Our major activities this year, as in each of the past five years, have been undertaken either with foundation support or through contracts with the United States Office of Education under the National Defense Education Act. In February John Harmon became Director of the Materials Center, changing places with Glen Willbern, who became Director of Research. Under Mr. Willbern's direction and through a government contract we have just completed a survey of modern-foreign-language enrollments in junior and senior colleges as of the fall of 1963. We are currently negotiating several contracts through Title VI of the National Defense Education Act. The first is to gather statistics on offerings and enrollments in all foreign languages in public and non-public secondary schools. The second is to make a survey of current college enrollments in all foreign languages. Since gathering statistics on the classical languages is not a justifiable expenditure of national defense funds, the Modern Language Association will pay out of its own funds the proportion of the total cost needed to gather the facts on Latin and Greek in schools and colleges.
A “Precious Minority”: Constructing the “Gifted” and “Academically Talented” Student in the Era ofBrown v. Board of Educationand the National Defense Education Act