Teaching: Lectures on the Phone

A segregationist Mississippi law forbids Negro state colleges to hire white teachers. Last week Moses Hadas, the famed Columbia University classicist, slipped around the law without ever leaving Manhattan. Picking up the telephone, he lectured for an hour through his luxuriant white beard to 500 rapt students at four Negro colleges in Louisiana and Mississippi. His subject: the religious roots of Greek drama. The phone bill was $100, a pittance paid by the Fund for the Advancement of Education, which thus demonstrated one of education's cheapest, handiest new ideas.

"Telelectures" were pioneered at the University of Omaha, where Linguist Michel Beilis...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!