Introduction
Over a century ago, Thomas Jefferson, who was then ex-President of the United States, had some very important things to say on the subject of education. In a letter to Colonel Charles Yancey dated January 6, 1816, he wrote: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." A letter to Dupont de Nemours, dated April 24 of the same year, said: "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
To William Charles Jarvis, on September 28, 1820, Jefferson wrote: "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion."
To inform the people's discretion, of course, is to educate them. Jefferson thought it highly important to stress the necessity for a sound education, because many people of his time disagreed with him. Today there are very few people left who would quibble with his reasoning, and they would be found largely among the ranks of those who are uneducated and ignorant themselves. Still, the advocates of education have many disagreements among themselves, and schools and colleges face many problems that even the best thinkers of Jefferson's day could hardly have foreseen.
There is little doubt that education in the United States is the best in the world. As one means of measuring, take the statistic that today almost forty percent of our young people enter college, as opposed to the fact that at the turn of the century only about four percent of the eligible age group even graduated from high school. The main question remaining is: what kind of education are our children getting?
The rapid expansion of college enrollments began in the 1920s, and was so explosive that it inevitably created academic problems. The first and most obvious consideration is that such a huge buildup in the number of students would have been impossible if traditional academic standards had not been considerably relaxed. It became easier to enroll in college, and it became easier to graduate.
The critical reaction to this situation set in after World War II, when many returning veterans were entering school under the GI Bill. There were many complaints, and many efforts to tighten academic standards again. The decline in children's reading ability in particular took the spotlight. The book called Why Johnny Can't Read by Rudolph Flesch created a sensation. It was highly critical of our teaching standards, it hit the bestseller lists, and "Johnny" became a household word overnight.
The problem was very real and swiftly becoming acute. Because of great advancements in science and technology, American industry, the research establishment, and the universities themselves had a desperate need for skilled, trained, and generally literate manpower. Even though graduating classes were growing in size every year, the fear that much potential talent had been lost or mistrained was also growing.
In 1957, the success of Russia's first Sputnik dramatized the situation and illuminated the need for change. In 1958, during the Eisenhower administration, the National Defense Education Act was passed, providing government subsidy for improved mathematics, science, and foreign language instruction and teacher training. The American High School Today, a study written by James B. Conant, former president of Harvard University, provided school boards with checklists on ways to improve education, particularly for the most academically gifted students. In many ways, the situation has improved and is continuing to improve.
Anyone reading today's newspaper knows that there are still grave problems in specific areas of education, however. Many teachers have left the system in frustration and despair over the conditions in our schools and the apparent refusal of many students to study and learn. Because many school boards are recalcitrant and old-fashioned, countless numbers of other teachers can't find positions they are really qualified for and are assigned to jobs in which their skills and training are largely wasted.
To illustrate this problem, Warren Bisig, author of Lessons for the Teacher, has chosen a case in which the elements are so special that it may seem extreme and even improbable. We hasten to assure the readers that the story he has to tell is based on fact, and that the situation in which Carol, the heroine, finds herself is not terribly unusual. A recent college graduate, Carol is highly qualified but finds herself unable to obtain a regular teaching position. She is forced to accept a job as tutor to a rich but retarded teenage boy, Lonny Royster. The salary is attractive, but otherwise the job quickly becomes a nightmare. The Royster family is rich enough to do exactly as its members please-and they please to do things that most people would consider abnormal or perverted.
Whether or not Carol can escape the nightmare is a question best left to Mr. Bisig to answer in his incisive, enlightening, and always entertaining way. Whether or not Carol is typical of today's teachers is a question that could be debated at length. The one thing of which we are positive is that Lessons for the Teacher contains many valuable lessons for the reader and will leave him with a much clearer picture of what is going on in American education today.
The Publishers Chatsworth, Cal. February, 1972