The Admiral Speaks His Mind

If you are the type that enjoys producing apoplectic effects, try praising Vice Admiral H. G. Rickover to almost any group of school administrators or professors of education. The reason why the collective blood pressure of the educationists hits new highs at mention of the Admiral are set forth cogently in his book, Education and Freedom (Dutton, $3.50).

Although on some scores he should please the functionaries of the National Education Association and the U.S. Office of Education—he is for increased expenditures, better salaries, and gives the nod to federal aid—on most matters he runs counter to the massive orthodoxy that now dominates and colors public education in the United States. In the first place he is a non-professional—and everyone knows, from having been told it for years by the educationists, that education is far too esoteric a subject to be comprehended by those who have not been exposed to courses in it; and secondly, in a time when we are constantly assured that education’s true function is the social and personal adjustment of young people, he remains an unreconstructed advocate of education as training of the mind, and of the idea that schools should make such training their primary function.

MS

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Mortimer Smith

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If you are the type that enjoys producing apoplectic effects, try praising Vice Admiral H. G. Rickover to almost any group of school administrators or professors of education. The reason why the collective blood pressure of the educationists hits new highs at mention of the Admiral are set forth cogently in his book, Education and Freedom (Dutton, $3.50).

Although on some scores he should please the functionaries of the National Education Association and the U.S. Office of Education—he is for increased expenditures, better salaries, and gives the nod to federal aid—on most matters he runs counter to the massive orthodoxy that now dominates and colors public education in the United States. In the first place he is a non-professional—and everyone knows, from having been told it for years by the educationists, that education is far too esoteric a subject to be comprehended by those who have not been exposed to courses in it; and secondly, in a time when we are constantly assured that education’s true function is the social and personal adjustment of young people, he remains an unreconstructed advocate of education as training of the mind, and of the idea that schools should make such training their primary function.