Wanted: Teachers, Pupils

Teachers and students last week, along with beef, butter and gasoline, were on the nation's list of shortages. Educators were increasingly alarmed. The National Education Association reported that almost everywhere in the U.S. restless 16-and 17-year-olds (TIME, Aug. 2) are withdrawing from school at a mounting rate, asked parents and students to remember that "high officials . . . have urged youth ... up to 18 to build the foundations of a broad education [as their] greatest national service."

Gloomy about the teacher shortage (TIME, March 29) was Columbia University's educational sociologist Willard W. Waller. For a generation after World War II, thought he, the U.S. might get even worse education than after World War I.--His facts: "More than 2,000 schools, mostly in rural areas, failed to open [last fall]. There was a shortage of at least 75,000 teachers in the nation at large . . . 2,000,000 children were receiving an education below the standards considered acceptable a year before. . . . Normal School enrollments have fallen off sharply, which is an indication that the shortage will continue for a long time. ..."

* In 1919, 143,000 teachers quit teaching, some 18,000 schools closed, more than 41,000 took on substandard teachers and had to put up with them for years after.

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