The future as it looked from the past

I have a book called Values and the Future on my shelf which I take down and read short passages from occasionally. In one article, Theodore J. Gordon offers “Forecasts of certain technological developments and their potential social consequences” from his vantage point in 1969. The prospect of wide-band communication systems suggests these possible consequences for education:¹

Ready and cheap availability of excellent curricula… might make education a respected and common pastime.

Canned lectures by eminent professors may make TV teaching superior to that in resident institutions.

University degrees will be extended to viewers who complete their courses solely on TV. Residency requirements may disappear.

1. Values and the Future: The impact of technological change on American values (1969). Edited by Kurt Baier and Nicholas Rescher. The Free Press; Macmillan. p. 185.