Bending the Twig

Book excerpt: ‘Tis education forms the common mind Just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined —Alexander Pope Augustin G. Rudd in his book, Bending the Twig, clearly points out the implications of a program of liberal teacher training, and its effect on the public schools of the United States where the notions of Progressive or New Education have directly or indirectly influenced every level of our educational system. Part II of this book is especially valuable for its definition of the path the social educators are following. Augustin contrasts the concept of a free society based on the primacy of the individual with the concept of the statist order advocated by many of the New Educators who choose to use the schools as an instrument for social change rather than an agency for instruction in the skills, knowledges, and heritage necessary to maintain our culture. It is interesting to know that the Russians experimented with progressive education until its bad results became evident. Then, using their centralized power, they eliminated it. This return to the essentials of education may have aided Russia in making her recent technological advances. After reading this book, one comes away with the feeling that as generation after generation of students graduate from our schools conditioned to the tenets of socialism, we will eventually lose our republican form of government and individual liberty because our citizens will lack even the basic knowledge of our heritage.—FRANK B. KEITH, The Freeman, March 1958