Dr. Butler and the Rabbits

Columbia's 80-year-old Nicholas Murray Butler called progressive education a nasty name: "the rabbit system of education." Said President Butler in his 41st annual report:

"A chief reason why there is in the U.S. the present widespread . . . outbreak of crime and disorder on the part of American youth (TIME, Dec. 14) is that the fundamental place of discipline in education seems to have been quite forgotten. . . . The rabbit is at liberty to run about the garden where his life is passed, and feed upon such plants, weeds and flowers as may attract him. . . . To call any such process education is in the highest degree absurd."

The Public Education Association of New York straightway stood aghast. Cried they: "We stand aghast!" And would the good Doctor pray explain, if that was the way he felt about progressive education, why Columbia maintained its progressive Bard College and Horace Mann-Lincoln School of Teachers College?

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