Education: Report Card

¶ London's Tory newspapers happily noted last week that the old school tie had come into its own again in Britain. In the outgoing Labor cabinet, only five out of 37 ministers had gone to Eton, Harrow or Winchester, only 15 to Oxford or Cambridge. With Old Harrovian Winston Churchill back in power, His Majesty's ministers now boast 21 old Eton, Harrow or Winchester men; 27 Oxon. or Cantab.

¶ The University of Minnesota was in an uproar over a faculty ban on broadcasting the address of a speaker invited by the Student Republican Club. The speaker: Wisconsin's Red-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy. Reason for the ban, according to Dean Edmund G. Williamson: "I hear that McCarthy won't come unless there is a broadcast. That indicates that he isn't coming to speak to students, but to counties in western Wisconsin or somewhere."

¶ Elwood Kretsinger, professor of speech at the University of Oklahoma, announced that he had invented a device to enable teachers to tell whether their charges are interested in their work or not. He strings wires generating an electromagnetic field to the backs of classroom chairs, connects them to a special paper chart. When pupils yawn and wiggle, their boredom will promptly show up—as waves and jiggles on the chart.