W r HEN the Defense Commission of the National Education Association was established in I94I, one of the functions assigned to it was to defend the cause of education against unjust attacks. The exercise of this protective function has caused many of the adverse critics of public education to misinterpret the stand which the Commission has taken in opposition to attacks on the schools. Confronted with mounting pressures against the schools three or four years ago, the Commission was forced into the position of having to draw a distinction between constructive criticism on the one hand and destructive attacks on the other. As a result of this action some of the more vociferous critics have concluded that the teaching profession is opposed to all criticism and is trying to uphold programs and practices which the public does not want. For example, in the introduction to his recent book, Quackery in the Public Schools, Albert Lynd wrote: With masterful disdain for the mere meaning of words, spokesmen for the educational bureaucracy have hit upon the cry 'enemy of the public schools' to describe every lay critic of anything touching their professional enterprise. Perhaps, as we look back, the word enemy may have been a harsh term to apply to some of the critics. I think, however, that Mr. Lynd's resentment, as well as that expressed by others, reflects the old adage, If the shoe fits, wear it. In any case the teaching profession does not owe any apology for the terms it has used in thwarting the efforts of the self-anointed, self-appointed and self-styled patriots who have carried on, and are still carrying on, a campaign of knownothingism and vilification against those who do not subscribe to their particular pattern of orthodoxy. These self-appointed protectors of the public interest have succeeded in creating a climate of hysteria bearing many of the weathermarks of an incipient stage of totalitarianism.