Statement By Commissioner Of Education Earl McGrath

STATEMENT it Potentially, television is one of the greatest educational agencies of our day. In the hands of imaginative and skillful educators it offers unique opportunities for improving the teaching and learning processes. Television¹s great, contribution to education will be in its ability to combine the advantages of timeliness, immediacy, and realism in one medium. It should be used to the maximum in the classroom, but it has an even greater use in mass education where literally millions of people can be reached instantaneously. Television creates a sense of participation on the part of the viewer. Thus it brings us back close to' the direct democracy of the Greek city state where citizens took part in the discussions and determination of public policy. The survival and improvement of our democracy depends upon the general enlightenment of the public concerning current problems of national interest. Television can help greatly in spreading that enlightenment. Because of my belief. in the educat ional uses of television, I hold the conviction - and I so testified before the Federal Communications Commission - that sbecific channels throughout the country should be reserved for stations to be owned and operated by educational institutions. These channels belong to the American public. Some of them should and must be held in trust for American education. * By Earl James McGrath, U. S. Commissioner of Education, Federal Security Agency, Washington, D. C., to the New York Times at the request of Murray Illson for a series being prepared by Jack Gould, June 1951.