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Show BehindjIi By PaulMallon Released by Western Newspaper Union. CURRENT STATUS DF NAZI AIR ARM WASHINGTON. The Germans nave been able to get together enough bombing planes to stage a new campaign against London. The number of planes at their bases back in from the French coast indicates they may be able to send aver 50 to 100 planes three or four nights a week. That is all there seems to be behind be-hind their heavy scale (150 to 200 bomber) attacks on the British capital capi-tal in mid-month. Our best check lends confidence to the conviction that they cannot sustain even such a moderate scale offensive as that one, and have no facilities to expand their newly opened air front. Stories have been circulated that the bombings of London have been more severe than officially reported. report-ed. There may be some truth in this general suspicion since it is not considered good military custom cus-tom to divulge bombing damage. But the more significant truths of the situation are simply these: About six weeks ago the Germans renewed small scale night air attacks at-tacks using about 50 planes one or two nights a week (one week five attacks). They hit some south England Eng-land cities but concentrated mainly upon London. Their raids necessarily were pot-ihot pot-ihot hit-and-run bombings on large area targets. No accurate attack m a war industry center has been made. They may have hit some military objectives, but their main abjective plainly was to offset psy-:hologically psy-:hologically the effect of British-American British-American raids on Germany with some show of encouraging retaliation. retalia-tion. If they could get the planes, they might make it hurt, because their oases are closer to their objective than ours are. But great stores and replacements are needed for sustained sus-tained air campaigns and these the Germans obviously do not have. The most they can do, therefore, Is to knock down some buildings, start fires and1 cause suffering and death to the British civilian population. popula-tion. They cannot impede concentrations concen-trations for the second front by precision pre-cision bombings, or bring decisive :onsequences of any military nature. WHERE EDUCATION nAS FALLEN DOWN If anyone tries to tell you tne American schools have not broken down in both scholarships and discipline, disci-pline, cite to them these following Tacts: The navy found incoming freshmen fresh-men at the leading universities so far below its educational standards. It had to institute the V program. In a test to 4,200 freshmen at 27 leading universities, 68 per cent were unable to pass the arithmetic test, and 62 per cent failed the whole test. Among the same candidates candi-dates for naval reserve officers training, only 10 per cent had taken elementary trigonometry in high schools, only 23 per cent had more than a year and a half of math. But, in order to enroll the number of men needed by the navy, Admiral Ad-miral Nimitz wrote in a letter to Professor Bredvold of the University Univer-sity of Michigan, November 21, 1941, that "it was found necessary at one of the training stations to lower the standards in 50 per cent of the admissions ad-missions . . ." Not half the graduates of the. elementary ele-mentary schools in Tennessee today can read and write well. The condition con-dition Is exposed in an article in the Tennessee Teacher by School Superintendent Super-intendent H. I. Callahan, who says: "The testimony of high school principals and teachers bears witness wit-ness to the fact that more than half the children finishing the eighth grade in Tennessee schools are unable un-able to read with ease, comprehension, comprehen-sion, .and pleasure; that they are very poor in the elementary mechanics me-chanics of written English," It Is impossible to teach the products prod-ucts of lax elementary schools a foreign language In college, as Dr. T. Braxton Woody, University of Virginia School of Romance Languages, Lan-guages, says: "As the sorry products of progressive pro-gressive education filter Into our classrooms, the problem of what to do with them becomes more and more acute. It is really unreasonable unreason-able to expect them to learn a foreign for-eign language since our modern educators edu-cators have failed lamentably In their efforts to sugar-coat the pill (of learning) ..." WHAT CHILDREN MISS If the parent will sit down with his high school child one night, he will find the average cannot figure the area of a floor if the sides are given In feet and inches; cannot name three countries in every continent; con-tinent; they would not know the capitals cap-itals of six states, or five rivers in the United States or any country. (A Philadelphia teacher, name withheld.) with-held.) Teachers are required to pass pupils pu-pils even if they do not do the work and this has created a generation oi lazy, spineless boys. (A teacher). |