Panorama

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Part of Panorama

Title: Panorama
Issue Date: Volume XX (Issue No. 6) June 1968
Year: 1968
Language: English
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extracted text: PANORAMA needs intelligent readers of: 1. Informative materials 2. Interesting ideas 3. Enlightening opinions 4. Broadening views 5. Controversial thoughts 6. Critical comments 7. Idealistic suggestions 8. Humorous remarks 9. Serious statements 10. Meditations on life and work. All these are either original productions or selective adap tions and condensations from Philippine and foreign publica tions. Usually brief and compact, lasting from two to ten minutes to read, each article offers a rewarding experience in one’s moments of leisure. Relax with Panorama. We say this to the busy student and the teacher, the lawyer and the physician, the dentist and the engineer, the executive and the farmer, the politician and the preacher, the employer and the employee. PANORAMA is specially designed for Filipinos — young, middle-aged, and old, male and female, housekeeper and houselizard. -Special rates on November 1, for new and renewal 1966: subscriptions to begin 1 copy ..................................... 1 year ..................................... 2 years .................................... Foreign rate: ...................... 50 centavos P5.00 P9.00 $3.00 (U. S.) For one year’s subscription of 5 pesos, a person receives the equivalent of 12 compact pocketbooks of lasting value and and varied interest. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon) St., Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines mi miuFPiM maoazimi o* cooo uammo Entered as second class mail matter at the Manila Poet Office on Dee. 7, 19E5 Vol. XX MANILA, PHILIPPINES No. 6 THE HUMAN QUALITY It is not the length of a man’s days that make him immortal, but the intellectual essence of his thoughts. A soul absorbed in transitory things is itself transitory. Nothing is eternal in its duration. Yet all things are eternal in their status, as truth is. When a man’s life is over, it Yemains true that he has lived: that he has been one sort of man, and not another. In the infinite mosaic of history that bit has its unfading colour and its perpetual function and effect. A man who understands himself under the form of eter nity knows the quality that eternally belongs to him, and knows that he cannot wholly die, even if he would; for when the movement of his life is over, the truth of his life remains. — George Santayana ■ Now that the University of the Philippines needs a new President to succeed Mr. Carlos P. Romulo, this article could show some pointers in the way candidates for that position should be properly assessed and judged. SELECTING A UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT The history of the office of president in American colleges and universities be gan with the election of Henry Dunster as chief of ficer of Harvard College in 1640. He received the title of president, which has be come the usual title for the chief executive of American institutions of higher learn ing. Three other terms have been used to identify the executive’head: rector, chan cellor and provost. AS one1 reviews the history of the office of the college president, it is quite appa rent that the selection of the person for this office is one of the crucial tasks of the board of trustees. It is important because the pres ident automatically becomes the chief liaison between the board and the institution. The manner in which he executes his responsibility will set the tone of the aca demic enterprise. The board must be re minded that the role of the president is complex and multifaceted and needs clear definition before final selec tion of a candidate. The board of trustees should de fine the task of the presi dent in light of the needs, objectives and philosophy of the institution. The board should also realize that a successful president of one institution is not automati cally a successful president in another. The selection of a president must be care fully thought out and his appointment should only be made after every avenue and resource has been exhausted. The relationship of the president to the board of trustees is an extremely cru cial relationship. The pres ident can establish a smooth line of communication or 2 Panorama build imaginary barriers that will create havoc in the aca demic confines. He is the chief representative of all avenues of the institution to the board of trustees, and this is a responsibility that cannot be ultimately delega ted. The president must take full responsibility for the operation of the institution and see to it that he has the finest team to help him man age the affairs of a grow ing complex of higher learn ing. One of the first tasks of the president should be to review the structure of the board of trustees and sug gest ways of structuring the board so that trustees be come involved to the maxi mum degree. Trustees need to hie involved and the pres ident can direct their in volvement in a variety of ways. The president must also realize that the acade mic community has entrusted to him its professional hopes and aspirations for the insti tution. The president, by virtue of his office, is the major decision-maker apart from the board of trustees. Though the president’s role is multitudinous and his work is multilateral, his op portunities for influence in decision-making are very broad., He is the power center for decisions, and he must be careful how he exerts that power. Harold Stoke, in “The American College President,” remarked regarding this po wer: “... Those who enjoy it are not very successful and those who are successful are not very happy. The explana tion is hidden somewhere in the philosophy of power. Those who eniov exercising the power shouldn’t have it, and those who should exer cise it are not likely to en joy it.” In arriving at decisions, the president has the respon sibility to choose the course of action and direction deemed best from the al ternatives of all the commu nities represented. The abi lity to make those decisions and implement them implies a trust .vested in him by not only the trustees, but the faculty, staff, students and public as well. This trust given to him by his associates will either grow June 1968 3 or decline, based upon his method of operation in dai ly decision-making. His abi lity to accomplish things may depend to a great ex tent on that trust. He must remember that people will be led only to the degree that they want to be led. The President must inspire his associates to follow him or the institution will be . steered on a shaky course. One of the major roles of the president will be to submit information to the board concerning the total college program. Any pre sentation made by the presi dent to the board of trustees must be based on sound, reasonable and rational foun dations. The facts presented must merit consideration at the .boar4 level and contro versial items must not be hidden because of fear of board reprisal. In my re search regarding boards, I discovered that presidents have a tendency to shield board members from infor mation that would cause dis satisfaction to the board. Trustee members need to know the truth if they are to make the most adequate decisions necessary for the ongoing of an institution. If they cannot accept the responsibility of knowing these verities, then they are not fulfilling their function. The nature of the role of the president and the role of trustees demands that they operate in an environ ment that brings cohesive union of major vectors of the institution. This does not imply that the two must agree in all areas touching their responsibility. It sim ply means that the president and the board, for the well being of the institution, must be able to negotiate, facili tate, develop and lead on a priority level of good com munication with one another. The problems of growth, by necessity, demand tension difficulty and stress, yet they do not require division, dis unity and disrespect to pre vail. I submit that the begin ning of a great institution is the selection of a strong, flexible board of trustees which will appoint a toplevel chief executive. If that chief executive is willing to do the job that needs to be done within the entire academic enterprise, which 4 Panorama includes maintaining the proper role with all com munities of the institution, including his relationship with the board of trustees, the future of education is greatly enhanced. — By Orley Herron, College and University Business, August, 1967. LISTEN AND LEARN Dialogue is only possible when one is listen ing carefully to another without interrupting him, without thinking ahead about what one will reply when he pauses but concentrating on what he is saying when he is saying it. Dialogue occurs when the listener is truly attentive and not pretending to be God or an archangel. Then, when a pause does occur, he is ready to answer with a full understanding of the other’s point of view. — By .Dorothy Goldberg in The Creative Woman June 1968 ■ This statement in a speech of Senator Jose J. Roy at M. L. Quezon University attempts to ex plain the nature of the Philippine Peso as the basic unit of the Philippine currency. THE PESO AND THE CENTRAL BANK The Philippine Peso, our monetary unit established by law, is the medium of ex change whereby prices are expressed, goods and ser vices are paid for, and debts and other contracts dis charged in this country. Almost from the first time that Central Bank notes or paper money went into cir culation in our country, the validity and worth of said paper money as a medium of exchange have been as sailed on the Floor of Con gress as early as 1949 on the grotind that the new Cen tral . Bank paper notes lack gold or silver backing unlike the former treasury certifi cates or Victory paper cur rency which they have re placed. Indeed, even house wives eyed the new curren cy with doubt and suspicion as a medium of exchange. We had to explain again on the Floor of Congress, in spite of the many days of debate on the Central Bank Charter in the preceding year, the meaning of the managed currency system in stituted by the Central Bank Charter. We had to assure our people that the new cur rency notes, though lacking in metallic backing such as gold or silver, can be as sound and stable as the cur rencies of other countries throughout the world if pro perly managed by the guar dians of our monetary policy because said currency has for its backing, the wealth and resources of the nation and other internationally ac ceptable currencies of other nations constituting our in ternational reserve. But how sound has our Peso been? Has it promo ted the economic growth of our country in the way of raising employment and in creasing production and real income for our people? 6 Panorama We cannot deny that our Peso has been on trial from the beginning of its emer gence as a Central Bank note. We instituted exchange controls in the later part of 1950 until January 1962, when partial decontrol took place, and in January 1966 when total decontrol was adopted. We instituted con trol as an economic necessity because we were creating lo cal currency, very much more than we were produ cing foreign exchange or fo reign moneys acceptable in the world trade and com merce, such as, the U.S. dol lar which has been establish ed by the International Mo netary Fund as the standard monetary ’ unit of the wor’d. Our local currency, the Peso, is not a legal tender or acceptable medium of ex change outside our country, in the same way that cur rencies of other countries are not legal tender in our country. We have to pro duce the US dollar and other currencies acceptable in world trade and commerce with which to purchase or acquire the things or com modities from outside our country, such as food, me dicine, tools, and implements for production, machineries and raw materials for our industries and other vital which we do not or can not sufficiently produce in our country. We have always been be set with the perennial prob lem of dollar or foreign ex change reserve — of the need of producing more dol lars for our expanding eco nomy by increasing our ex port receipts, inviting foreign borrowing. We all know that since the last war up to the present, the balance of trade has almost always been against us; our expenditures in dollars or purchases from abroad have exceeded our earnings in dollars. During the last year while we earn ed more than 800 million U.S. dollars worth of export receipts, we spent much more than that for our im ports; and while we earned the further sum of another 850 million U.S. dollars worth from non-export items, other wise known as invisibles, we spent for the same period about 900 million dollars worth for non-import items That is why our dollar or foreign exchange reserves June 1968 7 have gone down to such precarious or critical level as to compel the Central Bank authorities to adopt re strictive measures on credit and on the flow of our local currency. This, we have to do, short of returning to ex change control. We are not alone in the world in this problem. Please remember that aftpr the last great war almost all the civilized countries of the world have turned to the managed currency system like the one we have, aban doning the gold standard system as having become ob solete, dispensing almost entirely with the metallic reserve requirement. And only recently the US has done away with its 25 gold certificate backing of her currency thus having for its full backing the wealth and resources of the United States. Gold, however, will continue to be used in the payment or settlement of in ternational obligations among nations as when, for instance, a country like France shall refuse the U.S. dollar for the reason that said country has more dollars than she needs, in which case, France can demand that she be paid in gold at the international price of P35 per ounce as fixed by the International Monetary Fund. But you may ask why can we not adopt the monetary system we had before the institutions of the managed currency system when the peso had a metallic reserve and with much more pur chasing power than the peso that we now have? It is true that the peso under the old system of cur rency when we were a de pendency of the U.S. had a one hundred per cent (100%) dollar backing which in turn had a metallic back ing. It was so because we were not a sovereign state, and the power to create cur rency is an attribute of so vereignty. America imposed upon us a colonial system of currency whereby the pe so we could issue was the equivalent of the dollar we could produce at the ex change rate of two pesos to the dollar. To illustrate: For the one hundred million dollars receipt from all our exports in one year, for in stance, the National Treasurer could only issue the peso 8 Panorama equivalent of two hundred million pesos in treasury cer tificates at the official rate of two pesos for every dol lar. Said dollar income from our export receipts shall form part of our dollar reserve in the U.S. And if we had to use for instance in the same year the whole of the one hundred million dollars to pay for our imports from the U.S., we had to retire from circulation the same two hundred million pesos worth of treasury certificates or notes to pay for said one hundred million dollars. Under such a system whereby the Peso is depen dent automatically on the U.S. dollar, we were not able to promote the growth of our economy. We suffered from ecpnomic stagnation during the more than forty years of American rule in our country; we were pinned down to an agricultural eco nomy we were forced to the status of supplier of raw materials to America, and consumer of her manufac tured goods. And the U.S. saw to it, that for every dollar invested in our coun try, she got back her profits and capital in dollar. Un der the colonial system of currency, I repeat, we could not produce our local cur rency, the peso, in excess of its equivalence in dollar; and all our peso had a 100 backing of the U.S. DOL LAR. While we had no problem of dollar reserve we were however, prevented from developing our agricul ture and other natural re sources, and especially, our industries. Upon the establishment of our Republic in 1946, we adopted our own system of currency and broke away from the dollar standard by instituting the managed cur rency system under the char ter of our economic sove reignty, the Charter of the Central Bank, R.A. 265. How do we create money or when do we issue peso notes and coins? The Char ter of the Central Bank which has the sole right and authority to issue currency provides expressly that the Central Bank may issue notes and coins only against, and in amounts not exceeding, the assets of the Bank. And what are the assets of the Central Bank against which notes and coins are issued? June 1968 There are about five bil lion pesos worth of unissued currency notes or printed paper bills in the vault of the Central Bank, and said notes are issued against our earnings in foreign curren cies, from our export receipts, and the so-called income in invisibles, such as, foreign investments, expenditures of the U.S. in its military instal lations, U.S. pensions to our veterans, expenditures of tourists and many other forms of income in invisibles. But that is not all. The Central Bank also issues fresh money or currency notes against bonds and se curities issued by our Gov ernment by authority of law. While the Central Bank is prohibited by the Central Bank Charter from subscrib ing‘to bonds issued by the Government, it can buy said bonds in the open market. Since bonds are assets in the form of promissory notes the Central Bank can issue mo ney against said bond assets. Please understand that our government in its yearly bud get is providing about two hundred million pesos for the servicing or redemption of said bonds when the pe riods of their maturities come. They are paid from money in circulation or from the income of the govern ment from taxes and reve nues. Unless they are paid out of the money in circu lation, we may be flooded with local currency resulting in harmful inflation. It may surprise you to know that the largest asset of the -Cen tral Bank against which cur rency were issued are the bonds acquired by it in the total sum of about one and one-half billion pesos. A very important function of the Central Bank in creat ing money is the issue of currency against assets or credit instruments of the banking system under its re discounting and discounting operations. Banks and other financial institutions take re course to the Central Bank for fresh money on their eli gible papers or solid gua rantees or collaterals. With out said facilities extended by the Central Bank, most of our banks will not be able to operate. Fresh mo ney may also be issued in the form of budgetary ad vances to thes government in an amount of not more than 10 Panorama 15 per cent of its expected income from revenues which, at the present time, amounts to about 300 million pesos on its revenue income of about two billion pesos but payable during the first quar ter of the year following. But most of the time the government has been delin quent in paying said obliga tion to the Central Bank. In the instances I have cited, the issue of money is made against the resources of . our government in the case of bonds and budgeta ry advances, and against the resources of our banking and financial institutions which reflect the wealth of the na tion. The managed currency system is now obtaining or has been adopted in almost all free or civilized countries of the world accounting for the general increases in prices and corresponding raises in wages and salaries The desirable degree of in flation has spurred progress all over the world, enabling nations to recover remark ably from the chaos and ma terial havoc caused by the last Great War. Massive public borrowings or bond issues have been resorted to. NOT BY RICE ALONE Abundance in rice is not enough to win and sustain the faith of the people in the government. There must also be abundance of goodwill, since rity, and honesty. — Fernando Lopez June 1968 11 This is a very informative and important article about the human body as a as a chemical apparatus. NEW IDEAS ABOUT Over the centuries, man, when contemplating his own body, has alternately gained and lost conceit. Once he was inclined to think of him self as one of the lords of creation, ranking just a lit tle lower than a god. When he began to compare him self carefully with other liv ing creatures, he reluctantly came to the conclusion that he was a close relative of the ape. Gradually, in the light of modern science, man has come to look upon his body variously as an energy-andheat‘ producing engine, as a chemical plant and as an electronic apparatus. Let us examine the vali dity of these conceptions. Obviously, there are many resemblances between the human body and an engine. What is food but fuel, and what is the intestinal tract but the furnace of a living boiler? To be sure, man has no visible cylinders and no machine and also THE HUMAN BODY pumping pistons, but the ex perimental evidence indicates that food is converted into energy just as coal or wood is. The heat value of food is even measurable in calo ries, like the heat value of any other fuel. An ounce of sugar “burn ed” in the body yields just as much heat (or energy) as it does when buried in a suitably constructed oven. A steam-power plant has its fuel storage bins; so has the body — it stores sugar and other fuel in the muscles and the liver. The machine-like nature of man is especially striking when an analogy is made with the internal combus tion engine. In the body, food is turned into sugar and the sugar into alcohol, where upon the alcohol is exploded in the muscle cells. There are millions upon millions of cells, and the charge of alcohol received by each of them is infini 12 Panorama tesimal — so we do not hear the explosions. But the hu man engine is chugging just the same, and at almost the same rate of efficiency as the non-huinan. In fact, one scientist has found that a good Yale crew and a good internal combustion engine both have an efficiency rating of about 23 percent. Engineers can push the machine analogy even fur ther. They see ball-and-soc ket joints where the arms meet the shoulder and where the thighbones meet the pel vis; they see powerful crun ching. levers in the jaws, a fairly good pivot where the skull sits atop the spine, muscles ingeniously contrived so .that they can both push .and pull. There is no ques tion ' that - the lungs are bel lows, though they oxygenate the blood and blow on fire. And there is no question that the heart beats 2,500 million times without failure or repair. And what can be more mechanized than artificial organs doing outside the body what the lungs, kidneys and heart do inside? One scientist cultivates human marrow outside the body by means of an apparatus which serves as a lung, a kidney and a circulating system. Artificial kidneys have been devised to cleanse the blood of wastes which di seased kidneys cannot re move. Weary human hearts have been rested while ex ternal mechanical hearts cir culated the body’s blood (sometimes with the aid of artificial lungs). Even the laws of. hydrau lics are applicable to the body — up to a point. The 10 pints of bl odd that the heart keeps in circulation (additional blood is held in reserve in the liver, the spleen and other organs) is a stream which, like other liquids in motion, obeys ri gid physical principles. This stream is a river of life, in the sense that, if we drain it off, we die; it is also a sewer, in the sense that it carries poisonous wastes to the kidneys to be disposed of. But this is one of the points at which the compa rison between the human bo dy and a machine begins to exhibit its limitations. Let us assume that into the hy draulic contrivance which is June 1968 13 the blood stream we inject a foreign substance — a se rum, or a vaccine. What happens? No laws of me chanics provide an answer; we must go to chemistry. What happens is that, with amazing swiftness, antibodies are marshaled to destroy the invaders. A battle is waged. The weapons are chemical weapons. Thus, one Kind of antibody, called opsonin, makes invading bacteria taste good, whereupon the transformed bac^ena are de voured by dements of the blood called phagocytes. Another chemical, agglutinin, causes the bacteria to clump so that they can be devoured in wholesale Hl; As a hydraulic machine, the blood stream will stand muoh tampering, but there are . definite physical and chemical limits beyond which this tampering cannot go. Overheat the blood and you rave; chill it and you become blissfully indifferent even to death. Take away its oxy gen, and the mind loses its reasoning power. Decrease its calcium by half, and con vulsions result — followed by coma and death. Double the calcium, and the blood thickens so that it can hard ly flow. But if we compare the hu man body to a furnace, we find that the laws of ther modynamics are not fully applicable. Heat is like wa ter in that, when a hot mass cools, it falls from a high to a low place — i.e., the temperature level changes. In a machine, the bigger the drop in heat or water level, the more energy released and work done. But the healthy body works in another way. Its temperature always remains at around 9^.6° F., no matter how much beefsteak or how many potatoes we put away. We expend more calories to fell a tree than to perform ordinary office work, yet our temperature is kept constant by the well regulated evapo ration of water from the skin. A major flaw in the con cept of man as a machine began to be apparent with the discovery of vitamins and their functions. When it was found that a table might groan with food while the men who ate it could nonetheless be starving to death — that is, succumbing 14 Panorama to such deficiency diseases as pellagra and scurvy — it was clear enough that the human organism was some thing more than an energy producing engine. It was also a chemical system in extremely delicate balance — a balance that could be up set by the daily lack of no more than enough vital sub stance to cover a pinhead. Now this chemical-balance concept is being strongly for tified and extended by dis coveries about hormones and the functioning of the glands which produce them. Some of the most impor tant work in this fiel'd as been done by Dr. Hans Selye of the University of Mont real. Convinced that all dis ease is the result of some thing that impinges on the body from outside and thus upsets the internal balance. Dr. Selye has subjected thou sands of rats to the kinds of assault that human beings must endure — worry, fright, overwork, poisoning, chilling to the freezing point. Autop sies on the rats have always revealed damage to the ad renal glands. The adrenals bear the brunt of any assault from the outside because they are chiefly responsible for main taining the body’s chemical, balance. They keep sugar and salt at the proper level. Their cortex, or “bark,” se cretes some 20 chemicals which are the body’s princi pal defenders. One is cor tisone. Thus it is easy to see why doctors have been able to achieve such startling results when they administer corti sone to sufferers from va rious degenerative diseases. When the body’s adrenal glands .have stopped provid ing adequate supplies of cor tisone, but it is supplied from outside, the delicate ba lance of body chemistry is restored. With ACTH it is the same. ACTH is obtained from the pituitary, which lies in the middle of the head and con trols all the other glands. The adrenals, which lie over the kidneys, obey the com mands of the anterior lobe of the pituitary — the same lobe which supplies ACTH. When the pituitary is re moved or disabled, the adre nals shrivel. Transplant a new pituitary — or admi June 1968 15 nister ACTH — and the ad renals come to life again. Taking the hormone func tions into account, we must modify our conception of man as a machine even more. The body is a chemical whole of incredibly fine balance; moreover, it possesses the amazing ability to repair it self, which is more than can be said of any machine. When the body ceases to be able to repair itself, it must get help from outside. But whether the job is done from outside or inside, it is large ly done with chemicals, of which the most potent are minerals, vitamins and hor mones. Those who are engineminded and hate to give up the machine analogy may cogently argue that these chemicals- do no more than those which are added to gasoline to prevent automo bile engines from “knock ing.” After all, what are the symptoms of disease but palpable knockings? They may also point to the re cent development of electro nic computers — contrivan ces which, employing as ma ny as 2,000 vacuum tubes (just like those in radio sets), can solve in a few minutes problems which would keep a mathematician busy for months. All in all, these machines behave in a very common way; they not only do something which closely corresponds to “think ing,” but they have memo ries and they throw tantrums. Manifestly, the conception of man as a machine will never die completely. Nor, for that matter, should it, for it is a most convenient way of explaining what hap pens when, for example, we drive a nail or write a let ter. Physical anthropologists, anatomists and most evolu tionists are now aware of the obvious deficiencies of the machine theory but, for the sake of convenience, they are likely to keep on think ing of the human body m machine terms. A curious thing is that, when they do think in these terms, they are inclined to hold the body up to scorn. They say it is badly design ed to perform some of its most important functions. In an evolutionary sense, it is built of second-hand parts, 16 Panorama parts which should have been junked long ago. The trouble began, it seems, when man, in the course of evolution, first stood on his hind legs. As a result of standing, his in testines have sagged, which accounts for the commonness of hernias. An engineer cer tainly would not have put the whole weight of the body on the curved back and on two inadequate feet, nor would he have made the heart strain itself by pump ing blood vertically against gravity. It must be admitted that the engineering of man is not all that it might be, and that the human body con tains many obsolete devices. The reason is that when a living organism starts evolv ing, ‘ old parts may degene rate, but they are not en tirely discarded. New ones are added to the old, or superimposed. In the corners of our eyes, for instance, we have the remnant of an ex tra eyelid. In the top of the head is buried the pineal gland — a rudimentary ^third eye. And then there is the famous vermiform appendix, an entirely useless part which should have been scrapped long ago. The brain is a good exam ple of the way nature piles up second-hand parts and superimposes new ones. Ac tually, we have a dozen brains, bequests of our re mote ancestors. Only the great forebrain with which we do our think ing and the highly convo luted cortex of the cerebrum are relatively new. And nobody has yet found out exactly how all this rather unsightly mass of gray mat ter works. This much is certain: The brain is an electro-chemical contrivance and neither an engine nor an entirely automatic com puter. No combination of mechanical parts and elec tronic tubes will ever dupli cate its acts of creation. But isn’t it probable that the brain will develop still further and that man’s men tal powers will improve? No species of animal is so unstable as man; a score of different types of human be ings have come and gone. There is no reason to sup pose that we are the last word in machines or nicely balanced electro-chemical June 1968 17 systems. Probably we are only preliminary sketches, hints of something better to come. If this is the case, it may tak,e another 500,000 years to produce our superhuman successor. He will probably be free from our sinus trou bles, our appendicitis, our hernias, our weak backs, our fallen arches. He conceiv ably could have a brain 25 percent larger than ours. Sir Arthur Keith bids us look at present-day woman if we would have a preview of the new-model human be ing. “The smooth-browed condition is already achieved by the female of our spe cies,” he says. “We poor males have lagged behind our wives” Men still have the over-hanging brows of Pe king. Man, Rhodesian Man and Neanderthal Man, al though by now it is greatly reduced. In this respect, Sir Arthur believes that wo men are about half a mil lion years ahead of men. The man of the future will probably have a small, re ceding face, because power ful jaws and powerful chew ing muscles are no longer necessary. He will prob ably have one less lumbar vertebra than we have, so that his weight will be bet ter distributed. No doubt there will be corresponding changes in the pelvis. Hands are likely to remain as they are, but our feet, with their arches that tend to fall and their almost useless little toes, are destined to ; be greatly improved. On the eventual appearance of such mecha nical refinements, most. phy sical anthropologists and evo lutionists are agreed. Here prediction must end, because man is more than a machine. What his electro chemical future may be no one can even divine. And his evolutionary future de pends more on electro-che mistry than it does on me chanics. Above all it de pends on his hormones. If some of his 20-odd ductless glands mutate, there is no telling what may happen. A more active pituitary would make a giant of him, a more active thyroid would make him more energetic and restless, and more active adrenals would alter his emo tional life. It is evident that if we cannot make up our minds 18 Panorama about man — whether he is a machine or a piece of chemical apparatus — it is because scientists have not yet succeeded in telling us what life it. If we knew what life is we could tell better what kind of a contri vance man is. — By Waldemar Kaempffert in N. Y. Times, Sept. 10, 1950 maga zine (copdpnsed). AN EXPLANATION Do you ever try to give explanations? Do you ever listen to explanations? Some people are always trying to explain things — why they’re late, why they forgot, why they failed, etc. Too much “explaining” is often an “alibi.” But many times, the explainers are just wast ing their time and their breath. Why? There gre other people who simply do not listen to ex planations. When these “other people” are one’s boss or best friend, or wife or husband or children, then you can really have a situation on your hands. One of the biggest mistakes that we can make as human beings, I think, is to deliberately cut ourselves off from other human beings — by re fusing to listen to the explanations of others. How quickly, how easily, how definitely we just clamp our hands over our ears and shout: “No, I don’t want to hear any explanations.” What a tragedy — this is how so many former good friends today find themselves so lonely, yes, even in the very midst of the so-called “population explosion” with its dire predictions for the future. — by Paul Sheehan in Philippines Herald. June 1968 19 H A reading of this article gives one some basis for comparison between education in Denmark and that in the Philippines. THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF DENMARK In common with other countries in Europe since World War II, the educa tional system of Denmark has undergone developments and changes in structure and functions. This is clearly evi dent, even though Denmark, like England, has been re garded as a “land of tradi tion.” Apparently, the need to modify their school system, in an era of socioeconomic transformation, was convinc ing to a majority of the Danish leaders and citizens. In looking at Danish edu cation as a unit, one is conscious of a number of salient developments ' and trends. A visitor from a democratic-oriented country is at once conscious of the drive toward democracy in Danish school and society. A sincere effort is made to secure for each individual, to the limits of his capacity, the most thorough and repre sentative type of schooling which will enable him to function happily and satisfac torily within his community and nation. Past barriers to social, economic, and educa tional advancement have given way to practices which facilitate mobility and flexibi lity. All this appears to be to the good and in tune with the current thinking on the extension of educational op portunity. At the same time, it is not proper to overlook the possibility of contraction in some sectors on the edu cational front. One Danish secondary school teacher has expressed anxiety about “the intellectual elite among the pupils, whose needs have not been considered so much in the new school structure.” A teacher shortage exists in Denmark, reflecting to some 20 Panorama evtent the enrolment expan sion resulting from higher birth rates and increasing educational opportuni ties. The Government re ported in 1962 that the “short age of teachers has been a serious problem in the Pri mary School for several years.” There has also been a shortage of school buildings. Even the new construction did not satisfy all the require ments for adequate space. As admitted in a recent Govern ment report “... the need for new premises for instruction in the primary schools is still very great.” Another question which of ten arises in Denmark is whe ther centralization of school administration is desirable. In a coup try with a new or unestablished educational tra dition, there is often less ob jection to centralized school planning, direction, and con trol. On die other hand, Den mark and the other Scandina vian nations have already proved an interest and com petency in educational mat ters. This leads thoughtful educators to whether a high ly centralized system is in deed necessary. They be lieve that a certain degree of leeway and flexibility should be granted to local authori ties in the administration of school affairs. To some ex tent, education on the local level already enjoys freedom without losing sight of the broad ^national purposes. The central Ministry of Education in Copenhagen plays an overwhelming role, even if benevolent, in the determina tion of educational policy. Visitors to Denmark may be surprised to learn that the school-leaving age is 14. Many Danish educators and citizens are concerned about this and have recommended the transformation of the up per elementary grades to in crease their holding power for students. Materials and activities appealing to the in terest and needs of the non bookish youngsters have been added to the content of grades 8 and 9. Vigorous planning is now taking place to make grade 10 a meaning ful experience to many pu pils. The teaching in grades 8-10 “... must arouse the in terest of the pupils and be of purpose to them, but it June 1968 21 must also enlarge their elem entary knowledge of the sub jects inside the primary school curriculum. The teach ers must enlarge their inti mate knowledge of the tools, the types of work, and the fields of studies necessary for further training.” To make the upper grades attractive to pupils, the school authori ties have obtained the coope ration of trade and industry. This has resulted in an in crease in the number of stu dents who stay beyond the school-leaving age, since they receive the type of training which makes them accept able to employers in the of fice and in the factory. One might have expected that Denmark would raise the Compulsory school age to 15 year's after World War II, as Fngland did in 1947, but the Danish bill proposed in April 1955 met with little suc cess. It is noteworthy that this bill brought about an agreement between the So cial Democrats and the teachers organizations, but even this unusual concession did not effect its passage. Al though this proposal was considered “an important event in the history of Danish education,” it failed not only because of the customary re luctance on the part of the agricultural party and rural interests, but because of the opposition on political grounds. As a result, the new school law of 1958 was a compromise, and the school-leaving age in Den mark remained at 14. This is not to say that _the Danes are not sufficiently articulate about the need of extended compulsory educa tion. Many are aware that Denmark lags behind the re quired schooling in other Scandinavian countries and in Western Europe. Some, indeed, have expressed opi nions that the upper age limit of compulsory attend ance might be extended to 15 in 1970, and to 16 in 1975, and that “about 70 percent of all persons aged 17 will be in school by 1980.” But to one Scandinavian educator the entire situation seems ironic: “In the land of ‘free schools/ resistance to compulsion in education beyond the purely childhood years was very strong in certain quarters.” 22 Panorama Tf extended education is not now e compulsory, this does not mean that young Danes necessarily suffer from a shortage of school oppor tunities. For one thing, they may attend school voluntarily after the maximum compulso ry age of 14, and many do. For another, the new offer ings under the 1958 elemen tary school act have attracted young persons to school to develop their potentialities in occupations and semiprofes sions. Thus, grades 8 and 9, and eventually grade 10, will serve as extensions of the school system, even if atten dance remains voluntary. However, unless a law is en acted with a higher specific n<re limit, it is not likelv that Denmark will achieve the goal’ of hhving 70 percent of its 17-year-olds in school by 1980. It is well to note also the growing enrollments in se condary education, even in the gymnasium. According to one experienced educator, writing 1961, “it is expected that the number of pupils in the gvmnasium will'double within the next decade, both because of the high birth rate in the 1940’s and because a higher percentage of the young people desire a post primary education.” Preceding pages point out that apart from professional schools in engineering, agri culture, and other fields, Den mark has only two universi ties at Copenhagen and Aarhus. It took well over four centuries to open a sec ond Danish university, but a notably shorter time for the authorization of a third higher institution. The law of June 16, 1962, for the es tablishment of a Medical Faculty at Odense, was fol lowed by a proposal to set up a complete “third univer sity” there, and finally by the law of 1964, for establishing a fullfledged university at Odense. One major strength in Danish education has been the success in the teaching of foreign languages. The lin guistic excellence in Den mark has had a long tradi tion. Basmus Rask in the 19th and Holger Pedersen in the 20th century have exerted an international influence in developing linguistic science. The name of Otto Jespersen June 1968 is also honored universally for his authoritative presenta tion of English grammar. The general impression of visitors is that foreign lang uages, especially English, present no obstacles to the Danish people. There are few countries where a foreigner who does not know the native language can feel at home as rapidly as in Den mark, because of the linguis tic facility of tradesmen, em ployees, public functionaries, and others. It is noteworthy that the schools of Denmark help young people to learn the Norwegian and Swedish lan guages and literatures in or der to unify Scandinavia cul turally and economically. The ability to. use the Scandina vian, languages makes it pos sible for the Danes to join the Norwegians and Swedes in international conferences and in frequent interchange of visits. This confidence of the Danes in their own lin guistic flexibility and com petence was one factor in the decision to introduce the study of Russian as an alter native to French on all levels of education. The achievement of excellence in Russian studies will de pend, of course; on an ade quate supply of good teach ers. Since the study of Rus sian began in 1963 on a sys tematic scale, -it is too early to assess the results. The policy of the Danish Government for the linguistic minorities in the cpuntry is likewise interesting. Faeroese and Greenlandic are official languages, along with Danish, in the Faeroe Islands and Greenland. South Jutland, in proximity to the border of West Germany, is a small German-speaking communi ty. Denmark’s practice is not only to allow the teaching of the minority language, but also to furnish public support for the German schools. In this respect, the Government is fulfilling its policy of pro viding financial aid to all private, nonprofit schools which are set up to meet par ticular linguistic, religious, or pedagogical needs. By thus encouraging the minor ity schools, the school system of Denmark differs from those of Sweden and Norway, which permit minority 24 Panorama schools but do not promise public aid. By virtue of its geographi cal position, economic expe rience, and cultural tradition, Denmark has been commit ted for a long time to educa tional and intellectual coope ration with other Scandina vian peoples in coordinating their educational efforts, clearing up misunderstand ings in textbooks, and ex changing persons and ideas. Denmark has also been ac tive in the cultural projects of the United Nations, UNES CO, and other international bodies. For example, Den mark has been a founder member of the extended .pro gram of technical aid of the United Nations since 1949, and its contribution to this program “has been for many years the largest per capita of all member countries and still is.” In putting the 1958 educa tion act into operation, guide lines for the teaching of his tory in the elementary school stressed the values of equal ity of peoples, the global na ture of the past, and interna tional cooperation. In 1961, the Ministry of Education, in cooperation with UNESCO, inaugurated a 4-year project for a better understanding of Oriental cultures (e.g., Indo nesian and Philippine) on all levels of education — elem entary, secondary, and high er, including professional teacher training. Future syl labuses and textbooks will likely contain more material than heretofore on the cul tures of the East. — Prof. William W. Brickman, in Denmark's Education System and Problems. June 1968 25 ■ Famous educators and scholars in the U.S.A, some times prefer to work in small institutions; and their reasons are here stated. THE ADVANTAGES OF TEACHING IN A SMALL COLLEGE Unrest continues on the campus — but the restless ones are the faculty members. Professors from prestigious schools are leaving challeng ing posts to teach in small, little-known, and often im poverished institutions. But not for money. Their mo tives: a quest for academic and intellectual freedom and a moral commitment to the promotion of higher educa tion. John Monro, dean of Harvard College, announced he was resigning to head the freshman teaching program at Miles College — a predo minantly Negro institution in Birmingham. (I’m just in terested in the teaching op portunities that exist at Miles... I can’t wait to get started,” Dean Monro said). David Riesman, Harvard so ciologist, claims that the movement began as a result of the invigorating spirit as sociated with the Kennedy Administration—“People are finding it meaningful to work for something other than their own aggrandizement.” Professors are also finding it comfortable to work on a campus that isn’t pressurenacked. Robert H. Knox — formerly of Rutgers — left in 1965 to teach literature at three-year old New College in Sarasota, Fla. (class size, 12). Mr. Knox has written a novel since joining New College and is planning an other. The dream of freedom keeps Charles J. Pingat at Tusculum College — a strug gling 560 student school in Appalachia. “We offer teachers a freedom to dream and think through what it means to help create an edu cated man.” The advantages of this “reverse movement” are not limited to professors or small colleges, however. 26 Panorama Mr. Riesman, the Harvard professor, stated: “The small schools’ vital importance is that they provide countervail ing models to the big, re search - oriented universities and the prestige schools.” — From College and University Business, August, 1967. AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION “The greatest service which the American peo ple have rendered to the Filipino people, is the implantation of the American system of public in struction giving us, without restrictions of any kind, the means of developing, freely and without limit, the physical, intellectual and moral condi tions, of the individual.” — Dr, T. H, Pardo de T avera. June 1968 ■ A university must have a strong board of regents or trustees who should know how to judge the real qualifications of a university president. WHO SHOULD BE A UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT The history of the office of president in American col leges and universities began with the election of Henry Dunster as chief officer of Harvard College in 1640. Hp received the title of presi dent, which has become the usual title for the chief executive, of American insti tutions of higher learning. Three other terms have been used to identify the executive head: rector, chancellor, and provost. As one i reviews the history of the office of the college president, it is apparent that the selection of the person for this office is one of the cru cial tasks of the board of trustees. It is important be cause the president automati cally becomes the chief liaison between the board and the institution. The manner in which he executes his responsibility will set the tone of the academic enter prise. The board must be re minded that the role of the president is complex and mul tifaceted and needs clear -de finition before final selection of a candidate. The board of trustees should define the task of the president in light of the needs, objectives and nhilosophv of the institution. The board should also realize that a successful president of one institution is not automa tically a successful president in another. The selection of a president must be carefully thought out and his appoint ment should only be made af ter every avenue and resource has been exhausted. The relationship of the president to the board of trustees is an extremely cru cial relationship. The pre sident can establish a smooth line of communication or 28 Panorama build imaginary barriers that will create havoc in the aca demic confines. He is the chief representative of all avenues of the institution to the board of trustees, and this is a responsibility that cannot be ultimately dele gated. The president must take full responsibility for the operation of the institu tion and see to it that he has the finest team to help him manage the affairs of a grow ing complex of higher learn ing. One of the first tasks of the president should be to re view the structure of the board of trustees and suggest ways of structuring the board so that trustees become in volved to the maximum de gree. Trustees need to be involved and the president can direct their involvement in a variety of ways. The president must also realize that the academic community has entrusted to him its pro fessional hopes and aspira tions for the institution. The president, by virtue of his office, is the major de cision-maker apart from the board of trustees. Though the president’s role is multi tudinous and his work is multilateral, his opportunities for influence in decision making are very broad. He is the power center for deci sions, and he must be care ful how he exerts that power. Harold Stoke, in ‘‘The American College President,” remarked regarding this pow er: “... Those who enjoy it are not very successful and those who are successful are not very happy. The explanation is hidden somewhere in the philosophy of power. Those who eixpy exercising the power shouldn’t have it, and those who should exercise it are not likely to enjoy it.” In arriving at decisions, the president has the respon sibility to choose the course of action and direction deemed best from the alter natives of all the communi ties represented. The ability to make those decisions and implement them implies a trust vested in him by not only the trustees, but the fa culty, staff, students and pub lic as well. This trust given to him by his associates will either grow or decline, based upon his method of operation June 1968 29 in daily decision-making. His ability to accomplish things may depend to a great extent on that trust. He must re member that people will be led only to the degree that they want to be led. The president must inspire his as sociates to follow him or the institution will be steered on a shaky course. One of the major roles df the president will be to sub mit information to the board concerning the total college program. Any presentation made by the president to the board of trustees must be based on sound, reasonable and rational foundations. The facts presented must merit consideration at the board level and controversial items must not.be hidden because of fear of board reprisal. In my research regarding boards, I discovered that presidents have a tendency to shield board members from infor mation that would cause dis satisfaction to the board. Trustee members need tp know the truth if they are to make the most adequate de cisions necessary for the on going of an institution. If they cannot accept the res ponsibility of knowing these verities, then they are not ful filling their function. The nature of the role of the president and the role of trustees demands that they operate in an environment that brings cohesive union of major vectors cj the insti tution. This does not imply that the two must agree in all areas touching their res ponsibility. It simply means that the president and the board, for the well-being of the institution, must be able to negotiate, facilitate, deve lop and lead on a priority level of good communication with one another. The pro blems of growth, by necessi ty, demand tension, difficul ty and stress, yet they do not require division, disunity and disrespect to prevail. I submit that the begin ning of a great institution is the selection of a strong, flexible board of trustees which will appoint a toplevel chief executive. If that chief executive is willing to do the job that needs to be done within the entire acade mic enterprise, which in cludes maintaining the pro30 Panorama per role with all communities of education is greatly enof the institution, including hanced. — By ORLEY HERhis relationship with the RON, College and University board of trustees, the future Business, August, 1967 TO OUR SABAH CLAIMANTS Power politics is the game of powerful na tions. It is involvement in territorial or political aggrandisement. It may include the practice of international land-grabbing. It often means intran sigence in diplomatic conflicts. It is. often a way of running away from domestic problems. Our political leaders who are so sure of their stand on acquiring the territory of Sabah in Borneo should bear these ideas in mind. The present troubles of France and the U.S.A, arising. from their foreign policies are considered by such thinkers as Walter Lippman as principal sources of the difficult problems that these coun tries now face. Small countries, particularly Swit zerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and others, which have been avoiding international complica tions and concentrating themselves on, domestic af fairs, on the other hand, have succeeded in avoid ing unnecessary, perplexing, expensive, and dan gerous situations. On the whole, they have been able to carry out their plans of internal develop ment — V.G.S. June 1968 3i ■ The importance of personal values and strong academic discipline must be realized in teacher training. Filipino teachers will find this article stimulating. PREPARATION As one reads the various reports and recommenda tions, one often becomes con fused but also happy to see that educators are not sa tisfied with the status quo but are searching for ways and means of improving teacher education. Teach ing must be looked upon as a discipline with its own structure, key concepts, prin ciples, and generalizations. It is time to look at Koer ner’s following statement as a challenge: “Education as an academic discipline has poor creden tials: Relying on other fields, especially psychology, for its practical substance, it has not yet developed a corpus of knowledge and techniques of sufficient scope and power to warrant the field’s being given full academic status.” In teacher education the question of values is exceed ingly crucial, for it is the prospective teacher who will be given the responsibility OF TEACHERS and the privilege of trans mitting, maintaining, and im proving the best elements of the culture of the country. If he is to be successful in fulfilling this important role in the classroom, he must first have the opportunity in his student teaching to prac tice the professional values related to students and col leagues. The hopes and as pirations for a better world may be most fully realized in the area of human rela tions. It will be one of the means for finding solutions to the many problems of this technological world marked by ideological conflicts, riots, war, crime, delinquency, and hallucinatory drugs. Since society has created these problems, it is up to man to work cooperatively toward solving them. The world is looking to the schools, as an agent of society, to use all its professional knowledge and resources in bringing about solutions. 32 Panorama Probably there has . been no time in the history of teacher education when there has been greater emphasis on the scholarly teacher. Great stress is placed on general education and areas of spe cialization in the various academic disciplines. This is commendable for the teacher of today must have the knowledge and under standing to participate in the intellectual climate of.his profession. It is heartening to see many subject mat ter specialists and college professors becoming increas ingly concerned in the how, the what, and the why we teach, and sharing their ideas with the professional edu cator. Along with this emphasis on the various disciplines has come a downgrading of pro fessional courses. Much of the criticism (against Edu cation) is justified. We have tended, in the past, to make many of the Education courses repetitious. All too often they wqre so far re moved from the classroom that students could not see any relationship. Methods courses and supervision of student teachers have been assigned to professors who have had little or no expe rience in elementary or se=r condary schools. Numbers of teachers take education courses only be cause they will lead to a credential or an increase in salary. No effort is made to apply the knowledge to the classroom. Other teach ers seem to lack the initia tive to try the new. They find it more comfortable to leave the research and the application to someone else. Teach teaching, non-graded classroom, programmed in struction, and television cause feelings of insecurity and fear in many. In addition, many excellent teachers are bound to the old by admi nistrative policies that tend to limit rather than encour age inquiry and research. Regardless of the restrictions and limitations imposed on teachers and the curriculum, how ever, all teachers can contribute to the professional values related to students and colleagues. The soundness and suc cess of any program is de pendent upon the quality of the entire staff — adminis trators, teachers, paraprofes sionals. It is here that pro fessional values must become June 1968 33 the key vdlues as we work with the prospective teacher £nd the beginning teacher. As is generally known, one is not born with a set of va lues, but they are learned. Since values are learned, it is the duty of every teacher to serve as a model or iden tification figure for the edu cation student. The student should be able to see these personal professional values practiced in the classroom, the playground, the teachers’ lounge, faculty meetings, pa rent-teacher conferences, and the community. Consciously and unconsciously the stu dent teacher imitates and identifies with the school persorfnel and particularly the supervising teacher. The student teacher notes the in teraction process' that takes place between student and teacher ’as the effective teacher demonstrates his sin cere respect for the individual child so that the^ student can experience a feeling of self esteem and personal fulfill ment. When concern for others, cooperativeness, creativity, respect for authority flourish in a classroom environment, then there is the potential for high standards of excel lence. Most beginning teach ers and students in educa tion are idealists and have chosen teaching because they consider it one of the truly great professions. It is al ways saddening when all too often they become disillu sioned during student teach ing or the first year of teach ing and leave the profession when they have so much to give the children and youth of our land. The student teacher and the beginning teacher imi tate and identify with the teacher not only in his work with children in the curri cular and co-curricular ac tivities but also in his rela tionships with colleagues. It appears today that there is a needless amount of jeolousy and pettiness existing in school faculties ranging, all the way from the elemen tary school through college. Much of the action is overt, and students are puzzled by the bitterness, vindictiveness, and lack of professional ethics. Soycalled friends are used to gain promotion and then dropped as soon as the goal has been reached. One sometimes gets the impression that many teach ers are more concerned about 34 Panorama their own self-gloritication than the students they teach. Studies that have been made of college students indicate that this lack of interest and concern on the part of their teachers is one of the most critical problems these stu dents face and in many in stances leads tragically to suicide. Student teachers and beginning teachers should have opportunities to witness mutual respect de monstrated among all mem bers of the school staff. Teaching is more than work ing within the confines of a classroom, for it must in clude working with the whole staff in creating a social cli mate that encourages a free exchange of ideas, where one is stimulated to give the best to the youth of this space age,. How easy it is to take the time to stop by a fellow teacher’s door and compli ment him for something he has done. Yet how often does one take the time to do this? Remember that teachers need recognition as much as the children they teach. Then there is the courtesy that one should show the student teacher and the beginning teacher in making them feel welcome when they join a new fa culty. Through example, one must demonstrate to the stu dent teacher that learning cannot end when he gets a degree or a credential but that he must be a student of the times. This includes reading assiduously about current happenings on the local and international scene. The burgeoning of knowl edge forces all to keep abreast of the research and clinical studies being done and then to be willing to modify methods and tech niques to meet the needs of the modem emerging socie ty. Teachers must cultivate a sincere respect for new ideas; show that they know the major modes of inquiry; and indicate a willingness to participate in the profes sional activities that will im prove the process of teaching and learning. — By Florence Schmidt in The Delta Kappa Gariima Bulletin, Spring 1968. June 1968 35 ■ This is an interesting account of how the present government of the Philippines happens to claim a part of Borneo. BACKGROUND OF SABAH The issue of Sabah was first raised in the post World War II years in 1962 when the government of President Diosdado Macapaal in the Philippines came to fear that the heavily Chi nese populations of Singapore and the British colonies in Borneo were going commu nist. But the Philippine claim runs far back into history, and there are so many legal knots involved that hardly anyone except an interna tional lawyer can come to an approximate conclusion on \vho is right. Complicating the legal questions, of course, is the problem of what the people of Sabah themselves want to do. All of what is now Sabah, plus about 2,000 square miles of territory that presently belongs to Indonesia, were claimed by the Sultan of the Sulu archipelago in the late 18th century as a reward for helping the victorious side in a dispute over the succession to the throne of neighboring Brunei. The territory had once been claimed by Brunei, still a British colony, but never effectively controled by it. There is no legal evidence that Brunei ever recognized Sulu’s claim to the territory, but nevertheless, Sulu ruled it for about a century. In the late 1870’s a group of British and Hong Kong businessmen became inter ested in developing North Borneo. They bought out an American concern that claimed an interest in it, and agreed to pay the Sul tan of Brunei 5,000 straits dollars a year to cede it to them. Then, because of Sulu’s controls, they approached the sultan early in 187$, and for the sum of 5,000 straits dollars a year, plus royalties, he agreed to let them have it. The sultan later claimed he had done so at the point of a gun, but there seems 36 Panorama to be no evidence to support this. In any case, the sultan signed a document that ei ther “leased” or “ceded” — there is an argument about the translation of the Malay word “pajak” in the contract — the territory “forever un til the end of time.” On the same day, Jan. 22, 1878, the sultan named Baron Gustavus von de Over beck, an Austrian who work ed in Hong Kong and was associated with Alfred Dent, a London merchant, the “Datu Bandhara” (a nakay title of royalty) and “Sultan of Sankarakan,” and con ferred on him full powers of sovereignty over Sabah. Like many other fortune hunters of the time, Dent and Overbeck had a ; touch of larceny in their hearts. They agreed to pay the sul tan royalties on production in Borneo, but this was not included in the lease. Soon afterward, they formed the Sabah company in Hong Kong and thereafter consi dered themselves absolved of any responsibility for ro yalties. Nevertheless, the payment of the royalties continued — and did so right through the accession to power of the British North Borneo com pany by royal charter in 1881, conversion of the ter ritory to a British Crown colony in 1946, and its turn over to the government of Malaysia in 1963. The fact that the rent is being paid even to this day — into an escrow bank ac count in Manila while the sultan’s heirs fight over it — appears to be a strong legal argument in favor of the Philippines. On the other hand, the Malaysians contend that Spain, as the colonial ruler of 'the Philippines, agreed with the British and Ger mans — who had trading interests in the area — in 1885 to recognize British so vereignty over North Borneo in exchange for British re cognition of Spain’s sove reignty over the Sulus. The Malaysians also point out that a succeeding sultan on April 22, 1903, in a con firmatory deed relating to some islands off the coast, referred to the original do cument as a “cession,” and to the “Government of Bri tish North Borneo.” They also contend that the Philippines, if it really June 1968 37 thought it owned North Bor neo, could and should have raised the issue when it be came independent in 1946. The Filipino answer to this is simply that at a time when the government was faced with the difficult tasks of building a self-governing nation, repairing the war-ra vaged economy, and then de feating a communist rebel lion, it did nots have time or energy to put forward this claim. But whatever the legal is sue involved, the over-wean ing dispute concerns the fate of the half million people who live in Sabah, and the effect of the argument on the internal politics of both Malaysia ' and the Philip pines. Opce raised, the claim took on a life of its own. Filipino politicians and the violently nationalistic press of Manila hoped on it with fervor. Claims were made that a piece of soil had been sold illegally for a pittance, and demands that the government get it back at any cost were so strong that neither Mr. Macapagal nor his successor, President Ferdinand Marcos, has been able to let the issue drop. Because Malaysia is a friend and ally, the Philip pines has for the most part restrained its demand to a call for some sort of legal action to determine the ter ritory’s future. Until this weekend, four basic solutions had been pro posed at one time or an other, all of which were rejected by Malaysia. The Filipinos asked: To take the case to the International Court of Tustice (World Court) at The Hague. To take it to binding ar bitration by an agreed third party. To take it to the United Nations. To hold a plebiscite in the territory and let the people decide. ‘The Malaysians object to all four of ‘these proposals. They say they cannot jus tify in the context of their internal politics, telling the people of Sabah that their future is up for decision by outsiders over whom they have no control or voice. Nor could they afford to give in to demands for a plebiscite without risking the ruination of' the political Panorama base of Tunku Abdul Rah man’s government. Moreover, they say, to give Sabah in effect the right to vote on cession from Ma laysia through a plebiscite would be impossible to jus tify under the Constitution and could lead to later de mands from other wealthy states in the Federation for the same right. Lastly comes the question of sovereignty. Malaysia is a sovereign nation and can not be forced, short of war, to let another nation inter vene in what it rightly con siders its internal affairs. The only proposal so far that seems to have the ne cessary elements for solving the problem is that for put ting the question to the Sa bah people without infring ing on Malaysian sovereign tyBy asking Sabah whether it wants the case taken to the World Court, the gov ernment would not b*e per mitting a vote on cession, but only a vote on whether to proceed with legal reme dies. If the people of Sa bah are content in' Malaysia — and no one seriously questions that — they will vote no, end of dispute. If they were to vote “yes,” the government would still be able to fight the case through the World Court, and the preponderance of legal evidence does seem to be on Malaysia’s side, lease money or no. In addition, Kuala Lumpur would have advance notice that Sabah is unhappy, and could do the necessary to right the situation. The referendum should also satisfy the Filipinos, for even though they are natio nalistic, no responsible per son in that country would advocate taking in a territory against the wishes of the people who live there. And by permitting the Filipino press to observe the referendum and see that it was fair, the Malaysians would be neutralizing the most vocal and troublesome power in the movement to regain Sabah. — by U.P. In ternational, June 17, 1968. June 1968 39 ■ A strong argument against the use of Tagalog (Pilipino) in Philippine Schools. PILIPINO IN SCHOOLS There are moves to make Pilipino the language of in struction in the first years of school. This is something that should not be done without concrete proof that our educational system will be improved. Some people mistake the waving of a flag with being right. Some peo ple think that Pilipino, be ing something they have mastered in their political campaign speeches, is there fore a language truly broad and communicative; but the blunt truth is that it is not breadth they reveal but their limited brain size. Their use of a language rotates on small talk. The fact remains, if only we are allowed to see, hear and reason above the blare of the national an them played by compulsion over loudspeakers, that Pili pino is much too parochial a language. When it comes to the mere fundamentals and beginnings of such di verse subjects as art, science, philosophy, economics, and so on, its vocabulary is much too inadequate. Our nalists and our Pilipino ex ponents will resent this state ment, but there nevertheless remains the incontrovertible fact. The proof of the pud ding is in the eating, and we have yet to see Pilipino used as a vehicle to express excitingly new ideas, highly technical innovations, or rich, imaginative literature. No significant work in Pilipino has yet been written and published in any field of learning. At present there are stu dies existing to prove that even the use of the verna cular of the community where the school is in the first years of schooling has not advanced the learning capabilities of students as compared (in pilot studies in the same area) to stu dents who learned English as a medium of instruction right from the start. It is difficult to talk about the effects of English as a me dium of instruction in schools on the nation without defi 40 Panorama nite specific studies, sociolo gical and psychological. But there are nations extremely nationalistic such as Switzer land and Mexico, where a non-indigenous language has become the national tongue. One can hardly say that Jose Rizal was less nationa listic and less expressive in his “Ultimo Adios” simply because he chose his last words in Spanish. What should be changed, to our miijd, are the books in English used in many schools. Even if the medium is English, it would be best that these primers be writ ten by Filipinos, reflecting Filipino values and ideas. It is in this area where change and improvement is needed. Confusing un-Filipino values such as love for winter’s snow or Western consumer goods, could be responsible for our so-called “blue-seal mentality.” En glish could be more mean ingful if our primary text books were written by Fili pino writers and educators. — By Alfredo Roces in Ma nila Times, June 18, 1968. June 1968 41 ■ This interesting and sound article in favor of the use of English in the higher schools in the Philip pines deserves the attention of educators and leaders. A BRIEF FOR ENGLISH IN PHILIPPINE EDUCATION Let us assume for the sake of argument that Pilipino can be an effective medium of instruction for high school and college; the next ques tion is: “Who are the great scholars who are going to translate all the great clas sics and all the technical books into Pilipino?” We already stated that the INL couldn’t even translate the instruction on how to plant seedless watermelons. Only recently Mr. Romeo Vertutio translated Dr. Zhivago into Tagalog. .This is a very com mendable task. But let us not kid ourselves. Vertutio’s translation is not genuine. Why? Because he translated the English version of Zhi vago. So it is actually a translation of a translation. Translation, they say, is trea son. So to translate from a translation is compounding a felony. The same is true of Rufino Alejandro’s Ru baiyat of Omar Khayyam. It was not translated from the original Persian, but from the English translation of Fitzgerald. The Tagalog version of the Bible was also executed in the same way — not from the original He brew and Greek, but from an English translation. What about science? Our educational authorities since time immemorable have been highly concerned with the population explosion prob lem. Now we have another explosion — the information explosion. It is no longer valid to simply say that we live in the Atomic Age. For we also live in the Cyber netic Age, the Space Age, and the DNA Age. Of all the scientists that existed since Man began, 90 per cent are alive today! The other ten per cent are spread back as far as 100,000 years. The great achievements of science were made in the 42 Panorama past 50 years — notably durina the past 20. Scientific knowledge is doubling every 10 years! One half of the vocabulary of all advanced languages consist of scienti fic terms. There are no less than 70,000 scholarly jour nals published regularly! If placed on top of one another, it would be 500 meters high. Russia has had to employ 26,000 translators just to keep up with American research. The Lupon sa Agham (Committee on Science) has reportedly completed a 6,000word “English-Pilipino Integ rated Science Vocabulary” — but even this is a mere drop in the bucket. Not to men tion the fact that compiling words is one thing. Getting them accepted and under stood is another. And the real1 question is: Can they ever. hope to cope with the tremendous amount of trans lation that would be neces sary? We will repeat: Scientific knowledge is doubling every decade! By the time a translator has fi nished a book, it may be obsolete; In this aspect, we Filipi nos are fortunate because we have the English lan guage already established as our medium of instruction. The Philippines today is ei ther the third or fourth larg est English-speaking nation in the world. Next to Chi nese, English is the most spoken language on earth. But Chinese is concentrated only in Eastern Asia. En glish is spoken all over the globe. It is in fact the closest thing to an interna tional language that the world has ever known. En glish today is the leading scientific tongue. Even the Japanese scientists who tra ditionally had employed German as a medical lan guage are now substituting it with English. Are we going to forego this tremen dous advantage? And if so, what advantage would we get? It seems to us that a shift from English to Pili pino in our school system would be the greatest leap backward that we could make. It would be tanta mount to committing national suicide because it has been already established that an economically underdeveloped country is nothing else but a scientifically underdevelop ed nation. — By Alejandro Roces in Sunday Chronicle, June 16, 1968. June 1968 43 ■ This article provides a better understanding of the teaching of general education and its advan tages than many superficial statements on the subject. GENERAL EDUCATION - A NEW DIRECTION It has always- puzzled me to try to understand our aca demic mentality. Ideally, we agree that general and special education should sup plement each other. Prac tically, we find ourselves in verbal conflict, in which ge neral education usually comes out second-best. Tradition is not on its side, nor is prestige. Today a teacher’s value is too often measured by the number of grants he brings to the institution and the smallness of the time he devotes to teaching. Certainly general education must take some of the res ponsibility for its present un easy position. We have ppt things together in a kind of crazy quilt fashion. We have, denounced survey courses as superficial but in effect have gone right on using them. We have set up thousands of high-sound ing objectives for our courses while paying little or no at tention to the real residues the student may carry away from them. Frightened by the bogy of standards, we have made our courses dif ficult instead of challenging and interesting. Like the rest of higher education, we have spoonfed our students with well organized lectures, controlled their supposedly immature minds in class dis cussion, and give them little or no chance to discover the joy of learning for them selves or creating vital ideas of their own. I am more convinced than ever that we can produce better learning by doing less so-called teach ing. As David Riesman puts it, “There is the paradoxical possibility that teachers are now too erudite and capable, for their students are given to feel that there is little left to discover for them selves ... There is hardly any room in which students can outflank (their teachers) and gain the feeling of in 44 Panorama dependence, that comes in this way.” In the natural sciences, for example, the teachers have been too devoted to their subject matter to do a good job for the nonscientist. I have about come to the con clusion that this job in science for the non-scientist might be better done by a philosopher — or by a scien tist-philosopher- historian team. Graduate preparation of all kinds of college teach ers, narrowly specialized as it is, gets in our way and keeps us from breathing life and meaning into liberal education. General education is not merely the victim of change; it is also the victim of its own blundering, philandering, andj ot. ‘2 gl!in academic eruatnonA) But let us not overlook its successes. It has opened the doors to experimentation, to better ways of dealing with the vastness of accelerating knowledge, and to better teaching. It has produced many fine programs and kept hopes alive for reaching more vital goals. It has by no means com pleted its mission, nor has it failed in its mission. Those who strangle it to pro vide more time for specia lization are focusing merely on a brief moment of the present. Yes, we need tech nicians and specialists. We also need in these same hu man beings those who can see, think, and evaluate the possibilities of the future in terms of the swift-moving present. Our pressing prob lems are noc technical; they are human. When we are willing to take a close look at the needs of our college product, when we are willing to quit build ing curriculums for the con venience of faculties and turn our attention to the student — how he learns, and what we can do to help him help himself — when we recognize that we as teachers have only a humble place in the learning process as the starters and promo ters of self-discovery and self-achievement, we will not need to worry longer about any conflict between breadth and depth. It will take care of itself. We can achieve this by doing less teaching, thus providing opportunity for more learning. June 1968 45 At this moment, one can see ahead only a hazy con tinuation of the present trend. There is only the mad drive for specialization and more education, what ever its nature. Continuing; down this path indefinitely can lead only to debasing the academic currency. General education needs to take a new direction. It has spent too much time revising and tinkering with curriculums and too little effort stimulating and inspi ring students. Our curricu lums must relate more close ly to life, to change, and to students. I have ^aid ma ny times that general edu cation curriculums should be torn up and thrown away every five years. Only in this way can they retain vi tality. We need to reduce and simplify our objectives and bring them closer to life. The student today is merely jumping ^through hoops to get thgf~ coveted degree, let we think ftro-pro viding hinX with ar ftdnration. If it is true that stu dents no longer trust any one over 30, we need to take a long hard look at what is wrong with us and our system. They have good reason to distrust us. We have long needed more meaningful prepara tion of college teahers, not only for general education but all fields. It is not enough today to be able to talk and to know one’s sub ject well. This kind of hand out teaching reaches the lowest level of efficiency if we are talking about real education. Most desperately we need experimentation in new ways of teaching as reflected in student learning, which is, after all, the only reason for teaching. We need a few institutions willing to go all out in experimenting, with the focus on the learning teaching process, in an ho nest and sustained effort to release all students from our present stupid system of cre dit accounting and the de based state of classroom handout bondage. Student independene and freedom to learn, evc;i if the process is slow and painful, must be the major objectives. I am convinced thaU there is pri vate-venture capital available to any institutions willing to 46 ORAMA strike out boldly in this di rection. It is time for this kind of experimentation on a ma jor scale. The place for it is in general education, where what we cover is of much less importance than what the student does with his own mind. We have all the accessory apparatus for moving rapidly ahead, such as teaching machines, work books, textbooks, and audio visual tapes to provide es sential handout learning of facts. The teacher must be free for the critical job — to raise questions (but not to answer them), to guide; prod, lead, provoke, and counsel as needed. This, is my judgment, is the essential direction gene ral education must take — to lead the way up and out of an educational stalemate with massive efforts to blast a new road toward intellec tual freedom. A former speech teacher, now an emi nent statesman-leader, said recently: “Most of all we need 'an education that will create the educated mind — not simply a repository of information and skills, but a source of creative skepti cism, characterized by a wil lingness to challenge and be challenged,... It means a fundamental improvement in the quality of our educa tion.'’ But there is no way to improve the quality of edu cation without seeking new directions. We have come close to the end of conven tional improvements — bet ter lectures, better discus sions, better textbooks, bet ter facilities. Experiment after experiment has shown us that students learn about the same amount of subject matter whether they are in large classes or small classes, lectures or discussions, be fore living teachers or view ing dudiovisual tapes, before machines or using work books. We have juggled with such experiments long enough. We need a few courageous institutions willing to takfc this kind of risk, not to in troduce safe independent honors programs for the se-. lected few, but to go out for freedom from traition and bondage — for all. Team teaching, with its strong counseling segment June 1968 47 and its emphasis on the stu dent, provides an ideal start ing place. The situation indicates the need for a sharp change in direction. Someone must make the change boldly; someone must support it ge nerously; someone must pro duce this minor miracle quickly. The alternative for general education is gentle demise. The alternative for all of higher education is a half-life of useless resi due. There is already a wide-open door — through well conceived existing pro grams of general education, and some willing leaders. — By Sidney J. French in the Journal of General Educa tion. LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE If I should sell both my forenoons and after noons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to sug gest that a man may be very industrious, and yet ‘not Spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving. But as it is said, of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied. — Henry David Thoreau 48 Panorama Panorama Reading Association PANORAMA invites the educated public to join its Association of Readers. PANORAMA READING ASSOCIATION is dedicated to men and women who appreciate the variety and quality* of its articles as sources of liberal ideas. PANORAMA READING ASSOCIATION includes stu dents, businessmen, professionals, proprietors, employers, and employees. It is also open to clubs, schools, and other ac credited organizations. PANORAMA has been in existence for over Thirty Years. PANORAMA provides excellent material for classes in history, government, economics, political and social studies, lite rature, and science. It may be adopted for secondary and college use. PANORAMA is not a fly-by-night publication. It was born in March, 1936. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon) St., Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines Contents The Human Quality ...................................................................... 1 Selecting a University President ................................................. 2 The Peso and the Central Bank................................................. 6 New Ideas About the Human Body............................................ 12 The Educational System of Denmark......................................... 20 The Advantages of Teaching In a Small College ............... 26 Who Should Be a University President .................................... 28 Preparation of Teachers ............................................................... 32 Background of Sabah .................................................................... 36 Pilipino in Schools ........................................................................... 40 A Brief for English in Philippine Education............................. 42 General Education — A New Direction . .............................. 44 THE COVER — Propagating the IR-8 rice variety in other coun tries in Asia, as is being done by 1st PHILCAG V, is a more effective form of diplomacy than engaging in the game of power politics.