Browsing among my collection of old political economy literature recently, I
opened up a bound volume of Atlantic Monthly articles from the first half
of 1936. Inside the front cover I found a note to myself (no doubt intended to
explain why I had bought the book) directing me to page 70 (January, 1936) and
"Straws from Alberta"–about the election of a Social Credit government. The
author’s name is William F. Russell, but no information about any authors is
provided in the volume. A Google search confirmed that he was Dean of Columbia
Teachers College (as others may verify by using
http://www.tcrecord.org/AuthorDisplay.asp?aid=10828
and going down the list of Russell’s publications there to the one in my
Atlantic volume.
Russell pompously presumes that the election is a profound mistake on the
part of ignorant voters and devotes his article to the reforms required in
education to prevent such events in the future. In particular, he argues that
political economy ought to be an important part of the regular seconday school
curriculum. By contrast, the education system in Alberta focussed solely on the
basics of reading, writing and ‘rithmetic.
Keith Wilde
The Higher Learnin
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