Education: Report Card

¶Taking a fresh view of the conflict between high school fringe benefits and academic courses, Dr. Milton Eisenhower, president of the Johns Hopkins University, observed: “I am not opposed to classes in driver training, typing, woodworking, (cooking and the like), except when they are substituted for sound intellectual development.” The trouble is, he said, they are substituted all too often. His proposal: “Remove all peripheral subjects (from the four-year high school curriculum). Concentrate these subjects in a 13th school year for those who want vocational education.” ¶From Dr. William G. Carr, executive secretary of the National Education Association, came a reminder to fellow educators that “not all our critics are our enemies.” Obvious although unnamed targets of his remarks: two officials of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals (an NEA affiliate) who sent a round-robin letter to 16,500 high school principals recently, suggesting a boycott of TIME and LIFE (TIME, April 21). Observed Carr pointedly: “Some adverse comments about our schools are justified. In such cases, the appropriate reaction is not fear or anger, but rather prompt and remedial action.”