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granted on the college campus that it's fine for eighteen-year-olds to
indulge in drugs, sex, rock On' roll, binge drinking, class-cutting, oversleep–
ing, and so forth, it's naive to think that seventeen-year-old on the high
school campus won't begin to practice to get ready for their freshman year
in college. If the college sophomore in the family boasts about his exploits,
what do you suppose will be the effect on his younger sister who is a high
school sophomore? What are the effects on parents trying to bring their
kids up properly? The signals sent by higher education permeate the sig–
nals that make their way into the schools.
Fifth, and finally, the university is the wellspring of the social and politi–
cal values that pervade the school curriculum, values that today include
multiculturalism, environmentalism, ambivalence about patriotism, an affec–
tion for big government, and so on. These creep into textbooks, into the videos
and television programs that teachers show, into the magazines and newspapers
and workbooks they assign, and into the belief structure of the teachers them–
selves. Indeed, the activist groups on campus that seek to propagate those
values throughout the society are especially eager to target the young, and if
they can get their hands on the fifth-grade science curriculum, so much the
better. That's how something called "peace education" during the cold
war
evolved into conflict resolution; that's why science and geography classes are
awash in radical environmentalism, etc. I don't say that this is olely the fault
of our colleges and universities, but if the e beliefS weren't firmly rooted there,
they wouldn't be nearly so sturdy in our elementary and secondary schools.
If you look at these two systems together, the lower and the higher,
what we have is a classic case of entropy-a closed system in which every
element slowly deteriorates. Webster's defines "entropy" as "the degrada–
tion of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate tate of inert
uniformity." A wonderful description, I think, of the interaction of the K-
12 and higher education systems.
Is there anything to be done? I started with my own bits of optimism.
There are end runs, there are exceptions, there are situations within this
chaos in which good things can and sometimes do happen. There are
islands in this polluted sea, and if there were a lot more of them I'd be
more optimistic. I think that their existence, however, proves that it's pos–
sible, and that's reason enough not to despair. Maybe the mounting
discontent we're seeing among governors and legislators will actually lead
to some serious intervention. I do not believe that thi is a self-correcting
system. I don't think an entropic system can self-correct, though I don't
know enough science to be sure of that. I do believe that an intervention,
a swift kick from outside, is the likelie t way to cause a change in this
enterprise. And I hope that
Partisan Review
will deliver such a kick, and that
everyone in the room will leave so motivated and so inclined.
