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    "label": "Address By Commissioner Of Education Earl McGrath, National Defense and the Mission of Education",
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    "title": "Address By Commissioner Of Education Earl McGrath, National Defense and the Mission of Education",
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    "ocrText": "NATIONAL DEFENSE AND THE MISSION OF EDUCATION*\nI appreciate the honor you have paid me by inviting me to meet\nwith the membership of the Teachers College Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa.\nFor seventeen years it has been my privilege to be a member of this\nfraternity. During this time I have met members from many of its\nchapters and I have observed in their lives the influence- of the\nfraternity motivating them toward the ideals of research, service\nand leadership within the profession.\nIt would be pleasant in this connection to dwell upon the\ndistinguished records of the Phi Delta Kappa graduates of Teachers\nCollege. In every type of education throughout the Nation these\ngraduates fill distinguished positions of responsibility. Though I\nam not a member of this Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa it is a personal\nprivilege to count among my friends many of these outstanding leaders\nof the profession.\nIt would be natural and easy to use the ideals of research,\nservice, and leadership as the framework within which to develop my\nremarks. In doing so it would be possible to show how each of the\nmembers of this fraternity has a responsibility in his own special\nbranch of professional activity to promote these three objectives.\nFor example, everyone will recognize at once that there are great\ngaps in our knowledge today concerning all aspects of education.\nThese gaps can only be filled by the persistent and expanded re-\nsearch activities of scholars. Some of you are now devoting a major\npart of your professional life to these research activities and will\ncontinue to do so throughout your lives. Some of you will, on the\nother hand; by force of circumstances be engaged primarily in teach-\ning which does not involve research activities, or in administrative\nwork which regrettably takes many far away from the basic sources of\nknowledge. One of the great problems of American education today,\nwith its enormous size and its complicated machinery, is the in-\ncreasing difficulty for those who direct educational enterprises to\nkeep themselves in touch with the best knowledge being produced by\ninvestigators. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the quality\nof the leadership of American education will be determined to a large\ndegree by the progress we make in arranging the administrator's pro-\nfessional life in such a way as to provide for the periodic, if not\nconstant, refreshment of his professional knowledge and his intel-\nlectual vitality. Unless we do this the urgent pressures of daily\nprofessional life tend to absorb our time and intellectual energy in\nroutine and miscellaneous activities. Thus we are prevented from\nobserving the over-all development of education and giving it in-\ntelligent direction based on sound knowledge.\nIt would be possible in the time I have at my disposal to talk\nabout these three ideals of the fraternity in terms of the various\ntypes of professional activities represented by the individuals in\nthis group. But after discussing a possible topic for this evening\nwith the Dean and several members of the faculty, I decided to try to\nfocus our attention on the responsibilities we all have for service\nin its larger sense. That is, I want to talk not about the kinds of\nservices >any particular individual might render in connection with\nBy Earl James McGrath, U. 8. Commissioner of Education, Federal Security\nAgency, Washington, D. c., at Spring Initiation Banquet of Beta Chapter, Phi\nDelta Kappa, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N. Y.,\nApril 16, 1951.\nPublished in part in College and University Business, Vol. 10, No\nMay 1951, p. 17. Published in part in The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. XXXIII,\nNo. 2 November 1957 n. 149."
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