Education: Chaucer, the Agitator

Ther was in Asye . . . a Jewerye . . . for joule usure and lucre of vileynye . . .

U.S. schools last week were still quivering from the effect of race prejudice in their midst (TIME, Oct. 8). While agitated parents and educators looked for causes and solutions, Local 555 of the (C.I.O. ) Teachers Union cited these words from Geoffrey Chaucer as the kind of thing that was at least partly to blame. On the rounds that such writings violated “the fundamental conceptions of Americanism,” the Union demanded a ban in all new York schools of the famed Canterbury Tales.