Methodology Y. Education

Sir:

Your article on Superintendent Oberholtzer [TIME, Feb. 20] is a well-deserved indictment of American high-school education. It illustrated the preoccupation with methodology which paralyzes all efforts to concentrate on the basic aims of education: to pass on knowledge, to prepare the pupil intellectually and morally for his or her responsibilities as future U.S. citizens.

The problems of the time are far too serious to permit experiments which create well-adjusted morons. Freshmen at the universities . . . know practically nothing of the history of their own country, its ideals and traditions, and are ignorant of the Christian tradition of Western civilization . . . They are quite incapable of understanding what Communism means and why it is a threat to their own way of life . . .

HENRY G. DITTMAR, Ph.D. University of Redlands Redlands, Calif.

Sir:

It was refreshing to know that a national magazine of a non-professional type (educationally speaking) could give such a good description of the questions and problems of education today . . .

WILLIAM E. GILLIS Department of Education East Haven, Conn.

Sir:

Superintendent Oberholtzer of Denver would do well to examine carefully the "measuring devices called standardized tests" which prove that Denver is not "neglecting the three Rs" . . . Acceptable scores are determined simply by the average score achieved by the students tested . . .

The preference for student-set rather than teacher-set standards is one of the important reasons why student performance is low at present.

GORDON R. WILLIAMS Chicago, Ill.

Sir:

. . . There are a few of us public-school teachers . . . still trying to hold out against the pragmatists and experimentalists who would make of public education a glorified vocational training period and hobby show, who would seek to make of school life a series of artificial experiences designed to "mold the child to his environment" . . .

The end result of this type of education ... is a high-school graduate anxious to criticize his city's garbage-disposal system but perhaps incapable of interpreting a city ordinance on the subject. Yet he will not for a moment doubt his own capabilities, for his intellect has never been really challenged . . .

CHARLOTTE SWATEK Milwaukee, Wis.

Sir: We liked Dr. Oberholtzer's picture on TIME. We are very proud you chose him to be the first person in Colorado to have his picture on the cover. Mrs. Parkinson read us parts of the article. We think it was very fine. We are sorry you left out the part about manuscript writing. Mr. Iwasaki took some pictures of us writing at the board [see cut] . .

JILL GARNSEY CAROLYN GREER CLARE MATSON NANCY GRAHAM TOMMY ROTOLE

Moore School Denver, Colo.

Wanted: Transportation

Sir:

"Whether the U.S. public wants a stripped-down, low-priced car ... Most automakers think it doesn't" [TIME, Feb. 20] ...

I have no intention of buying a car that costs me the equivalent of a year's salary, but if Kaiser-Frazer or Nash . . . can market a car in the $1,000 bracket as opposed to the $1,500 or $2,000 price tags on the currently misnamed low-priced cars, I for one will be in the market for it ...

You can have your radios, acres of chrome, symptomatic transmissions and other gadgets. I want an automobile to get me from one place to another, and not a living room on wheels, a portable entertainment hall or an ambulant bedroom . . .

FREDERIC B. RICHARDSON Fort Benning, Ga.

Required Reading

Sir:

If superior ideas are essential to the conquest and overthrow of superficial ones, then the new "Capitalist Manifesto" [TIME, Feb. 13] ... ought to be required reading for everyone, from the foreman and union steward on up to the policy-making committees. Organized labor resents the injustices of our present economic system, and expresses its dislike in strikes . . . Unless these work stoppages . . . can be dealt with through such democratic processes as joint consultations and open forum discussions, our nation will be deprived of the fruits of an expanding economy which it has every right to expect in view of past progress and today's vast technology . . .

LARRY HESTER Hamtramck, Mich.

The Price of Health

Sir:

Your lucid "The Price of Health: Two Ways to Pay It" [TIME, Feb. 20] left room for a third . . . It's usually not the doctor bill, but the heavy hospital expense that sends a patient scurrying to the nearest loan office . . .

Let Oscar Ewing take another look. Instead of private hospitals and public doctors, perhaps public hospitals and private doctors is what we need.

J. DeWiTT Fox, M.D. Editor

Life &Health Washington, D.C.

Sir:

... The President's compulsory plan promises unlimited health services. Organized medicine sponsors the limited liability which Blue Cross-Blue Shield has proven practical. Therefore low-cost insurance against catastrophic illness, child bearing and malignant disease is the sensible middle ground . . . THOMAS E. MATTINGLY, M.D. Washington, D.C.

Sir:

If A.M.A.'s Dr. Henderson thinks the bulk of American citizens can afford adequate medical care, he must know as little about how four-fifths of us live as the layman knows about medicine . . . MARGARET LEE SOUTHARD Hingham, Mass.

Sir:

Congratulations . . . We heartily agree that public airing and emotional cooling are currently in order before a sound solution can be reached. LESLIE CORSA JR., M.D. Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, Mass.

Words & Music

Sir:

My sometimes faulty English was undoubtedly responsible for a quotation--"I'm not nationalistic enough to say Czech music is great music"--in your Feb. 20 article concerning me.

What I tried to express was my belief that not all Czech music is great music. As a Czech, I could hardly dismiss such composers as Smetana, Dvorak, Janacek and Martinu . . .

RUDOLF FIRKUSNY New York City March 13, 1950

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