Mi-T
EDITORIALS
Never Forget That These Editorials Are The Opinion Of One Man
• -.... And He Map Be Wrong
View With Alarm J
or puzzled by the remarks of one Doctor
Dennis H. Cooke, director of teacher edu
cation at High Point College, has sent me a
cop£ of “A Commentary on Education and
National Survival", accredited to this educa
tor. '; •
We suppose that we were favored with
this commentary because it bitterly attacks
community colleges . which only proves
sctnething we suspected, to wit: That all
educators are not educated.
Dr. Cooke avers and alleges, “For the
most part, community colleges are second
or third-rate, m^yl^js even fourth-rate, in
stitutions. By their vary natufethey are al
most required to admit any student from
the community who has received any land
of high-school diploma or certificate irre
spective of whether or not he is qualified
to do college wqk. The bulk of the more
able students will continue to seek admis
sion to the established better quality in
stitutions. Under these conditions the stan
dards and quality of work done in these
community colleges cannot and will not Be
' first, rats. What f^slsrs sufficient pres*
’ suras will be exerted on the four-year col
leges diet they will be compelled to admit
to their third years the graduates of these
community college This will have tre
mendous effect in lowering the standards
and quality of work done in these four-year
colleges.
“While a case possibly could he made for
the community college as a terminal, adult
education, vocation al-type, institution, but
never aS a place to do the first two years of
college end to prepare few the third year,
the community collage wiH net protaihte the
cause of higher ei^nesftipn . in North Can*-,
Una." ;
Dir. Cooke has a^tot-more to say, includ
ing several hundred words on the superior
ity of Russian over American schools, but
for this piece we are only concerned with
exploring some of the myths he is spread
ing against conununity i * , h
Each of the faults Dr. Cooke ascribe* to
ftvuiua wuv noma iu uiajui ui uuvicai piijr
sics, or a low-order moron who Wants to'
major in applied biology there is a certain
little matter called money.
Professors are not confronted with this
problem since their children may live at
home and attend college. But a majority
of the people of North Carolina do not live
in college towns; so if their children get to
College they have to commute daily over
considerable distance — which is both ex
pensive and dangerous, or they have to en
roll as a boarding student, which is brutal
ly expensive to the average family.
Dr. Cooke deplores the possibility that un
fit students may be graduated from these
community colleges and forced into the
“better schools."
At present these unfit students are clut
tering up the campuses of these “better
schools,” and at a price tag of from $1200
to $1800 per year to thei* parents.
If these poorly motivated, stupid or anti
education students persist in their parents’
dtesire for them to “be • educated” beyond
the community college it is neith«|r their
fault nor tHeir parent’s fault If a “better
school” lowers its academic standards, in
order to take their money. r
For an educator' to oppose commutiity
colleges today is as ridiculous as to oppose
public high schools in every community.
Such thinking as this of Dr. Cooke would
reverse the hands of educational time and
send all children away to boarding schools
for their secondary add even grammar
schooling.
u ut. cooae is wow enougn equipped 10
merit the title he holds he has no need to
fear that his job will be sacrificed On the
community college altar. But if his blindness
in all phases of teacher education is equal
to his blftidnets in the sphere of commu
nity colleges, then he had better begin look
ing a job in a less ^demanding field.
The Lenoir County Fa rm Bureau hits
passed a resolution oppposing poundage
quotas for tobacco. This is a short-sighted
refusal on.die part of our farm leaders to.
search for a way to improve the present
system which has glutted the market with
the first
of vote
Rus
that
ours.
the Ros
ie. There is no
to the 'two economies
compare the two, and
we did have an electronic computer
that could equate the'two we would have
Secondly, if one is foolish enough to as
sume that the Russians would ever give us
accurate figures, then where would one be
gin in. an effort to arrive at a sensible
growth rate iigurt/• •a.j.r 'V-l'W4* -v.
t( a man is standing still and begins to
move five miles an hour it is impossible to
compute his growth rate. If that man is
moving five miles an hour and speeds up
to 10 miles’ per hour we assume that he has
increased his speed 100 per cent. ‘ fr i
Some extremely learned elders from our
country have been permitted to see frag
ments of j*e Russian economy, and the sto
ries they 'teB are rather like the fable of
the three blind men who described the ele
phant,
But the final proof of any pudding is the
tasting: Russian housing, farming, trans
portation, and education are moving at a
rate faster than they were 44 years ago
when a series of revolutions coming at the
end of a paralysing defeat by Germany had
brought Russia to a hah.
If a magic wand could freeze the United
States .in its tracks this mdment the Rus
'sians could not reach the point where we
now stand in a hundred years, Firstly they
don’t have a motivating economy and sec
ondly they do not have sufficient arable soil
.and the climate to feed and clothe their
people in the standard America, takes for
granted.
A Soft Touch
American* find it difficult to understand
how the Red Chinese can pour a sufficient
number pf men and equipment over 20,000
foot mountain passes to overrun a nation
of nearly 400 million population.
India has always been a soft touch for in
vaders. It always will be. The passive re
sistance and intellectual persuasions that
caused England to surrender its dominance
over India does not prevail upon hungry
bellies and restless armies that swarm from
one corner to the other of Red China.
India’s religion, its lack of an adequate
transportation system, its fedual economy
and its naive leadership sill convert it into
an easy touch for any. burglar.
, Throughout its long history India has nev
er resisted but has — until the British —
assimulated. India is such a huge mass of
humanity that it never has developed any
real sense of nationalism. The 'hourly fight
for survival is foremost in the minds of the
overwhelming majority of the Indian people.
To a degree the Chinese have suffered, and
suffer this same problem. But the religion of
communism fuss replace the serenity of
BtjiSNUtiSttn and Confucian philosophy in
China. ,
Bringing India under Chinese dominance
raises the ancient threat of the “Yellow
Peril” with their billioiji population. The
contempt with which the yellow races hold
all others — including the negroid — i*
perhaps only equalled hy the white man's
PoorreWf for f
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it'Mil
Smtoa, N. C, Phone JA 3*
s Second Pats Matter May
o*t Office at Trenton. North
■ Published Ei
County Ne*»
. Vernon' Awe*
held on 'the ,
awards, and a
both aides of
debris that geh<
siOns. ,
Another meeting is scheduled to be held
next week (November 26thJ between the
school board and .the facolty advisory coun
cil of Grainger High School, ift which this
subject will \be pursued further. The school
board put this Subject in motion with a re
quest for more recognition of scholarship.
The advisory council accelerated, the mo
tion of the subject by coming up with a long
list of reasons why it opposed additional
academic honors. ' J;'
And in the midst Of its reasons a
majority of which were good — the council
tossed In one that infuriated the school
board. It had to do with the business of
saving face for the stupid or lazy student.
I completely share the irritation of. the
school board. Board Member John Page
said it bluntly and effectively, “I thought
this ‘progressive’ education nonsense had
been rooted out of our schools. But I see it
hisn’t!”
Such notions die slowly. They are torn in
the perfectly human desire to spare the
feelings of the less fortunate, and the par
ents of the less fortunate. But it is my con
firmed view that postponing a date with the
inevitable is neither kindly, nor wise.
This kind of reasoning .has caused the
election of a Grainger High School marshal
who was taking no advance or accelerated
courses, while- at the same time denying
a marshaiship to a i brilliant student who had
made a “2’’ in physical education. This kind
of sloppy, lazy faculty work has seen the
perfectly good system of point grading elim
inated in favor of less precise ways of1 grad
ing. ■
To illustrate how unfair this lazy, system
now in use' at Grainger High School is con
sider : A grade of “1” is from 96 to 100, a
grade of “2" is from 90 to 95, a grade of “3"
is from 80 to 89, a grade of “4” is from 75 to
79 and a grade of “5” is from zero to 74.
One pupil may take three tests on which his
real grades were zero, 75, and 80, and yet he
wilt get on his report card the same grade
as a student who took the same three tests
and made 74, 79, and 89.
Yet when a child is being taught to think
for himself,, and to fight for the things he
believes he has earned he is accused of be
ing mbre interested in grades thans in. sub
ject matter. Which is rather like the gen
eral assembly saying to the teacher, who
wants Btore money, "You are more inter
ested in the material things than in your
profession.” ’ ,
The day our schools begin turning out
children who DO'NOT CARE about high
grades, high salaries, better homes, better
clothihg; that is the day that Khrushchev’s
promise will have come true. I don’t think
that day will arrive, because the human
spirit will not be confined behind the walls
of mediocrity. Birds fly because they have
winort DriHiatW cAar Winu tlimr