EDUCATION: IMPORTANT EVENTS OF THE 1940s

1940

Students numbering 12,640,000 are enrolled in the federal lunch program at a cost of around $12 million.
The United States census lists nearly ten million adults as virtually illiterate.

30 Mar.: The New York Supreme Court upholds a taxpayer suit to revoke the appointment of British philosopher Bertrand Russell to the faculty of City College of New York. Russell does not receive the appointment.
June: The U.S. Supreme Court affirms a Pennsylvania law that allows any schoolchild who refuses to salute the American flag to be expelled.
Nov.: The New York commission on secondary-school curriculum publishes the results of curricular experiments begun in 1933.

1941

• The Progressive Education Association publishes a pamphlet, New Methods vs. Old in American Education, proclaiming progressive-education techniques a success.

1 July: Deferment of military service for college students is eliminated.
July: Georgia governor Gene Talmadge fires University of Georgia dean of education Walter Dewey Cocking, a promoter of racial equality, which leads to widespread resignations and the loss of accreditation for the university.
16 Dec.: Around five hundred liberal arts colleges decide to offer three-year degrees, with classes taken during the summer, allowing graduation before the draft age of twenty-one.

1942

• Correspondence courses sponsored by the U.S. Armed Forces Institute, located at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, begin.

Jan.: The College Entrance Examination Board decides to replace its traditional essay test with achievement tests measuring skills in reading and problem-solving as well as general knowledge.
July: U.S. education commissioner John Ward Studebaker estimates a shortage of fifty thousand teachers across the United States.
Sept.: Thirty thousand American high schools begin preparing their graduates for military service.

1943

The Council of Allied Ministries and Education compiles a report, "Education and the United Nations," that leads to the establishment of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The U.S. Supreme Court reverses an earlier decision allowing students who refuse to salute the American flag to be expelled from school.
The New York Times publishes the results of a 1942 study that finds an enormous ignorance about American history among college students.
The National Interfraternity Council, in response to vast losses in membership in campus fraternities caused by the war, announces that "the college fraternity, whose pattern has been woven into the fabric of American education for 118 years, is girding its loins to meet the terrific dislocation of a nation at total war."

Jan.: In an address to Duke University, Wendell L. Willkie notes that the destruction of the tradition of the liberal arts in the United States would be as deplorable as the Nazi book burnings.
Jan.: Second, third, and fourth graders in Seattle are taught to prepare simple dishes such as oatmeal, scrambled eggs, and butterscotch pudding because many of their mothers are busy with wartime jobs.
Apr.: Education Commissioner Studebaker vigorously promotes education at all levels for blacks.
Oct.: The Thomas-Hill Bill, providing federal supplements to state education, is defeated in the Senate due to a provision requiring that the funds be disbursed equally to all races.
Nov.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, a precursor to the GI Bill of Rights.

1944

More than 275 courses are offered to veterans from the United States Armed Forces Institute.
Harvard University president James B. Conant suggests that the federal government provide college scholarships for promising high-school students.
The Progressive Education Association changes its name to the American Education Fellowship.

Jan.: The Races of Mankind, a forty-six-cent YMCA pamphlet attacking Nazi racial doctrines, is deemed controversial by many people because it opposes racism; the YMCA is ordered to stop distributing it at USO clubs, even though fifty thousand copies have been sold.
22 June: The Serviceman's Readjustment Act is established and signed into law by President Roosevelt.
3-4 Oct.: The White House sponsors a conference on rural education to assess the prospects for federal education assistance to state governments.

1945

Harvard University releases a report called General Education in a Free Society encouraging interaction among three broad academic areas: the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities.
Columbia University announces the formation of a Russian institute and a school of international studies.

20 Feb.: The U.S. Office of Education publishes an article urging the formation of schools specializing in foreign studies.
June: Inspired by the military's success in teaching servicemen through movies about subjects such as machine guns, camouflage, and venereal disease, Virginia allocates __BODY__,176,000 toward making educational movies for use in public schools.
July: Vannevar Bush publishes the results of a year-long study of federal science education, Science: The Endless Frontier. It urges increased federal expenditures for science education.
Aug.: Scientists meeting at the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in New York urge the integration of ethics and humanities scholars into atomic weapons research.
Sept.: The University of Maryland alters its curricular requirements, making courses in American history mandatory.
1-16 Nov.: The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is founded following a conference of international scholars.

1946

Approximately 800,000 veterans are enrolled in correspondence courses through the United States Armed Forces Institute.
Congress appropriates $75 million to upgrade the physical plants of American universities.
Fifty-three percent of all college students are veterans.

May: At the American Council on Education conference in Chicago, Gen. Omar Bradley announces that 1.6 million veterans have applied for benefits under the GI Bill
July: At the annual meeting of the National Education Association in Buffalo it is revealed that 350,000 teachers have left the profession since 1941.
13 July: President Harry S Truman appoints the National Commission on Higher Education, headed by George F. Zook, to survey the situation in higher education.
30 July: President Truman signs a bill authorizing American participation in UNESCO.
Aug.: U.S. senator James W. Fulbright introduces and Congress passes Public Law 584, known as the Fulbright Act, to enable a cultural exchange of scholars from different countries.

1947

UNESCO's educational efforts in developing countries are curtailed due to the growing Cold War.
Allen Zoll's National Council for American Education produces the pamphlet The Commies Are After Your Kids.

Feb.: The U.S. Supreme Court confirms the constitutionality of a statute allowing private-school students to be transported in publicly owned buses.
2 Feb.: Teachers numbering 2,400 in Buffalo, New York, go on a week-long strike for higher pay.
May: New York governor Thomas E. Dewey declares strikes by teachers and other public employees illegal. Similar laws are enacted in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
Harvard University makes its coeducational arrangement with Radcliffe College permanent.
July: The National Conference for the Improvement of Teachers issues a teachers' "Bill of Rights," calling for higher salaries, a forty-hour workweek, tenure, and retirement plans.
Sept.: Students numbering 75,000 nationwide receive no schooling due to teacher shortages.
Oct.: The President's Committee on Civil Rights condemns segregated education.

1948

Oregon junior high schools begin mixed classes in sex education via educational movies, which are considered necessary since pamphlets, slides, and lectures by embarrassed teachers failed to provide the necessary instruction.
New Jersey desegregates its public schools.
The National Student Association severs its ties with the International Student Union, which failed to condemn the Czech Communist coup.
The President's Commission on Education issues its report Higher Education for American Democracy, calling for doubling the size of college enrollments, eliminating racial discrimination in education, and removing economic barriers to general education.

Jan.: The Smith-Mundt Act, providing for foreign academic exchanges, becomes law.
12 Jan.: In Sipuel v. Oklahoma the U.S. Supreme Court orders Oklahoma to provide law education to Ada L. Sipuel. Rather than admit her to the University of Oklahoma Law School because she is black, the state opens a one-pupil law school for her. She returns to court.
Mar.: Minneapolis teachers strike for twenty-seven days for salary increases.
8 Mar.: In McCollum v. Board of Education the U.S. Supreme Court rules that there may be no religious instruction or activity in public-school facilities.
1 Apr.: The Senate passes a bill to provide $300 million in federal education assistance to states. The bill is defeated in the House.
15 July: John W. Studebaker resigns as U.S. education commissioner. He had held the post since 1934.
11 Oct.: Fourteen governors from southern states meet and establish the Board of Control for Regional Education.

1949

The first campus of the New York state university system, eventually consisting of thirty small institutions, is established.
The Committee for Cultural Freedom is reactivated by scholars to provide an anti-Communist alternative to the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace.
The House Committee on Un-American Activities proposes that educators be required to submit for inspection lists of books used in courses.
The first baby-boom children reach kindergarten age. Educators estimate a 39 percent increase in school attendance in the coming year.
The cost of the federal lunch program for schoolchildren reaches $92 million.
A businessmen's group, the National Citizens Commission for Public Schools, is organized by Roy E. Larsen, president of Time, Inc.

12 Apr.: Washington and Lee University in Virginia, the nation's seventh oldest university, celebrates the bicentennial of its founding.
June: The National Education Association, meeting in Boston, votes 2,882 to 5 to bar Communists from the organization.
Summer: Spurred by controversy over public funds used for parochial school students, a debate is held between Francis Cardinal Spellman, archbishop of New York, and Eleanor Roosevelt over the issue of separation of church and state.
Sept.: Students numbering 340 are enrolled in the Board of Control for Regional Education.