KENNEDY AND EDUCATION

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

In your editorial of April 22, 1963, "Mr. Kennedy in Boston", after commenting on the President's speech on behalf of education at the Boston College Centennial, you that the President's stress on the "focal role the University" means "little more than the abduction her professors, and the purchase of their research time loyalties. It remains to be seen whether any significance should be attached to his expression of equal concern for the studies that cannot directly help run the government. In the recent past, Mr. Kennedy's sympathies in education have gone unaffected, largely for lack his own support."

First, the CRIMSON must be aware that we are in the midst of the greatest crisis that has over faced this country. Harvard faculty men have rightly responded the President's call. Is it good taste to refer to this migration which in fact touches a small percentage of the Harvard faculty as an abduction?

Second, I think you are most unfair on the President's educational policies. He is very much interested in education. He has tried, more than any other President, to provide federal aid for education, provide financial help for academic buildings and a much larger fellowship program, and also to stimulate the flow of talent late the health school.

Third, the White House Message on Education of January 20, 1963 is clear on the point that this is a program that goes way beyond the studies that "directly help run the government." It is a comprehensive, over-all program. The proposed increase of fellowships, for example, from 1,500 to 12,000 covers all fields, not merely the sciences.

Indeed, the large federal deficits and the tax reduction program make it more difficult to put across any speeding programs. But to blame the President for the failure in most unjust. The opposition to federal intervention, the segregation issue, the burden of the military, the wide-spread fear of the large deficit, the church issues--all of these, not the President's lack of interest, explain the slow progress. Even with the support of Senator Taft, and before segregation became an issue, the government failed to put across a federal aid to education bill in the late 1940's. Seymour E. Harris '29   Littauer Professor of Political Economy   Harvard University