Education: Appointment of the Week

Since its yeasty youth under moon-shooting Idea Men Paul Hoffman and Robert Maynard Hutchins, the vast Ford Foundation ($2.7 billion in current assets) has grown more staid. Latest evidence: the appointment of Manhattan Banker John J. McCloy, U.S. High Commissioner for Germany from 1949 to 1952, to succeed H. Rowan Gaither Jr. as board chairman. McCloy, 63, will take over in December without leaving his post as board chairman of the Chase Manhattan

Bank. Gaither, who helped give the foundation its present shape and direction, announced last May that he would return to his San Francisco law practice. Still in office as the foundation’s guiding force and chief executive: able President Henry Heald.