MARYLAND ASSOCIATION BOARDS OF EDUCATION 437

skills and the acquisition of fundamental facts there is no foundation
upon which to build creatively. But these are only the rudimentary
tools of education. Education is also training to relate to society in
a positive manner, to judge existing values, to think critically, to act
constructively. These require teaching students to think rather than
to memorize, for the solutions to future problems do not exist in the
back of the book, they are only to be found in the back of the mind.

This demands a new set of educational priorities. Rote education
must be supplemented by attitude training. We cannot promise stu-
dents that a memorization of present facts will secure future promo-
tion. We cannot assume that the possession of current knowledge is
a constant, nor that current curricula correspond to future socio-
economic needs. We live in the most exciting, the most challenging,
the most formidable period man has ever encountered, the era of the
knowledge explosion.

Technological advances are so tremendous that we are just be-
ginning to comprehend their implications and impact. The relative
intelligence quotient of our students becomes irrelevant in the face
of emerging evidence that 70% of all knowledge required to support
and sustain our present school population during their lifetime is as
yet unknown and undiscovered. Experts estimate that 50% of the
technical knowledge possessed by today's graduating engineers will
become obsolete within the next five years; that any student expecting
to earn his livelihood with his hands will have to learn new techniques
at least six times before his retirement. Thus, we cannot hope to pro-
vide our students with sustaining skills, secure technical truths, con-
stant or comprehensive knowledge. But we can provide them with
the attitude to adapt; the confidence and courage to accept rapid
change; the ability to continuously learn; the emotional security to
regard change as an exciting challenge.

We cannot miss this opportunity nor deny that this is the moment
to institute attitude training as a coequal partner of academic educa-
tion. In fact, we've waited too long, delegating this responsibility to
the home, the church, the college. I grant that each of these has an
important contribution to make, that there is ample room for all; but
the schoolhouse has or could have the greatest potential to develop
inquisitive attitudes in pliable intellects.

The importance of attitude training was most vividly dramatized
this summer by the violent riots erupting in seventy-six American
cities. While final causes are still being sought, we are certain of some
answers. Urbanologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan attributes the in-