The Ford Boys (pdf) - Wisconsin Alumni Association

Though they retired in the 1980s, Herb and Evelyn Howe still keep in touch with many former
Ford scholars, such as Earl Dolven (right). In 2000, many Fordies returned to Madison to create
a named professorship in the Howes’ honor.
Bridging the Gap between School and College
in 1953 and They Went to College Early in
1957. Both studies trumpeted the program’s
achievements, the second concluding,
“It has become increasingly
clear that ... we must not fail to provide
for the fullest possible development for
our ablest young people. The Fund for
the Advancement of Education believes
that the Early Admission Experiment
has clearly demonstrated its promise as a
means to that end.”
But that was the last the Fund had to
say about the Ford Boys. It never examined
the study again.
“In the end the program was just an
experiment,” says Howe. “The classes
ran their course, the grant ran out, and it
came to an end.”
Meanwhile in the Cold War ...
But the program was the victim of more
than an expiration date. Throughout the
1950s, the pillars of support for the
Early Admission Experiment fell away
one by one.
In 1953, the fighting in Korea
stopped. There was no peace, only an
armistice, but that was enough to alleviate
the Pentagon’s personnel crunch.
Talk of a universal draft ceased.
In 1954, the Ford Boys’ most powerful
advocate departed. Increasingly
worried about McCarthyism, Robert
Hutchins left the Fund for the Advancement
of Education, becoming instead the
president of the Ford Foundation’s Fund
for the Republic, which was concerned
with protecting civil liberties.
Worse, the program began to meet
resistance within high schools, which
were growing reluctant to surrender
their best students to college ahead of
schedule. Sensing a need to be diplomatic
with education officials, the UW
gave the Early Admission Experiment a
cautious review. In 1957, when the Fund
for the Advancement of Education gave
its final evaluation of the Ford Boys, the
university reversed Howe’s appraisal:
“Our experience shows that early admission
demands what appears to be an
unusual combination of intellectual and
social precocity. It is probably not as rare
as it seems on the surface; there may be
as many as a fifth of most high school
classes who could make the grade. But
the vast majority of these would probably
gain nothing by early admission, and
the principals have undoubtedly been
wise when they have hesitated in recommending
many applicants.” Of the twelve
schools involved in the study, only the
UW declined to make a standard policy
to accommodate early admissions.
Today, the university remains reluctant
to welcome high-school age students
into the student body. A high school
diploma is a requirement for all incoming
freshmen, and though Rob Seltzer, UW-
Madison’s director of admissions, can
waive that requirement for particularly
qualified students, he very seldom does.
“It’s a UW System policy,” he says.
“High schools really wouldn’t be happy
if colleges came along and raided all of
their best kids. Their statistics would
start to look awful, and then No Child
Left Behind gets after them.”
But for most of the Ford Boys and
Girls, the program opened a path to a
brighter future. “At the very least,” says
Howe, “most of them managed to avoid
the draft.”
Holbrow, who felt the program didn’t
pay enough attention to the students’
maturity, picked up a bachelor’s in history
and graduate degrees in physics and
served on the faculty at Colgate University.
He remains friends with several other
Ford alumni, including Israel, who did
graduate study at Harvard and became a
professor of Chinese history at the University
of Virginia. Romantic entanglements
continued to haunt Kolisinski, who earned
a degree in physics, and then fell in love
with a friend’s fiancée and dropped out of
graduate school to join the army. He eventually
earned a PhD and now works in
aerospace. And Dolven, who escaped
Horace, North Dakota, earned a degree in
mathematics. Along with David Rothman,
he spent a year doing post-graduate math
study at Harvard before leaving to work
for Rocketdyne in Los Angeles. Today he’s
an attorney in Berkeley, California.
“Ford brought together a unique
combination of the young and successful,”
says Louise Trubek, who studied
law at Yale and is now on the faculty of
UW-Madison’s Law School. “That gave
me a sense of courage the rest of my life.
It really is a shame that this program isn’t
done anymore.”
John Allen, associate editor of On Wisconsin, was
not a Ford Boy, though he has driven a
SPRING 2005 35