At queens college, a massive assault on progressive education has recently been mounted. Phi Beta Kappa compiled a list of over 150 courses, currently being offered at Queens, which are “non-academic, or vocational in nature.” The undergraduate newspaper, the Rampart, published the list, together with a blast, directed primarily at the Department of Education. Among courses open to students at Queens: Library Resources for the Elementary School Curriculum (Library Education 220); Problems in Broadcasting (Speech 26); Methods and Materials in the Teaching of Physical Education (Education 67); Supervised Observation and Student Teaching in Home Economics (ibid 76); Leadership in Recreation (Physical Education 9); Education in Camp Leadership (ibid 30); Physical Education for Atypical Children (ibid 46); Quantity Cookery (Home Economics 77 and 78—two years?).
“. . . it seems to us,” wrote the editors, “that the evidence supports … a stern judgment. . . that the time may be ripe for a close, hard look at the whole empire of professional educa-tiondom that now controls our public schools . . . ‘Democratic education’ is indeed an attractive phrase, but we should not let the beauty of the adjective obscure the vacuity of the noun.”
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