The Third Revolution?

When President Roosevelt established the National Youth Administration in 1935 to "do something for the nation's youth," most educators were pleased. Reason: its prime purpose was to keep youngsters in school (by giving them relief). But as NYA grew, educators became less pleased. Last week, convening in Atlantic City, U. S. schoolmen faced a big, unpleasant fact: NYA had become a formidable rival of the nation's schools. One of them saw in it a revolution--the third in U. S. educational history.

The convention tried at first to take no notice. Not in years had the 12,000 delegates to the meeting of the American Association of School Administrators been so excited about their jobs, so satisfied with their accomplishment. U. S. Education Commissioner John Ward Studebaker, reporting that the schools had in eight months turned out 500,000 mechanics for national defense and by July would turn out 500,000 more, congratulated them on a good job well done. What impressed the schoolmen most was that they had had an unprecedented $75,000,000 in Federal funds to spend.

First cold water was thrown on the convention's eve by Will Carson Ryan, a onetime staff member of the U. S. Office of Education, now a professor at University of North Carolina. In Frontiers of Democracy, a Progressive Education Association magazine, Dr. Ryan pondered a fact that has puzzled many educators: although President Roosevelt has spent money for almost every other social purpose, he has never recommended direct Federal aid for schools (except the $75,000,000 for emergency defense training). Dr. Ryan's conclusion: the President is not enthusiastic about the established school system.

In Atlantic City, educators who claimed to know the President's mind confirmed Dr. Ryan's guess. But it was already confirmed by facts:

> Throughout the U. S., in CCCamps, NYA work projects and WPA projects for youth, a new educational system is in operation, independent of the public schools.

> In many a community, NYA workshops have lately sprung up beside public schools, luring pupils away by paying them from 14 to $24 a month.

> NYA and CCC now are spending $400,000,000 a year, a sixth as much as the entire public-school system of the U. S.

Last summer rivalry between NYA and the schools became so fierce that NYAdministrator Aubrey Williams and Educational Commissioner Studebaker had a showdown. Result was a signed armistice, under which NYA was to restrict itself to work projects; the schools, to related classroom training. Last week Commissioner Studebaker hotly denied that NYA's or CCC's activities could be called educational. But most educators knew better.

First to raise the subject before the convention was square-jawed Francis T. Spaulding, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Said he: "Public dissatisfaction with the established schools is taking the form of willing public support for a new kind of educational enterprise--CCC . . . NYA . . . WPA." Reminding the educators that U. S. education had undergone two revolutions (supplanting of Latin grammar schools by nonclassical academies after the Revolutionary War, and of academies by high schools after the Civil War), Dr. Spaulding warned them to prepare for a third. Two days later the shock troops of the revolution met to plan their campaign. Organized as the National Committee on Coordination in Secondary Education (chairman: Dr. Spaulding), they represented 30 leading educational groups. After long debate, the committee emerged with a manifesto:

> Chief lesson learned from NYA and CCC: an essential part of youth's education is working at a job.

> Let the public schools take over NYA, start work camps, help supervise CCCamps.

> Let the Federal Government give financial aid to public schools.

> Let every U. S. community organize a youth council to act as referee among all the agencies that want to do something for poor old Youth.

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