SARGENT VIEWS THE EDUCATIONAL CRISIS

...Much more is known in the sciences of biology, psychology, and anthropology than is being used...

...SARGENT observes that the present state of affairs indicates that most Of us know very little as to what is best for ourselves, not to mention "you...

...For example, "President Henry M. Wriston of Brown . . . while he speaks as one in the bleachers, he sits in the grandstand on the boards of great foundations," and "appeals to superficial readers of the business and financial world...

...Porter Sargent is a human being who is more concerned with the human enterprise, the happiness and significance of individual lives, than with theological, metaphysical, or economic blue-prints of existence...

...THE trouble is, Mr...

...Let's have done," he says, "with the futile questions that can't be answered as to beginnings and ends, and purposes where we can know only processes...

...Intentionally or unintentionally these and other educators are aiding economic reaction...

...Unfortunately, hired columnists fall into line with many College presidents, theologians, and business autocrats to pervert the opportunity: Paul Mallon, for example,, boasts about his attack on progressive efforts...

...Accordingly, Mr...

...Triumphantly," Mr...

...But Mr...

...The current controversy as to the type of education we shall have after the war is merely a recurrence of an agelong contest between the so-called 'liberal' education which looked back to the past and the ever-recurring tendency to bring our educational practices into relation with life and activities of the time...

...Let's not waste our energies or our opportunities because we are only a drop in the bucket...

...La Follette says that Congress should be the watch-dog of public administration...

...John's), and Mark "Van Doren, all of "100 best books" fame...

...and to their more or less unintentional hangers-on such as Prof...

...Sargent says, Mallon "quoted the Glens Falls Post Star: 'Learning is not play...

...Thus the author quotes favorably from Max C. Otto's review in The Progressive of Van Doren's Liberal Education, "Something ominous is on foot in the field of public education...

...To use the author's own words, "However infinitesimal the energy we expend, it will exert an influence, and perhaps with more information we can better direct it...

...The future is what we make it...

...Informed progressive thinkers can be the watch-dog of education in their own communities and states to help win the present battle and the perpetual war against reaction...

...To become such, however, it must be developed around a clear, scientific understanding of our world, our social conditions, and ourselves...

...Sargent does a discriminating job of reporting on both scientific and educational questions...

...Attempts are being made, some openly, some secretly, to take over the educational procedure in the United States and make it subservient to an academic, military, or business group...

...and with its wider use much more would soon be learned...

...Hocking of Harvard and Hendel of Yale who, with others, wrote reactionary articles in Fortune (replied to by a scientist, Julian Huxley, and recently by John Dewey...

...If the young will not listen, then education should take them by the collars, slam them down in their seats, and say: Young ones, we know what is best for you, now work.'" * * * MR...

...Sargent devotes many pages to reporting the best opinions in these fields about punishment, learning, discipline, interest, and so on...

...Organized big business, he favorably quotes Helen Merrell Lynd as saying, " 'is actively out to curb public education...

...The past two years [it] has systematically held conferences with schoolmen in state after state to quicken educators' awareness of their stake in the private enterprise system.' " Several pages are devoted to the neo-Thomists and their fellow-travellers, such as President Robert Hutch-ins, Stringfellow Barr (of St...

...Accordingly, the controversy is not merely educational...

...This book can be a decided aid to both laymen and educators who are struggling to see their way through the mass of conflicting claims which threaten to submerge sound judgment...

...But as a matter of fact, science reveals an opportunity, and affords instruments for realizing the opportunity, to make life significant and happy...

...Progressive educators have long been aware of this deficiency (We are referred, for example, to an excellent little book,by Boyd Bode called Progressive Education, At The Cross-Roads...

...By means of a wide range of quotations and pointed comments upon them, Mr...

...Sargent warmly acknowledges the contributions to education made...

...They are trying to correct the situation instead of trying to undermine the most dependable method we have for doing so...

...Although there are few blacks and whites in either science or educational values (both of which are closely interrelated according to the author), yet the differences among the greys, indicated' with humor and clarity in this book, are often of terrible importance...

...by the ArmyJ> while he warns us against the,dangers of Army or Government control...

...Education, of course, should be and, can be an important means to this end...

...Sargent tells us, "Our education is an inheritance from the medieval scholastics, and we still refer to its victims as scholars...

...Progressives have an important job to perform in every community...

...The 'spearhead' is the NAM, famous for its hersey-hunts, suppression of social studies, and hook-ups on educational matters with advertising clubs and American Legion posts...

...In the present battle, to use the words of Eduard C. Lindeman, "We are confronted with an anti-democratic counter-revolution...

...Reactionaries decry the impact of scientific findings on life as revealing a vast, indifferent universe...

...Reviewed by Horace Fries THIS significant reprint from the latest edition of the famous Sargent Handbook of Private Schools pertains as well to public education, especially in view of the fight now underway between educational reactionaries and progressives...

...Although more of the latter is very likely, it can be made constructive...

...Let's be satisfied with putting purpose into our own lives...

...Readers of The Progressive may well be inter- . ested in some of the author's other books, which include War and Education and Getting Us Into War...