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Show We Need More Economics Education Americans need to take a sophisticated attitude toward to-ward economic problems rather than rely on myths and slogans. Newspapers daily emphasize the seriousness of 'economic issues in national and international affairs, noting that economic problems become more and more complex. Commerce Secretary Luther Hodges stated recently in an article that "if ignorance paid dividends, most Americans could make a fortune out of what they do not know about economics." He said that hardly one person in 20 has the sketchiest idea of how our economy functions. func-tions. He pointed out that no more than 10 to 15 per cent of today's high school students tomorrow's citizens will ever take a separate course in economics, either in high school or college. To state that questions of economics are ever more complex, and that to solve them requires a sophisticated approach, does not resolve the problem. If the American pepple are to rule themselves, and avoid being ruled, as are peoples throughout the world, they must understand the principles of economics and make sound decisions in that field. Isn't is possible that the central problem here is less difficult than it sounds? Isn't it possible that the basic principles of economics, like those of mathematics, are really Nunchanging and can be grasped by intelligent high , (Continued on Page Four) We Need More Economics Education (Continued from Page One) school students? Isn't it possible that high school students are capable of understanding much more in various fields of education than they are being exposed to in this period of permissiveness? As scientific knowledge is pushed ever further into areas heretofore murky, it seems that the increased knowledge itself makes possible better organization of that knowledge and its simplification for understanding in principle by all citizens. Perhaps the teaching of the fundamentals of economics eco-nomics to all high school students, as well as the laying of stronger foundations in the physical sciences at the high school level, is just what is needed to cure the young generation of that bored feeling, or outlook, that we hear so much about. Perhaps, too, citizens who learn the fundamentals of economics in high school will be less easy prey for the promisers of pie in the sky. A sound knowledge of economics, eco-nomics, particularly the economics of free enterprise that has made this country great, could be very important to the future of th eUnited States. |
