Education: Basic Science

Sociologist Jack Randolph Conrad of Southwestern at Memphis (enrollment: 651) was asked to help suggest the best possible courses for the Scientific Age. His answer: look to the Stone Age. The most basic course, he said solemnly last week in the school's alumni newsletter, should be "introductory survival technology." Items: "How to make acorn meal, how to make simple traps, how to tan leather, how to make simple tools and weapons from stone, how to smelt ore, how to find safe drinking water, how to recognize poisonous plants, how to keep an infant alive without milk." In sum: "A plainly pessimistic but utterly realistic course designed to keep at least a few of our most intelligent people alive for as long as possible following an all-out war."