Education and Science in a Mature Society

During recent years self-examination by many thinking Americans has evolved extensive criticism of our educational system. On the one hand, just after the war the criticism was engendered largely by the apparent political naivete of some engineers and scientists. This unawareness on their part contributed to several unfortunate incidents and made the public sensitive to the need for political and cultural sophistication on the part of scientists. Our professional schools were criticized freely for providing curricula so narrowly technical that they did not produce wholly educated people. This criticism was just. No one disputes the need for broad education in scientific and engineering schools.