Senator CLARK. Rensselaer is entirely private, or is it partly public? Dr. MORSE. It is entirely a private institution of science, engineering, and architecture.

Senator CLARK. With a pretty good sized endowment?

Dr. MORSE. In terms of relative standing in this country; yes. I suppose we rank perhaps 30th or 40th in terms of endowment. But in terms of dollars it is very small amount, because endowments drop so rapidly.

Senator CLARK. But like Harvard, you haven't got nearly enough. Dr. MORSE. That is a fine comparison.

Senator CLARK. That is just a wisecrack. You do not have to answer that. But your real experience has been in the field of student assistance; has it not?

Dr. MORSE. Yes, sir.

SUMMARY OF VIEWS ON S. 2710

Senator CLARK. And you do not think S. 2701 would do an awful lot of good, but you do not feel it would do much harm?

Dr. MORSE. No, sir; I think it would do very little good.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Dr. Morse, I wish you would repeat your points 1, 2, and 3 in your statement.

Dr. MORSE. All right, sir.

I cannot, however, enthusiastically endorse the proposed legislation for the following reasons:

1. The interest rate of 5 percent is far too high for students in very straitened circumstances, particularly if they are going into some of the lower paid professions. My calculation is that the student who borrows $4,000 under the terms of this bill will eventually have to repay that $4,000 plus $1,727 in interest and insurance charges. The fact that this is not a good bill for the very needy student has been recognized implicitly in the redraft, by means of the section protecting the integrity of the national defense student loan program.

2. Even with a Federal guarantee, I doubt very much whether large sums of money will be available to colleges at 412 percent.

3. If we assume that money will be available at 42 percent, the bill provides that an additional one-quarter percent interest may be charged by colleges in order to help carry the administrative, bookkeeping, and collection costs inherent in any loan program. While welcoming this recognition of the seriousness of the problem, I am afraid it must be looked on as at best a gesture of good will.

Those are the three points that I feel make me less than enthusiastic about the bill at hand. I have elaborated on the third point because I think the administrative costs of Government programs designed fundamentally to assist students are going to break the less well-to-do colleges. This is something that is frightening more and more institutions.

Senator CLARK (presiding). Thank you very much, Dr. Morse. I know Senator Yarborough would join with me in apologizing to you for having you wait so long for your testimony. I want to thank you, however, very much for coming down before the subcommittee.

The next witness is Dean Elwood C. Kastner, of New York University.

STATEMENT OF DEAN ELWOOD C. KASTNER, STUDENT FINANCE, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Dr. KASTNER. Mr. Chairman, I was formerly dean of admissions and registrar at New York University. Presently I serve as dean of registration and financial aid. In that capacity, I am responsible for enrollment projections, the reflection of the educational program with respect to the planning of new buildings, space utilization. I am also responsible for the financial aid program of New York University where we annually enroll 40,000 students of whom some 14,000 are full time.

Formerly I was president of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers; a member of the board of trustees of a number of secondary schools; teacher in the field of higher education; consultant, U.S. Navy, and veterans' affairs.

Senator CLARK. Thank you very much. Now, give us the benefit of your thinking on these problems.

Dr. KASTNER. I should certainly like to pay tribute to the subcommittee for its part in creating a climate in this country where higher education is better understood and appreciated. It seems to me that marked progress has been made in this respect.

In this connection James Reston's piece in the New York Times was excellent. I would like to read one part of the article.

"In the face of the clear facts," speaking about the dilemma we are in at the present time

Senator CLARK. Is this the article that he wrote as part of a series? Dr. KASTNER. Yes, sir.

Senator CLARK. I am going to ask to have the whole statement placed into the record. You can highlight what you want us to hear. Dr. KASTNER. Very well.

In the face of the clear facts, anything less than the highest possible standards of education for the children of America is obviously a disgrace. We cannot punch kids out like cookies and drop them into slots and wouldn't if we could, but we ought to be able to spend more money on their education than we do on all the sexy advertising.

(The article referred to follows:)

[From the New York Times, June 20, 1960]

NATIONAL PURPOSE: THE NATION NEEDS A PRESIDENT WHO WILL LEAD, NOT FOLLOW, IT

(By James Reston)

If it is true that America needs and lacks a sense of purpose, the history of the Nation suggests a remedy.

For if George Washington had waited for the doubters to develop a sense of purpose in the 18th century, he'd still be crossing the Delaware. In fact, most of the great political crises of the American past have been resolved, not by the zeal and purpose of their people, but usually by the willpower or obstinacy of their leaders.

No doubt the massive thirst of a long-tormented majority brought back 3.2 beer, but the plain fact is that in most other emergencies a resolute minority has usually prevailed over an easygoing or wobbly majority whose primary purpose was to be left alone.

John Adams estimated that one-third of the population was against the American Revolution, one-third for it, and one-third indifferent. And this is the way it has usually been.

Some farsighted character like Thomas Jefferson or Teddy Roosevelt was always buying Louisiana or the Panama Canal when nobody was looking, and writers have always been grumbling, mainly to each other, about the feebleness of the national will.

The main difference between today's lamentation and those of the past is that the language is milder and the pay better. Thomas Paine, roaring about America's mulish indifference in 1775, makes today's orators sound complacent. And even Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was really a pretty cheery fellow, could wail in 1847:

"Alas for America, the air is loaded with poppy, with imbecility, with dispersion, and sloth. Eager, solicitous, hungry, rabid, busy-bodied America: catch thy breath and correct thyself."

CRITICISM IS NOT NEW

Thus, criticism of the American people for lack of purpose is not new. What is new is that leaders now seem to think they must follow the Nation instead of leading it. What is new is that a hostile coalition of nations now has the military power to destroy the Republic. The margin of error granted to us in past wars and crises has vanished. What could be won before with partial effort, late starts, feeble alliances, and mediocre administration can no longer be won in a contest with the Communists.

It is not that they are so efficient but that they are so purposeful. They are all working on the main target and we are not. Life, tyranny, and the pursuit of capitalists is the Russian way of life. They have obliterated the difference between war and peace. They are always at war, all of them, women as well as men, teachers, philosophers, scientists, engineers, lady discus throwers, airmen, and 3 or 4 million foot soldiers.

None of this need trouble us very much except for their national purpose, which is simply to replace our system of individual freedom with their system of state control wherever they can, including regions vital to our security, such as Germany, Japan, and even Cuba.

I must say they have been very frank about it. They have given us timely if not fair warning. They are directing all the energies of all their people to that goal. They are not arguing about the conflict between private interests and the national interest. They have simply eliminated private interest. They have put everybody to work on burying capitalism, and, since our national purpose, among other things, is to avoid being buried, this creates an awkward and even nasty situation.

How then, shall we approach the problem? I was brought up on the Church of Scotland's shorter catechism, the first question of which is: "What is the chief end of man?"

Accordingly, I am all for self-direction and self-criticism. Nevertheless, I have my doubts about the imminence of any self-induced renaissance or epoch of austerity.

A TALE ABOUT MULES

When I consider attacking the problem through the people, I think of Harry Ashmore's old story about the man who acquired a reputation for training mules with honeyed words and kindness. Hearing about this remarkable achievement the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals dispatched a lady emissary to present the mule trainer with a medal.

Upon arrival, she asked for a demonstration. The trainer obligingly trotted out a young mule, reached for a long 2 by 4, and clouted the beast over the head. As the mule struggled back to his feet the good lady exclaimed in horror, "Good heavens, man, I thought you trained these animals with kindness."

"I do, ma'm," he replied, "But first I got to git the critters' attention."

I don't know how just anybody gets the attention of 180 million people these days. They are engaged in the pursuit of happiness, which, incidentally, the Declaration of Independence spells with a capital "H," and to be frank about it, I suspect that public debates on the national purpose give them a pain.

It will not, I think, be wise to underestimate America's current resistance to exhortations from the preachers, professors, columnists, and editorial writers of the Nation. For, unless I miss my guess, the Americano, circa 1960, is in no mood to rush off on his own initiative to emancipate the human race, or to set any new records as the greatest benefactor of all time, or engage in any of the other crusades mapped out for him in Cambridge, Mass.

He may do many of these things because he is honest enough to know that he doesn't know all the facts of this dangerous and complicated era, but he is not likely to set out to do them because of his own reflection and reason or the arguments of talkers or writers he seldom sees.

Accordingly, we must, I think, start with the national leadership, partly because this is the engine that has pulled us out of the mud before, and partly because this is an election year, when we will be picking a President, probably for most of the 1960's.

IT'S UP TO PRESIDENT

The President of the United States is the one man who can get the attention of the American people. If he says the Nation is in trouble they will listen to him. If he addresses himself to their doubts and questions, they will hear him out. If he presents programs and legislation to do what he thinks is necessary for the safety of the Republic and explains and keeps explaining why these are essential, he may very well prevail.

All the magazine articles on the national purposes, all the reports by all the foundations on all our manifold weaknesses, all the speeches by Adlai Stevenson, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Stuart Symington on the wickedness of the Republicans, all the exhortations to return to the faith of our fathers-all are nothing compared to serious programs eloquently expressed and strongly pushed by a determined President of the United States.

"His is the only national voice in affairs," wrote Woodrow Wilson. "Let him once win the admiration and confidence of the country and no other single force can withstand him, no combination of forces will easily overpower him. His position takes the imagination of the country. *** His is the vital place of action in the system."

Of course, he has to act. He cannot ask for half measures and run away. But once he expresses the national need, once he decides to try to remove rather than to perpetuate the illusions of the past, then his specific remedies will affect the spirit and direction of the Nation.

I remember when the Marshall plan for Europe was devised in Washington. It was perfectly obvious that the sickness of the European economy was creating a crisis of great magnitude, and the bare bones of a 4-year plan, costing perhaps as much as $20 billion, were worked out and approved by President Truman.

I printed a long story about it one Sunday in the New York Times, and by 10 o'clock that morning, the late Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, then chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called me at home and said: "You must be out of your senses. No administration would dare to come to the Senate with a proposal like that."

Yet once the lead was taken and the need documented, Senator Vandenberg ended up as a key supporter of what almost everybody now agrees was the most farsighted piece of legislation since the war.

THE TASK IS GREAT

I do not underestimate the task. I agree with much that has been said in these essays about the slackness of our society, but I find the present mood understandable, perhaps inevitable, under the circumstances, and not without

hope.

At the end of the last war, the American people made a genuine effort to clear the wreckage and understand the new situation.

They went through the biggest geography and history lesson in their history, always with the false optimism that they were dealing with a temporary situation that would eventually go away.

Instead of going away, the problems became larger and more complex: After Europe, it was the Middle East; after the Middle East, the Far East; after the Far East, Africa; after Africa, outer space, and after outer space a lot of inner tensions over U-2, me too, inflation, deflation, rising cost of living, balance of payments, nuclear testing, sputniks, luniks, and a lot of other things that everybody seemed to be differing about.

There was no panic about any of this. The people merely turned from what they did not understand to what they did understand. They turned inward from the world to the community and the family. In the 15 years of the atomic age, they increased the population of the Nation by more than 40 million, which is not the action of a frightened people, and which is interesting when you think

that the entire population of the country, at the start of the Civil War 100 years ago was only 31 million.

A distinction has to be made, I think, between the facade of America and the other more genuine America. There is, of course, this big obvious clattering America of Hollywood and Madison Avenue and Washington, but there is also the other quieter America, which has either kept its religious faith or at least held on to the morality derived from religious tradition.

I do not wish to glorify the multitude. Much can be said about the dubious effects on the American charater of very early marriage, easy credit, cheap booze, cheaper TV, lower education standards, and job security even for sloppy work.

THE GOOD POINTS NOTED

Nevertheless, there is more concern for the outside world, more interest in its problems, more generosity, and more resourcefulness in this society than in any free society I know anything about.

If it is true, as I believe, that this generation of Americans is doing less than it could, it is also true that it has done everything it was asked to do. It may be more concerned about its private interests than about the public interest, but if a man is offered a choice between a Cadillac and a swift kick in the pants, we should not be surprised if he doesn't bend over.

What has it been asked to do that it has not done?

It was asked to restore the broken economy of Europe, and it helped bring that Continent within a decade to the highest level of prosperity in history.

It was asked to accept high taxation and military conscription to police the world, and it has done so from the North Cape of Norway to Japan and Korea. It was asked to keep a standing army of a quarter of a million men in Western Europe and it has done so for 15 years with scarcely a murmur of protest from a single American politician.

It was asked to abandon its tradition of isolation, and it took on more responsibilities involving more risks-in Korea and elsewhere-than the British ever did at the height of their imperial power.

These are not the acts of a slack and decadent people. There is nothing in the record of free peoples to compare with it. This is not a static society. The problem is merely that the pace of history has outrun the pace of change. Ideas and policies have lagged behind events, so that by the time policies were formulated, debated, and put in force, the situation they were intended to remedy had changed.

Thus, in a torrent of change, in a revolution of science, a social revolution at home and an unprecedented political revolution in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, it is scarcely surprising that there is a crisis of understanding in the Nation.

This is all the more true because there has been a serious weakening of the ties between the men of ideas and the men of politics in this country during the past decade.

WILSON'S IDEAS RECALLED

"Our slow world," wrote Woodrow Wilson in 1890, "spends its time catching up with the ideas of its best minds. It would seem that in almost every generation men are born who embody the projected consciousness of their time and people.

"Their thought runs forward apace into the regions whither the race is advancing, but where it will not for many a weary day arrive-the new thoughts of one age are the commonplaces of the next.

"The men who act stand nearer to the mass than the men who write; and it is in their hands that new thought gets its translation into the crude language of deeds."

It cannot be said that the men of ideas of the country have not performed in these last few years their traditional tasks. They have observed the convulsions of our time and let their minds run ahead to the logical consequences for the Nation.

I cannot remember a time when there has been more purposeful thought on contemporary problems in the universities and foundations than now. Their reports and conclusions would fill a good-sized library, but the alliance between them and the White House has been feeble, and somehow it must be restored. What, then, can be done?