ion so well that all
were able thus to respond. The common school, the high school, the
college, and the professional school was dis-credited, one and all, in
favor of a short-cut method analogous to the so-called "Business
College,"--a short-cut method that could result only in disaster if
applied without the appropriate preparation.

How long it does take people to realize that real education is a slow
process! that it takes years and years and years of varied experiences
for the processes of assimilation and development to bring about the
fine fruitage of stable character!

And the Government, too (I suppose we can criticize Washington just a
little now without serious danger of being sent to jail), must have had
the same point of view in regard to the general management of education
since, during the war, it did not entrust its educational war program
into the hands of the National Bureau of Education. It did have the War
Department and the Navy Department and the Treasury Department manage
their respective phases of war activities. Why was not the Department of
Education called on to direct the educational work? Had it been, the S.
A. T. C. fiasco, as well as some other blunders, would doubtless have
been avoided. But the thought (or was it the lack of thought?) must have
been that most anybody outside of the teaching profession would know
better how to get educational results than any one from within. A
similar point of view is generally discernible in the election of boards
of education in towns and cities thruout the country--any one is
satisfactory save those who know definitely what should be going on
inside of the school house.

Perhaps all this was to be expected. I rather think so. But I confess to
surprise when I find such criticism being echoed from within--from men
who should know better, as, for example, the two quoted at the beginning
of this article. The explanation, I suppose, is that, timid in nature,
they have become panicky and lost their bearings. Perhaps they were
suffering from a mild form of brain-storm, and have temporarily slipt
back into the ranks of the unthinking.

Let us analyze the situation and see if we can discover just what the
war did reveal as to the short-*comings of our educational system. Let
us then try to locate the responsibility.

One of the most serious of the educational shortcomings thus revealed is
a high percentage of illiteracy--nearly eight per cent, I understan