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Show ingbottom Freedom Forum presen-. tation, "Giving Capitalism Youth Appeal" is available in pamphlet j form for cost of printing-. Write ! Harding College, National Education Educa-tion Program, Searcy, Arkansas. ; had discovered how to grow trees as a crop and make lumbering stable and permanent. They visited the sawmill and planer mills, the sales offices and by-products operations. oper-ations. They went into the pine woods and saw scientific forestry being practiced. Then Hickingbottom and Craven Cra-ven took them into the plant's personnel per-sonnel training rooms and "sold" the company to the students for S2.500.000, issuing 25.000 shares of stock. A "president." "vice-president," "treasurer" and two other "directors" were appointed. Bill Craven acted as their company manager. He placed S250.000 in simulated currency on the director's direc-tor's table and told the "owners" this was their profit for one year. Everybody wanted to declare a dividend at once! Good Results But Craven described a debarking debark-ing machine which the companv needed. He told the "'owners" it would cost 150,000 to purchase it and operate it for one year, but that it would permit sale of bark chips which currently were being burned as waste. It was a genuine business problem. The high school seniors were brought directly to grips with the pros and cons of the investment, the natural inclination incli-nation toward declaring dividends, the factors of business taxes, prices and wages," sales competition, competi-tion, depreciation, inflation and all the other problems confronting American business. They had fun learning. "For a time," Bill Craven told our Forum audience, "these youngsters young-sters became a part of the American Ameri-can business .system, an element in capitalism they became capitalists." capi-talists." Tests then were given. Results showed the class scored 50 per cent above the national average for high school seniors in "understanding Capitalism." The full text of the Craven-Hick- OOKINg jvKI: AHEAD ''n ' BV GE0RGE S- BENSON ' ?V S President MardtH) College Vv. i i Scare), Arkansas -..J.-L-i . GIVING CAPITALISM YOUTH APPEAL The cloak-and-dagger aspects of j Communism ana the glittering but false promises of Socialism make fascinating subjects for high school and college classroom discussions. On the other hand, the bare facts of capitalism or the American economic system usually are not as interestingly presented. Imagination Imag-ination and experimentation are needed in our schools if we are to bring to life for youngsters the American economic system. At the Harding College Freedom Forum last week a high school social science teacher and a personnel per-sonnel relations director of a lumber lum-ber company in Warren, Arkansas, told how they had worked together to make the facts about American capitalism a fascinating high school subject. They were Marion Hickingbottom, of the Warren High School faculty, and William Craven, personnel director for Southern Lumber Company, Hickingbottom Hick-ingbottom is a Harding College graduate. Craven attended a Harding Hard-ing Freedom Rorum 18 months ago. Last year they got together in some community Americanism work and in time got to discussing Hickingbottom's "Problems in Democracy" De-mocracy" course for high school seniors. Appeal Missing , "One of the weakest parts of the course," Hickingbottom told our Freedom Forum conferees from 25 states, "was the present tation of Capitalism. Socialism and Communism fascinated the youngsters, young-sters, although I was exposing the evil nature of the intrigue and the miserable economic results of either eith-er Communism or Socialism., But when we got to Capitalism something some-thing was missing. We had the cold hard facts but the fascination for youth wasn't there." , Bill Craven came up with . an idea. Why not use his company as p. laboratory of capitalism, take the high school seniors to it and let them study it in action, its system of doing business, its problems, prob-lems, its benefits to the employees and owners, and its social worth to the community. Hickingbottom went to the local school heads and Craven to his company's management manage-ment for permission to conduct the experiment. Permission was granted. At the Plant For two weeks the hjgh school "Problems in Democracy" class spent two periods per day at Southern Lumber Company. They saw a graphic presentation of the history of the lumber industry, how in days gone by it was a cut-out-and-get-out operation; but how, in recent years, the lumber- people |