ingful questions? Does he understand the real need for continuous learning? Has the student developed an insatiable appetite for learning? Finally, does he have a definite, but flexible plan for continuing his learning? If education is ever defined as a lifelong or continuous process rather than as a function of childhood years, then with the emergence into adulthood of the first generation of youth who have been taught how to learn rather than what to think, the role of adult education in the American society would begin to be transformed. Then adult education would become the largest and most significant dimension of our national educational enterprise. In the words of Knowles: Almost all adults would perceive "going to school" as being a normal part of the daily pattern of living as "going to work" has been in the past, for this is what they would have been brought up to expect. In fact, going to school and going to work (even going to work as a housewife) may come to be seen as interrelated aspects of the same process as employers and communities come to treat continuing learning and work, and continuing learning and citizenship, as two sides of the same coin. If we can consciously strive to create this kind of learning society, the problem of what to do about increasing leisure, obsolescence of skills, training and retraining would become meaningless because the workweek, as Knowles puts it, would become the work-study week and the number of institutions providing opportunities for continuing learning would greatly increase and existing educational institutions would greatly expand their programs for adults. In this learning society every industrial firm, government agency, and voluntary association would have to provide for the continuing learning of its employees, clients, and members as a condition of survival. It would not be difficult, under these circumstances, to perceive of the learning society as being synonomous with the Great Society. о Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor 54-957 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1965 PURCHASED THROUG COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR ADAM C. POWELL, New York, Chairman CARL D. PERKINS, Kentucky FRANK THOMPSON, JR., New Jersey SAM GIBBONS, Florida WILLIAM D. FORD, Michigan JAMES H. SCHEUER, New York PHILLIP BURTON, California WILLIAM H. AYRES, Ohio ROBERT P. GRIFFIN, Michigan LOUISE MAXIENNE DARGANS, Chief Clerk C. SUMNER STONE, Special Assistant to the Chairman LEON ABRAMSON, Chief Counsel for Labor-Management FOREWORD The Congress of the United States, by virtue of default upon the part of the news media, is an educative as well as a legislative body. Not only do we pass laws, but we must explain to the public the precise manner in which they are intended to operate and affect people's lives. This document is a committee blueprint, an invaluable guideline for the interim period between enactment and active implementation. It is my hope as chairman of the committee responsible for this bill that the initial surge of enthusiastic inquiry from various groups concerned with the arts and humanities will not die out, but will see the act through to fruition. It is upon an enlightened, energetic public that the success of this bill and of Federal aid to the arts and humanities depends. ADAM C. POWELL, Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor. III |