government...
...We seek material security through higher incomes, savings, all kinds of insurance, annuities, and retirement plans...
...There must be public service—a service that takes the form of informed criticism of public policies, of volunteer services on school boards, town and city councils and in civic organizations, and participation in political affairs...
...to dress and maintain personal appearance as one pleases...
...The question for your consideration: Are you prepared to accept the responsibilities of membership in a society which seeks to protect the rights of individuals...
...There seems to be an equally great need for a College Exit Examination...
...A democratic society needs frontier thinkers—individuals who are not afraid to look into the future and to comment on what they see...
...Membership in the golf club or superlative performance as a golfer is no guarantee of leadership or statesmanship...
...Our achievements, our traditions, our aims justify an ardent patriotism...
...This situation calls desperately for forthright statements of principles relating to birth control and distribution of resources...
...And the five-year-old adds to his status by going to Sunday School because the neighbor's chil-dren go and it is obviously the thing to do...
...This is our world...
...From infancy we are told, "Honor thy father and thy mother...
...Whether or not you contemplate assuming the role of parenthood, what do you intend to do about assuring more favorable conditions for childhood...
...This is particularly true of our motion pictures, books, much of our drama, and music as it is heard in concerts and on records...
...Throughout his life the individual is subject to these ever-present, pervasive mass influences...
...It is so with the nations of Africa and Asia...
...Through song and story America has inculcated in its people an intense love of country, a fervent patriotism that causes the nerves to tingle and a thrill to go through us as we watch the raising of the Stars and Stripes or hear "My Country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing...
...It is because these rights of individuals have been so strongly identified with this nation that down through the years America has been known as a free country in which personal liberty is valued and protected...
...The modern patriot can no longer indulge in the pleasant illusion that military strength and economic power will make the world safe for democracy...
...The American standard of living is rising...
...the playwright and the actor want audiences, as do the composer and the performer...
...It is evidenced, too, in the widespread and often uninformed criticism of public education, in which the critic deplores the lack of knowledge of children...
...Many persons look for jobs that give them status, select the sections of the community in which they will live, and choose their companions for the same reason...
...Which is the greater threat to our national security—the erosion of civil liberties, or subversive activity...
...In many of these nations the ideas of freedom and nationality were taken from America...
...The extensive reliance on factual tests in schools and colleges as a device for measuring learning certainly encourages this concern for the inconsequential...
...Nevertheless, we have to recognize the utter impossibility of nuclear war and the futility of deterrent power as a guarantee of peace...
...To become a mother is to fulfill the greatest expectations and longings of a woman...
...Even a three-year-old is status conscious, when he chooses to go to the nursery school because his playmates do...
...These conditions in themselves may bring great satisfactions and so become ends in themselves...
...In accordance with sound psychological principles, many of these questions may properly be regarded as open-ended...
...There is need for eliminating the pollution of our streams and beautifying and reconstructing our highways...
...Our urban slums are sadly in need of eradication and our cities need rebuilding...
...undoubtedly promotes erudition rather than wisdom...
...For nearly 200 years our country has been a beacon of liberty, casting its beams into the dark and hopeless places of the earth...
...Attendance at church is obviously no assurance of godliness or morality...
...But the desire to be popular is so much stronger than principle that the issues receive little attention...
...To us they may seem rowdy, undisciplined, offensively defensive, and too self-conscious...
...According to the Declaration of Independence a chief function of government is to secure these rights...
...Yet it is evident that the unrestrained exercise of rights, unbalanced by responsibility, results in disorder and harm...
...People everywhere are on the march with strident cries of nationalism...
...But it is so with other nations of the English-speaking world— Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand...
...Our times demand a great extension of our educational system...
...We need more and better schools...
...There is need for research in the causes and cures of mental disease...
...The writer needs readers...
...There may easily be a feeling of relief that the great struggle is over, that the victory is won, and there is no more need for new ideas...
...What preparation are you making to meet success...
...These are the people who belong to the family of man...
...As soon as a baby makes his appearance in this world he is subjected to an examination, and before a man is permitted to repose in his final resting place he undergoes another examination to be certain there is no more life in him...
...Perhaps the one most discussed among high school graduates is the College Entrance Examination...
...But there is no parenthood without childhood...
...Education, too, becomes more and more a massdirected enterprise, not only through the increase in the numbers attending schools but through the methods being used...
...The idea of popular government and democratic society places a high premium on popularity...
...ApROYCE S. PITKIN, president of Goddard College for a quarter of a century, has served in a variety of educational posts, including those of teacher, principal, superintendent, and headmaster in a number of New England schools...
...in Islam and Christendom...
...Fatherhood is second only to motherhood...
...the maintenance of a far-flung and expensive intelligence system...
...Adults go to church and join golf clubs for status...
...and through the restriction of civil liberties...
...It is good that this is so...
...Where this right is exercised without responsibility, the irreplaceable resources of the nation may be destroyed, as is happening, for example, with the giant redwoods in California...
...to use time as one wishes...
...Nothing succeeds like success...
...One of the rights of an American is to own property and to use it as one may determine, unless such use runs counter to the law...
Vol. 26 • June 1962 • No. 6
