Progress in the Forty Years Since Sputnik

Remarks made in the months following the launch.

“To be honest, I think the idea that the frontier for humanity is in science and technology has come to an end. We had the frontier of exploring the geography of the earth and the frontier of creating nation-states. We've been in the frontier of science and technology for the last 100, 150 years. But science and technology is now a production line. If you want a new idea, you hire some people, give them a budget, and have fairly good odds of getting what you asked for.”

“Advocates of literature and history struggled with little success to find the appropriate justification that might commend their studies to the near-instinctive demand for social utility.

The argument that students should be well educated because education is a good in itself was rarely heard, least of all from educators. Perhaps they feared that no one would believe them. Or perhaps their own unexamined intellectual heritage inclined them not to believe it themselves.”

“In a kind of country-club existentialism, Dewey and his boys genially contended that the traditional ends of education, like God, virtue and the idea of 'culture,' were all highly debatable and hence not worth debating. In their place: enter life adjustment.”

“Such criticism honestly puzzles them [modern educationists], as do suggestions that they might concentrate more on dry 'learning' subjects, like mathematics and languages, to the exclusion of teen-age problems, beauty care, fly casting.”

“The worthwhile innovations in method brought by Dewey's educationists should be kept. But their exclusive devotion to techniques and group adjustment should never again be allowed to hide the fact that American education exists first of all to educate the individual in a body of learning, with a tradition and purpose behind it.”

“We cannot promote respect for learning if we treat achievement and failure without distinction., if we continue to pretend that giving recognition to educational accomplishment is undemocratic. We won't get the able children to take the solid subjects and work hard until we accord honor and visible reward to those who through a combination of talent and toil excel the rest. As long as we pursue the egalitarian trend-all children going to the same class, promoted each year without distinction, getting their diploma or degree for faithful residence, all teachers paid by the same scale-we shall not produce the education which this day and age requires-no matter how many billions we pour into the system. We may be paying the price of excellence but we shall be getting mediocrity.”

“ We are too casual about education. This is the primary reason why European students achieve scholastically in ten years what ours do in twelve—and it happens that most students do better with a heavy load than a light one. ”

“Only massive upgrading of the scholastic standards of our schools will guarantee the future prosperity and freedom of the republic.”

“Whether American education has become too soft, demands too little of our youth, encourages much too low expectations and effort from the students and has been busy with custodial duties to do well by its educational opportunities.”

“ There has begun to dawn upon us the realization that education is an instrument of power on which national survival itself depends, and this indisputable fact has imposed upon education and upon educators a new obligation, imperative and superior to any other, namely, to keep the nation strong. ”

“ The interventions of the federal government in higher education now are no longer for the purpose of contributing to or merely accelerating the general intellectual and social benefits of education; rather, these interventions are now made, directly and self-consciously, for the purpose of carrying out its own responsibilities and of making its own powers effective. ”

“ For years debates about federal aid to education have centered around issues of support for private and public institutions, of church and state, between federal and local control. National necessity smoothly obliterates these differences into a new unity of agreement-agreement that our other differences must give way to national necessity. What difference does it make whether competent scientists are produced in one kind of institution or another if they are necessary to the national strength? ”

“Your tomorrow will be one of scientific activities endangered by materialism and split by conflicting ideologies. Your tomorrow must be concerned with more than science; it must be concerned with the good of all people who would be free. Your tomorrow, if it is to bring about a new day for free men, must be motivated by understanding and empathy, strongly undergirded by moral responsiblity.”

“ Long range ballistic missiles, as they exist today, do not cancel the destructive and deterrent power of our strategic air force. The Soviet launching of earth satellites is an achievement of the first importance, and the scientists who brought it about deserve full credit and recognition. Already, useful new facts on outer space have been produced, and more are on the way, as new satellites with added instruments are launched. Earth satellites, in themselves, have no direct present effect upon the nation's security. However, there is real military significance to these launchings, as I have previously mentioned publicly. Their current military significance lies in the advanced techniques and the competence in military technology they imply. ”

“My friends, it has always been my faith that eventual triumph of decency and freedom and right in this world is inevitable. But, as a wise American once observed, it takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice by a lot of people to bring about the inevitable.”

“Young people now in college must be equipped to live in the age of intercontinental missiles. However, what will then be needed is not just engineers and scientists, but a people who will keep their heads and, in every field, leaders who can meet intricate human problems with wisdom and courage. In short, we will need not only Einsteins and Steinmetzes, but Washingtons and Emersons.”

“Yet the official reaction to the Sputnik was to dismiss it, not only as a useless scientific trick, but as the greatest Soviet blunder. Sherman Adams, in a talk in San Francisco, said that our purpose is not to rack up a high score in a basketball game played in outer space. And another presidential assistant, Charles B. Randall, dismissed Russia's earth satellite as a silly bauble. All this might have been very funny if it were not so tragic.”

“ I believe that it is fair to say that more words have been spoken and more columns have been written on education during the past three months than during any equal period of time in America's history. Two little harmless satellites going around the Earth can hardly be blamed for all the commotion; rather, the public and educators alike have been waiting for a good excuse to let off steam. ”

“It would be amusing, if it were not so tragic, to observe the common tendency in this country to propose elaborate programs for the solution of a problem-without ever perfecting a statement of the problem to be solved. The contrary situation should be Lesson Number One in any good course in mathematics.”

“ The spectacular Russian achievements in space have finally shaken our complacency and our absorption in producing and having more things than anyone ever had before. ”