Knowledge is growing and expanding today at such a rate that many of us feel thrust toward a new frontier before we have adjusted our sights to the one we came upon yesterday.
As rapidly as new facts and inventive processes are discovered, they are put into technical production and become part of our everyday lives. Many of us who remember the first squawking sounds of the crystal radio sets catch our breath as news of an event taking place halfway round the world reaches us by satellite while it is still taking place. It doesn't seem too long ago that church bells sounded in uncounted towns and cities to tell the world that Charles A. Lindbergh, "Lucky Lindy," had indeed arrived in Paris after flying alone across the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, less than fifty years later, the world watched men walking on the moon, without need of bells to announce their feat. The moon shot was terminating in our own living rooms by means of the television screen.
Tomorrow, we are told, schools, libraries, even universities as we know them today, may become obsolete. A man will dial a phone number or in some way deposit a question of fact that is bothering him, and in seconds the answer will be flashed back to him, supported by generations of research and arrived at by computerized information retrieval. A child may wake up on Monday morning, swallow a pellet of concentrated food marked "Breakfast," and switch on the television set beside his bed to discover what the next step in his own private learning process will be for the day.
