MEN AND MACHINES

The search for an educational panacea has brought forth such a variety of proposed cures that it is not to be wondered if the net result to the patient is little more than a confused state of mind. A galaxy of remedies ranging all the way from the Micklejohn experiment at Wisconsin to the House Plan at Yale and Harvard presents and array broad enough to convince the layman that all the best authorities are not agreed even to the point of diagnosis. But perhaps in the most recent recommendation -- that of Professor Henderson of Yale--there is a new note of direct action which may do something more than add to the mystery of the educational process.

Professor Henderson has no elaborate system to offer, he has invented no machine to produce college graduates, he suggests nothing to basically upset present programs. Instead, he goes to the heart of the educational body--the men who teach. And when he suggests the use of the vast funds available for education directly towards raising the standard of these men he makes an appeal to all who place the everyday, human element first.

Success for any human undertaking rests primarily upon the quality of the men involved. An amidst the scurry for improvement, Professor Henderson's advice to mark time until the human element has caught up with the mechanical and theoretical rings true like an age-old maxim. Certainly the real significance of this most recent proposal is the fact that in it lies the true foundation for the successful realization of the aims of countless new educational devices.