Education: Family Fight

Last week Associate Superintendent Stephen F. Bayne of New York City schools delivered to his chief, Superintendent Harold G. Campbell, a monumental report. It had taken Dr. Bayne and his Committee on Articulation & Integration four years to prepare. It embraced, he admitted, “radical changes'” de-signed to fit education to the individual pupil. Under Dr. Bayne’s idyllic system, every pupil, smart or dull, would progress steadily through six years of grammar school, three of junior high, three of senior high. With him from grade to grade would go a complete case history. If his interests were unacademic, he would take cultural or practical courses. He would be stimulated rather than forced to work, would practically never fail of promotion.

The report was not 24 hours old when the first stone was cast by one of Dr. Bayne’s own colleagues. Cocking one eye at the report and the other at a Sun reporter, Assistant Superintendent John L. Tildsley let fly: “The members of the committee may not mean what they have so clearly said, but if so then I regard this as the most dangerous report ever made within my knowledge by any committee of the school system. . . . Let us follow this through logically. A pupil enrolls in the elementary schools, spends six years there without being required to meet any standards, and passes on to the junior high school, which must then lower its standard to meet his. He goes on to the high school, where the same process is repeated. Then he goes on to college, which will also not require him to meet any standards. From there he goes to medical school, where the same conditions obtain. He gets his degree and goes to a hospital to serve his interneship and is told that he will be allowed to develop as his abilities allow. Then he hangs out his shingle and operates upon Steve Bayne for appendicitis. Dr. Bayne wouldn’t like that.”