Since we have hardly any criteria for measuring good teaching, we have hardly any instructions on how to be a good teacher; so much so, that the issue itself is generally treated with some embarrassment in academic circles. Except as one is truly an extaordinary teacher, in which case we defer to his gift, sustained interest in teaching is viewed as something of a gaucherie. This shocks our friends and distresses our students, but it makes perfectly good sense, since we conventionally assume that good teachers are born, not made. (If they were made, then we should be able to make them; since we do not profess to know how to make them, yet they continue to turn up here and there, they must be born.)

The logic is somewhat circular, and quite like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Having established that good teaching, when it happens, is essentially accidental, and hence not scientifically reproducible, we snicker at the “educationists” who profess to have identified “rules” for our work. There does exist, for example, a body of literature which employs scientific standards to identify the best methods for presenting various kinds of knowledge to students. Yet this is a literature which is almost totally unknown to anyone who is likely to make use of it. Thus its validity has not been tested, except experimentally.

Although random efforts to improve the quality of teaching, and perhaps to apply the same standards in our analysis of teaching that we apply in our research, seem to be increasing, it is, on the whole, unlikely that they will grow substantially. For the most part, such efforts are directed at curricular revision, or at restructuring of course contents; they rarely deal with the nature of the relationship between the teacher and his students. And, even when they do, they must overcome an ethic of futility which is firmly established in our graduate schools.

If, prior to the 1968 election, anyone had any doubts that the population statistics from the 1970 census would be of value to political scientists, those doubts would have been dispelled by the intensive use of census data in a publication of the U. S. Senate Republican Policy Committee on “Where the Votes Are,” and by the following statements in its introduction:

—Important laws may hinge on particular present or future population figures. Examples: Medicare, Mass Transit, Water Supply, School Classrooms, Food Production.

—Population data and projections are of great importance in considering legislation for the good of the Nation, regardless of political affiliation.

—Prosposed new legislation, or Government and political party policies, may depend upon—and with increasing frequency—the type and variety and number of America’s population.

—And, also, elections are won or lost by these votes.

Although the 1970 census reflects major changes in the method of collecting the data in the field, of processing the data, and disseminating the statistics, the content of the questionnaire does not differ significantly from 1960. Virtually all of the key items included in the 1960 census have been retained in 1970; a few new inquiries have been added on a sample basis; several questions have been reworded; and there are some changes in sampling rates.

What is the logic of an information law which:

• makes available a State Department Memorandum rationalizing the President’s use of troops overseas without congressional consent, but has thus far failed to make available World War II documents concerning allegedly repatriated Russian soldiers,

• which makes available a Federal Trade Commission staff study on auto warranties but leaves numerous other advisory studies difficult to locate and their status unclear,

• breaks loose a key Federal Reserve Board vote but has thus far left the votes and minutes of other multi-member agencies difficult to locate?

The answer is that the logic is not in the law itself, but in the kind of pressure put upon the bureaucracy to follow it. The Freedom of Information Act which became effective July 4, 1967 is not self enforcing. It depends upon the initiative and energy of those who want government information, giving them a tool with which to prod an unwilling bureaucracy. To date, this prodding has come principally from the press and interested business organizations; meaning that the information made available has been oriented toward the single news story, often an expose, or the isolated regulatory decision. This is certainly a valuable use of the Act but the pressure of interested citizens is not sufficient to force the government to make available the scope of information and indexing needed for scholarly research.

The organized scholarly community, while traditionally supporting the principle of free access to government information, has made no systematic effort to either assess the newly available information or to pry loose information presently withheld.