Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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SOyN Clrece Fao. The U.S. and France: Conflicting Interests
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the inidividual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1966
NIGHT EDITOR: MEREDITH EIKER
w
Giving Education
A Philosophical Base
THE TERM "strict educational experi-
ence" usually refers to the classroom
dialogue between students and teachers,
the note-taking, and the methods of test-
ing employed. Many students feel this
experience to be lacking. They feel some-
thing is missing in the typical structure
that consists of a series of lectures and
selected readings that progresses through
a series of tests and finally culminates in
a grade.
The grade is an unfortunate state of
affairs. For many it adds up to the final
insult in what has probably been a dull
and uneventful course. While most gen-
uine educators will agree that there
should not be final grades yet, when these
people are confronted with the question
of abolishing them, in most cases the
emasculated wry smile will argue against
it in terms of impractibility. I do not
wish to argue the question of grades here,
but I will say that, though testing is a
necessary part of a proper educational
process, final grades are not.
WHAT, THEN, can be done in the con-
text of the present structure of the
strict educational experience? What can
be done to make a stale process a bear-
able and perhaps even valuable experi-
ence?
Somehow, at least in American univer-
sities, the term philosophy in many in-
stances will evoke an assuming snicker
from the "practical student" who feels
he must deal with life on a more realistic
level. However, philosophy is exactly what
I'm looking for in a proper education.
No matter what the course material
deals with, it should be structured to
give the student an impression of why he
is taking the course in the first place,
how this material has evolved into its
present structure,ahow it relates to sim-
ilar and dissimilar contemporary fields
of study, and how this material will ef-
fect peoples and societies in the future.
It should, therefore, have a strong philo-
sophical base.
HAVE ALREADY inferred that many
courses at the University do not have
this base. Hence, most of the courses I
have taken have been boring and stifling.
An astronomy course with close to 200
students has come the closest to approxi-
mating these ideals.
How? Well, the professor was simply
interested enough in his material to go
beyond the strict educational process. He
gave the students an idea of how the
discipline evolved into its present status,
and he gave an impression of where it is
going. He even explained why he decided
to study and teach the subject in the first
place, imagine that.
A classroom experience like this has
been an exception. Too often the case
has been like that of a course I took in
physiological psychology. There was plen-
ty of technical material to get through
yet the professor did not take five min-
utes to explain how this area of study,
was effecting research and practice in
brain disease to say nothing of giving an
idea of how the course material would
give a better understanding of the brain
itself. For most students it was a worth-
less course except for those pre-med stu-
dents who saw it as a hurdle to get into
medical school.
ALSO OF INTEREST in this case is Jack
sume most of the blame for the cur-
rent state of affairs, the administration
must not be left out of the picture.
Through some form of mystical educa-
tional osmosis they expect that a student
will hopefully take a few courses in
philosophy and will thus gain the neces-
sary insight that will carry, them through
their undergraduate programs and final-
ly into professional life. This does not
work and can never work as long as there
is a radical division between philosophy
per se and the general curriculum of the
colleges.
The call is not out for a radical struc-
tural change in the administration and
classroom setup, although it would help.
Any mild-mannered professor with a little
sense of pride and responsibility can help
change a course from a meaningless hur-
dle into a useful experience. Swarms of
administrators will not descend on hap-
less faculty members nor will research be
threatened nor will students raise cries
of moral indignation if professors begin
to include intelligent perspective in their
courses. It doesn't even take guts.
IN THE PRESENT and immediate fu-
ture it is these essential attitudes bas-
ed in the proper philosophical context
permeating every field of study that will
separate the schools from the factories.
In view of increased pressure for enroll-
ment and expansion, these attitudes can-
not be overlooked or discarded if the Uni-
versity wishes to call itself a school.
-MIKE DITKOWSKY
AMERICAN OFFICIALS a r e
casting a wary eye on France
on the eve of President Charles
de Gaulle's visit to Moscow, an
historic event which may bring
about major realignments in Eur-
opean politics.
De Gaulle has been the target
of some sharp attacks from U.S.
diplomats and politicians in re-
months. He has been viewed as
an imperious, vindictive ruler who
is seeking to bring about perma-
nent divisions within the NATO
alliance. From the cold-war view-
point of these U.S. officials, de
Gaulle is also seen as working to
the advantage of the Russians by
creating deep splits between the
Western nations.
WHAT HAS de Gaulle actually
been doing that is worthy of such
stinging criticism? A dispassion-
ate examination will reveal that
the French leader is well aware
that the Russian threat to West-
ern Europe has markedly declined
in recent years to the point where
a Soviet attack in the area is be-
yond the realm of reasonable pos-
sibility.
De Gaulle has also been jolted
by many of the Johnson admin-
istration's foreign policies, parti-
cularly in Viet Nam. Fearing that
France and other NATO nations
might involuntarily be drawn into
an Asian ground war through the
alliance with the U.S., de Gaulle
has sought means to loosen what
he sees as America's iron grip up-
on its Western European allies.
Finally, as a major motivation
for most of his foreign policies, de
Gaulle has been seeking to make
France a leader of the Western
European bloc, both economically
and politically. Having seen Bri-
tain slide into a vicious circle of
economic uncertainty and politi-
cal impotence in its foreign rela-
tions, de Gaulle has been unwill-
ing to see France go the same
route. He has thus - perhaps
somewhat high-handedly --- with-
drawn France from the NATO al-
liance for all practical purposes.
THE REACTION of U.S. offi-
cials has been predictable. Unlike
de Gaulle, they see the possibility
of a Soviet attack on Western Eu-
rope as a persistent possibility.
Unlike de Gaulle, they do not take
into account the subservient role
in which the European allies have
been placed through the mechan-
ism of the NATO alliance. But
like de Gaulle, they are concerned
primarily for their own political
interests and have difficulty ima-
gining themselves in the position
of another nation, such as France.
As the New York Times diplo-
matic correspondent Max Frankel
has written frequently during the
past year, the NATO alliance is
in a sad state of obsolescence. De
Gaulle has recognized this fact
and has attempted to put the
shaky alliance on a new, firmer
footing in which the European al-
lies would have more of a say in
determining basic policies, includ-
ing the use of nuclear weapons in
any war involving the Europeans.
U.S. officials, under the unin-
spiring leadership ofeSecretary of
State Dean Rusk, have opted the
status quo, failing to recognize
that changing political realities
have forced a re-evaluation of
NATO's utility, its presentalloca-
tion of dominant political control
to the U.S., and the possibility of
revising the alliance to take
account of the lessened Soviet
threat.
THUS, IT IS not surprising that
de Gaulle has taken matters into
his own hands. But the unfortu-
nate result of the split between
France and the other NATO allies
is the possibility of increased na-
tionalism among Europe's major
nation-states - not the Bismarc-
kian or Third Reich brand of na-
tionalism, but an arrogant, isolat-
ed type of supersovereignty in
which the possibility of further
economic and political ties be-
tween the nations ofathe Euro-
pean Common Market as well as
Britain would be foreclosed.
There is also the ever-present
problem of West Germany, which
has showed few signs of resurgent
nationalism of the de Gaulle va-
riety but whose potential power
is feared by France and other
Western European nations.
The eventual reunification of
Germany-still a political problem
whose solution may be a decade
or more away-has brought night-
mares to de Gaulle, whose suspi-
cion of German leaders remains
despite his sporadic attempts to
form a French-West German par-
tnership to lead Europe, a rela-
tionship in which France would
have a dominant role, at least
according to de Gaulle's plans.
IN THIS TANGLED framework
of conflicting ambitions, mutual
fears and misunderstandings, U.S.
policy has been distinctly unim-
abinative. Instead of seeking new
ways of integrating France into a
modified, European-American po-
litical-economic partnership in
which the military role of the al-
liance would be appropriately de-
emphasized, U.S. policymakers
have acted as if the basic political
situation -- and the attitude of
Russia-has not changed in the
past five years.
But Soviet policies have chang-
ed, and European nations have
been shocked by America's head-
long rush into military and poli-
tical chaos in South Viet Nam.
Thus, the feeling has developed
that the U.S. - although the
strongest power in the NATO alli-
ance from any standpoint-may
be a less prudent leader than had
once been thought.
THE DESIRE of the European
NATO alliance members to play
a greater policymaking role in the
Western alliance is a basic politi-
cal fact of life. The sooner the
U.S. recognizes this and begins to
act accordingly, the better chance
there will be of preserving some
kind of workable partnership with
France. The U.S. must seek to
avoid at all costs another head-
long rush into super-nationalism
among any and all European na-
tions.
Coming to an understanding
with France about sharing nu-
clear control (in war or peace
decision-making) and ending U.S.
domination of the alliance (which
:ften resulted in political disad-
vantages for the European mem-
bers) are top-priority items for
U.S. policymakers which should
not be overlooked in the obsessive
preoccupation with events in
Southeast Asia.
, A
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*'
and8 Thbwnc Syndic..tpo
2 "+t. : rcrMS
General Education-Recommendations
The Jack Ruby Case:
Lawyers and Relatives
JACK RUBY has been declared sane,
but that doesn't seem to be the issue
at all. When one of Ruby's attorneys was
asked If the sanity verdict was going
to be appealed he gave a one sentence
affirmation, and then went on to explain
why now is the time to remove Joe Ton-
nahill, the only lawyer who has been with
Ruby since he shot Oswald. That's the
issue.
A theme of unnecessary conflict has
run through this case since the begin-
ning. It has been as if the participants
in court had taken their cues from the
original acts of violence.
THE RUBY LAWYERS and the Ruby
family especially have made a mock-
ery of the case by their treatment of
each other. Because of the history of
the case it was bound to be well publiciz-
ed and a spotlight for human interest
around the nation. To the public Ruby's
fleets of lawyers represent the law pro-
fession and the picture they have given
the public was one all lawyers must be
ashamed of. Bickering among them-
selves, playing with the family to be put
in complete command of Ruby's defense,
charging each -other with ruining the
case, they've made a miserable show out
of justice.
The latest charge is a good example.
The lawyer seeking to have Tonnahill
kicked out charged Tonnahill was writ-
ing a book on the case with Judge Brown,
who originally tried the case. Whether
that is true or not, it's not a bad idea, or
at least it's profitable, and a tried and
true way to end and immortalize one's
association with the case.
ALSO O FINTEREST in this case is Jack
Ruby, who has his life at stake. Ad-
mittedly that is not worth as much as the
fees and fame being handed out, but one
would imagine he should care about what
happens. Yet it seems that two and a half
years and constant fighting have dulled
his appreciation of events.
One reporter at the sanity trial de-
scribed Ruby as "silent through most of
the trial and apparently disinterested."
During the trial Ruby said: "Never at any
time have I tried to make anyone believe
that I was of unsound mind." Ruby did
not reveal which of his lawyers he favors.
Perhaps he has realized it does not mat-
ter.
IT MAY BE next November before he is
found sane by the highest court. At
that point the appeals may stop, or some
new Ruby lawyer may try some appeal on
the fairness of the case. Or perhaps by
that time some judge might throw the
case out on the grounds that any sys-
tem that takes three years to prove a man
guilty and sane has got to be changed.
-MICHAEL HEFFER
Price Hike
S0 YOU THOUGHT you'd seen the Uni-
versity's last inflationary move when
the MUG started charging 15 cents a cup.
Wrong-that only preceded a flurry of
minor price increases. Now, parking fees
The Reforming of General
Education:The Columbia Col-
lege Experience in Its National
Setting. By Daniel Bell, Colum-
bia University Press, 320 pp.,
$6.95.
By ROBERT JOHNSTON
Last of a Two-Part Series
THE BOOK'S recommendations
are not particularly sweeping
(for Columbia), proceeding, as in-
deed they must, from an assess-
ment of what a fickle faculty
might be persuaded to approve.
But they contain enough of sub-
stance, a n d a r e sufficiently
grounded in an excellent under-
standing and analysis of exactly
what is needed and what can be
accomplished in the way of pro-
viding an exciting and rewarding
four-year general education un-
dergraduate program, to be of
major importance.
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE here to do
justice to the many potential fine
subleties the author has worked
into his proposals and which make
his curriculum such a very rich
diet for the student, but a sum-
mary is in order.
"The key" to his curriculum, he
says, "is a scheme that envisages
the first year as the acquisition of
necessary historical and back-
ground knowledge, the second and
third years as the training in a
discipline and the application of
this discipline to diverse subject
matters in a field, and the fourth
year as a combination of seminar
work in the discipline and partici-
pation in integrative courses"- he
calls them " 'thirdtier' level"
courses-"in one of the major
areas of the sciences, the human-
ities, and the social sciences"
(pp. 208-9).
FOR EXAMPLE, he says, an
excellent social science offering at
the third-tier level would be "on
the development of new states. In
this fashion the nature of eco-
nomic political, and social de-
velopment could be focused upon
a set of problems (the creation of
an economic infra-structure, the
development of a public bureau-
cracy, the transition from a rural
to industrial society) that illum-
inate the uses, application, and
limits of the discipline in which
the student has acquired some
training" (p. 209).
For science students he proposes
a third-tier course in "the philos-
ophy of science, which would deal
with the conceptual foundations
of science, and a course in the
sociology of science . .. to give the
practical applications, from a cer-
tain perspective.
The discipline is seen as a means
of analysis, as economic analysis
has long been at the heart of
economic study. This will also
equip the student very well to go
on to graduate study in a specialty.
He will, in fact, be far better off
than if the departments feed him
the normal specialized and very
dull diet that they prepare for
the graduate student seeking to
master his discipline.
GOING BACK to the beginning,
and the general education ideal,
the author outlines a reorganiza-
tion of Columbia's Contemporary
Civilization and Humanities
courses. Nowhere is his own
ability to clarify the past's fuzzy
thinking better demonstrated than
in his discussion of the Humani-
ties A course, which consists of
readings in the "great books,"
from Homer to The Old Testa-
ment in the first term, The New
Testament through Nietzsche in
the second.
The course has been described
as "a year's course in literature
and philosophy . . . a reading of
great works of mind and imagina-
tion." "There is little question,"
he says, "that the Humanities A
course is one of the great courses
in American education," (p. 224)
but he goes on to uncover a not-
able lack of purpose in its con-
ception.
In taking a work as its "own
'world'," the student explores it
and studies it for its own sake,
rediscovering, with the aid of the
professor, the enduring questions
and problems that it deals with
and the contrary ways in which it
can be interpreted.
HOWEVER, this approach leads
to "intellectual tourism," with no
guiding principle for selecting the
works in the first place. "The
problem," he concludes, "is not
only to make a student aware of
a text, but of the scholarly con-
text in which it arose; not only
of his own sensibility, but aware,
as well, of the emotions and re-
sponses to emotions the work has
aroused in others" (p. 231).
To establish a historical con-
text without "the fatal introduc-
tion of historicism," the author.
advocates reorganizing the "ini-
tial Contemporary Civilization
course in tandem with the Hu-
manities sequence," and urges, in
addition, the "introduction of a
required third term of Human-
ties which would deal principally
with late 19th century and 20th
cenltlVury witers1'" (p.' 232).-
ing of what intellectual activity is
all about 2) An acquaintance with
the sources of contemporary
civilization and thought and 3) A
good introduction to books that
the humanities and social science
majors will be returning to again
and again as the bases of their
disciplines.
THE AUTHOR then gives the
same treatment to the problem of
introducing the student to science
in a manner both exciting and
relevant to his general interests.
He proposes "that all students be
required to take a two-year mathe-
matics-physics or mathematics-
biology sequence," because of the
importance of mathematims as "a
necessary tool (as well as a style
of thought) for work" in almost
all fields (p. 292). And physics
and biology, "by virtue of their
successive logical 'paradigms,' can
best exemplify the conceptual or-
der of science."
Finally, the author re-examines
the major system, by which the
departments are slowly managing
to convert undergraduate educa-
tion into a series of channels, each
designed for the prospective or
confirmed major, making the stu-
dent jump from one rut to another
as he goes from course to course,
none of which can be intellectually
satisfying.
Further, few majors end up go-
ing on in their undergraduate
discipline anyway, so that "double-
track" courses "in each major as
a whole (not just in the introduc-
tory courses)," where he notes
several successful experiments, are
needed.
THIS BOOK poses a consider-
able challenge not only to the
Columbia faculty but to any uni-
versity that continues to teach
undergraduates within a liberal
arts framework. The author has
done what no one else has even
attempted. He has demonstrated
that the college has a very im-
portant function to serve as high-
er education enters its own jet
age, a function very badly ful-
filled now, to the great detriment
of the undergraduate's education.
He has shown that the present
deterioration of the idea of the
college can be halted if the de-
partments can be convinced that
undergraduate education is not the
same as graduate study, that the
undergraduate specialist becomes
the graduate drone, and that the
challenges of designing under-
graduate courses such as he has
outlined are equal to anything the
best professor might encounter in
his expensive and far-ranging re-
search work.
A Note to the Michigan Faculty
THIS REVIEW was prepared
for general distribution through
the Collegiate Press Service, but
it is at least as important to this
University as it is to any other.
It is hoped that the faculty and
the numerous student advisory
groups cropping up around cam-
pus will give a great deal of at-
tention to the problems of under-
graduate curriculum in a univer-
sity where the departments' grad-
uate activities are the loci of all
intellectual activity and under-
graduates are seen either as pros-
pective majors to be snared and
guided along the path to ultimate
wisdom or as majors in another
department and hence worth only
a minimum of time and effort.
BERKELEY has produced its
Muscatine Report, which makes a
series of important pragmatic
suggestions for focusing more at-
tention on the . undergraduate
there; and Columbia now has
Bell's The Reforming of General
Education, which seeks to restore
vitality to the idea of a liberal
arts college.
The Universitycof Michigan fac-
ulty, mainly of course the liberal
'arts faculty, is now in an excellent
position to draw on both of these
very excellent reports and move
quickly one step beyond them, into
the heady atmosphere of actual
implementation.
Bell's book isaptly titled, for it
calls attention to the idea that
reform, if the university claims to
play any part at all in a changing
and evolving society, must be part
and parcel of a continuing process.
New changes, new ideas, and new
approaches must be made a part
of university tradition, as constant
and as much to be expected as
stand-pat conservatism is now.
THE RESIDENTIAL college
committees have set a brilliant
example of cooperation that has
cut across departmental lines the
many different phases of what
will hopefully turn out to be a
great experiment in liberal edu-
cation.
We could use a lot more of the
same for the other 10,600 under-
graduates in the literary college.
*
6-
The Great Coca-Cola Chase
4-
By THOMPSON ROSS
Collegiate Press Service
1HERE WAS an interesting
piece in the New York Times
recently describing the retaliatory
steps the Arab League intends to
take should Coca Cola grant Is-
rael a franchise. Quite simply, the
Arabs intend to stop drinking
Coke.
Now, no one knows whether they
will be able to overcome the ad-
dictive tendencies of Coca Cola to
a sufficient degree to make the
boycott effective, but even if first
attempts do not succeed, the
breadth of policy alternatives
opened to Coca Cola and to the
Israelis is appalling.
the Arab League intends to ask
compliance with its boycott from
other Moslem nations, notably
Pakistan and Indonesia. The lev-
erage, political and economic, in-
volved here is nigh on to phe-
nomenal. No one really believes
that it is possible to stop drinking
Coke once you've been hooked, so
a little pressure from the Coca
Cola people in Atlanta could prob-
ably be employed in the foreign
policy alternatives open to this
country.
ALSO, SINCE it is avowed pol-
icy of the Arab League to boycott
any nation or corporation that
does its business with the Israelis,
it is quite possible that the Is-
raelis could starve the Arab coun-
not be satisfied with Palestine.
With a little ingenuity they could
control the whole Middle East.
Everyone should by this time be
aware of the fact that it is the
lure of Coca Cola that has dis-
rupted the Soviet "bloc' in Eastern
Europe. It is quite possible to find
a positive correlation between the
use of Coca Cola and the degree
of independence exerted by any
individual nation. Thus Rumania
and Yugoslavia are almost com-
pletely separated from any Soviet
control-Yugoslavia the more so
for having started to drink Coke
before Rumania.
THE NEXT STEP is .obvious.
Stop bombing North Viet Nam and
instead give them Coke. It will
9