THESE THREE

If there were a few drowsing deans in the audience when Aubrey Williams spoke here Thursday evening, the lapse was a pardonable one. For the ideas which the National Youth Administrator discussed so ably could hardly have seemed novel or radical to any one who has listened to President Conant's theories of education--or who is at all familiar with what Thomas Jefferson believed. Though they differ on the practical problem of how to pay for that education, Tom, Jim, and Aubrey are in surprising accord when it comes to the kind of schooling and the type of student they think are ideal.

All three argue that brains and dollars don't always go together. Not every child of well-to-do parents is able to profit by higher education, while on the other hand there are many able students whose family resources are meager. Those who stand to benefit by advanced training should be sorted out from every economics class, say the three theorists. The remaining young people, rich and poor alike, ought to be provided with a broad training to fit them for citizenship in a democracy, but should not waste their time in protracted studies. In other words, there ought to be a minimum schooling for all, but extended education only for those who have the mental, even if not the financial preparation for it.

Up to this point there is general agreement among Tom, Jim, and Aubrey. But they don't jibe on the mechanism needed to assure able young people from all economic classes a chance to continue their education. Jefferson thought that having public schools and colleges was enough; President Conant believes that private scholarships are needed; and Mr. Williams puts up a brief for public scholarship assistance. The Jeffersonian notion is thoroughly outmoded, and the President's faith in the adequacy of private funds is also no longer tenable--his own annual pleas for scholarship funds growing more and more urgent as continued economic distress makes the problem increasingly acute. Willy nilly, educators must turn to the federal government for financial assistance, if they are to put into practice, now, the Jefferson-Conant-Williams ideas of educational opportunity. That is where N. Y. A. comes in.

Official Harvard still seems to believe that grants of federal funds to private schools and colleges will bring with them federal dictation of educational policy. But the administration of N. Y. A. money is placed entirely in the hands of the principals and deans themselves, "in order to eliminate any possibility" of government interference. Since, moreover, agreement to employ N. Y. A. funds can be cancelled at any time, the University could cut itself loose if any interference were ever attempted. With this in mind, and aware that federal scholarships are only the logical development of President Conant's own educational views. Harvard owes it to her needy students to accept N. Y. A.