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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (May 27, 1957)
TWO MEDFOBD (OREGON) MAIL TRIBUNE Monday. May 27. 1957 RADIOING FOB HELP, five men aboard bamboo raft Tahiti Nui are awaiting arrival of Chilean frigate Baquedano 900 miles off South American coast. Raging storm dis abled craft which has floated from Tahiti in attempt to reverse 102-day voyage made in 1947 by Thor Heyerdahl and crew. Eric De Bisschop, skipper of Tahiti Nui, believes trip will prove Polynesians settled South America. (International Soundphoto) Russian Educational System Said Tougher on Students Than in U.S. Editor' note: This Is the last of two dlspatrhes on the Soviet education system by the vice president and di rector of the Fund for the Advance ment of Education established by the Ford Foundation. By ALVIN C. EURICH Written lor United Press New York (IPI The Russian looking at our educational sys tem would probably say, "pret ty soft." In Russia, the schools are in session six days a week, 10 months a year. For the ninth and 10th grades, youngsters are in a class about seven hours a day. They are expected to spefid another five hours or so on homework. Compulsory Education By 1960 all Russian youth will be required to complete secondary education which ex tends from ages seven to 17. Such compulsory education is now in effect for about 70 per cent of the young people. Rigid curriculum, including five years of physics is prescrib ed by the Ministry of Education. The only freedom of choice is in foreign languages, where in larger schools the student elects French, German or English. Aft er making his choice, he studies the language for six years. Science Emphasised Other requirements include 10 years of Russian language and literature, seven years of history and social studies, with empha sis on the Soviet Union and the Communist Party, 10 years of arithmetic, four years of chem istry, one year of astronomy, years of biology and botany and six years of geography. Students also take practical covrses in surveying, drawing, machine construction, wood working, metal working and ag riculture. And before they finish the 10-year school they must know how to drive an automobile, a tractor and a truck. At the end of the seventh and 10th years the Ministry of Edu cation checks on the school sys tem and individual pupils through state examinations, written and oral. College Based on Tests Admission to a university or Jome other institute of higher learning is based on these ex aminations, scholarship records and such additional tests as the faculty may require. Russia has therefore surpassed us in provid ing equal opportunity for higher education in relation to ability regardless of economic status. Throughout the Soviet Union there are almost 800 institutions of higher learning with more than 2 million students this year. For others there are 1,000 post secondary technical schools (tekhnikums) training technici ans for industry, medicine, edu cation and other fields. During the next four years the Russians are likely to graduate two and one-half to three times as many engineers and scien tists as the United States. System Isn't Static In contrasting Russia's educa tion system to ours, I was in clined at first to think that we must be educating more crea tive minds. Then I recalled the kind of education which pro duced the creative minds that spawned our new major develop ments of this century Einstein, Fermi, Urey, Bohr, Rutherford and others. Most of them were educated in a system far more rigid than ours. Without a reexamination, we must not jump to the con clusion that our system is better for developing creative minds. Nor can we conclude that the Russians have the best, educa tional system. They themselves are working intensively to broaden and improve it. The very able director of the University of Leningrad, A. D. Alexandrov, in talking with us about their weak points, said they must raise ffie quality of their scientific training, provide students with more freedom for study and not merely stuff them as sausages. Clearly Russian education is by no means static. If a thor ough education means anything in strengthening a nation, Rus sia is clearly gaining ground. wonalYoWSi dUSa STEVENS 5? DISCUSSING aerial inspec tion, President Jbisennower tells newsmen he does not think U. S. can agree to Russia's mile -for -mile pro posal. (International). Remember Mallhus? In the time of Thomas Jeffer son a grim and gloomy preacher of the Gospel, the Rev. .T. R. Malthus, won a considerable place in the public eye by ex posing increase in human popu lation as an evil on the earth. There was nothing joyful about babies in his sight. The Rev. Malthus looked on babies and warned, "Stop having 'em, folks, or there'll be hell to pay." Nobody paid the doctrine much notice in this country. The Louisiana Purchase was made, the Lewis and Clark expedition was concluded. Too little land? Too many people? Phooey! Europe was over-crowded with humanity, to be sure famished, diseased, miserable humanity. Many wise men saw eye to eye with Malthus there. But most European people were not wise. They went right on having babies, amid disease, misery and starvation. And so they do today, with Europe suffering a hundred mil lion more people now than when World War II began. With babies being born in this coun try at the rate of seven a min ute, we of the U.S.A. are be ginning to take the old-time warnings of the Rev. Malthus right seriously. We know that nothing breeds Communism like hunger, cold, disease , and .poor housing. Thus, slum clearance. But where's it to- end? Where's hope? Maybe in trees. Too Many Trees Militarists have used the ideas of Malthus to justify war as a "necessity," as an old, tried and true means of reducing over population. But it hasn't worked that way, even in Communist China, where famine and pesti lence have helped war kill peo ple off and so somewhat restrict population growth. Ten years ago we read how the Swedes have lived well through the war on "oceans of milk" from cows that were fed on proteins made from wood. That process has been steadily improved. There are 'many other processes that promise in creased use of the forests to sup ply food and clothing for which the raw material is now prin cipally grown on acreage classi fied as "crop land." If the world has too many people, it also has too many trees. In the United States latest surveys show that growth ex ceeds harvest. The last credible report from the Soviet Union tells that annual growth in Si- berian forests is eight times an nual cut. Then, too many trees yet bar exploration from vast areas of the earth. Those trees may feed people. Our Own Food Forest . . . The United States has around 550 million acres of crop land and 489 million acres of com mercial forest land. Our govern ment and the general public still do not value the nation's forest acreage enough to jail the morons and arsonists who cause the burning of millions of acres a year. We still think of the forest as simply a source of lumber, and. lumber is looked on as the most of anything valuable in use that a dollar will buy nowadays. When we come to the point of eating lumber, as more babies are born per minute, year by year, then we shall learn, better appreciation of the real values of the forest. "Meals make the man," said Paul Bunyan. And science will produce pine pap and fir gruel for the babies, hem lock steaks for the men, and spruce salads and tea for the ladies. Come and get it! Hens' Intake, Output Claimed Increased Ithaca, Ne. Y. (IP) While hens have increased their output by 39 per cent in the past 30 years, their intake has increased by 38 per cent during the same period of time, according to Prof. C. D. Kearl, economist at the New York State College of Agricul ture at Cornell University. "There has been only a very insignificant decrease in the amount of feed required to pro duce a dozen eggs in the past quarter century, he said, adding that no one yet has been able to do much about getting more eggs from less feed. Kearl attributed any reduc tions in cost of feed per dozen eggs to efficiencies in milling and grain handling or from using less costly materials in the ra tion. Hens in 1925 produced about 136 eggs a year, but in recent times they have increased to 189 a year. But to keep up with the increased laying, feed require ments during the same nerind jumped from 79 pounds to 109 pounds. The feed item is of serious con cern to farmers, Kearl said, ac counting for 55 per cent of the cost of producing eggs. He said a survey showed that feed cost $4.23 out of $7.59 net cost of producing eggs per layer. Tito Celebrates 65lh Birthday Belgrade, Yugoslavia HP President Tito celebrated his 65th birthday Saturday by at tending "Youth Day" ceremon ies along with more than 50,000 of his countrymen. The president received the ba ton used in the youth relay to mark his birthday. Tito initiated the organization of this first "youth day" to replace his tra ditional birthday celebrations. Among the congratulatory messages received by Tito was one from Soviet President Kli ment Voroshilov who sent "best wishes of health and fruitful ac tivity for the progress of So cialism in your country and the strengthening of friendship be tween our peoples." Only yesterday Tito said in an interview in the official news paper Politika that -Yugoslavia should maintain good relations with Russia and other eastern countries. Germany's Plan To Use Suicide Squadron And Piloted Missile in Last War Revealed Red Fir Slabwood SUMMER SPECIAL 3 Loads J J 1 LOAD $12.00 Immediate Delivery Ph. SP 3-5878 or SP 2-5055 PHELPS FUEL CO. 1337 So. Peach St. Save this ad for reference Sunnyvale, Calif. (ffl The i little-known story of Adolph Hitler's "suicide squadron" and the piloted model of the VI buzz bomb missile was related here the other day by a mild-mannered scientist who was once one of Germany's top rocket and jet experts. It is the story of a desperate plan by a group of Nazi fanatics, led by an attractive woman test pilot, who hoped to turn the tide of World War II with a German version of the Japanese "kami kaze" corps. Fortunately, the war ended before the Nazis could pull the trigger on this secret weapon. But when the armistice was signed in May of 1945, some 250 manned models of the VI jet missile were ready to fly with 1,000-pound explosive warheads built into their noses. The story of this bizarre facet of the European war was told to the United Press by Willy A. Fiedler, the man who designed and first flew the suicide missile. Given U.S. Award Fiedler, a soft-spoken man of 49, came to the United States in 1948 as a missile consultant to the U.S. Navy and subsequently was given the Distinguished Civilian Service Award for his contributions to America's defense. He is now employed by the Lockheed Aircraft Company's Missiles Division here as a mem ber of the technical staff devel oping the Polaris intermediate ballistic missile. During World War II, Fiedler was a leading engineer and chief test pilot for the Fieseler Air craft Company at Kassel, Ger many, and was one of the origi nal designers of the VI pulse jet missile with which Germans started bombarding England dur ing 1944. Fiedler said the idea of the pi loted version of the missile started late in 1943 when "some idealistic people began to worry about the consequences of losing the war. He said a group of these peo ple, reportedly several thousand strong, volunteered to give their lives to prevent this from hap pening and demanded the piloted model of the VI as a suicide plane to carry out their mission. "With them it was not so much a question of Hitlerism," he said. "It Aas a question of Germany or no Germany." Woman Pushed Idea Strangely enough, the guiding force behind this suicide corps was a woman, Fiedler said. She was Hanna Reitsch, Germany's leading woman test pilot and a confidant of Hitler himself. She was one of the first volunteers and the one who had the stand ing and the audacity to go to Hitler and suggest the plan. "Hitler did not give his out right permission for the suicide idea," Fiedler recalled. "But he did give his approval for us to build the plane they wanted." The engineer said the volun teers were eventually attached to Bom Squadron KG200 to await further orders. "They all signed papers declaring they were willing to die for the mis sion," he said. "I don't know how many there actually were," Fiedler said. "I heard there were 15, 000, but suspect the number was more like several hundred. I, myself, met about 10 of them." Fiedler described Hanna Reitsch as a small, attractive woman of about 30 years old. "She had intense blue eyes and a good, firm handshake," he said. "She could captivate people very easily." Fiedler said his company dubbed the project "Reichen berg" and placed him in full charge of developing the dead ly offspring of Germany's first guided missile. Due to the nature of its design and small fuel supply, the VI plane could not take off by it self, but had to be dropped from a mother plane much the same as the X-model rocket planes now being flown in this coun try. Two Planes Crashed Fiedler was the first man to successfully fly . the VI. after two other test pilots had crashed in their attempts to try out the tricky little buzz bomb. He said he nearly came a cropper himself on his first flight. The first flight lasted only 10 or 12 minutes, he said. The plane reached 450 miles an hour and had to be landed on a wooden skid-type landing gear "I came in too high and too fast," he said, "and by the time it stopped skidding, the nose was sticking between two posts marking the end of the run way." Fiedler said the plan was to use the VI planes as aerial depth bombs in an attempt to do what the German U-boat fleet had failed to do stop the Allied shipping and prolong the con flict until the country's war ma chine could get back in gear. The tactics were to crash the plane in front of Allied ships and sink them with underwater explosions. "About 250 of the planes were finished and ready to fly war heads and all when the war ended, but none was ever used," the German scientist said. "Actually, a few of the suicide pilots were asked to fly against Russian trains in the latter stage of the war, but they declined be cause they didn't feel the target was worth the sacrifice," he said. Fiedler said he had always been thankful his suicide plane was never used. "It probably would have pro longed the war," he said, "and that would only have brought the atomic bomb into Germany." Holmes Hits at Opposition Factors Pendleton (IP) Oregon Gov. Robert Holmes hit hard at the opposition factors in the Oregon Senate in a speech before more than 250 Umatilla county Demo crats here Sunday. He said the Democrats' ac complishments in the legislature were pretty good "for the first time at bat." He said if it hadn't been for the 15-15 situation in the Senate, it would have been much better. "The Democratic party in 1958," said Holmes, "is the par ty that will return with a smash ing victory in the legislature." "During the past session," he said, "both parties have had to assume new rolls. In all candor, I have to admit both of them made mistakes, but the Demo crats have done a little better job of learning than our Repub lican brethern. We lost progress ' only by what I can term as the obstructionism of the 15 Repub lican senators." Fourth Air Force Commander Moved Hamilton AFB, Calif. Maj. Gen. Robert B. Landry, USAF, commander of the Fourth Air Force, is to assume new duties as assistant deputy chief of staff for personnel, headquarters United States Air Force, Wash ington, D.C., effective July 1. He has commanded the Fourth Air Force since January, 1955, having been deputy com mander of the Second Air Force of the Strategic Air Command prior to that time. The Fourth Air Force is in charge of all Air Reserve activ ity in the eight western states, trains and inspects the Air Na tional Guard, and is the coor dinator for search and rescue operations for all military and government agencies in the eight states. The new commander to suc ceed General Landry has not been named. L-L3I-UU u fffiCM bottles the test of both fejggM M J mm, i i mm uk ft k mty mi FULL YIAM OLD jim ham too noor tOTTLID IN IOND KINTUCKY STRAISHT BOUMON WHISKIY sen "n sow '4StT. only BEAM tastes Ilk BEAM . . . only BEAM tastes so good BEAM ... dittillenoftht world's finest bourbons since 1795 WORTHY OF YOUR TRUST JIM II AM MOOF 5 YIAKS OLD KINTUCKY STKAIOHY OURION WHISKIY $415 I4N 4S QT. 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