Doubtful Remedy

How much do people remember of what they learn in school? Results of an examination given to 7,000 high-school graduates, now freshmen in 36 colleges from coast to coast, were published last week by the New York Times. They revealed that this group included:

> Many who had forgotten, mislearned or never learned many details of U.S. history.

> Some with a sense of humor.

> Some with political heresies.

"Inescapable," concluded the Times, was the conclusion that to make U.S. history a compulsory college course would be one way of remedying the situation.* Other observers felt less sure.

The test was designed by Educator Hugh Russell Fraser and two-time Pulitzer Prizeman Allan Nevins, Columbia University's Professor of history. Object: "to determine the amount of U.S. history that the high-school graduate retains from his secondary course." The question of what he retains from other courses, of what he would retain from a compulsory college course, went necessarily unanswered.

Examinees were asked to name the principal body of water on which are located Cleveland and St. Louis; two specific powers granted Congress by the Constitution; four freedoms in the Bill of Rights; the first U.S. census which could report railway mileage. Also: to identify the Nullification Act and the price of public land before passage of the Homestead Act.

Groaned the Times: "1,705 of the 7,000 students, or 25%, did not know that Abraham Lincoln was President . . . during the Civil War. . . . Many students attending Southern colleges thought that Jefferson Davis had been President of the United States . . . 2,077 students, or 30%, did not know that Woodrow Wilson was President . . . during the last World War."

Smiled the Times: "It is likely that some of the students were not serious in answering. . . ." The Times hoped they were few. That some saw in the examination a chance for a heretical stump speech seemed probable. Asked to describe traditional U.S. policy toward China, one wrote: "Wanting China to win and sending damn little to help her."

Other wrong or wiseacre answers: the Bill of Rights gives "white people in the South the right to lynch Negroes." An assassinated President was "Lincoln, and it was a good thing, too." Dead labor leaders were said to include "John L. Green," "William Lewis." Other students were considered wrong for referring to Samuel Gompers as Grumpers, Gomphers, Goobles.

*Crusading for this goal last June, the Times discovered that in 82% of U.S. colleges, U.S. history was optional. Educators replied that high-school coverage makes college compulsion undesirable. To answer them, the Times backed its new survey.

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