FEAR OF CHANGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-06365A001000050025-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2000
• Sequence Number: 25
• Content Type: MISC

Approved For Release 20~ 9/08 : CIA-RDP78-06365AO0100005000225-0
.Almost 2000 years before the invention of the printing press
)..rates was teaching on the streets of Athens. Socrates wrote
nothing himself and taught solely through the medium of verbal
i_ri.terchange between teacher and pupil. His pupils, Plato and
Xtex ophon, and the printing press enable us today to evaluate the
eatitees of Socrates as a teacher,
it is perhaps a futKle exercise to speculate on what attitude
Socrates would have taken toward the printing press had it been
invented 2000 years earlier, As a non-textbook writing teacher.
would he have feared the competition of the printing press? Well
never know; but wFre can surmise that because he was not only a
great teacher but also a man of great wisdom, he would have wet-,
coned the new medium.,, We're on surer ground when we state that
even though. Socrates might: have feared the possible competition of
he printing press, he could not have stopped its evolution,
The Frenchman, Nicholas Joseph Cugnot, is generally credited
with inventing the first selfpropelled vehicle in the year 1769. And
what a host of fear necroses this first "automobile" produced! Not
only physical fear, but we can assume also, fear of competition from
aorne farsighted but misguided horse breeders. Whatever the source
of the fear, it grew to such proportions that so august and presumably
intelligent a body as the British Parliament passed the Red Flag Act
U) 1336,, One of the provisions of the law made it illegal for a self-
vehicle to proceed at a speed in excess of four miles per
-uour ! The p revisions of the Act from which its name was derived
required that all self-propelled vehicles be preceded in daylight by
a man waving a red flag and at x~:';,.ttitrxe, a red lantern !
The Red Flag Act was not repealed until 169-6! We can only
'nest at the effect this 60-year ban had on the development of the
-nodern automobile, Obvic:uausly it hindered but it died not stop the
evelopment... Some of us believe that the automobile is here to stay..
ay horse breeders of race horses, polo ponies, cow ponies..
hht.#nters, show horses- thoroughbreds, quarter horses,, Arabs? etc,
y.: e among the successful members of our affluent society., In they
viral analysis, the only creatures who had good cause to fear the
advent of the self -,propelled vehicle were the city dwelling English
Siar rows who through the bounty of the city dray horses had neither
to toil nor spin very hard for their dinners.
Approved For Release 2000/09/08 : CIA-RDP78-06365AO01000050025-0
 pproved For Release 2009/08 : CIA-RDP78-06365AO01000050045-0
..Alexander Graham. Bell's telephone in 1876 was greeted with
hues and cries. Diverse church groups Joined to denounce it as an
"ungodly instrument, ?t Teenagers of the 19th century were forbidden
e,o use the telephone for fear of electric shock or "insidious infection" !
Alas, progress!
The Wright brothers in 1903 managed to keep their aeroplane
in the air for only 12 seconds on their first flight., Unfortunately
the biographer of Henry Ford, Sr. is silent on whether the developer
of the Model T feared the ultimate competition of the airplane.
In our own time, we can remember how alarmed were the
makers of phonographs and phonograph records over the competition
of the radio, In turn, the manufacturers of the radio feared the
advent of television. But today all three media are flourishing.
And in the sixth decade of the 20th century teachers and training
.dministrators are confronted with Programmed Assisted Instruction
;PAI) and Computer Assisted Instruction 'CAI, Whither?
Approved For Release 2000/09/08 : CIA-RDP7?6-06365A001000050025-0