THE EDUCATION section in this issue reports the remarkable extent to which professional educators are taking part in the world beyond academe. The phenomenon works both ways. Time Inc.'s two top corporate executives last week were busy in the field of education -- a field traditionally of major concern to our company.

In London, Chairman of the Board Andrew Heiskell and a group of colleagues were hosts at a luncheon for 43 Americans currently at Oxford as Rhodes scholars. Heiskell, who is a member of the board of trustees of Bennington College, the University of Chicago and the Institute of International Education, among other educational posts, found himself a bit surprised by the occasion. What was to have been a midday meal and some exchange of ideas turned into a four-hour debating session. Most of the questions aimed at Heiskell involved the U.S. position in Viet Nam, and in part they reflected the sharp questioning to which the Rhodes students them selves are subjected by their intellectual confreres at Oxford.

The inquirers divided about evenly along dove-hawk lines, but what struck the Time Inc. contingent was the degree of knowledge, curiosity and realism displayed by the scholars. Said Heiskell: "What a group of bright, articulate youngsters. They could hold their own anywhere in the world."

On the other side of the globe, Time Inc. President James A. Linen was concerned with the founding of a new university at Pattani, in southern Thailand. Linen was visiting Thailand as guest of Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman, and during his stay was honored by the King, who made him Dvitiyabhorn (Knight Commander) of the Most Noble Order of the Crown. Linen first met Thanat during TIME'S news tour of Asia last winter, when the Foreign Minister's vigor and his views of the U.S. role in Asia made a sharp impression on the U.S. business executives who were on the trip. Among Thanat's domestic responsibilities is the development of southern Thailand, and he enlisted Linen's assistance in the university project.

Linen, who is president of the board of trustees of Hotchkiss School, vice chairman of the board of Athens College in Greece, and a member of the board of trustees of Williams, was eager to cooperate. He invited three top U.S. educators to advise Thai government leaders and educators on construction and programming of the new university. Dr. John E. Sawyer, president of Williams, Dr. Ashley S. Campbell, dean of engineering at Tufts, and Dr. Richard T. Goll, master of Harvard's Leverett House, are already in Thailand. "I hope that when the educators get back to the U.S.," Linen told Thai newsmen, "they will be active--as I will be--in helping to get private grants and exchange professors for this university."

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