Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to THE ADVOCATES, the PBS Fight of the Week. Tonight's debate is coming to you from Boston's historic Faneuil Hall.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please.

Moderator Evan Semerjian has just called tonight's meeting to order.

Good evening, and welcome to THE ADVOCATES. Our debate tonight is a provocative one, one that focuses on a major question of policy in the field of higher education. Specifically, our question is this: Would the nation be better off if fewer people went to college? Advocate Colette Manoil says "yes."

The myth that colleges are a guarantee of personal fulfillment, or financial success, has disillusioned students and has degraded the institution. To argue that society ought to provide high school students with alternatives that are meaningful to them, I have with me tonight Professor Fritz Machlup of New York University and Professor Paul Kurtz, Editor of the Humanist Magazine.

Advocate John Burgess says "no."

Thomas Jefferson believed that a broad-based educational opportunity was the veritable seedbed of the survival of democracy. The proponents of tonight's proposition reject that principle. Dr. Freda Rebelsky of Boston University and Dr. Kenneth Tollett, Professor of higher education at Howard University, support it. I'm pleased to be their advocate and join them in opposing this radical departure from American educational tradition.

Thank you. I'd like to welcome two new advocates to tonight's program. Miss Manoil is an attorney and has served as consultant on educational policy for Massachusetts. Mr. Burgess is a lawyer from Vermont and an author and lecturer. We'll be back to them for their cases in a moment, but first a word of background on tonight's question. The United States leads the world in the percentage of its youth who go on to college. Almost two-thirds of all students who graduate from high school enroll in college. The majority of those enter standard four-year programs of an academic rather than a technical nature. But, as the percentage and number of students entering college has increased, so has debate over the real value of the conventional Liberal Arts program that most of them pursue during college. And this leads to our question and debate tonight: Would the nation be better off if fewer people went to college? Tonight we'll examine the purpose and relevance of what is called liberal education. By liberal education we mean the normal four year college course, leading to the Bachelor of Arts degree, and that includes the B.A. offered by Harvard and U.C.L.A. on one hand and by a lot of colleges less well known on the other. At its base tonight's debate is a debate over two divergent views on what the educational needs of America are in 1974 and beyond. And now to the cases. Miss Manoil, will you begin, please?

Americans have made a myth out of the notion that a college - a four year Liberal Arts – education; we're told that college is a rewarding experience. Yet 60% or 70% of the people who enter college drop out without finishing. Those people end up in Vermont, chewing Granola. What are they doing? What did they gain? Others are calling for changes in what and how they're being taught. What they're going there for and what they're being presented with is not relevant. A degree, we're told, is going to give you a better job and higher income. Yet we know that people are not going to get a better job or higher income. We're turning out 300,000 teachers for 19,000 jobs. Are these people going to look back on college as a rewarding experience, or are they going to be disillusioned and unhappy when they discover that 70% of the population is earning over $15,000 without a college education. We ought to recognize that there are differences in interests and needs among people and that our educational system must reflect those differences. People should have a choice of vocational educational, two-year community colleges, or on the job training. That is the only way that college and an education can be meaningful. This is what Mark Twain very accurately described when he said, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education." My first witness is Professor Fritz Machlup.

Professor, welcome to THE ADVOCATES.

Professor Machlup, does a four year Liberal Arts institution and the degree which it offers guarantee that the person who has that degree is going to be a better person or a more successful person or a better educated person?

It certainly does not. Absolutely not.

Could you tell us why not?

Before I tell you, I must first make a few distinctions because when you say college - four year college - we must realize that there are really more types. There is the traditional, or more classical, type of a Liberal Arts college. Secondly, there is a watered down version of that college, and thirdly, there is a more vocational kind of training. Now, let me say something about each. The first one, the traditional type, is intended to develop a taste for higher learning. It's also trying to prepare people for graduate work and for the learned professions. It is a kind of thing, a training the mind, developing the taste for good literature and for the arts and for sciences and so on. It is not really to everybody's tastes. It is for snobs, like myself. I love that. But it is certainly not for everybody to work seventy hours a week on such esoteric things. Now, since there are so many people who don't like it, they have a watered down version of that, and that watered down version is really good for nothing at all. Thirdly, there is something which is quite good. It includes the more vocationally minded. You have a… you are career-minded and so on, but you know, it's wasteful because you learn these things that you need for a job much better by training on the job.

But doesn't our society say that people that have a college degree are better than people who do not?

Many people say so, but they are wrong. They shouldn't say so. No one is better off because he went to college. I really don't understand why they say it. Through these things perhaps you are morally better? Look what kind of people come out of college, how high their morals are. Let me refer to the Nazis. The most brutal of the Nazis had beautiful education; they loved the arts, they loved literature, they loved music, they knew Wagner by heart, but they killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Well, then, what would your answer be to the fact that some people suggest that college makes better leaders?

A college cannot make a leader. A leader is born. This is a quality of a personality. You can, of course, give a future leader a better education - and I'd much rather have a leader who is broadly educated than someone who is not educated - but the college does not make a leader.

What is wrong, Professor, with pressuring people to go to college immediately after high school?

A great deal is wrong with that. If a reluctant person goes to college, he develops a distaste tor all learning. He also reduces the opportunities for those who want to go there who really want to study and to develop a kind of rebellious attitude against things intellectual, against the institution of the college, and eventually against all social institutions.

All right, that's very interesting. Let's hear now from Mr. Burgess who has some questions for you. Professor.

Sir, I've been told that you have written that the late string quartets by Beethoven are not relevant to 95% of the American adults, and if as many as 50% of the people were exposed to this glorious music, they would call for the destruction of our chamber music society. Did you write that, sir?

I did.

Do you believe it?

Indeed I do.

Now, sir, do you believe there is some point chronologically when we can detect whether we fall among the select five or the unselect ninety-five? Chronologically in age, does there come a moment when the light over your head says, "You are the five, but you are the ninety-five"?

No, you leave it to the taste of the people. Freedom of choice is the answer.

I've also been told that you once wrote that most people can learn what they will ever learn in school in eight years, and if they are kept for ten, twelve, fourteen or sixteen years, they will merely learn it more slowly.

That's correct.

That is what you said.

That's what I said, and I believe in it strongly.

Do you believe at the end of that first eight year period that the light will shine and say, "You are the five, but you are the ninety-five"?

No. If he thinks that he's interested in more learning, he can go and get it. There should be complete access to everybody, but you shouldn't have any pressure on the people.

How would you select, Doctor, who would be in the five and who would be in the ninety-five?

They select themselves, sir.

And how would they be encouraged to make this selection?

By telling them the truth, by telling them what the college means, what kind of things they will be exposed to, and telling them not the untruth - namely, that they will make more money, or that they will be getting better jobs and things like that.

Were you one of the 5% who you feel could profit from a Liberal Arts four-year education, Doctor?

I think I have enjoyed it, I have enjoyed every minute of minute of my studies, and not with any view that it will make me a better man or a better money-maker.

You teach, don't you?

I teach and I learn all the time.

And how many of your students, in your experience, fall into the 95% and how many into the 5%?

Well, I would say it depends whether I teach undergraduates or graduate students ...

Let's talk about undergraduates, if we may.

Now, most of the undergraduates really would have been better off not to have been exposed to my teaching and to that of my colleagues.

Perhaps that says more, Doctor, about their faculties that they are exposed to in college than the faculties that they bring to college, but let me ask you this, Doctor: If a child from a ghetto and a child from a middle class suburb were to both enter the same eight year program of yours, would they come in, in your judgment, in all probability, with a similarly rich background?

Not now, but the point is that you ought to have an early childhood education, and there is a great deal done toward that. We ought… you know, we tried here in the United States the Head Start program. Now, this was an excellent thing in spite of many disparaging things that have been said about it. But it is true that not everybody is exposed in the home to the kind of early childhood education that would give equal opportunity to all of us, and we could make up for that by supplying early childhood education to a great many more people, to all who want to.

So your proposal, Doctor, would not work in the society we live in today but only in a society that was totally reformed.

That I would not say. I would say my proposal does work even today, but it would work much better if people really had the same opportunities, and these opportunities would, of course, include an exposure to learning how to learn.

But the child who because of cultural factors beyond his control goes into your eight year program deprived culturally may come out in the 95% and not in the 5%, isn't that right, Doctor?

He may.

And you see nothing inherently unequal or unfair about that?

No, you can't do anything about that. The point is, first of all, it is not an advantage to go to college. It is a disadvantage, it is a sacrifice.

You feel you come here under a disadvantage because you are an educated man?

Not I, but I think the majority of the people are put at a disadvantage if they are forced to slave for hours and hours a week on things they couldn't care less about. They are completely disinterested, they are bored. These things are irrelevant to their future ...

And you feel the ghetto child, deprived from childhood, should not have an opportunity to join you in the 5%?

He should have an opportunity.

Let's go back to Miss Manoil for a question.

Professor, did I hear you say that there was something better about the 5% than the other 95%?

No, nothing is better. I don't think I said that.

All right, Mr. Burgess.

Do you feel, Doctor, that the philosophy that you have exposed to the audience here tonight would be capable of being created by a mind that had been educated for eight years?

Probably not.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much, Professor, for being with us tonight.

Thank you.

I think Professor Machlup has very clearly put the college Liberal Arts degree in perspective and what it does. It is not all things to all people. For my next witness I have Professor Paul Kurtz.

Professor, welcome to The Advocates.

Thank you.

Professor Kurtz is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo and is Editor of the Humanist Magazine. Professor Kurtz, do you agree that fewer students ought to be forced to go to a Liberal Arts college immediately after high school and obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree?

Yes, I do. Indeed, this trend has already set in. There has been a leveling off in the number of high school graduates going to four-year Liberal Arts colleges. However, 62.5% of high school graduates now go to four year colleges as students, and I think this is a mistake, first, because many of the students who go are not interested, many of the students who go are not qualified, and this is a disillusioning experience for many of them. Also it tends to water down high quality institutions and lower the standards of excellence.

What alternative would you recommend?

I think we have to think creatively and experimentally about alternatives. We are committed to open expanding education, as Jefferson recognized as part of the democratic faith, but we have to find other alternatives beyond a four-year Liberal Arts college. There are vocational schools, trade schools, technical schools, work study programs, two-year community colleges, junior colleges; all of these would provide an opportunity for students who are diverse and different to meet their different needs. In addition - and I would emphasize this point - we have to, as a society, develop continuing education. I think that Liberal Arts education is useful for many people, and I would like to develop it. It is not being adequately developed in four years Liberal Arts colleges, and I've taught in them for twenty-five years. Therefore I think that what we have to emphasize is sabbaticals for older people, senior citizens, continuing education in order to bring forth the best within people.

Do you think we're placing too much emphasis on the certificate?

Yes, we are, and I think it's tragic that we certify a person with a B.A. degree. This says nothing about his dignity and his worth. We then say that you have a job or you do not have a job if you have a Bachelor degree. People find, when they come out, they find that they cannot get jobs. There are hundreds of thousands of English majors in journalism now working in mailrooms, and there are jobs that are not being filled that are crying to be filled in society.

Well, is your position consistent with the democratic ideals?

Yes, I think my position is consistent with the democratic ideals. I'm committed to democracy. I think those who want to compel all students to go to four-year colleges are elitists, snobs, who are attempting to force down the throats of a wide population what they consider to be worthwhile. Now, I do think that Liberal Arts colleges are useful for many people. I would not myself restrict colleges to 5%; perhaps 20% or 30%. But what is happening in the country today is that people are compelled to go to college, much the same as they are compelled to be drafted into the Army, against their will. Some people are calling for 80% or 90%. I think this is madness. And I think it's destructive of many human individuals.

Well, how is the system harmful?

I think it's harmful because many people come under false pretenses. They think that if they go to college, this is an opportunity to advance in society. The Jenckes report, in his book Inequality, has pointed out that a Liberal Arts college, a Baccalaureate, is not necessarily the road to success. I think that what we have to do is re-emphasize the dignity of labor, re-emphasize other values, indicate that there are other alternatives of education and experience in order to lead a good life.

All right, let's go to Mr. Burgess for some questions.

Sir, do you really believe that fewer people should go to college?

Yes, sir, by all means.

But you have said and written that the college community, as a community of scholars, is a worthwhile institution to be preserved.

Yes, by all means.

And I think you've further said that the college community, this community of scholars, has historically been subject to attack by, as you said, practical men of commerce who do not see an immediate economic value in scholarship.

Yes, I think the colleges and universities have an important function to play in our society.

Well, now, isn't it true, sir, that under your proposal decreasing the number of people who went to college, more of the merchants, more of those commercial men you wrote about and feared as destroying the college community of scholars, would not have shared the Liberal Arts experience and therefore would not understand that institution.

I didn't say that the businessmen would destroy the colleges ...

I didn't ask you what you said; I asked you to respond.

Yes, well, I am responding to your question, I think, as best I can. I think your Liberal Arts college is very important. I think it contributes to innovative research and discovery in the country, and the Liberal Arts colleges and universities need to be preserved in that sense. But not everyone should be compelled to go to a Liberal Arts college. There are other alternatives, Mr. Burgess, that you overlook. There are two-year colleges, there are work study programs, there is adult education that should be emphasized. It's the eighteen to twenty-one compulsion of the whole population that I find very undemocratic.

Do you believe ...

Professor, excuse me for just a second. Professor, let me ask you a question and see if I can clarify this. What percentage of the students in college now do you think are wasting their time?

That's difficult to say. I think it depends upon the individual. I think that it's a fairly large percentage.

Well, do you think 95% are wasting their time?

No, no, I wouldn't say that. Perhaps half of the students, perhaps one third ...

Well, if it's 50%, would you say, for example, that 50% of all the students at Harvard and Yale are wasting their time?

I think that many students are wasting their time, but I have not done a statistical study. I have thousands of students over the years, and I've talked to my colleagues, and we see that many students are being destroyed by a Liberal Arts education. Many students are benefiting, and this is very important, but others are not, and they could be doing things that are more productive and more creative.

Just one final question by me. How do you determine which of those they fall into?

I believe in open access, I believe in equal opportunity. I believe that if students have an interest and if they're well motivated and they have the qualifications, then they ought to be admitted. If they find that the college education is not adequate, then they leave.

All right, go ahead, Mr. Burgess.

Do you believe with your colleague-witness that if as many as 50% of the people were exposed to the glorious last string quartets of Beethoven, they would call for the destruction of our chamber music society? Don't you think that's a little extreme, Doctor?

Well, different people have different tastes. That's the point. Not everyone should be compelled ...

Yes, but that isn't the response to my question. Do you really believe that your colleague was right when he affirmed here from the stand that statement?

I think I did respond to your question, Mr. Burgess, by saying that people have different tastes, and we ought not to compel everyone to like chamber music.

Well, let me ask you this: Do you believe that in eight years of college - eight years of schooling - we can learn all that we will ever learn, and if we're kept longer, all we do is learn it more slowly?

No, I don't agree with Mr. Machlup on that point. However, I would emphasize, as he pointed out, that education is a continuing process and that what we need to do is open the universities and colleges for adults and encourage people to go to universities and colleges not from eighteen to twenty-one but later on in life if they're so inclined.

What you're really saying, if I understand you correctly, is that after the babies and the mortgage payments come, the return to the college is an advisable and practical thing.

It may be for many, many people.

Have there been any studies that have found that those subjected to the payments on the car and the payments on the mortgage and the other expenses of raising children flock back to colleges?

I think there have been many people who do go to adult education and continuing education. I think they ought to be encouraged, and what I would like to propose are sabbaticals for people in industry, give people later on in life in their thirties and forties, who can really profit from a Liberal Arts education, an opportunity to go back. Allow the senior citizens an opportunity to go back. Don't merely compel eighteen year old kids, youngsters, to go to college if they don't want to and if they're not qualified.

Do you regret going to a Liberal Arts college, Doctor?

No, I do not regret going to a Liberal Arts college.

Thank you. No further questions.

Let me ask you a question, Professor. Do you think that the number of college dropouts is any indication of your proposal?

I think two thirds of students drop out of college, and since this is true, this suggests a considerable kind of unrest. What is particularly disheartening, I think, is the fact that many college graduates now feel hopeless, alienated and alone. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people in this country who have gone to college and now don't know what to do with their degree.

Well, don't you think that the dropping out of college by students is sort of a self-fulfilling event that already takes into account your proposal so that that would make your proposal unnecessary, wouldn't it?

No, because I think that many people are crushed, many people have a problem of self-respect and of ego, and they feel shattered because they have been submitted to a college education and it has not fulfilled their needs. This is why we need alternatives in expanding horizons of education.

Let's see if Miss Manoil has a question for you.

Well, doesn't the drop in the number of applicants to college and the drop in the scores on the college admissions exams indicate something about the interest, about the background of these people?

I think many youngsters went to college during the Vietnam war because of the draft. This pressure is off now. I think many kids who now do not go to college, high school kids, sense that this may not help them in their career, and also sense that maybe college is not for them.

All right, let's go back to Mr. Burgess.

Doctor, how would you select those who went to college and those who did not?

I would select them on the basis of motivation and also on qualifications. I would have open opportunity for disadvantaged.

Who would make these decisions as to motivation and qualification?

Well, I would have opportunity for disadvantaged, I think the poor kids should go to college. I believe in scholarship for all people in this society.

Who would make the decision, Doctor?

I think we ought to encourage them, but at some point ...

Who would make the decision. Doctor?

I think the colleges would make the decision as to how many to admit, and I think that the community has to be educated so as not to force everyone to go to college.

All right, thank you very much, Professor, for being with us tonight.

Thank you.

Miss Manoil?

Thank you. I think that John Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, probably summed up our position as well as we could. What he said was that a society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

Thank you. For those of you in our audience who may have joined us late, Miss Manoil and her witnesses have presented their case in favor of fewer people going to college. And now for the case against, Mr. Burgess, the floor is yours.

Since the time of Aristotle, Western man has tried to attune himself to the rhythm of his mind. What the proponents are really advocating tonight is that man attuned his mind to the rhythm of his machines. We advocate not a reduction in educational opportunity, but its expansion, not exclusion from the opportunity by some arbitrary standard imposed by a college on eighteen year olds, but a free choice after exploring all the alternatives. We cannot accept this elitist - someone characterized it as snob - approach that some aristocracy of college screeners will close the door of educational opportunity. We consider - and you must decide tonight - the shape of our society literally for the next century. Will it be a society that encourages all to partake of the tree of knowledge freely or will some few stand outside the fence while others feast on the fruit of the tree? My first witness tonight is Dr. Freda Rebelsky of Boston University.

Dr. Rebelsky, welcome to THE ADVOCATES.

Thank you.

Dr. Rebelsky is Professor of Psychology at Boston University and winner of two awards, the Harbison Award for Teaching Excellence and an award of the American Psychology Association for excellence in teaching. Doctor, does a Liberal Arts education help a student to realize his capabilities?

I believe so.

And in what way?

Well, I seem to disagree clearly with the two gentlemen who were the witnesses before in that I believe quite strongly that all human beings' minds are capable of human thinking - that is, capable of abstract, complicated thinking, capable of understanding Mozart and Beethoven if provided the opportunity to do so. The human being is a unique animal with a unique brain. All human beings.

Now, Doctor, as you have experienced life in our society, do we have a static or a changing society?

Well, my notion of this society is that it is a changing one. It was built by people who left their motherland and their fatherland to come and build a new kind of society, and therefore they were people who were leaving their roots behind, hopefully.

Now, Doctor, in what way is the change so inherent in our society served by a Liberal Arts education?

I see it very nicely in the company that's local to Boston, Polaroid, where they have the notion that within five years every job that the people are now doing will be phased out, and therefore they're trying to teach people how to think, how to handle problems so that as new issues come up they can deal with it. A person can learn very easily the facts of Chemistry, the facts of Physics, how to type; they can learn less easily how to question, how to ask, how not to respond to rhetoric. Those are more difficult things, take some time to build on, and take some age to build on.

Well, now, speaking of age, Doctor, does the Liberal Arts degree have any long-range and lasting effect years afterward?

Well, there are certainly lots of experiences that many of my students had and that I've had. A simple example: I took a course in Geology as part of a Natural Science sequence twenty-four years ago in college, and twenty-two years later, as I was walking on a beach on Martha's Vineyard looking at some stones, I noticed that they looked odd, and I remembered my Geology course from twenty-two years before, and I said, "These are not ventifacts, things made by wind, but artifacts, things made by man," and I found an Indian colony all by myself. And I say that's one of the values of a Liberal Arts education: it sticks in your head, it makes you notice things you wouldn't notice. And hopefully, in what I teach my students, it helps them to be critical throughout life.

Doctor, essentially the witnesses for the proponents of tonight's proposition have said, in its barest form, some are dumb, some are smart.

I love that.

Has that been your experience as a teacher?

Not at all, not at all. And one of the things that astounded me is the assumption that students come to college motivated, and we just have to sit there and teach the motivated ones. It seems to me my job in college is to make people learn how to think and" love to learn, and 100% of my students are motivated to go on to think later, and I hear from them ten and twelve years later, saying they learned courage in my class, they learned the ability, for instance, to do a class action suit to get equal pay with men in the insurance company they work in, from a class in Child Psychology. I think you can't tell what will show. I'd like to give one more anecdote. I don't believe there are dumbies and smarties. I see it from myself: I'm smart sometimes and dumb others, and on my doctoral committee at Harvard there was a man who thought I was a genius and a man who thought I was stupid, and I turned this way and talked genius and turned this way and talked stupid. Honestly. I make my students smart. They're smart with me, and when my colleagues say, "How can you give that C-student an A," I show them the papers - they have to admit they're A papers - and I can then say, "What do you do to people that an A-student is a C-student with you"?

Probably the oldest solve-all - and my wife will forgive me for the question - Doctor, do you believe that a housewife should have a Liberal Arts degree?

I'm sure every housewife in the room knows what I'm going to respond. It seems to me that it's even appropriate in terms of what has been stated before by the witnesses. If we're going to have an intelligent population and the next generation is going to be intelligent, then certainly the women who are raising the children have to be intelligent and capable of thinking of abstract things. Let me add something as a developmental psychologist. Most adults - most people - respond to behavior and not motivation. It's hard to stand back and think abstractly. A mother must learn how to think abstractly with children because children think qualitatively differently from adults, and if we assume their behavior is like ours, we make the wrong assumptions. I'd like to give an example. My son at five years old spread toothpaste very carefully on a wooden coffee table, and I came downstairs and because it was the morning I was more sane than I usually am later in the day, and I said, "Why did you do that, honey?" And he said, "Mommy, your toothpaste cleaned my teeth so good, I thought I'd clean the table for you." And it was a lovely example because I could be reflective and look and ask a question, I could then learn something about his behavior. That's different than if I just responded to what he did on the outside. And I'm suggesting that I think a Liberal Arts education is something that enables a person to sit back, reflect and ask questions rather than to leap into action. That's very human.

Yes, Doctor. I think Miss Manoil has some questions for you.

Professor Rebelsky, I understand that you're saying that even people that aren't interested in Mozart should be taught Mozart, and that you don't care if they're interested in mechanics or in football or in other subjects, Mozart is a more valid thing to study than automobiles or carburetors, is that correct?

No, I'm saying that everybody should have the base that consists of the products of human minds. That includes the best of our music and the best of our poetry. But I don't think the people are not motivated. I think most people don't know, and that's partially because very young people cannot understand some difficult concepts, such as the fact that law is a product of man's mind, history is a product of man's mind, and those things take time to learn, and they can only be learned late in life at the age of eighteen, nineteen, twenty and not before.

Well, Dr. Rebelsky, I think that what Miss Manoil is asking you is whether you think everybody should go to college.

Yes.

Even if he doesn't want to go?

Yes.

And you won't credit the person?

Just like we send everybody to grade school, and just like we send everybody to high school. I think we should have better colleges.

So you're in favor of required college education.

And required faculty that motivate people to learn these things, yes.

And would you also require these people to go on to graduate school, post-graduate school and so on to infinity?

I require them to have a Liberal Arts base, so they can be good voters and good thinkers, whatever they decide to do.

And you're saying that because you have a college education you're a better person than these people here who may not have a college education.

I'm not saying better. I think they would be better at whatever they want to do by having the common base with me of the enjoyment of the kinds of things that we know that human minds are capable of.

How many people do you think would go to college today if a degree were not offered, if they didn't think they would get a job as a result of having this certificate?

Well, I think that's the wrong question.

Well, would you try to answer it and then we'll let your lawyer protect you.

Okay. I think - well, it's hard for me to answer because I don't think you can connect college and jobs. I think you should connect Liberal Arts education with being human.

We agree, then.

Okay. I think ...

That fewer people would go to college if they knew that they were not going to get a job when they got out.

No, you misunderstand, no.

I understand you perfectly well, I think.

No, I think that what would happen if you educated everybody to much more higher human kinds of capabilities, the people would invent new jobs, make new jobs, change the way jobs are. Maybe we would never have any more sweepers. We'd all go out like the Chinese and sweep two hours a day, or an hour a day, and have no human being have to do the job for eight hours a day of sweeping a floor.

So you, Professor Rebelsky, are saying that because you went to college, because you have a Bachelor of Arts degree and because you happen to be motivated for whatever reason, you're a better person than a farmer, auto mechanic, Abe Lincoln who didn't go to college, than many other people in our society who have succeeded, who have expressed themselves and yet did not get a college degree.

I think farmers don't always have to stay farmers, and I as a professor don't always have to stay a professor.

What's wrong with being a farmer?

I'm saying ...

What's wrong with being a farmer? Why do you look down on a farmer?

I do not look down on a farmer.

You do. You have told us there are better things he can do.

No, I didn't say that. I said he might be a different kind of farmer, and he might understand that he has choices. Let me ...

How different?

Well, for example ...

He might not enjoy the sunrise?

Well, he might understand that when he's forty, he can change his field and have equal amount of time later in his life to do something completely different, if he wanted to.

So you would agree with us that the farmer should have the option to be a farmer first, or a mechanic first, or a plumber, and then go to college.

No, because he's a voting member in our society and he should get a basic education first. He can also be a farmer.

Well, Doctor, I'm not sure I understand why you don't leave it up to the individual to decide when to get his college education.

Because I think most people can't decide for themselves. We are forced. I think the two professors before clearly would be people who normally would go into a college education, and I wouldn't have if I hadn't been forced.

Well, what about students, then, dropping out of college precisely because they're not ready for it?

They may be dropping out because the teachers are lousy, or because registration lines are long. We don't know why students are dropping out of college.

Okay, go ahead, Miss Manoil.

Why should we force them to go to these institutions if - pardon the expression – “the teachers are lousy,” as you said?

Well, hopefully they'll change the teachers.

What is the benefit? They'll change the teachers. They're going there to learn something, to become a superior person like you, and all institutions aren't equal, isn't that true?

I think that many institutions that you think are unequal are very good. For example, I noticed that you said before Harvard and U.C.L.A., compared to other institutions. Podunk University is the place where women with PhD's from Harvard and U.C.L.A. have taught for the last twenty years because they couldn't get jobs anywhere else. And if I look at the Harbison Awards, or the Danforth Foundation, they're given to people who teach in little colleges.

What's wrong with freedom of choice?

One very brief answer.

I think people can't make adequate choices.

All right, let's go back to Mr. Burgess.

About this.

Do you believe that you, as a Doctor of Psychology, do you believe that all you are able to learn you could learn in eight years, Doctor?

No, absolutely not. We know plenty in the field of Developmental Psychology to suggest that major kinds of learnings occur through life and that the first years of life are not totally the only important ones. We all know this, that we can be - I was for instance a straight C student in college and a straight A student at Harvard in graduate school. Did my brain change?

All right, let's go back to Miss Manoil.

Are you saying that these people are going to be able to make a better choice because they were exposed to these rotten teachers for four years?

I'm saying that your argument about two years or four years - I mean, technical training, you can have lousy teachers too. I'm saying the four-year Liberal Arts education - the contents thereof - is important for every human being to have.

But if they're lousy teachers, and they're not learning anything, aren't they wasting four years?

There are lousy teachers in grade school too. I mean, that doesn't stop us from sending people to school. Hopefully, if everybody had a Liberal Arts education ...

What do you have against the freedom of choice? What objection do you have to allowing someone ...

I don't think there is free choice. I don't think people are free to choose.

You're in a position to tell people what to do. You think that because you have all these degrees you know better and you can dictate to these people what to do and what's good for them.

Let me tell you something as woman to woman. Every single ... There is not a single other girl from my grade school class who finished college, much less went on to graduate school, and they were much brighter women than I am, or had the potential for being so. But because they were females, and because this society doesn't offer freedom of choice they dropped out of school early because their parents expected them to go and have kids.

Well, are you a better person and a happier person because of that?

Oh yes, and these days they all wish they had the guts to go back, and they're scared to.

You're better than they are?

I'm saying I'm better off. They are unhappy about their choices.

No, I said are you a better person than they are?

Of course not, but they wish that they had made those choices differently.

All right, with that, Dr. Rebelsky, thanks very much for being with us tonight.

Dr. Kenneth Tollett, our next witness. Doctor, will you take the stand.

Welcome to THE ADVOCATES, Doctor.

Dr. Tollett is a Professor of Jurisprudence and a Professor of higher education at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and was a member of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. Doctor, in your study of jurisprudence and the philosophy of higher education, have you found certain dominant urges in the nature of man?

Yes, I have.

And would you tell us what those are?

I think there are three dominant urges in self-conscious humans. One is an urge to explain, another is an urge to control, and the third is an urge to revere and reunite with nature.

Does the four-year Liberal Arts program help fulfill these urges, Doctor?

I think so because I think all three of these urges are centered in the mind. I think all humans are learning beings, and these three urges express this drive of human beings to learn and to understand, to get knowledge so that we control nature, to be able to communicate with our fellow man.

Well, Doctor, one of the current cliches is that we live in a technological society—I'm sure you've heard that. Why is it that a technological education doesn't make us more able to cope with a technological society?

Because technology is concerned with means, and liberal education is concerned with ends. There's a need for the evaluation of the ends and goals in life, and just having expertise and making a bomb will not tell you when to drop it or not to drop it. Indeed, if one does not develop sensitivity and so forth, one will go gung-ho over doing what one can do rather than what one should do.

Now, a term we hear a lot about these days, Doctor, is technological unemployment. Are you familiar with that term?

Yes.

Well, isn't it true that a person who is technically educated should be better able to cope with technological unemployment in our society?

I would think not. Because our society is changing we have this experience we call technological obsolescence where a job last year becomes obsolete next year, so that one needs a broad education, one needs to know how to think, one needs a flexible mind, one needs developed skills - basic skills - that will enable them to change vocation or calling later when a job becomes obsolete.

Well, now, Doctor, we've been told that airline pilots in some airlines are required to have a four-year Liberal Arts degree. Is that really justified?

I think so in the light of so many being laid off now. They'll need to know how to do something else besides fly a plane.

Well, we've heard from your predecessor witness here that in fact in some way the Liberal Arts degree makes for a better citizen. Do you share that view?

I certainly do.

Well, why?

Because a citizen must be informed and knowledgeable about what's going on in the world. One needs to be exposed to Professor Machlup's analysis of Economics so as to have some sense of what this rationing problem is all about.

You mean the gas rationing?

The gas rationing. If one has had a Liberal Arts education, one knows that there is one school of thought influenced by the Chicago school that believes in laissez-faire and that the prices should go to the sky and let the market determine rationing, who will buy gas and who will not. And then there are others who take more the dirigement attitude; the plan would be for rationing and price controls. Well, if one has not had an exposure to economics, one would have no knowledge or understanding of this very important issue today.

We have been told, Doctor, that some of the states in our union require their state police officers to have a college degree. Can that be justified?

It certainly can.

In what way?

Well, I'm a constitutional lawyer also, and it would be very good if police officers, one, were familiar with the Constitution and would be willing to abide by the Miranda rule and other decisions of the Supreme Court, and also, more importantly, policemen, say, operating in the ghetto, to have a liberal education that not only exposes him to Mozart but maybe John Coltrane and the blues and jazz, so that they have some understanding of the feeling and aspirations of the people in the ghetto.

One brief question and answer.

Tell me, Doctor, is there some socializing component to the four year Liberal Arts program?

Yes, there is a socializing component, and I suppose that's the practical aspect of obtaining a liberal education, that it provides one with basic skills that will enable them to work successfully in society, will enable them to earn more money, and this is one of the values, in addition to enriching and enhancing sensitivity and sensibility.

All right, let's see what questions Miss Manoil has for you.

Professor Tollett, do you really think that it helps the upward mobility of certain disadvantaged people to force them to go to college and then find that 70% of them drop out? What does this do to them?

I wouldn't force them; I would encourage them. And as the proposition is stated, it's a question of whether you want fewer to go or more to go. I want more to go, and I want to encourage as many students as possible to go, and I don't think there's any question. We look at the history of education in this country: the enrollment has doubled about every fourteen or fifteen years, the economic well-being of the nation as a whole, I think, has improved over that time, and I'm sure that one can prove a correlation between high-level education and a great amount of mobility of people from the lower classes, the lower class, in our society.

I don't think it's true economically. In fact, I know it's not true economically. The information that we have - and I think you have it as well, I'm sure you do - is that there are more people that are making over $15,000 who are not college graduates than those who are college graduates. Well, how do you explain the 70% drop-out?

That's the time lag. That's because you have a lot of people who came at a time when there weren't many going to college, but that will certainly not be the case later. And all the studies I've seen indicate that people who have college degrees earn more in their lifetime than people who don't have college degrees.

And is that a valid reason for going to college? To earn more money?

It is one reason for going to college.

Well, Doctor, let me ask you this. I think we'd all be interested in knowing if you have any figures or statistics to show what difference it makes to have a college education.

Well, the Chicago school also has done a study about educational investment, or educational capital, and one of our reports of the Carnegie Commission indicates that there's a 10% return on investment in people, that is, educational investment, so that there is this 10% return as a result of obtaining more education.

Without which - you're saying there's 10% more return than without it? Is that right?

Yes.

Go ahead, Miss Manoil.

What's the magic about four years?

Well, I'm not mystical, so I don't deal in magic. I think that it takes a long time to get adequately educated.

Would ten years be better than four years?

Say what?

Wouldn't ten years be better than four then?

It might be better, but we don't have time for ten years.

Why not? Why not? You're advocating college,

mandatory ...

People with PhD's do go almost ten years. It depends how specialized and how far you want to go, but certainly, I think, everyone needs a basically sound liberal education in order to function well as citizens, in order to communicate better with their fellow humans, and also to earn a better living.

Well, doesn't this discourage people who can't afford to go there for ten years?

No, it doesn't discourage them. It depends upon what their aspirations are.

Isn't it true that we need more professionals in this country ...

Yes, we need more professionals.

And that because it takes so long to become one, many people do not complete the course.

That's true.

Doesn't that indicate there's something wrong with the requirement that someone go to school forever in order to be educated?

No, it indicates that they aren't given the right motivation, or that there aren't adequate funds to support them to go for so long a period of time.

What about the 300,000 teachers we're turning out for 19,000 jobs? How do you explain to them the value of having gone to college and being educated people?

My explanation to them is that definitely we should change the student-teacher ratio and provide more teachers in the ghettos and for students who are disadvantaged because I think this will improve their educational opportunities.

And would you say that all colleges are equal? Would you say that - I don't know where you got your degree, but that - a degree from certain universities, Ivy League colleges, is worth more than a degree from other institutions because, as Mrs. Rebelsky said, lousy teachers there, and I'm quoting?

It may be worth more in terms of what you will earn because of the prestige of the school but not because you got a better education.

One quick question and answer.

All right, but aren't you, then, creating another elite?

No, I'm not creating an elite; I want everyone to be elite.

All right, let's go back to Mr. Burgess.

Do you want everyone to go to Harvard?

Has it been your experience, Doctor, that in eight years you can learn all that you're able to learn?

Of course not. That's absurd.

Thank you.

All right. Miss Manoil?

Well, is there something wrong with allowing a black who wants to become an auto mechanic or a plumber from going right out and doing that when they are out of high school?

No, there's nothing wrong with it, but I would encourage that brother or sister to go to college and obtain the Liberal Arts degree so that that person can have more options in life.

Is that because they're really going to become a better person? Or is that because of the social situation as it exists today?

They will have a better chance to be a better person.

But isn't there something wrong with ...

I don't guarantee that they'll be a better person.

Isn't there something wrong with a system that relies on credentials and not on the person?

Well, credentials are just evidence - at least putative evidence - of having acquired a certain amount of education.

Are you then saying that you disregard the person and only look at the institution and the degree?

I never disregard the person.

I think you are.

No, I'm not.

I would suggest that you are.

Quite the contrary. I'm saying as many people as possible should have an opportunity to have a four year education, Liberal Arts education.

That's because you're educated and you think you're a better person than they are for having been educated.

Of course I don't think I'm a better person. In fact, it's because I know I am not better than they that I know that they could benefit from it. I'm just an Okie from Muskogee, a simple country boy, and I was able to go to the University of Chicago and get three degrees, and there were a lot of people who were smarter than I who were not able to go because they didn't have the funds or the know-it-all to go.

Okay, why did 70% of those people drop out?

So it's because I know that that I know so many other people can profit from education.

Well, why did 70% of the people who go there drop out?

Some of them aren't properly motivated, there are teachers who are contemptuous of them. In fact, you know, in this Coleman report something needs to be said about it. One of the elements that's not mentioned in that is the attitude of the teacher toward the student, and in our racist and sexist society results in a lot of students being turned off because the teachers have contempt for the students. They think only 5% - or five out of a hundred in a class - are educable.

So you would not ...

But I think all of them are educable.

But you would not agree that college is a good experience then?

All right, Dr. Tollett. I'm sorry. I'm going to thank you very much for being with us tonight. Thanks very much. Thank you. That completes the cases, and now it's time for each of our advocates to present their closing arguments. Mr. Burgess, will you proceed.

Thank you. You know, really, we're to decide tonight whether our descendants will live in a society of broad educational opportunity that Thomas' Jefferson envisioned and that has served us so well for two hundred years, or whether they will live in a society of educational exclusion. Now, at commencement ceremonies of tomorrow's university there may be two degrees. One will be awarded in these words: "By selection of your peers and betters and with certainty as to your future, I confer upon you, young men and women, the degree of Bachelor of Menial Work, and welcome you to the ancient and common company of laborers." But another degree may be awarded substantially like this: "By virtue of the authority delegated to me by the trustees of this college, and with high hope for your future, I confer on you, men and women of learning, the degree of Doctor of Arts and welcome you to the ancient and honorable company of scholars." Which degree would you rather have your grandchildren encouraged to see?

Thank you, Mr. Burgess. Miss Manoil, may we have your argument, please?

I think it is the Harvard degree, the elite of the colleges, which uses the words "welcome you to the society of learned men." I don't think all colleges welcome you in that fashion, nor do they promise to do so. I think that Mr. Burgess and his witnesses have suggested tonight that the nation would be better off if plumbers and longshoremen and all people in the world went to college first and then pursued an education. That is absolutely absurd. These people would be happier, more productive, if they were free to choose where to go, if they were free to choose alternatives, if there were no stigma because they did not have the certificate, certifying their membership in the society of learned men because obviously you can not belong if you do not have that certificate, and that is also absurd and discriminatory. I think it would be much wiser to offer a high school graduate the choice to exercise their judgment to select the system that best suits their needs. The problem may be difficult, but it's not as difficult as forcing someone into a system that is useless, meaningless, and in the end discourages them, disillusions them, embitters them, and means nothing to society.

And now it's time for you to get into the act. It may seem that the question debated tonight is a very personal one for parents and their children to decide, but the fact is that the commitment to higher education in this country is incorporated in a myriad of education Acts and Federal programs of support, and that all may be changed if the broad policy objective is redefined. So what do you think? Would the nation be better off if fewer people went to college? Send us your "yes" or "no" vote on a letter or postcard to THE ADVOCATES, Box 1974, Boston 02134. Matters relating to this broad policy question come before the Congress all the time. The shape and extent of our commitment to higher education depends upon it, and it depends upon you. So send us your votes and we'll tabulate them and make the results known to the members of Congress and others interested in the question. Remember the address: THE ADVOCATES, Box 1974, Boston 02134.

Now, if you'd like a complete transcript of tonight's debate, send your request to the same address: THE ADVOCATES, Box 1974, Boston 02134. Please enclose a check or money order for $2.00 to cover the cost of printing and mailing. You should get your copy within three weeks of our receiving your request. And be sure to specify the program by name and your return address.

Now, recently THE ADVOCATES debated the question, "Should there be a moratorium on strip mining in the West?" Of almost 3,500 viewers who sent in their votes, 71% said yes, we should prohibit strip mining of coal, and only 29% said no, we should continue such strip mining. That's more than two to one against strip mining.

Next week THE ADVOCATES begins the first of a series of three programs examining the energy crisis.

So let's take a look at that program. (PROMOTIONAL MESSAGE)

And now, with thanks to our able advocates and their very distinguished witnesses, we conclude tonight's debate.