Book-Burners-- Who Are They?

In your editorial you wrote “The purpose of education IS (my emphasis) to teach students to think, not to instill dogma or to train them to respond in predictable ways. . . .” You should have written, at least, “The purpose of education OUGHT to be to teach students to think. . . .” I would have preferred “ONE purpose of education OUGHT to be. . .

In my view, our public schools do their jobs, perhaps, too well: They keep children out of the hair of many adults much of the time; they teach children that what counts is how long you are on the job (schoolwork, too, is a job), not how competent you are; they keep many people off the rolls of the unemployed by prolonging childhood; they train pupils to be producing consumers (which I take to be their main purpose in our kind of society--although it shouldn’t be).

Clearly, the “products” of our schools--I include tertiary-level institutions as well--do not think the schools do their jobs poorly. Otherwise, “the schools” would have been pressured to change.

ROBERT M. GORDON

Beverly Hills