Sense and Smears in California

Legislatures are awaking to the badness of much public instruction. Some weeks ago, in this page, I discussed the endeavor of Representative Waldron, in Michigan—unsuccessful, alas—to effect some educational reform there. Since then, I have learned from Mr. Alexander Pope, legislative secretary to Governor Brown of California, that the tide has been flowing in the opposite direction, out that way.

For recently the California legislature passed Senate Bill 57, which is a consider able reform of requirements for the teaching profession in state schools. This new act requires that every teacher must have majored or min-ored in the subject which he teaches—a nasty blow to the educationist hierarchy, for in consequence prospective teachers will tend to major in some intellectual discipline, rather than in Education. This is all to the good for genuine education, but not precisely in the interest of the people who have held “the stranglehold on education,” In California, unlike Michigan, it was the Democrats who pushed through this commendable reform. “We look upon the bill as one of the most important legislative accomplishments of our Democratic administration,” Mr. Pope writes.

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Russell Kirk

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Legislatures are awaking to the badness of much public instruction. Some weeks ago, in this page, I discussed the endeavor of Representative Waldron, in Michigan—unsuccessful, alas—to effect some educational reform there. Since then, I have learned from Mr. Alexander Pope, legislative secretary to Governor Brown of California, that the tide has been flowing in the opposite direction, out that way.

For recently the California legislature passed Senate Bill 57, which is a consider able reform of requirements for the teaching profession in state schools. This new act requires that every teacher must have majored or min-ored in the subject which he teaches—a nasty blow to the educationist hierarchy, for in consequence prospective teachers will tend to major in some intellectual discipline, rather than in Education. This is all to the good for genuine education, but not precisely in the interest of the people who have held “the stranglehold on education,” In California, unlike Michigan, it was the Democrats who pushed through this commendable reform. “We look upon the bill as one of the most important legislative accomplishments of our Democratic administration,” Mr. Pope writes.