Book Reviews

Like William Buckley's Four Reforms, Tonsor's essays accen tuate the procedural. The big basic reform that he advocates would concentrate on returning choice to our educational system, or sys tems. Far from being a pure lib ertarian or antiStatist, Tonsor would permit the spirit of Horace Mann, the philosopher of the pub lic school, to linger with us for a while. He is no ideological enemy of Federal or state support of school systems. Moreover, he champions a. uniform system of 371 372 THE FREEMAN June testing elementary and secondary school pupils in both public and private schools to establish aca demic performance. This means that politicians must still keep an advantage which, in times of con troversy, might confuse excellence with conformity. But, with public education sys tems persisting everywhere, it is, with Tonsor, a matter of making some new beginnings. He wants to see the public school forced into competition with private schools and privately-marketed educa tional services. So, like William Buckley, Milton Friedman and Stan Evans, he is led to the voucher system. This would make pluralism, the widening of choice, an immediate· possibility - and, as new private schools come into ex istence, the fight to keep the poli ticians from imposing their idea of a good uniform testing system on all types of school could be left to the future.

Full-Cost Education Another procedural reform that enlists Tonsor's enthusiasm would be to establish full-cost education. This would tend to weed out the malingerers, the good-time Char lies and the dilettantes who now regard the campus life as a four year vacation. To enable the tal ented and ambitious poor boy to avail himself of a college education, Tonsor would make loans available that could be paid off once the recipient had achieved a certain salary level after his grad uation. Tonsor does not propose to discuss the "how" of financing the loans - he thinks this question would resolve itself once his prin ciple has been accepted by univer sity administrations throughout the country. Along with vouchers and full cost tuition Tonsor would insist on new procedures in adding to faculties. Ever since the New Deal, when young professors went "lib eral" and Statist in droves, our faculties have tended to make ac ceptance of the new Leftist ortho doxies the first requirement for being hired. In the course of time nine out of ten faculty members in almost any university could be counted on to assume that there can be no limits to government intervention, that "society" must always take precedence over indi vidual rights, that centralization in Washington is to be desired, that big business is organized robbery, and even that one must be a Democrat with a big D if one is to be trusted with the writing of history.

Unrepresented Minorities Speaking of his own University of Michigan, Tonsor remarks in one essay that out ·of sixty-nine 1974 TRADITION AND REFORM IN EDUCATION 373 full-time members of its history department "we do not have a sin gle professor whose primary study has been the field of religion in America." As for the economics department, it "does not have a single non-Keynesian among its tenured members." In such an atmosphere, so Tonsor asks, "is it really possible for either the stu dent or the professor to arrive at the truth?" Tonsor is not clear about the ways and means of compelling faculties to replace the homogene ity of the new collectivist ortho doxy with an across-the-board variety of doctrine. He does say, however, that the university does not belong either to the faculty, or to the students, or to any spe cial pressure group in society. Since the "whole of society" owns the big state university, and since trustees are responsible for the private-university, the implication of what Tonsor is saying is that boards of regents or university corporations should step in to com pel the representation of all points of view in the composition of fac ulty departments. This is easier said than done, but if, in the case of the private university, rich or even medium-well-heeled donors were to insist, say, on balancing a John Kenneth Galbraith with a Hayek or a Milton Friedman in an economics department, we would be making a beginning at reestablishing pluralism.

Universities as Dumping Grounds Tonsor, in his preface to his book, identifies himself with the Hoover Institution at Stanford. But when he was at the Univer sity of Michigan he spoke, his piece with a passionate disregard of what the administrative overseers of the institution might think of him. During the period of the campus riots he accused Michigan of being led by men without vision or a sense of America's future. The University "rewards felons and penalizes the orderly." Its benefits were granted on the basis, "not of ability, not even on the basis of a. color-blind equality, but on the basis of an irrationally con ceived demand on public largesse." Broadening his criticism to in clude the college scene as a whole, Tonsor remarked that "for twenty years now our universities have become the dumping grounds for all our unsolved educational, so cial and political problems and university administrations have welcomed the development of this concept of the university as a public dump."

"Do you have an urban prob lem ?," Tonsor asks. Then "take it to the university." "Do you have a psychopathic son or daughter?" Your solution is to "send him to 374 THE FREEMAN June the university." "Do you have a felon on probation?" If so, the "university is just the place for him." The university, in short, has been a place for trying to solve every problem but the problem of teaching. In paying out immense sums for the Federal support of education, the American people have been had. Maybe the first procedural change should be to let the whole higher ed uca tion shebang collapse by withdrawing public support. This would force a new breed of university president to rely on full-cost tuition pay ments, and we would soon have a new dispensation on the cam puses, one that would be prepared to stick to teaching in order to attract the really serious students. ~ WALTER KNOTT, KEEPER OF THE FLAME by Helen Kooiman (Fullerton, California: Plycon Press, 1973), 236 pages, $7.95.

Reviewed by Robert G. Anderson THE SPIRIT of individual enterprise which is so much a part of our American heritage has never been more eloquently demonstrated than by the creation of Knott's Berry Farm. The Boysenberry, chicken dinners, and ghost town of Knott's Berry Farm represent a twenti eth century family accomplish ment unmatched by anything in this era. Walter Knott, Keeper of the Flame, by Helen Kooiman is one of the most moving· stories this reviewer has ever read. It is hard to judge greatness amongst those in our midst, but unquestionably Walter Knott fits the mold. This biography cannot help but give in spiration and faith to all who value individual liberty, and the potential for individual accom plishment that em~rges from a heritage of freedom. The final chapter asks, "What Makes Walter Knott Tick?" His accomplishments as a farmer, en trepreneur, builder, patriot, and philanthropist are legion. But cer tainly among his greatest satisfac tions must be his success as a father. His only son summarizes, "I consider my Dad a great man, but for reasons other than what the general public would consider.

He had one purpose and this great motivation. Money doesn't mean anything to him, but being a great builder did and does, ..." Walter Knott has certainly been a builder. If ever a man began with few of life's material goods, it was this man. As a fast matur ing youngster - his father died 1974 OTHER BOOKS 375 when the lad was six - Walter Knott entered the business world selling produce from his garden ing ventu~es. His love of farming led him into homesteading in the Mojave desert, sharecropping for a rancher in San Luis Obispo County, and finally to a partner ship in berry farming at Buena Park, California. The family worked together, Walter, Cordelia, and their four children, and the story of their achievements is one of the most remarkable testimonials to the free economy ever told. It will surely remain as a classic testi monial of what can be achieved by individuals within a free enter prise, private property society.

Perhaps the most fascinating theme of the book is Walter Knott's recognition of his debt to our heritage of political and eco nomic freedom. Few men have pro vided a more enduring witness to this obligation than this man. His construction of an exact replica of Independence Hall, and the Lib-· erty Bell which it houses, is de tailed fully in the book·- monu ments to remind Americans for years to come of our heritage of free institutions. Walter Knott understands the importance of a. free enterprise society, and he also recognizes that such a society is being eroded away. The chapter entitled "The Farmer Makes A Speech," is rea son alone for the purchase of this book. It provides an insight into the man as a brilliant philosopher, historian, and devotee of freedom. When so much is written today of a critical nature about our country and its people, this book stands out as a refreshing change.

To know what one man and his family have accomplished when free, gives hope to others, and more reason than ever to preserve the system that made it all pos sible. Copies of Walter Knott: Keeper of the Flame are available at $7.95 from the Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y. 10533. ~ AUGUST 1914 by Alexander Sol zhenitsyn, translated by Michael Glenny (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1972) 662 pp., $10.00. Reviewer : Martha Treichler IT IS the underlying message of this book that, for a country to be free, everyone in it must accept moral re sponsibility not only for what he does himself, but also for what those around him do. This demands an individ ualism of the sort rarely 376 THE FREEMAN June encouraged by Russian religion and culture. The state church taught the Rus sian people to accept and endure rather than to question and to blame; consequently, they had no faith in the power of their own ac tions to affect their own lives. Re ligious superstition was resorted to by everyone from the peasants to the aristocracy as a way of avoiding unpalatable facts. One could always say, "We must submit to God's will," instead of placing blame where it belonged or accepting per sonal responsibility.

Then there was the political oc topus. Bureaucracy makes people inefficient and negligent because it is inherently unwieldy and subject to corruption and incompetence. As one character says, "Intelligent, practical men don't govern - they create and transform .... " Solzhenitsyn makes the reader sense the rumblings and awaken ings of the revolution. There is, in the university, the optimism, altru ism and naivete of those who felt that getting rid of the Tsar would cure everything. A student de clares that "all we need today is an analysis of the contemporary social environment and material condi tions .... " An older teacher re sponds, pointing out that this "would be so if the life of the in divid ual were really determined by his material environment." The teacher explains, "the environment is always at fault, so all you have to do is change it ... But there is more than environment, and there fore each individual has, perhaps in spite of his environment, a per sonal responsibility for what he does and for what other people around him do."

The social planners of the time were sure they could make Russia a Utopia if only they had power to put their reforms into effect. But Solzhenitsyn has one of his charac ters say, "The best social order is not susceptible to being arbitrarily constructed ... the laws of the per fect human society can be found only in the total order of things. In the purpose of the universe. In the destiny of man." Therefore, "above all, each one of us is called upon to perfect the development of his own soul." Social planners and revolution ists believe otherwise and are, therefore, ineffective. "No revo lution ever strengthens a coun try," says a father to his radical young daughter. "A reasonable man cannot be in favor of revolu tion because revolution is a long and insane process of destruction." There are somber battle scenes, and the author has high praise for the courage of the Russian sol diers who suffered so horribly and died in such great numbers be cause of the incompetence of their 1974 OTHER BOOKS 377 leaders. But he sees "their passive endurance" as a reason for their not having better rulers.

"Russia is doomed to be governed by fools." This book, too late for Russia, is still in time for us if we heed its warning. And if we cannot re verse the trend of corrupt bureauc racy by taking personal responsi bility, why then, like Russia, we too are "doomed to be governed by fools." ~ HOFFER'S AMERICA by James D. Koerner (LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1973), 137 pages, $5.95. Reviewed by Allan C. Brownfeld WHEN The True Believer was pub lished in 1951, the name of its au thor, Eric Hoffer, was unknown. Readers of the book recognized, however, that a powerful and orig inal talent had made its appear ance and were even more aston ished to learn that Hoffer was a common laborer who had been blind in childhood, who had then recov ered his eyesight and had proceed ed to educate himself entirely by his own efforts. Now, twenty years later, after six additional books, Hoffer is rec ognized as a brilliant aphorist and a provocative commentator upon men and events. In this new book, one of Hoffer's close friends, James D. Koerner, himself a distinguished author, attempts to satisfy the curiosity of Hoffer's readers as to his current opinion of things - and to stimulate the interest of those who have not yet encountered him.

In both of these attempts he is notably successful. Why, for example, have we not heard more from Eric Hoffer in recent years? The reason relates to the income tax laws and to Hoffer's feeling that the conduct of the In ternal Revenue Service is inher ently unj ust and tends to stifle all initiative. Hoffer still remembers with some bitterness how much of the income he earned in his best year, $180, 000, went to the government. He states that, "I make more money when I don't write than when I do." At the end of that year he had about $11,000 left and he proposed to make it a. clean sweep and give the rest to the University of Cali fornia to establish an essay prize. Now he tries to shield his estate and his family from taxes by limiting his publication to a book every other year. As he puts it, "I am supposed to lay a tiny little egg every two years. I laid one in 1971, so the next one is now 1973."

Hoffer's is a firm voice for indi vid ualism and for freedom from coercion by the state. As he sees the American past, it was personal 378 THE FREEMAN June liberty - and the heavy burden of work that it imposes on each man - that gave the ordinary American the scope he needed to excel. Whether he used that freedom to build a giant fortune, join a hun dred organizations, cut himself off from much of society, or pursue whatever else he had set his mind on,. it was the combination of free dom and responsibility that, in Hoffer's view, made the American achievement possible. For Hoffer, the freedom to be left alone, to be free of coercion by the state or society, has always been critical. When he first trav eled from New York to California as a young man,he"lookedaround," as he puts it, "and I liked what I saw. This was a country in which you could be left alone . . . This country was made largely by peo ple who wanted to be left alone.

Those who couldn't thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America." According to Hoffer's theory, the problem of coping with personal freedom is particularly severe in America because personal freedom is so complete. The burden of free dom, and the ways in which people try to cope with it, is a central theme through all of his writings. Hoffer laments the decline of the work ethic and sees this decline in such phenomena as featherbedding by labor unions, in books full of misprints, in the surliness of clerks. "If we lose the sense of work and purpose," he says, "we will become a weak nation, a poor nation, and we will cease to be a fighting na tion and that will be the end of us." The increase in violent crime in the U.S. is, Hoffer believes, the direct consequence of a disabling fear that has overtaken most Americans. He believes that a sta ble society, like a stable individual, is the product of an equilibrium in which a tendency to crime and vio lence is held firmly in check by a more dominant force. Weaken or remove that force and evil will reign. In a free society that force is represented by the readiness of the majority to resist and punish the minority who are violent and who want to exploit any sign of timidity or weakness.

Hoffer cites the cliche, poverty causes crime, then comments: "That is what they are always shoving down our throats ... Pov erty does not cause crime. If it did we would have been buried in crime for most of our history and so would every other nation on earth." He observes that he has lived for most of his life with poor people who did not commit crimes. "Crimi nals cause crime," he declares, "And the minute we let them get away with it, we are going to have lots more." Hoffer recalls the occasion when 1974 OTHER BOOKS 379 he was a member of the National Commission on the Causes and Pre vention of Violence and a black spokesman appeared as a witness and said such. things as, "We are full of rage" and he replied: "Mis ter, it is easy to be full of rage. It is not so easy to go to work and build something." When a militant white student would appear to com plain about the administration's abridgement of the right of stu dents to dissent, he would heatedly reply, "It is people like you who destroy everybody else's right to dissent. We have more democracy on the waterfront than radicals al low on the Berkeley campus."

To those who ask preferential quotas for minorities he responds that to treat anyone "more equal than equal" is to treat him as an inferior. He finds it astonishing that minorities demanding special attention fail to grasp the elemen tary truth that they are demand ing to be patronized. The arrogance of American "in tellectuals" is a subj ect which brings forth a vigorous response from Eric Hoffer. To Hoffer, the touchstone of the intellectual is not a passion for truth but a pas sion for power, especially power over people. The sine qua non of the Hoffer intellectual is his con viction that he belongs to an edu cated minority whose duty it is to instruct the rest of mankind and if necessary compel them to be better than they are. According to Hoffer, one need not be particularly intelli gent to be an "intellectual." He notes that, "In their hearts Ameri can intellectuals have always hated the ordinary man ... They have never been able to accept the fact that the riffraff of Europe were able to tame the American conti nent and build the world's best and greatest nation largely without the guidance of intellectuals."

That, of course, is just a tiny bit of Eric Hoffer. His book is certain ly a dose of good medicine for America. ~ HOW TO TEACH CHILDREN TWICE AS MUCH by Allan E. Harrison (New Rochelle, N. Y.: Arlington House, 1973), 153 pp., $6.95. ~ HOW TO TUTOR by Samuel L. Blumenfeld (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1973), 298 pp., $9.95. Reviewed by Melvin D. Barger IT'S NOT HARD to build a case proving that the teaching efficien cy of the public school system is low. Some of the system's most outspoken critics have been teach ers, although teachers' remedies 380 THE FREEMAN June usually turn out to be a self-serv ing mixture of higher pay for themselves, increased Federal aid, lower teacher-pupil ratios, and an expansion of teacher certification programs. The hard-pressed tax payer is becoming skeptical about these nostrums - or at least fed up because so many educational re sources are producing so little in the way of results.

Allan E. Harrison is a maverick, a lone teacher who apparently thinks that present teaching re sources would be more than ade quate if properly used. He was al most forced out of the profession by the boredom and tension he found during his first few days in the classroom. Almost as a means of self-preservation, he improvised a teaching method using capital istic principles in the classroom. It was to get him in hot water with his superiors later on, but he ac complished three things that have eluded other teachers in today's heavily certificated systems. Class room discipline problems became minimal, teachers and students both came to enj oy the classroom work, and students made amazing academic progress that was mea surable by improvements in stand ard achievement tests. Harrison launched the system by organizing the class as a miniature economic community. His class cre ated a monetary system, with each student being "paid" for academic performance and also fined for breaking classroom laws and for other acts of negligence. The stu dents formed companies to offer the specialized services needed in the classroom. A bright student in arithmetic, for example, was the proprietor of the academic com pany in that subject, and could earn money by coaching the slower pu pils. Other students became bank ers, clean-up inspectors, school sup ply vendors, and class time sched ulers. The system became so detail ed that even trips to the restrooms and drinking fountains were sched uled on a commercial basis.

Although a few students balked at first, the Harrison system brought an almost magic transfor mation in the classroom. For the first time, Harrison's sixth graders were part of the' action, with re sponsibilities of their own for the way the class was conducted. They made their own laws and deter mined fines for infractions; thus, violations became crimes against the entire class rather than games to outwit the teacher. Each student could move ahead at his own learn ing p'ace, and could wheel and deal in companies in much the same manner as traders in the commer cial world. Some of them soared ahead to become junior tycoons. Harrison used every problem as an opportunity to teach students 1974 OTHER BOOKS 381 something about the larger society. He permitted individuals the lux ury of going into bankruptcy, but stipulated that they lost rights and privileges in the process. There were penalties for cheating and stealing. When students became destitute, a nonprofit foundation was formed to dispense welfare.

Later on, the "indigent" students were subsidized with monies raised by a graduated income tax. This paved the way for a discussion about the competence of govern ment to solve social problems, with the students finally deciding that individual responsibility was best in the long run. Then the class bully was permitted to become a Communist dictator. He promptly froze all bank accounts, confiscated property, and abolished the voting franchise. He was soon ousted in a bloodless coup. Convinced that his system was working, Harrison obtained enthu siastic endorsements from his stu dents' parents and a few profes sional colleagues. But he encoun tered resistance from superiors and others in the schools. It seemed that practical, workable· ideas are not always acceptable in the public system. Instead, professional edu cators prefer innovations which of fer "a lot of smoke and no fire."

Here and there, however, a few teachers used Harrison's system and reported remarkable improvements in classroom morale and learning achievements. Harrison has other ideas that go against the tide; for example, he doubts that low teacher-pupil ratios have much to do with teach ing efficiency. He would introduce a merit system that would actually encourage larger class sizes. The. key to Harrison's system ~nd educational philosophy is the rediscovery and teaching of self reliance, and he obviously believes that every child already has alar ge capacity for learning that can be released under the right condi tions. Harrison's system and the empha sis on self-reliance are not likely to win many converts among educa tors, but it's something that par ents and other laymen can keep in mind when educational problems are being discussed. The most ne glected teaching resource in every school is the students' own desires to learn and to shoulder individual responsibilities. This priceless re source has been there right along, and can be used whenever some body has the courage to give chil dren adult responsibilities. Harri son developed a system that does this, and there are probably other methods that also work. The ques tion is, Does anybody in the public school system except Harrison and a few other mavericks really care about developing genuine self-re liance in children?

382 THE FREEMAN June HOW TO TUTOR is a related book, in the sense that it deals with further remedies for the educa tional deficiences of the public school system. The book is a detail~ ed guide for. tutors to follow in teaching children the Three R's. A large part of the book consists of lessons that must be learned in an orderly manner. The tutor is given practical instructions for the teac~~ ing of each subject, and is remind': ed of the importance of learning basic rules and other fundamentals that are being neglected in current instruction books. Blumenfeld be lieves that the new teaching meth ods harm the child by not giving him a good foundation in the alpha bet, simple arithmetic, and cursive writing. He points out, for exam ple, that arithmetic has become submerged in the teaching of math; yet it is arithmetic, not higher mathematics, that most peo ple will need throughout their lives.

According to .Blumenfeld, the important ingredients of good tu toring are patience, an understand ing of the young mind, and a knowl edge of the subject you are teach ing. He believes that parents with only a high school education can become good tutors if they are will ing and able to follow his instruc tional materials. Any community has large numbers of persons who could serve as competent tutors, even without formal-teaching ex perience. But Blumenfeld believes that faulty teaching methods in the public schools are causing children to learn some bad habits. He says that children who cannot learn via the deficient instructions in school classrooms tend to blame them selves for not learning; they are in no position to question the in structional methods being used by their teachers. Thus, if they fail to learn, they blame-themselves, and the schools reinforce this view by insisting that the fault lies with the child, not the teaching meth ods. But almost any child can be motivated to learn once he is out side the classroom with its atten dant fear of failure, boredom, and confusion. With good tutoring, the child no longer has the fear of be ing thought stupid, and he is not forced to move on to the next lesson Blumenfeld's book is well-organ ized and presents a logical sequence of instruction in all three general subjects. It will be a valuable guide book for the inexperienced person who wants to become a part-time tutor. Persons who read the book should get a copy of The New Il literates, also by Mr. Blumenfeld, in order to understand the short comings the author finds in present instructional methods. Some teach ers may feel that Mr. Blumenfeld's criticisms of the public schools go 1974 OTHER BOOKS 383 a bit too far. But every elementary school student should master the basic lessons covered in Mr. Blu menfeld's book. If children aren't learning this fundamental mate rial in the classroom, something is wrong, and it is ironic that private remedies such as tutoring are needed to make up for costly de ficiencies in the public school sys tem.