THAT MEN MAY UNDERSTAND

by Harold, O. Rugg '08, Doubleday Doran, 1941,p. 350, $2.75.

THE CHIEF TROUBLE with our education is that the schools of yesterday have produced a generation so ignorant that they won't allow the schools of today to teach what should be taught. So spoke that great liberal, Edward Filene, to the nation's school executives in 1934. Not only schools, but colleges were at fault, says Harold Rugg, speaking of his own education: "—the outcome of my own nine years of secondary school, college and technological study was but a superficial smattering of knowledge about a variety of academic things, a fair amount of competence in certain limited engineering skills, almost total innocence of the fundamental forces playing upon the domestic and international scene, lack of acquaintance with the essential principles of behavior and a distinct want of mental ballast Like tens of thousands of other American youth, I was turned out of college with no sense of personal values, no clear basis for making economic-political decisions."

"That Men May Understand," his latest book, tells of the development of his own philosophy, of his "life sentence," by which he feels compelled to keep on fighting until he has beaten those reactionary forces that insist that American youth be permitted to view our past only through rose-colored glasses, and must not discuss government relief for technological unemployment, or co-operatives, or municipally owned power-plants or other innovations contrary to "the American way." To advocate the American system of free enterprise is right, even though it end in monopoly. To advocate free competition balanced by government controls over economic enterprise, for the general welfare, is un-American.

The schools must teach: that America never fought an unjust war; that the Constitution is the greatest state paper of democratic government; that individual Americans must be allowed free play of private ownership and unrestricted freedom to develop natural resources.

It is subversive and Communistic to allow students to know: that America declared war after Spain had yielded on every point; that we forcibly restrained Colombia from suppressing a revolt (started with our connivance) and recognized with indecent haste a puppet government in Panama; that the Founding Fathers so feared democracy that they refused the people the right of voting for either President or Senators and made the Constitution very difficult to change; or that in parts of America land and people were exploited, eroded and wasted by un- controlled freedom.

"You must read this five times,'' said a publisher to the author of an American history manuscript in 1913. "The first time imagine yourself a Union veteran, then the son of a Southern planter, then a Catholic on the Boston School Board, then a prominent manufacturer, and lastly, Samuel Gompers." "If you tell the truth and make the children think, you must step on the toes of all five," responded the writer. "What you ask is impossible." "But we have got to sell the book!" was the answer.

Harold Rugg accomplished the impossible: He made the children think. He told the truth. And the books soldi

However, with each wave of hysteria that spread over America came attacks upon the "subversive" Rugg teachings which were "undermining patriotism" and "poisoning the minds of the young." France fell in June, 1940. "Almost overnight citizens on our southern border set up a cry for tanks to guard against Nazi attacks via Central and South America.

Thus within but a few days the hysteria which had swept over western Europe crossed the Atlantic and rolled through the U. S." Meanwhile, says Rugg, the security and confidence of our people "are shaken daily by the incessant reports of fifth columnists, 'Benedict Arnolds' and the insidious propaganda dispensers" of foreign governments. This combination of factors accounts for the success of the censors of the schools and their textbooks: Hart, Forbes, Hearst's papers, Mrs. Dilling of Red Network fame, Geo. Sokolsky in "Liberty," Armstrong, author of "Treason in the Textbooks" in the Legion's magazine.

Two Maine legionnaires, school board members, returned from the Legion convention. "Throw out those Rugg books!" they cried to the local superintendent. "Have you read the books?" he asked.

"Wouldn't touch one with anything but fire," was the answer; "Throw 'em out or we'll throw you out!"

Some enlightened communities, like Englewood, N. J. fought back. They kept the books. But the witch-hunting, lynching, Ku-Klux spirit which sweeps over America every other decade is riding high again. "That Men May Understand" will be read chiefly by liberals who sympathize with Rugg. But the fight will go on. And Harold Rugg will finally be hon ored by thousands as he was honored by President Hopkins at Commencement, 1935: (".... In the forthrightness of your utterances you have aroused the disapprobation of intolerant minds and you have incurred the hostility of advocates of special privilege ") for the Rugg-taught children of yesterday will be the national leaders of tomorrow.