Mr. Jones

Educators usually go to conventions to listen to educators, but last week 2,000 members of the New York State Vocational Association gathered in Manhattan to listen to businessmen. Their program was entitled: "The Employer Speaks to Vocational Teachers." The convention proved to be unconventional. Most uncommon thing about it was a Mr. Jones, whose views on education, common to many a hardheaded businessman, shocked the 2,000 vocationalists.

Mr. Mark Jones, president of the Akron Belting Co., likes to tell teachers what is wrong with U. S. education. His theme last week: let the nation's educators dispel some costly national "illusions"; to wit, equality, security, collective bargaining, economic planning, democracy. Said he:

"For more than 150 years [the illusion of equality] has served to delude the masses. . . . The idea that an individual as a matter of right and regardless of his qualifications should be able to participate in determining any and every question which may catch his fancy . . . seems to me to qualify the term democracy for classification as an illusion. . . .

"Why did not the greatest educational system in all history equip the American people to detect [these] ancient fallacies? . . . Why have so many educators been so easily persuaded to chase butterflies that will take all education as we have known it in America into oblivion? . . . To conclude . . . I think there is a basis for hope. . .. I think it is in the idea of noblesse oblige."

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