The People: Not Great, But Good

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> Highway death rates are rising (in absolute terms), as more and more people drive more and more cars. But the death rate per 100 million auto miles driven has dropped from 7.6 in 1950 to 5.3 in 1962.

> The nation still urgently needs more teachers and classrooms, but much has already been done. Teachers' salaries rose 45% from 1950 to 1960, while the average increase for all jobs was 29%; the pupil-teacher ratio declined from 27.7 in 1954 to 25.7 in 1960; the classroom shortage eased even as enrollment rose. As for the dropout problem, only 53% of Americans in the 25-to-29 age bracket had completed high school in 1950; last year the figure was 69%.

> There are more wide-open spaces today, and they are more accessible, than "at any time since the closing of the frontier."

> The divorce rate of 9.2 each year per 1,000 married women is substantially lower than it was in 1946 (17.9) and slightly lower than 1950 (10.3).

Few intelligent Americans dispute the gravity of many ills that afflict the nation, from hard-core unemployment to rotten-core cities, poisoned air to polluted waters, or question the need to attack them vigorously. No amount of legislation will root out racial prejudice or inspire the excellence that is dismayingly absent from many aspects of American life. Nonetheless, as Author Wattenberg points out, "in American history, the evidence suggests that it is the optimist who has been the realist." At least, this side of the Great Society, Americans do not have to be ashamed to count their blessings.