Word: conant
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Most of Mr. Conant's listeners are probably still of the opinion that a society without caste never was and never will be. Even his own Utopia, where education catapults the men with intellect or talent into positions of power, is possessed of a caste system--with caste resting upon intellect and talent. Even if the ruling class turns over to a certain extent, it is still a ruling class; and there is no real or universal freedom...
This, of course, does not mean that Mr. Conant's world is not a better place than the one we now live in. It undoubtedly is. He is to be warmly applauded for being conscious of the rising class problem in the first place, and then for suggesting such basically sound measures. In so far as a free and classless society is relative--and at one point Mr. Conant says it is--his solution is the best one possible. Be that as it may, the classless society remains an ideal and an illusion...
Speaking yesterday afternoon at the Waldorf-Astoria before the first session of the Ninth Annual New York Herald Tribune Forum on Current Problems, President Conant declared, "The perpetual disintegration of hard and fast class lines would seem to me the first aim of an educational system in a country which believes in the desirability of a truly classless society...
...Conant discussed the American ideal of a society free of class lines. "Have we reached a point where the ideal of a peculiar American society, classless and free, must be regarded as of only historical significance?" he asked, and then explained why he thought this...
...educators accept the ideal of a free and classless society on the American pattern as the premise for our actions, our concern must be at every point in the educational system to provide true democracy of opportunity, to have all careers open to the talented," Conant said...