Education: How High Is Up?

Higher education flunked its exams last week at two educational conferences:

¶ In Atlanta, the University of Chicago’s President Ernest C. Colwell* told Southern colleagues that only a dozen U.S. universities deserved the name. (He declined to identify them.) Added Colwell: “Universities cannot be rapidly multiplied in number, nor can their output of graduates be increased,.except as quality is lost. It must follow then, as night follows day, that the G.I.s in the universities (though not necessarily in the colleges) will be shortchanged . . .”

¶ In Buck Hill Falls, Pa., 100 doctors, lawyers, businessmen, clergymen and engineers sat down to discuss professional education, after three days agreed that it left a lot to be desired. Most frequently voiced objection: the professional schools are turning out technically trained but socially irresponsible graduates (“useless or dangerous to society”). Columbia Law Professor Karl Llewellyn thought that the professional schools should not neglect the bottom 90% for the sake of the top 10%. Said he: “In the average town of 100,000, trying to find a good lawyer is as difficult as trying to find a good dentist.”

* Who succeeded Robert M. Hutchins in the job almost three years ago. Hutchins stepped up to the specially created post of chancellor, which makes him still boss.