Education: Report Card

¶ The state supreme court of California finally made its decision in the case of the 17 professors who were fired for refusing to sign the University of California’s special loyalty oath (TIME, June 27, 1949, et seq.). Since the state already requires an oath, ruled the court, the university has no right to require another. Unless the board of regents decides to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the 17 must be reinstated forthwith with back pay.

¶ Just in case the U.S. Supreme Court should force South Carolina to let Negroes into its public schools. Governor James Byrnes urged voters to back a “preparedness measure”: a state constitutional amendment to erase the provision that “the General Assembly shall provide for a liberal system of free public schools for all children between six and 21 years.”

¶ Apropos of nothing at all, ex-Chancellor Robert Hutchins of the University of Chicago blew off some steam about the grading system in U.S. schools: “A horrible example of Yankee inventiveness. The system now says that’ if you learn 60% of what the teacher tells you . . . you’re an educated man. That’s silly. What the student gets is not an education but a sort of International Business Machines card.”

¶ Appointment of the week: Albert C. Jacobs, 52, to succeed G. Keith Funston, now head of the New York Stock Exchange, as 14th president of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. A graduate of the University of Michigan and a Rhodes scholar, Jacobs lectured on jurisprudence at Oxford’s Brasenose College, later joined the faculty of Columbia University. He has been serving since 1949 as chancellor of the University of Denver.