Astounding Science Fiction, August 1955 (British Edition) — page 129: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE ANALYTICAL LABORATORY The score sheet below doesn’t reveal, in its statistical averaging, a decidedly unusual, and very interesting effect that showed up this time. Ray Jones’ “The School” took first place—but the vote was almost solid 1’s; “‘Care and Breeding of Pigs,” by Rex Jatko took second—with an almost solid line of 2’s. And “Special Effect’? had an almost solid line of fifth place votes. The contested spot seems to have been the third-fourth place argument over “Eight Seconds”’ and “‘Pack Rat Planet.” Incidentally, the comments on ‘The School,” over and above the place- votes, were very strongly favorable. Apparently, a lot of the readers feel, as does Jones, that the homeostasis effect of modern educational techniques is extremely frustrating. But the score sheet comes out this way: PLACE STORY AUTHOR POINTS 1. The Care and Breeding of Pigs Raymond F. Jones 1.38 2. The School Rex Jatko 2.42 3. Pack Rat Planet Frank Herbert 3.00 4, Eight Seconds M. C. Pease 3.30 5. Special Effect J. Anthony Ferlaine 4.85 THE EDITOR TECHNICAL UNEMPLOYMENT (Continued from page 3) Two thousand years ago, Plato said that Virtue couldn’t be taught—it could only be demonstrated. We’ve made rather astonishingly little progress along that line in the intervening two millennia. However, the present situation of the world reminds me of a phrase an old Finnish-American farmer, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, used. He was talking to a younger man, who protested that a certain job was one he couldn’t do. It was impossible. ““You has to can!”’ the old man said. © Teaching “‘virtue’’—or ethical good sense—has been called impossible. | submit the Finnish-American farmer’s phrase applies; ““We has to can!” Psychologists say that it will take time to solve the problem of human per- sonality—that solving it quickly is impossible. Sorry. The problem of teaching physical science has been solved magnificently ; whether solving the problem of personality is impossible or not—we has to can. In most of living, it’s not merely a matter of getting the right answers. The problem is to get the right answer soon enough. Hindsight is invariably better than foresight—but it’s foresight, not hindsight, that keeps you alive. In the present case, it doesn’t matter in the slightest whether I, as an individual, am being improperly impatient in seeking to hurry the social scientists; maybe I am. But, to misquote Lewis Carroll, 127 cComicbooks.com