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FREEDOMWAYS

FOURTH QUARTER 1968

had been left untouched and apparently regarded as not worth stealing. The cartons contained about seventy volumes of books. They contained a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica and a complete beautifully bound set of the works of the great thinkers of civilization. A truly educated person would never have stolen these tools of education. In this instance, however, the volumes had been left because apparently no one thought them worth stealing. Nobody wanted Socrates or Plato or Aristotle. Nobody wanted Kant or Darwin or John Stuart Mill. Nobody wanted Shakespeare or Hippocrates. It was a scene to evoke tears, not that the room had been pillaged, but that the values of the looters were so distorted that they had by-passed the greatest treasure the room held.
  Some readers will contend that these were ghetto children and that their disinterest in the great thinkers of civilization should evoke no surprise. But many of our most renowned colleges and universities have neglected the aesthetic values of life in much the same manner and we have been content to manufacture from our academic institutions countless men and women who are vocationally trained but not educated; people equipped to make a living but whose ignorance about life is abysmal.
  It seems that only yesterday the great surge toward racially balancing our public schools was in motion. Reams could be written on the effort waged since 1954 to educate children in the spiritual atmosphere of racial unity. Every conceivable device was employed to defeat integration efforts and those who fought against the tyrannies of segregation. As constant prodding brought in integration in teaspoon proportions the educational structure threw it out with a shovel. The movement leaders were villified and persecuted and harassed on every side. The Board of Education of New York City consistently evaded the need to meet its moral responsibilities by indulging in a series of studies. The results of the studies were never implemented and the situation grew progressively worse until, at the writing of this article, pupils segregation has reached an unprecedented high and pupil achievement has reached an unprecedented low. The pathological forces in the white community had triumphed. Middle-class and aspiring white parents could now educate and rear their children in their own image. The sickness and the separateness which blight our social structure could continue unabated and unthreatened by the prospects of decency.
  In June 1966 James Meredith staged his unforgettable walk


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