AFTER CONGRESS, EDUCATION

The recent additions in policy and personel to the Congressional Library brings out a new side to what is generally considered the place of Washington in national affairs. Books as Mr. A. DeW. Howe states in an interview elsewhere on these pages, "are the measuring sticks of progress." The printed word, and often the printed word alone, redeems civilizations from an unknown past. It seems especially significant that this standard of values should emerge from the nation's capitol where progress is generally judged by criteria vaguely concerned with the tariff and a Mexican ideal of procrastination. Yet, it is quite fitting that just as Washington is the nerve center of national legislation it should also be the clearing house for national scholarship. The new ramifications of the Congressional Library fulfill this function and provide an opportunity which cannot be lightly overlooked for graduate workers in all fields.

If it is the printed word that brings in the past to serve the present, it is the generation of retired scholars who can best help in perpetuating that present. The provision for eight consultants with their time at the disposal of the student will allow the workers for a Ph.D. degree to consider the past in the light of present-day experience. The idea of Washington as a place of higher reference scholastically as well as politically, as a new educational focus point, suggests that education may join the ranks of other interests becoming centralized in the national capitol.