Education: In Place of Integrity . . .

For two years, the progressive-minded pedagogues of Canada had been steadily gaining ground in Ontario's public schools. They had eliminated high-school entrance examinations, introduced a new sort of report card that did away with traditional marks. But last week the pedagogues ran into a formidable roadblock—thrown up by no less an organization than the influential (5,000 members) Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation itself.

Said Retiring President George L. Roberts at the Toronto convention last week:

"We have amongst us an increasing number of 'revisionists' . . . and they are designing for us an education for juvenility —an education of youth by novelty for immaturity . . . The new report [card] system ... is apparently the result of pseudo-psychology gone mad . . . a doctrine of avoidance of strain, tension, frustration, and evasion of external standards . . . This doctrine would leave to the immature individual the decision on principles of right and wrong, good and bad, self-indulgence and duty, privileges and responsibilities, rather than presenting as inviolable, standards of excellence.

"Here we see another characteristic of modern education—the preferment of the psychologist over the philosopher . . . There is much unwarranted prating about the transcendency of 'experience' over 'content' in the curriculum . . . We are being sold formulas of behavior—techniques for 'winning friends and influencing people'—in place of the painful building of inner integrity to command respect and influence."

Retiring President Roberts was not alone in his views. His successor, John T.

Stubbs, thought that the new education had turned teachers into nothing more than "professional baby sitters," and that the elimination of high-school examinations was nothing short of a "public disgrace." He was fully in agreement with the basic Roberts thesis: it was certainly about time that the public become aware of "what some of the hierarchy [of the provincial Department of Education] are trying to put over on them. We see a very real danger to the standards of traditional education."