The American Scene; Art of American Education

Good morning. This is Howard Vincent doing the arts for the American scene for Illinois Institute of Technology. It is now the middle of August and school is coming up for many of the parents listening to this program. I thought it would be a good idea to consider the art of American education. Now perhaps I'm pushing the word art a little bit far here, but that's all right. I want to stress American education and one of the best ways to get a view of yourself is to get away from yourself and one of the best ways to see American education is to see it in contrast with European education. I had occasion to do this to see this for three years. I was in Paris on educational activities over there and at the time I was over there I became acquainted with one of the technical advisors to UNESCO in Paris at a distinguished American educator who for several years was president of Keystone Junior College, then of co

-college and has had a distinguished career in consultation and education and he is at present in Chicago as director of the survey of dental schools which is being sponsored, the survey is being sponsored by the American Council of Education and Dr. Byron Holland's head has served for the American Council of Education and a number of educational capacities and functions and in the course of his career when he came back from Europe he came back the same summer the same fall that I did in 1957 he gave a commencement address on the subject is a European education better and this for some reason caught the attention of a large public time magazine ran it as a news story because he was a man who was unapologetic about American education he said American education was excellent and I was so delighted to read about it and to see that my friend had done this and then knowing that he was in the city I said we're going to have him here on the program to discuss this problem of

American education its merits as well as its defects Mr. Holland's head. How will we start it off at first place we might just think about the way some of the general differences of Europe and America and move into education. Well I think that would be a good idea how are to talk about some of the general aspects of cultural background in Europe which are different from America but when you think of education you think particularly for example of libraries which people have available and you remember from your experience in France that libraries are not as as easily utilized there certainly as they are with us. You have to have a permit from the goal to get into one and you remember that when you're in a small French town for the weekend you you not only can't get a paperback book you can't get any kind of book you can't get a newspaper the whole milieu with us I think is more encouraging to education than it is in most European countries in that things are easily available to us sometimes that may

perhaps they're too easily available. Does your key word available I think? Absolutely. We have an openness about things and I think this is true of our educational system that it is a system that is not anything like as traditional as the European system and it gives the youngsters a chance to go on from wherever they are to something else in fact I would say first off one of the big differences between the American system and the European system is that in the European system as you know children are frequently given an examination at 11 years old this is particularly true in England but it's also true in the continental countries and this decides their entire future career so that their educational future is decided at a very tender age when about all they can reflect is the background of family and instruction that they've had up to that moment and sometimes certainly the examinations are unfair they're very unfair to youngsters who had a poor economic background.

One of my colleagues at one of the Southern universities in France was in a state of rage because his daughter had missed by one point at this examination at age 11 of going on into the general course which would lead to the university and she's now denied there may be some special dispensation made later but here her way was blocked although it's quite obvious it's a highly intelligent child and after all at age 11 all sorts of things can happen. Well exactly and furthermore these examinations depend upon having had a very rigidly prescribed curriculum that consists of the kind of traditional course that we speak of as the classical course in this country but it's even more classical with the Europeans than we have had for a long long time. The basis of it is Greek and Latin the French youngster takes a very very heavy dose of the humanities and the sciences mathematics

and as I say unless he comes from a background which has almost tutored him given him a kind of hot house forcing in these respects he can't pass this examination and thus go on to second to the lisae and if he doesn't go to the lisa he can't go on to the university. You've seen parents over there Holly you've seen parents working so hard to come time for their child to take examinations the parents are training them every night tutoring them and going through agonies. What's your speak of I think is a very amusing thing that youngster comes home at night from school usually somewhere around 4 4 30 having had no physical exercise during the day he immediately sits down with his mother at the dining room table in France goes over the homework that that he has assigned for the next day works very hard till about 6 30 or 7 o 'clock then has dinner goes to bed early but the interesting thing about it is that this is precisely the same homework that his mother has had a generation before exactly.

Whereas with us of course the work in schools has changed sufficiently so that the mother wouldn't look at this and say well this is exactly what I had 30 years ago. Exactly what you have is this in time you have this system systematization in time but you also have the systematization in place you know that when they're doing this up here in Brittany they're essentially the same work right down here in Nice. Yes well I think it's a little exaggeration hard but you know that the old saying that the minister of education in France can tell that a given hour which side of which page of which textbook every child in the fourth grade in Europe is in France is studying. This makes another difference which seems to me is a very striking one perhaps the most striking difference between European education and American education and that is the difference in the proportion of youngsters going to school. Now actually up to age 14 almost all European youngsters will be in school as all of our youngsters are in school but from there on it's only about

10 or 15 % of the youngsters who go on to what we would think of a secondary school which is Elise or Imnazium so that we have in comparison something like 85 % in high schools. 85 as against about 10 or 15. 15 is an outside. No it's a drop off is simply stacked. That's right we have something like six times as many in the schools as they have. And then when you go on to college you find the difference is is just this great even a little bit greater in France and England about 5 % of the population 18 to 21 go to college whereas now it's something like 35 % with us in fact it's about seven times as many. So that when people compare European education and American education as they frequently do if they were going to make a completely accurate comparison they ought to compare our top seventh with the whole European population in college and if they made that comparison they would have only our Phi Beta cap as sigma size and so on to compare with the whole European

group and if the comparison were made in that way which would be the only fairway then I think the American students in comparison would stand up exceedingly well. This difference in numbers I think is the point that is usually misunderstood by American critics or by critics of American education I should say they don't realize that when they're talking about European education they're talking about an entirely different thing. An education what is in every way possible in an education for the elite. That's right. We also have an elite but we have the education for everybody in which an elite is there too. That's right and it seems to me that you could almost say that one of the one of the reasons for the great development of the American economic system social and political system has been because we have educated such a large proportion of our people. Now admittedly we haven't always known it successfully and admittedly we need a lot of improvement here and the other place you only have to walk through for blocks from this studio to see

schools where great improvement is needed. I'm not arguing that it's perfect here but the fact is that we have tried something that Europe has never tried. We have tried to educate everybody and this it seems to me is one of the great things about American education and it's in my view has also made a very large contribution to American life the fact that we have tried to do this. Another thing that goes along with that and is part of the same idea it seems to me is that we are willing in this country to have different standards of education. When we started for example the land grant colleges which we speak of as our state universities we started them for a particular purpose for vocational purposes mostly vocational agriculture home economics the vocational arts and so on and it was a different system from the system that we then had in the New England colleges. Now all of these different systems that exist in America and there are so many that you couldn't name them it seems to me are again a good thing because

it means mostly a young person can find the place that's right for him and I excuse me for interrupting Holly but this brings up a very important point we are criticizing Europe all the time you know for being regimented. Their education is far more regimented. We have for instance 1 ,900 school colleges let's say they are so diverse as you say that's right. You can't put them down they can they can stamp their 17 universities they are alike who are different as they are after all they're human very large not very large they are alike those 17 universities and that's all they have and they're a state university a state supported universities are from from Paris. All right now they they are the regimented ones. That's exactly the way. Maybe it's regimented for a good end I don't know but there's something to be said for this openness. Well ours is a very pluralistic society as they as a philosopher say and furthermore we have done something I think in our schools and colleges that the Europeans have never done we have within recent years had a much better

balance in my view of humanities the sciences and the social studies if you recall from this thing European schools you don't learn much about social studies in European schools there's a heavy emphasis on language and history a very heavy emphasis on what I would call wrote learning you say it's good because it's hard you see I mean and this means that you must go over it and over it and you learn exact dates of all the kings of France this is hard but after you have done it all then you must ask yourself it seems to me sometime well is this is this the best way to prepare for modern life that that's the question I think. One night Don and Leon I was just a very good friend of mine American who was serving the consulate there and his children came in after dinner and they came in with their with their lessons for the next day in this French school and they they had learned a long passage from a Racine and here they recited beautifully in beautiful French they recited this long passage from Racine now that'll do them from good

sometime but I thought how different they had had to memorize that night after night they memorize a passage from somebody like that. Well I think that these are these are four really very substantial differences these difference in numbers the difference in standards the the fact that we include more social studies and the fact that our kids can go on from wherever they are to the next step without being forced into that's right. I make one one citation my son was in the in a school in Paris well supposedly a very progressive school and there's a very distinguished school jeid went there and other people and John was in the school and one day he said we asked him about his fellows too and all he liked the boys very much I said well what about what kind of minds I said they're very bright but said they're so immature and here's a 14 year old boy complaining about the immaturity and I said what do you mean immature he said well they don't know anything about their own government they don't know they in other words he was saying social science in a sense well and

also activities I think school activities how are you see in school activities here we give them a chance to run a student government maybe they do it badly but it's it's a kind of experience we have all kinds of clubs and societies in our country schools we have four age clubs the youngsters run these themselves by and large in the European schools that that I've seen anyway youngsters don't have that kind of responsibility and it is true that they mature later their their social development is slower than our youngsters and I think it's partly for this reason now you you are visiting schools all over the world and all of all the European systems the main European systems had you had those in in in in Asia and is this true almost around the world as against the American well I think so I think that I think that American schools by and large give the youngsters more chance to develop themselves socially to develop their abilities to get along with their fellow students and so on and that's where we're criticizing yes that's exactly where we're criticizing my view it's a very good thing because actually

of course well you this probably true while you certain was true while you were in France too I don't remember how many French governments I saw in the five years and a half that I was in France but it must have I think it was in the 20s yes it was 2526 and it was partly because nobody was taking or the average citizen doesn't really take feel much sense of responsibility so that this activities business I think is important another thing that struck me is a great difference and you probably have often observed this is that our idea of vocational education is quite different from the European idea when the French youngster decides what he wants to do vocationally he goes to an occult apprentice size where he is an apprentice and he studies only that I mean if he wants to be a child no woodworker well and it's just woodworking whereas with us the youngsters get a general education along with the vocational education

they are therefore a little bit better prepared to go into a mass production society and system regimentation that's right and therefore they can adjust a little bit easier to the kind of thing that they have to do in our industries which are changing all the time you probably remember when you're getting a house repaired in France how they go around tapping with little hammers all over to knock all the plaster that's off whereas we probably would come in with a very large machine actually I think maybe the craftsmanship is a little better I'm not arguing about craftsmanship but I think our system provides more things for more people at lower prices and with higher wages and after all this is this is what we want in this period that we're in another thing that we do and I've been pleased to hear you mention about your own son in this I think we do a lot more with sports and here again

you have this contribution to democratic living perhaps a lot more they do nothing member of team yes that's right so that you have a feeling well this is my team out playing out here we provide hours for physical education in the average continental school there is no gymnasium and there are no hours for physical education now critics of American education say that we have made too much of this and indeed in some cases perhaps we have I'm not arguing that we haven't certainly in some of our colleges and universities too much has been made of a of a game like football I would be the first to agree on the other hand not to make anything of it is an even worse mistake in my view it's unclassical that's right that's right that's right the Greeks certainly did so that it seems to me that these differences are important now one other difference that I'd like to mention then perhaps we'll have a more general discussion of this and that is that in our

schools we attempt to give much more what guidance but the quotation marks around counseling counseling and this is necessary with us because in the first place our youngsters come from a much more homogeneous background they are made up of all races and all social classes and so on they have vast language differences and vast differences in the homes from which they come because these people came from different parts of Europe that's it but more than that they have a vast variety of vocational opportunities which the European Youngster doesn't have they also have a great variety of educational opportunities which the European Youngster doesn't have so they need to be guided much more than the European Youngster has simply because they live as you have said so well in a much more open society where the way to the top for the poor but bright youngster is a lot easier to to go than it is

in most most countries in Europe well if you live in a plural society you've got to make choices people got to be helped in choices but if you live where you don't have any choice naturally you don't have counseling yes that's right well this it seems to me is is oh I would say a very large difference maybe it's parallel by another one and then I really will get off these differences but this must have struck you too the the great difference in the amount of lay participation in education for example the French school you never see a parent teachers association there is one there is one this progressive school so -called progressive school that John went to the they did have a PTA group and it was the funniest thing to go to one of those meetings because the parents you know how parents are in a PTA in this country they are in there fighting these parents were there timidly feelings though they were really treading a holy ground they shouldn't be there and they were just beginning to feel their way in eventually they'll be PTA in front

but they don't have it well it's part of the business of having everything controlled from parents and with us it's it's that everything goes back for its roots to the community yes or to the state the state universities are certainly not responsible to communities but by and large our educational system is controlled by the people in the communities who elect their own boards and to be sure there is a kind of necessary a predetermined of these schools which means that they all follow a fair fairly well the same pattern but it's nothing like the dictation and I don't use this word in the bad sense the dictation which comes from a minister of education where he says that on such and such a day you take up this part and such and such a day you take up this part and this is the textbook that you use and this is the syllabus that you follow we know why it is why some of your your mind anyhow European friends are a little puzzled why

we so many educators in this country are resisting the idea of federal aid to education yes they they they they have it that is the way it is that's just the way it is they are we we are concerned because we're losing this independence this variety that's right everything said yes that's a problem it's very hard for a European to understand how we can operate it all and he is always full of fear that we have no standards which sometimes seems to him to be true that we have no no way of knowing what's going on in any any school that how do you say that these people can go on to the same university when you don't even know that they've had the same thing in school and of course I think that as as as we move into as we're now doing quite a difference among the colleges for example certain of our colleges had require college board examination others require this others require that we we get somewhat the same thing but we get it for groups rather than for the the whole population as

exists in Europe well my feeling about this is after great consideration and perhaps being prejudiced as an American that by and large we are doing the right thing that our schools are and indeed almost the secret of our success but that we do need as our critics say to improve them as much as we can we certainly need to spend more money on them than we have spent thus far we we need to provide better facilities for them we need better teachers we need all the things that the critics have said but we don't want to change the fundamental pattern or system that we've been following this is my I think I have an instance of a important difference that there's been we've been pointing up indirectly all in all our discussion and that is the openness of our student in college our good student in college to exploration on his own yes now I had students at the University

of Leon University of Bard though who were supposed to they knew that they were going to take an examination in June they didn't have any examinations until June but the examination was made up in Paris and they knew that they were going to have to read a book it was it was a 42nd parallel by dose passos now as you know the 42nd parallel by dose passos is part of a trilogy which is entitled USA and so I was talking to these students lecture into a special group of the students and I said now how many of you read the other two books in the trilogy nobody had I said well how do you know how it comes out well we don't have time for that I said but you but this is folly you you would naturally want to even though we aren't going to be examined all but we don't have time we have to be prepared for this examination they were going to know every word in 42nd parallel but they wouldn't know the other two books imagine American students who was that serious master's degree this is master's degree candidate not reading the other two books this is folly they don't read around they don't browse in libraries because the libraries are hard to

read yes well I think this is true I also think it's true don't you that we we may in discussing these things exaggerate a little what's happening because my observation has been from reading books coming from Europe lately that they are moving quite rapidly in our direction and indeed in some cases we have moved slightly in their direction it's all not because they are becoming Americanized or we're becoming Europeanized but it's because as we move in further into the 20th century the requirements get to be almost the same for all master culture master culture is coming now with industrialization and all rest yes well as I've said this you said this mass culture indeed seems to in some cases at least have a lot more freedom in it than the kind of traditional culture from which these people are moving now

it would be hard to say how traditional culture is and where you have the break point where you move into mass production and mass production into a kind of power society I I can't tell you about all those things but it does seem to me that you have to have an educational system that prepares you for that and goes along with it and well what you're saying Holly is that we must have some kind of a system with you isn't too systematic exactly we must have something between the aristocratic principle and the elite idea of Europe and the too fluid the too wide open which has been sometimes it's been criticized in our but I think we have it I mean after all the people the people are aware who study this appearance who study this closely are aware there's a difference between such and such teachers college in northern Montana and Harvard Harvard Harvard College degree are there supposed to be a Princeton degree in such and such and they are it could be where this is more than mere snobbism all those snobbism involved well I think you could take to

use the very illustration you're talking about now you could take an American family an immigrant family let's say and say that in this generation or a particular generation the the mother graduates from high school and her daughter may go graduate from a normal school and the daughter of that that generation may go to a four year college and then the next one may go to one of the Ivy League colleges that problem is that we're getting too proud of the Ivy League but in Europe they wouldn't be going to college that's exactly a lot of winning the finishing high school that's exactly the point yes and it's this point that it seems to me we in America ought to keep in mind and be very proud of because our school system provides a kind of mobility that allows people to move up on the social social and economic scale and this is what we want and what I hope is in the qualitative in society but it is true in Europe now you have the population pressures beginning there too and there they will produce oh yes well the Butler report in England as a matter of fact advocated

moving in exactly the directions that we're talking about this morning and there is a well a innumerable French reports which advocate moving in this direction yes that's right big big fight on that yes that's right for a year so that we're not talking about anything that is at all strange to them I mean they're anxious to do it well thank you very much Dr. Hans ever coming here and talking about American education come again sometime we'll discuss this further