..
Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
June 15: A Doctor, in the House?
-
re Opinions Are Free. 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, ICH
Truth Will PrevaiA
NEws PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the inidividual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
AY, JUNE 15, 1966
NIGHT EDITOR: SUSAN SCHNEPP
I
'Truth Coverage' for All;
Responsibility of The Press
By LEONARD PRATT .
MUCH TO almost everyone's
surprise, a state House at-
tempt to create a fourth Michigan
medical school, an osteopathic
college, failed last Friday night,
54-38.
This was certainly a curious de-
feat for the House's Democratic
leadership, especially after they
managed to march the proposal
smartly out of a committee in
which it had been stalled earlier.
It is a defeat which should be
repeated on June 21, when the
House will reconsider the bill.
THE PROPOSAL-which would
create a state authority to con-
struct and operate a $60-$100 mil-
lion osteopathic medical center in
Pontiac-has had a legislative
career that was mildly described
by one reporter as "like a three-
ring circus."
When the bill was first pro-
posed last fall, Attorney General
Frank Kelley, in an advisory
opinion, told the Senate that it
could not constitutionally create a
new state college without the ap-
proval of the State Board of Edu-
cation. And the board had already
said that it would not approve
such a college until its "master
plan," an overall state educational
blueprint, was completed at some
future date.
So the thoughtful watchdogs of,
the people's rights passed the pro-
posal in a fit of pique against
Kelley. "Hell," one of the senators
said later, "he can't do that to us."
None of the senators seemed too
concerned about the state's need
for an osteopathic college, a minor
issue, no doubt.
WHEN THE BILL was sent to
the House many thought it would
die quietly. It almost did.
Two votes were taken on the
proposal in committee last Thurs-
day. The first was two votes short
of passage. The second passed the
bill out of committee and onto
the House floor.
The dissenters? One mysterious-
ly has found some extra money
for a pet project, The other is
rumored to be preparing for a
nice trip. Democracy at work.
Unfortunately for the bill's
supporters, however, there wasn't
quite enough pork to go around, as
the House's vote indicates. But
there are certainly all the chances
in the world of more invitations to
dinner before June 21.
AS HAS BEEN becoming more
and more common, the legislators
are in danger of losing sight of
issues in the process of proving to
one another how important they
are. There are really two matters
here which the Legislature's cooler
heads should take into considera-
tion.
The first is simply whether the
state needs either another college
or medical school. Two medical
schools already exist, one at the
University and one at Wayne
State University. Whether the two
combined are providing enough
medical training for the state is
probably a reasonable matter for
legislative debate.
But even if they are not, the
real question is how to provide
increases in that training for the
least money. Surely the state
would get more for its money by
increasing the size of its two
existing schools than it would by
building a new one from the
ground up.
And in this state the Legislature
is certainly working on a fairly
limited budget. Whether it is fi-
nancially reasonable, considering
the present condition of Michi-
gan's tax system, to pour millions
into a new college project when
the colleges which already exist
are short of money seems a par-
ticularly one-sided question.
THE SECOND ISSUE is more
fundamental. Just what is the
power of the state's board of
education? If it can be overriden
at the Legislature's whim, what
becomes of its constitutional
charge to coordinate the work of
the state's' colleges and univer-
sities?
The board at the moment is in
an especially touchy spot. It is
only as old as the constitution and
has yet to have anyone listen to
what it says with anything ap-
proaching respect. Yet if Michi-
gan's colleges are ever to get rid
of their schizophrenic tendencies
to be all things to all people; the
board must have some authority.
It is now beginning to put to-
gether its "master plan," but if
that plan is not to go the way of
Gov. George Romney's "Blue Rib-
bon Report," if it is not to become
meaningless, its authors must
swing some weight within the
state.
THE ONLY WAY they will
swing that weight is if the' Legis-
lature listens to their recommen-
dations. Legislators have the pow-
er, by passing this bill on June 21,
to tell the board how little they
think of it and thus how little
they think of a .streamllined edu-
cational system of which the state
can be proud.
*
"READ ALL ABOUT IT" screams the pa-
perboy of yesteryear. Today the pa-
perboy is as silent as -his product, not
necessarily out of choice, but from lack of
extras. Now, very few "news" items escape
the watchful eyes of the press secretary;
press conferences are called by the Presi-
dent when he is ready to inform the
masses.
What has happened to the traditional
function of the press, to keep the public
informed of the events taking place
around them? Simply this: it has strayed
from its former autonomous position to
that of a government lackey.
THE NEWS MEDIA, i.e. the press, as a
result is often blamed for the lack of
facts made known to the man in the
street. Many experts view the problem in
terms of news service monopolies and
journalistic chains stretching across the
country under the control of one person,
or group of people, such as the Hearst
chain. Critics often charge that the "cli-
entele" is guilty of "believing everything
they read" which results in thoughtless
pages printed with the assurance that
they will be read with few questions
asked.
These are facts, but they are not the
root of the current press problem; a
problem which is reflected in the blank
faces voting and acquiescing on issues
they know nothing about.
WHO, THEN, IS TO BLAME for the mis-
information of the masses? A major
portion of the trouble belongs on the
steps of the White House. Major policy
decisions are shrouded in secrecy until
the moment the consequences are felt.
Last week the New York Times reveal-
ed that a story of the Bay of Pigs crisis
lay on the managing desk before the
abortive invasion actually took place.
This revelation took place in 1966; the
incident occurred in 1961.
The story was not given prominent
coverage because the editors felt that this
type of priority would endanger the na-
tion for political reasons. President Ken-
nedy later said that if all the facts had
been known he would have been saved
from making a grave error which put the
nation on the bring of terror for 10 days.
Five years may be a relatively short span
in the cycle of history but the point is
that truth should not be hidden by politi-
cal maneuvers.
THE "DOMINICAN CRISIS" came and
left in a whirlwind; the Marines were
called in before the facts were publicly
available. A book by New York Times
correspondent Tad Szule was printed
after we became committed. His book
pointed out that many facts lay buried in
the swift military migration-facts that,
had they been known at the time, may
have changed the course of events.
Ramparts magazine printed the "ex-
pose" of the MSU-Viet Nam fiasco initiat-
ed in the late '50's. The article was print-
ed in 1966.
In all three instances cited above the
truth appeared ex post facto; it was too
late at the time of their publication to
begin the beguine. Why weren't the facts
revealed at the time? What has happen-
ed to American "truth coverage?"
VAGUE REFERENCES to national se-
curity conceal timidity and lack of ob-
jectivity. But citizens, irregardless of
their place in the bureaucratic machine,
are concerned with national security-
they demand to know exactly how secure
they are. Democracy is praised the world
over for the power it gives the people to
decide their fate. But, decisions cannot
be made with ignorance.
Turning the lights off may keep the
administration secure in its governmental
offices; it does not aid the citizen stum-
bling on his way to the good, peaceful
life. Votes can be obtained by telling the
people what they want to hear, but there
are few long range benefits in this type
of operation.'
Now that their sons are dying in Viet
Nam, citizens are demanding factual re-
ports about the war. It is too late; we are
deeply and according to the administra-
tion, irrevocably committed. The truth
may eventually come out but as in the
past, it will be too late; the deed is done.
AT THE MOMENT much of our informa-
tion on the activities of the regime in
Hanoi comes from other countries. Many
Viet Nam reports come from individual
fact-finding tours of the country, those
that survive governmental editing. The
involvement is 10 years old, but how long
has reliable information been available
from our press sources?
We criticize the Communist regimes for
their "truth coverage" yet ours, though
a different process, has approximately the
same results. In many cases we hear only
what the officials deem it safe for us to
hear and the press, on some notable oc-
casions, has complied.
It is the responsibility of the govern-
ment to keep the citizens informed; it is
the duty of the people to demand the
facts to know the issues which they will
be asked to enforce with their lives. Oth-
erwise, freedom and the right to govern
are of little value once the people are re-
duced to the role of yes-men.
THE LINES OF A SONG express this
thought well:
"Seagull I don't want your wings. I
don't want your freedom in a lie."
-PAT O'DONOHUE
When Is an Education Not an Education?
i.-
The Reforming of General Ed-
ucation: The Columbia Col-
lege Experience in Its National
Setting. By Daniel Bell, Co-
lumbia University Press, 320
pp., $6.95
By ROBERT JOHNSTON
First of a Two-Part Series
WE ARE SURROUNDED on the
one hand by prophets of doom
who wring their hands and shake
their heads in despair over loom-
ing crises which they claim are
overtaking this country's higher
education establishment at such
a rate that only the most des-
perate crash program of massive
reorganization, rebuilding and new
building car avert complete col-
lapse; and on the other by aca-
demic senates and faculty com-
mittees that would sooner take to
the streets, erecting barricades
and passing out weapons, than ap-
prove any plan that might de-
range, or even slightly rock, the
status quo.
Faculty politics is a no-man's
land. Few presidents or chancel-
lors dare go near it, and few pro-
posals can survive it-leaving the
field to controlling cliques of
prima donnas.
HOWEVER, intense and en-
trenched conservatism in all mat-
ters concerning itself notwith-
standing, the American university
is actually a relatively recent in-
vention. While most of us think of
it as originating with Plato's
Academy or, at the latest, in the
medieval monasteries, the grad-
uate school, along with the doc-
toral degree is actually a 19th
century innovation.
And few of today's disciplines,
all of them exuding an aura of
heroic timelessness, have been in
existence longer than 10 years.
Even history, a bulwark of hu-
manistic studies, was undeveloped
until the early 19th century. The
subject of thisbook, general edu-
cation, best defined as an inter-
disciplinary liberal arts program
for undergraduates, made its first
appearance not in Plato's Academy
but in Columbia College in 1917,
with the introduction of the still-
popular Contemporary courses.
By the 1930's general education
was a central issue in all discus-
sions of educational philosophy.
In 1938 Robert Hutchins had call-
ed for a general education program
for undergraduates at the Univer-
sity of Chicago, and in 1945 Har-
vard's Redbook, entitled General
Education in a Free Society, ap-
peared.
BUT IN SPITE of these and
other manifestations of great in-
terest in the concepts of general
education, undergraduate pro-
grams have undergone few re-
visions. The rising tide of spe-
cialization has swept all before
it. Jacques Barzun, quoted by the
author (p. 55), is pessimistic:
The reality is that the best
colleges today are being invaded,
not to say dispossessed, by the
Chil1drent
YOUR CHILDREN are not
your children.
They are the sons and daugh-
ters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but
not from you,
And though they are with you
yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love
but not your thoughts,
For they have their own
thoughts,
You may house their bodies
but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the
house of tomorrow, which you
cannot visit, not even in your
advance agents of the profes-
sions, by men who want to seize
upon the young recruit as soon
as may be and train him in a
"tangible skill."
His lament may yet be proved
premature, and we can only hope
so, for the amazing fact is that,
despite allrthe blitter of scholar-
ship and research eminence dis-
played by the great universities
in the recent American Council on
Educational report on graduate
education, undergraduate educa-
tion almost everywhere in this
country is a tremendous waste of
time, effort and money. As the
Berkeley riots demonstrated, new
approaches and new plans are
desperately needed. They have
been pitifully lacking.
FEW CRITICS have had much
to offer in the way of concrete,
effective programs for averting the
disasters that they foresee or for
repairingupresent chaos. Their
only solution is more money for
more of what we already have. On
the other hand, few of the tradi-
tionalists can identify with any
precision the principles and their
benefits which they defend so
zealously, and fewer still ca offer
many rational reasons for their
positions.
What has happened is that
change has occurred by default
and, while the old cliches and
superficial patterns have lingered
on, everything underneath has
eroded away, leaving most univer-
sities in the sad situation Prof.
Barzun describes.
THIS BOOK, a report to the
Columbia faculty published for
general consumption, dusts off the
concepts and philosophies of both
general education and liberal edu-
cation, clarifies them, updates
them and manages to fashion
from them a curriculum and an
institution calculated to provide
its undergraduates with an edu-
cation quantitatively and qualita-
tively several times better than
any they might receive anywhere
else in the world.
Such elusive concepts as quan-
tity and quality are of course
hard to pin down when discussing
undergraduate education. How-
ever, they can be roughly thought
of as measuring the potential in-
terest and absorption of students
in what is offered them and as
the variety and difficulty of tasks
the students are intellectually pre-
pared to undertake on graduation.
It is clear that if Morningside
Heights takesthese proposals
seriously and succeeds in fash-
ioning new programs out of them,
then the Ivy League as a whole,
which will be quick to adopt suc-
cessful reforms, will continue to
dominate undergraduate education
in this country and the graduates
will more than ever be successful
out of all proportion to thier num-
bers in either scholarly or worldly
pursuits.
THIS BOOK traces first the
history of general education in
the three colleges in which it has
had its principal genesis and de-
velopment, Harvard, Chicago and
Columbia. The liberal arts phi-
losophy developed in these schools
underlies, theoretically at least,
every liberal arts college in the
country, but for those of us
brought up in the large state uni-
versity version of the "college," it
has served in reality as little more
than an administrative conven-
ience, its course offerings unified
only by virtue of being listed in
the same section of the general
catalog.
BERKELEY IS the outstanding
example. The student there is set
down in one of the most luxuriant
academic jungles in the world,
supposedly to explore it, seeking
out and developing his own in-
terests. Such freedom only means
to the departments to provide for
as they will, with neither central-
ized philosophy to justify nor cen-
tralized control to organize the
content of an undergraduate's
education. As often as not, as a
result, there isn't any, for depart-
ments are by definition specialized
and it ishwhollytnatural that,
given a chance, they offer spe-
cialized courses.
The graduate will probably have
had several mediocre English and
history courses and maybe one
very good course in one of these
fields. Chances are somewhat
poorer that he will have had an
exciting course in either sociology
or psychology (and certainly not
in both), and they are lower still
that he will have found his way
into a good political science or
philosophy course. Finally it is
highly unlikelyuthat he will have.
spent any time at all in either a
good mathematics or science
course, all of which leave him, at
best, with half an education.
AT COLUMBIA, however, the
philosophy of the traditional col-
lege is still very much alive. It is
significant to note in this respect
that academic power at Berkeley
resides in the individual faculty
member, jealously guarding his
research funds, his graduate stu-
dents and his reputation, and
policy is effectively strait jacketed
by the Academic Senate, where
faculty members devote them-
selvesto protecting each other's
interests.
In contrast, policy at Columbia
can be discussed within a much
more fluid structure with the Uni-
versity Council, composed of the
president, the deans and elected
representatives from each school,
retaining some control near the
top.
To date, general education has
suffered from a considerable
amount of fuzzy thinking in its
description and implementation.
This brings to the problem long
experience in the general educa-
tion programs of both Columbia
and Chicago and the modern per-
spective and analytical tools of a
well-known social scientist.
THE KEY to this book's ap-
proach, providing the vitally im-
portant link between the tradi-
tional college and the modern
academic environment, is spelled
out in the first chapter, "Inten-
tions." While the author states
that "the principle is simple, the
applications are never," the first
step is one of definition . .. What
is the college to do? "In this day
and age," he says (p. 8), "and
ever more in the coming day and
age," its "distinctive function must
be to teach modes of conceptual-
ization, explanation and verifica-
tion of knowledge."
While the secondary school must
emphasize "primary skills and fac-
tual data," and the "necessary
concern" of the graduate or pro-
fessional school "is with special-
ization and technique," the college
is left "to deal with the grounds
of knowledge: not what one knows
but how one knows.".
This rationale is restated in
Chapter Five, "The Contemporary
Curriculum." The "singular func-
tion" of the college can be "the
training in conceptual analysis in
the grounds of knowledge, the
criteria of theory, and the stan-
dards of judgment" (p. 181). Once
this proposition is accepted, all the
rest of the author's analysis and
his suggestions follow in logical
order.
HOWEVER, beforebturning to
the heart of the book, "Some
ModesteProposals," Chapter Three
on "The Tableau of Social
Change" demands attention. The
rest of the book could be elim-
inated with no great loss. It reads
like a graveyard of old faculty
reports - dull, repetitiousand
largely irrelevant with respect to
the changes the author calls for,
for they are fully understandable
quite apart from unending dis-
course on the proposals that have,
preceded them. One can only con-
clude that these other large sec-
tions of this book were written to
dull the senses of the author's
more traditional colleagues at
Columbia who will eventually be
voting on his recommendations.
The author-as-sociologist is most.
at home in Chapter Three, bril-
liantly sketching the new com-
bination of social roles that the
universities are assuming, some
reluctantly, some eagerly, some
without even knowing what's hap-
pening. The rise of the federal
government in education, the im-
pact and implications of the
growth of knowledge and of popu-
lation, and an increasing national
interest an skill in "future-
interest and skill in "future-
oriented" planning are the major
A BRISK REVIEW of man-
power needs and the education
resources available to meet them
shows that, "Given the direction
of the economy and the weight of
government policy, it is quite clear
that in the coming decades the
demand for professional and tech-
nical personnel will place a con-
siderable burden on the education-
al system." (p. 84).
These are common enough ob-
servations, if succintly put, but
the author goes on to note their
implications-the coming depen-
dence of the economic growth
rate not on physical capital but
"human capital." While "physical,
moneywcapital can be generated
rather quickly (as the Soviet Un-
ion has shown) by restricting con-
sumption and 'sweating' a popula-
tion," he says, "the planning of
human capital is a much more
difficult and arduous process," and
one which requires a 25 year "vo-
cational planning cycle" (p. 86).
In the "already visible skeleton
structure" of the new society, "the
basic innovative features of the
society will derive not from busi-
ness as we know it today, prin-
cipally the 'product corporation,'
but from the research corpora-
tions, the industrial laboratories,
the experimental stations, and the
universities."
THUS: (pp. 106-7)
-"The university is becoming
one of the chief innovative forces
in the society" and "the chief
determinant of its stratification
system";
-"The job of mass higher edu-
cation will become the predom-
inant task of the colleges in the
last third of the 20th century"
-With increasing differentia-
tion in society, "the university
takes over the function (once
handled largely 'on the job') of
training persons for specializa-
tion";
-"Insofar as old skills will be-
come obsolete and traditional-sub-
jects will erode, anew, concept of
'continuing education' will, come to
the fore"; and
-"The university has become,
at least in American life, the
major focus of intellectual and, to
some extent, the established cul-
tural life of the country."
THIS UNIVERSITY is a far
cry from that of pre-World War
II days, when the liberal 'arts,
college which the author is seeking
to revive was sedate and. secluded.
In outlining these coming changes
he is of course being realistic in
assessing the future, but he has
set himself a hard task in seeking
to find a place here for "general
education."
Tomorrow:
The Recommendatf ons
4
1:,
The AID in Viet Nam:
Inexcusable Development
4.
THE AGENCY for International Devel-
opment and its predecessor agencies
have poured millions of dollars of eco-
nomic assistance into South Viet Nam
since June, 1954. This assistance aims at
implementing the following principles,
'supposedly reaffirmed at Honolulu in
February, 1966:
Eradication of social injustice.
Establishment of a stable economy and
a better life for the people.
Encouragement of a sense of national
unity.
SINCE THE RATIONALIZATION for this
huge amount of aid is based on one of
the most fundamental myths of the Viet
Nam conflict-the belief that the con-
flict is not inherently a civil war but
rather a clear-cut case of aggression from
the North and China--most of the funds
that are being poured in, are going down
the drain.
Thus, the so-called principles "reaf-
firmed" at Honolulu are a subterfuge for
the true nature of the AID missions: that
of bribing the people of Viet Nam and
the American public into accepting the
State Department's distorted view of the
current Asian situation.
ID IS A COUNTER-insurgency pro-
AID has helped to train, equip and or-
ganize a 52,000-man National Police Force,
with a capability for small unit action.
One of its major activities is to restrict
Viet Cong sources of supply and hamper
infiltration. Viet Nam expects to have a
72,000-man police force by the end of
the year. AID is providing $27.03 million
towards this expansion.
THERE ARE SOME AID programs that
are not connected with military oper-
ations per se such as school development
and food assistance programs, yet, these
are reminiscent of the kind of lip service
to working toward negotiations that has
been used by the U.S. administration to
cover up its escalations. A case in point
was the increased step-up in bombing on
the same day UN Ambassador Goldberg
brought the Viet Nam issue before the
UN.
If the avowed principles of the AID
Missions are to eradicate social injustice
and to bring a sense of national unity and
a better life-for the people, then the AID
programs are not working. These princi-
ples can never be brought about if we
continue to support a police state and
work against the Vietnamese people's best
interests, which are the best interests of
the peoples of the world.
(IN JUNE 16 a group of students includ-
Out of the Quagmire?
THERE IS reason to think that
the recent disorders in South
Viet Nam have had a significant
effect not only in Congressaand
in the country at large, but at the
top of the administration.
It is no secret that Secretary of
D e f e n s e Robert McNamara's
Montreal speech, which broke so
tadically with the ideology of the,
administration, grew out of in-
creasing skepticism and doubt
about the soundness of our course
in Asian affairs.
McNAMARA HAS special rea-
sons for realizing that in spite of
the continual escalation of our
forces in Viet Nam the forces
against us are growing larger, and
their fighting morale, despite
deaths and defections, is unim-
paired. Moreover, as the South
Vietnamese army draws back from
the fighting and increasingly dis-
engages itself from the front, the
military burdens upon the United
States grow ever greater.
Against this loss of confidence
there is at the moment little but
the President's own faith that
Today,
and
Tomorrow
By WALTER LIPPMANN
let events take their course. It is
dangerous to do this because it is
a near certainty that no South
Vietnamese government able and
willing to play a substantial part
in the war can be put together
under Gen. Nguyen Cao Ky and
his junta.
This being the reality of things,
the United States will find itself
increasingly alone. And this is the
prelude to disaster. It is the pre-
lude either to the disaster of a
radical enlargement of the war all
over Southeast Asia and into
China, or it is the prelude to the
disaster of a forced and humiliat-
ing withdrawal of our troops.
IF THE PRESIDENT fails to
take the initiative, if he does not
Does he take the gamble because
he believes that the Viet Cong
and Hanoi and Peking are tiring
of the war and will soon, be pre-
pared to make peace with Gen. Ky?
THE ACTUAL BLOCK which
prevents his taking a real initia-
tive-not merely verbal appeals
for a negotiation-is rather that
the war is at a stalemate. We have
not won a victory, and no victory
is in sight.
As a result of the stalemate, a
negotiated settlement of the con-
flict cannot and will not look like
an American success, and Lyndon
Johnson has a visceral aversion to
unsuccess.
Whatever goes on in Viet Nam
during the coming months, the
critical question here at home is
whether and how Lyndon, Johnson
can bring himself to accept any-
thing less than success in an en-
terprise where he has staked so
much of his personal reputation
and so much of his country's
prestige.
IN THE PERSPECTIVE of his-
tory there is nothing unusual for
0