 Honored watch is... Laund gene watches have won 10 World's Fair Grand Prizes, 28 gold medals, and more honors for accuracy than any other timepiece. Laund gene, the world's most honored watch, is made and guaranteed by the Laund Gene Wittner Watch Company. It's time for the Laund Gene Chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour, brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. A presentation of the Laund Gene Wittner Watch Company, maker of Laund Gene, the world's most honored watch, and Wittner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Laund Gene. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Laund Gene Chronoscope? Mr. David Taylor Mark, Education Editor of the Associated Press, and Mr. William Bradford Huey, Editor of the American Mercury. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Mr. Felix Morley of Barron's Financial Weekly and former president of Heverford College. The opinions expressed are necessarily those of the speakers. Mr. Morley, you, of course, are a former college president, and you're one of the most provocative essays of our time. And I'm sure that our audience tonight would appreciate your views on the problems in our colleges and universities. Now, sir, one of the principal problems is that every young man today must consider the Army service, either universal military training or the draft. Now, what effect is this going to have on our colleges? Mr. Huey, I don't know why you say, of course, I'm a former college president. If I really want to be provocative, I might take you up on that. It's not really a matter of course. But to get into your question about universal military training, of course that is still under debate. It isn't settled yet, and especially we don't know what form that legislation will take when and if it's passed. Be a great deal of difference, for instance, whether a young man going to college had the option of doing his military service before he entered college, or if it was postponed until after he'd finished college. Now, that's one of the debatable points. But in general, obviously, compulsory military training would tend to sap what you might call the supply of the colleges, that is the student body. Well, now, is there opposition in faculties today to the draft and to universal military training? Oh, yes, very considerable, but I wouldn't suggest that's entirely due to the economic aspects of the problem. There's a feeling that it interferes with the whole course of education that you can't interrupt an educational career. The draft would likely interrupt it, and without affecting it, and probably adversely. Of course, acceleration will help. Yes, and there's room for acceleration. There certainly is room for acceleration in the colleges. I think their financial position will be helped, too. Don't you think, Mr. Morley, if ROTC is applied more widely than it is today? Well, there you really have to make the distinction between the small college and the university. The university would be helped because it has the facilities. The Pentagon would utilize the big universities. That's where you would have the ROTC establishments. And, of course, the government utilizes the big universities for laboratory purposes, for research, and in other ways, and, of course, there's a financial quid pro quo there, the college's profit from it. But you take the case of the small endowed college, and that's where the strain is heaviest at the present time. It's in a completely different situation to the big university. For instance, a college with, say, 300 students, it can't establish a worthwhile ROTC unit. The Pentagon isn't going to send a major and a couple of lieutenants to a college that can only train, say, 150 boys, and they're not going to provide the equipment. So it's out of luck. And then it hasn't got the research facilities either to do the job the university can. Well, let's restrict what we have to say for the moment, sir, to that small college in America, because I'm sure that many of our audience are concerned over whether that small college is going to survive. Now, is that small college changing character today, Mr. Morley? I don't think the small college is changing character as much as the big universities are. If you look back in the origin of the small college, and you have to to get the situation clear, they're parochial institutions. They were established generally for training ministers in little communities throughout the country. This church and that church established a college and they provided intellectual leadership in the community, and they trained people first ministers and gradually as good citizens. That was the purpose of the small college, was to train people not vocationally, not as engineers, not as technicians. If a fellow wanted to be a doctor, he had to go on to postgraduate work after a small college, the same way if you want to be an engineer. Well, now, do these small colleges, are they important to our culture today? Well, in my opinion, they're highly important, but other people might disagree. If our future is to be a great centralized empire, then I think the small colleges will go out. Do we need as many small colleges today? Probably not, and it'll be a matter of the survival of the fittest. Well, now, those small colleges in the past may have contributed to liberal thought, and those small colleges have come into a lot of criticism, particularly in the last 10, 15, 20 years. We've been told, and our people have been told, that some of those faculties have taught our boys that it's fashionable to be a socialist, and a good deal of distrust has been sown there. Now, has some of that criticism been justified at those faculties, sir? Yes, I would say some, but has been justified. I don't know that they've taught the boys so much that it's fashionable to be a socialist, as that they have been very, very critical of the free enterprise system. They've tended to emphasize all the faults and shortcomings of our capitalistic system. Now, nobody questions that it has got faults and shortcomings, but I would say, as a generality, that the trouble of the college faculties, especially in what they call the social sciences, that is economics and history and sociology, they've tended to emphasize the teachers have the faults of the capitalist system and not its virtues. Is it also true that those same faculties have a large considerable hope in what was going on in Moscow? Yes, I think so, although I don't think you can attribute that only to the colleges. I think the newspapers did that for a while also. You can't blame the colleges alone on that. And is there considerable disillusionment now among those college faculties? Oh, and questionably, and in a curious way, I think the good deal of that disillusionment comes from this very problem of inflation that hits the colleges so hard when the college professor finds that his relatively small salary and his salary today is lower than that of a great many skilled workmen, you know. When he finds that his salary isn't going as far as it used to go, he wonders if maybe this free enterprise system, as it was, didn't have something in the ball. Haven't these loyalty ults and the charges made against various professors in college had something to do with curtailing the kinds of thinking they've had? I almost have to ask the individual faculty member to get that clear. I do think that college professors had a sort of weakness as joiners, as far as you can speak of them as a class. They joined a lot of organizations that afterwards turned out to be, well, commie front organizations, and I don't think there's as much joiners now as they used to be. They've become more cautious, in other words. They've become a bit more cautious, yeah. Excuse me. Does that tend for academic freedom? That they should be more cautious? I don't think it interferes with academic freedom. What do you understand by academic freedom? It's a phrase that's kicked about a lot. Let's, you tell me what it means in your mind. No, you tell us what it means. Well, since you gentlemen are hesitating, I'll tell you what I think it means. I think that it means the freedom of the individual to believe what he feels that he must believe and to express opinions. You mean the individual teacher? Yes. Well, how about the individual student who studies under the individual teacher? Yes, I think he has the same thing and a free exchange of ideas. As long as he gets all the sides. Where no one is intimidated or feels intimidated. That's right. Well, how about the textbooks, which lay it down in a way that the boy or the girl have to study and have to memorize and have to be prepared to pass an examination on? Should the textbook writer, I don't want to turn inquisitor myself, but should the textbook writer be encouraged to write whatever he thinks he should write or should he stick to the truth? Well, I think he should probably encourage to write what he thinks he should write, but then there should be some effort to balance those textbook views on the part of the faculty, I should think. Well, I'm for all for academic freedom and I think we know each other well enough so that you'll back up my assertion and that respect. But I do think there's a little bit of a tendency to say that academic freedom pertains only to the teacher. Now, teachers alone don't make an institution. Any college, any university is a complicated organization. First, the trustees. Second, the faculty. Third, the student body. Fourth, the organized alumni who are very important factors you both know in any institution. And that's without counting the hard-working janitors and the rest of them who do a lot of service to the college and never get any credit for it at all. Mr. Morley, I'm sure that our audience would like your opinion on this. Those faculty members have been heavily new deal, haven't they? They voted for the new deal three or four to one. Oh, at my college we took straw votes and to have it I can recall 1940 before the election and 1944 before the election and I remember the student body went three to one Republican and the faculty went three to one new deal unless they were a little more conservative in which case they voted for Norman Thomas. Well, now, do you think that today that college student bodies are heavily Republican or would you think to say that they're heavily fair deal today? No, I don't think they've been intimidated to the point of being heavily Republican yet. It's been this statement that very few young men have voted Republican in the last 20 years. Do you think that more young men will vote Republican in 1952 than in the last two elections? Well, now, you know, former college presidents are supposed to have opinions on everything but just how the young men are going to vote in the next election I don't think I'm competent to say. I would say if we're going to get into politics there's probably a tendency that direction. Well, Mr. Morley, I'm sure that our audience has appreciated your views tonight and we thank you very much for being with us, sir. Thank you. The editorial board for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope was Mr. David Taylor Mark and Mr. William Bradford Huey. Our distinguished guest was Mr. Felix Morley of Barron's Financial Weekly. You know, one of the virtues of our free enterprise system is the benefit to the public in better quality and lower prices, which spring from free and open competition. Now, certainly, the stimulus of such competition make it necessary to make Lawn Jean watches ever better and better. And it is through free and open competition that Lawn Jean became, in fact, the world's most honored watch. Honored for excellence and elegance by ten world's fair grand prizes and twenty-eight gold medals. Honored for accuracy by innumerable prices and bulletins from the great government observatories. Honored for honesty in sports, aviation, exploration, and science. For superlative quality and true investment value, Lawn Jean watches have become the first choice of discriminating men and women in every country of the free world. So, if you wish to purchase a very fine watch, either for yourself or as a gift, look for the true worth in the watch you buy. And your choice will be Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch. Premier product of the Lawn Jean Witner Watch Company since 1866, maker of watches of the highest character. This is Frank Knight again inviting you to be with us every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening at this same time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope, a television journal of important issues of the hour, broadcast on behalf of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Witner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Lawn Jean, sold and serviced from coast to coast by more than 4,000 leading jurors who proudly display this emblem, Agency for Lawn Jean Witner Watches. This is the CBS television network.