have to offer are perhaps better equipped than anyone else to give it to
us. I should like to offer now for our contemplation some samplings of
thoughts others have expressed on this subject. There is Walter Lipp-
mann, the illustrious journalist and renowned authority on international
affairs, for example, who in a speech the theme of which was that
America must improve its education if it is to survive, said:

"... If, in the crucial years which are coming, our people remain as
unprepared as they are for their responsibilities and their mission, they
may not be equal to the challenge, and if they do not succeed, they may
never have a second chance in order to try again. "

Now, Mr. Lippmann, a cool scholar of world affairs, is no alarmist
preaching a prophecy of doom. He is doing no more than alerting us to
dangers he, with his sharp discernment and understanding, has per-
ceived.

In a speech to the Senate last year, Senator Fulbright, the scholarly
Arkansas statesman who is chairman of the Senate Committee on For-
eign Relations, asked the question: "Whither are we tending?" To the
question the Senator supplied this answer: "We are tending toward
national disaster—unless important and drastic changes of policy in
many aspects of our domestic and foreign affairs make a true revival of
learning the wheel that makes all the other wheels turn. "

I offer these quotations not because they are uncommon but rather
because they typify the thinking of our best minds on the role of educa-
tion in our struggle with world communism. Never before in our history
has so much emphasis been placed upon learning.

About two years ago, this nation was shaken to its very foundations
by the report that the Russians had launched the first earth satellite, and
thus had outdistanced us in mankind's initial efforts to penetrate the
outer space. For the average American, at least, it was the first realiza-
tion that the communist dictatorship had the will and the capacity to
cultivate to the highest degree the intellectual powers of its people. Most
of us were astonished to learn that they not only were capable of develop-
ing their technical skills to a very fine point, but also that they had made
almost incredible advances in general education and basic research. It
was apparent that long ago their leaders had recognized that trained
minds were essential to modern progress, and had had the vision to
devote a substantial portion of their national energy to education.

We remember well the reaction in this country to these shocking dis-
closures. There were clamorous demands for "crash" programs and
stepped-up efforts in one direction and another. Near hysteria pre-

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