AIR CONDITIONING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1942, Page 4

AIR CONDITIONING

OF AMERICAN YOUTH AVIATION IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULIUM. PRE-FLIGHT EDUCATION. (By Haydn S. Pearson in the “Christian Science Monitor.”) A dramatic example of linking the schools of the nation to the current demands of living is seen in the recent announcement of the United States Office of Education and the Department of Commerce that aviation will become a part of the curriculum. There are two programmes involved and two purposes in mind. Together the two programmes mean that every boy and girl from the first grade through the senior year of high school will be air-conditioned to the new world which has climbed into the skies. The first programme is a matter of general education. The idea was sponsored by the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Boys and girls are to be made as familiar with airplanes as they are with automobiles. Teachers and pupils will study the impact of aviation on American and world affairs; the Office of Education will supply many kinds of materials; text book manufacturers are already revising books so that aviation will have its fair place. As this is written, the manual training shops of the country’s schools are just finishing 500,0000 model planes which will be sent to Army training centres for use in the cadet flying classes. Before the end of school in June, a second set of half a million will be completed. These planes, of solid wood, are all built exactly to scale. Moving spirit behind this general educational plan for all boys and girls in schools is Mr Robert H. Hinckley, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Air who has been urging air conditioning for America’s youth for several years as a regular part of the educational programme. HIGH SCHOOL COURSES. The second programme involves the youth of high school age. In September, 1942, it is planned to offer ground courses in flying to 500,000 juniors and seniors under the aegis of a new semiofficial organisation, the Air Training Corps of America. Every high school in the nation will be invited to add a two-year course of pre-flight studies to its present curriculum. This course will probably include the five basic aviation subjects: engine design and structure, navigation, communications, meteorology, and aero-dynamics. These courses do ndt mean high school youth will be flying. It is pre-flight education in the fundamentals. The idea has been tried out this year experimentally in certain selected schools and the response of American boys has been overwhelmingly in favour of the new studies. Boys have gladly given up peace-time extracurricular activities to take the hard subjects connected with aviation. It offers the concrete way to help which many youth have been demanding, in one school in New Rochelle, New York, where there is an enrolment, of 1,400 boys, every boy in school applied for the course. Present plans call for 500,000 boys to start these courses this fall and for 2,000,000 in September, 1943. These two outlines, the general and the specific, are the educational programme planned for the immediate future to air condition America's boys and girls. WAR AND LATER DAYS. The two purposes are equally clear and specific. First, the war must be won. That means air power, and the nation looks to its youth for the trained personnel to man the lens of thousands of planes, needed for victory. High school youth of today will be the knights of the skies tomorrow. That is the reason for the new courses in secondary schools. The purpose is definite; the studies will be equally objective. The second purpose for air-condi-tioning young America is the longrange view. Many observers believe that after the victory, the next, great machine advance will be in aviation. They envision a future when airplanes will be as commonplace in our daily lives as the automobile has become in the last three decades. The airplane will become a dominant factor in freight, express and passenger travel. The nation will fly behind mechanical horsepower as readily and matter of • factly as it rides behind it now. Therefore, from the little tots of kinder- • garten and first grade to the high school boys and girls, subject matter regarding aviation will be woven into all phases of the curriculum.. Working ' together, government agencies, state and local units, and the nearly one mil- 1 lion teachers of the nation will prepare today's youth for tomorrow’s air-1 minded world.