Education: Preparation in St. Louis

Without fuss or bitterness, the segregated public schools of St. Louis were smoothly integrated four years ago. Children were ordered to attend schools in their own neighborhoods, and no transfers were allowed. But that effective formula (also followed in Washington, D.C.) re-emphasized a sad, subtle U.S. segregation of another kind. In 14 major cities, from Boston to Los Angeles, it blights 25% to 35% of 3,200,000 children in public schools. Worried schoolmen call it "the problem of the culturally handicapped." They mean the mental ghettos in which thousands of dispirited Negro children live because no one—teachers or parents—can stir them to...