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college try, called Wallace "a CBS newsman who covered the Vietnam war."

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Not only are today's students ill-informed about events of the recent past, they are very, very different in other ways from their predecessors, including those young people who helped to make the movement what it was.

For example, according to the American Freshman Survey conducted annually on hundreds of campuses for thirty years by the University of California at Los Angeles, the proportion of entering college women in 1996 who thought there was a "good chance" they would participate in student protest was ^only 5.5%.

If today's young people cannot imagine themselves on picket lines and in protest marches with ^{as were} yesterday's student demonstrators, it must be extremely difficult for them to identify with Mongomery's bus boycotters or Mississippi's sharecroppers fighting white supremacy.

Thirty years ago, close to 60% of entering college women considered "Keep{ing] up to date with political affairs" an important objective; last fall, only 25% thought so .

Disassociation from the world of public affairs presents another obstacle for teachers; trying to explain past political engagement to a generation which is not itself engaged and does not value such commitment.

Finally, current public opinion polls reprt a marked difference in white and black attitudes toward present-day discrimination; large majorities of whites believe it is no