Last week the U.S. had, for the reading, as thoughtful and searching an analysis of its educational system as it is likely to get. Source: the fourth report of the Special Studies Project of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.* The authors (among them: John W. Gardner, Carnegie Corporation of New York president; the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame; Sociologist David Riesman) are sharply critical of defects in U.S. education, and aware that the nation’s future depends largely on whether these defects are mended.

But the larger concern of the unhurried professorial report is not the pursuit of scientific or economic security for the U.S. —it is, in the title phrase, “the pursuit of excellence.” Through the study runs the conviction that the complex, highly organized U.S. society is demanding too little of its citizens, and that individuals of high capability are stifled. The authors warn that “a continuing tension between the needs of the organization and the integrity of the person . . . may well be one of the most fateful struggles in our future.”

Educate Everybody. The report describes the other jaw of the paradox—that although a necessarily complex society often breeds mediocrity, it desperately needs brilliant performance. The U.S.’s need of top-level scientists and highly skilled teachers is obvious now, the authors note. The only occupation for which the need can be counted on not to increase is that of the unskilled laborer, who will be replaced, to some extent at least, by self-tended machines. The schools and colleges must train more people—the U.S. population is expected to grow 55 million by 1975—and, the report warns, must train them better. Its observation: “From time to time, one still hears arguments . . . that a society can choose to educate a few people exceedingly well or to educate a great number of people somewhat less well . . . But a modern society such as ours . . . has no choice but to do both.”

With quiet force, the authors repeat familiar indictments: “We must recognize that in many areas our educational facilities are poor and our educational effort slovenly. Our schools are overcrowded, understaffed and ill-equipped.” Some statistics: by 1969 there will be 50% to 70% more high-school students than present schools can accommodate; by 1975 college enrollments will be doubled or tripled. The need for teachers is enormous; yet industries and Government outbid the universities for graduates who might become college teachers. And all too often programs to train precollege teachers are so “rigid, formalistic and shallow” that they “drive away able minds as fast as they are recruited.”

Pay the Teachers. The authors’ recommendations for attracting skilled teachers are blunt: raises should be given according to merit, not seniority, and teachers should be paid “at least as well as the middle echelon of executives.”

The crisis in science education, the report observes, “is not an invention of the newspapers, or scientists, or the Pentagon. It is a real crisis.” Its cause is not Russia, but a vast acceleration of technology “beside which the industrial revolution may appear a modest alteration of human affairs.” The needs: a great many scientists, well and broadly educated, and a general public familiar with the methods and objectives of science.

Bright children must be recognized early and—without neglecting the training of normal and subnormal students—must get tougher courses in their subjects of special ability. The brightest of these, some 2% of the students, should be steered into a broadened program of early college entrance or college-level courses in high school, the authors recommend. A corollary to the suggestions for bright students: Americans must recognize that not every child should go to college.

Spend the Money. The U.S. spent about $14 billion for all kinds of education in 1955; by 1967, the authors estimate, it should spend some $30 billion. They make two general recommendations: 1) state and local tax setups—now largely dependent on property taxes—should be revamped, with more money allotted to education; 2) educators and the public should recognize that federal aid to education is already huge, and that while states and local communities should retain control of the schools, a much larger proportion of the education bill must come from federal funds.

Finally, the Rockefeller panel members urge that the nation make better use of the talents of women, Negroes and the growing proportion of the population arbitrarily considered aged at 65.

Justification for the enormous educational effort necessary, spelled out in the report writers’ preface, is a humanistic declaration of priority: “A free society nurtures the individual not alone for the contribution he may make to the social effort, but also and primarily for the sake of the contribution he may make to his own realization and development.” The authors are optimistic: “It is possible to identify a posture more constructive than handwringing . . . The truth is that never in our history have we been in a better position to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the pursuit of excellence.”

* The other reports have dealt with military aspects of national security, the future of the U.S. economy, and, most recently, with U.S. foreign economic policies.

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