Introduction by United States Commissioner of Education Earl James McGrath, California's Junior College Program of General Education

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Introduction: * California's Junior College Program of General Education, Guidelines for the Further Extension of America's Democratic School System. The most critical problems with which contemporary education must deal are social, ratuer than paysical in character. They are rooted i. tic relations existin anong men and societies, rather than in man's relations to his natural environment. of transcendent importaice is the problem of achieving lasting peace with justice in a vorld torn between conflicting idcolo, ¡ies, one based upon tie Treedom and dignity of the individual, and the other dedicated to the supremacy of the state. Closely entwined wi th this urgent international challenge is the national need to strengthen our political and economic institutions within a framework of democratic values, so that the United States can fürill its moral and material responsibilities as leader of the free world. In attacking these enormous questions, our éducational system must come to ;rips with many subsidiary needs, all interrelated and ur gent. Governnent at every level--local, state, national, and international-- must be made more responsive to the popilar will, more efficient in its administration, and more conducive to broad citizen participation. The cancers which cause social tensions--widespread ignorance, poverty, economic insecurity, disease, political oppression, and racial intolerance= must become the objects of concerted assalt. Our industrial economy must *By Earl James EcGrati, V. S. Commissioner of Education, Federal Security Agency, Washin ;ton, D. C., to be published in General Education in Action by B. Lamar Johnson, 1952.