Education: The Challenge

That implacable educator, History, at last assigned a lesson that even the duller members of the class could grasp. Britain, its Government had announced, no longer possessed the resources to continue its comparatively puny military aid to Greece. India had all but left the Empire. Burma and Malaya were going. South Africa was tugging at the tether. In the citadel itself were hunger, cold and socialism.

History was moving with 20th Century acceleration. Americans, who between boyhood and manhood had seen the collapse of four mighty states (the Russian and Austrian empires, Germany and...