By NICHOLAS STANFORD Correspondent. News, and Courier Charleston. S. C. New York—The hue and cry over se; l egation in Southern schools now bong raised by selfish special-inte' e- ' groups calling themselves ''pub lic opinion" may turn out to be a blessing in disguise Unless the South wants its schools to become the sort of abattoirs now found in Washington D C it will sooner or later bo forced to a drastic revision of its public-school system, or perhaps the shutting down of pub lic schools altogether. Such a revision would give a priceless opportunity to undo -nine of ilu damage done by 30 year.- of “progressive education." Taken by and large, the U S public school h a s two previous faults: ■ I F does not educate its students 2 It is hostile to the American trade .ai of free represent'iv|j gov ernment, and in its teaching seeks pi indoctrinate students with the philosophy of collectivism That public, school educational Standards are Slipping has been obvious fo'* a Ions time In the Nov. 30 issue of U. S. News and World Report. Prof. Arthur B< ■ tor of the University of Illinois, oik of tlv* most outspoken critics of modern “Educationism." asserted: "We are less educated than the nation was 50 years ago" To New Yorkers, this was hardly news. In a 1951 survey, of 1.135 tenth grade pupils tested in arithme tic, only 24 per cent performed a1 tenth-grade level, three fourths had less than ninth-grade abilitj and nearly half had only sixth-grade achievement.

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