Show A MATTER OF DEGREES We lire are all 1111 for the current campaign being waged to encourage our young people to stay in school and we particularly commend one onea advertisement a which s is headed with U the e word Boy Boyl I The brief me mesSage age makes a dramatic point that without schooling a man manis Is likely to be called noy Boyl I nil all the days of oC his life Were We're also well aware of oC the importance of a college degree degre and that the possession of ofa ofa a degree tends to assue one of earn earning lJ a comfortable living Carrying this a step fur Cur User ther additional degrees bring rewards in better jobs and higher salaries The holder of ofa ofa a Masters Master's degree in almost any field can count on a lot more income than the person who is a Bachelor And of course a PhD hD is still better off With a doctorate a person Is in truth a member of the affluent society However itt it is to carry anything too far Car and this is sometimes the case wIth academic degrees Those who hold them thum oc look upon them as a form form of job insurance or a kind of union card to discourage competition More 1 reprehensible is the man ner in which some people use their degrees as a shield against criticism Fortunately not many do so but there have been many cases of this amounting to what might be called academic intimidation A parent critical o of some aS aspect of of e education uc is likely to be told more or less that his or her opinions are arc worthless because he has no degree in education to qualify hits him to speak Similarly a person erson who voices cism of some profession Is apt to be brought up sharply by some practitioner of that pro pro- profession implying that the critic is an ignoramus amuS who should keep his mouth shut because he has lias no academic degree in the field But it is in the field of oC education that this highhanded high attitude is the most irritating Parents who have to raise children instill moral and religious values and pay the bills des deserve ve to be heal heard l by y tb the not sullied or silenced by pontificating d degree gree holders Even the holder of I a string of degrees can often learn if iC he is willing to listen and the speaker may not have a solitary degree to his name But of course anyone who has truly earn earn- earned ed cd worthwhile degrees doesn't have to be told that simple fact |