Education: Report Card

¶ After collecting facts for the latest edition of its American Universities and Colleges, the American Council on Education reported that in the last quarter-century the U.S. has opened more campuses than in all its previous years put together. Since 1928, the number of accredited colleges and universities has jumped from 399 to 904; in the last four years 83 have been accredited.

¶The august council of ulema (professors) of Cairo's Al-Azhar, the oldest existing Moslem university, issued a solemn declaration against coeds. Coeducation, said the council, is nothing short of promiscuity, "unsuitable to the Islamic way of life." Furthermore, added the scholars, "this situation has turned certain male students from true scientific activity."

¶ The number of foreign students in the U.S., said the Institute of International Education last week, has hit an alltime high—more than 30,000, from 126 different nations.

¶ At the annual conference of Britain's Library Association, Author-Theologian C. S. Lewis hada few words to say about the old controversy of fairy tales v. "realistic" stories: "What profess to be realistic stories for children are likely to deceive them. I never expected the real world to be like the fairy tales. I think I did expect school to be like the school stories. The fantasies did not deceive me. The school stories did . . . Some people contend that we must try to keep out of a child's mind the knowledge that he is born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil. It is ludicrous so to educate a generation born to the OGPU and the atomic bomb. Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage."