AboutSue Kayton Expertise Engineer who has read thousands of science fiction books and short stories. Can recommend stories on specific subjects and comment on technical feasibility. Especially good at older out-of-print books and authors.
MANY years ago (probably 40 or more) I read a wonderful short story in one of the monthly magazine,
perhaps Astounding, Analog or Galaxy. I recall that it may have been in two or three installments. Plot:
A school for training pioneers for space exploration accepts its new class. The protagonist of the story
is a young man who is quite talented, courageous and creative, but begins to chafe under the discipline
of the school. He increasingly finds it too rigid, too rule-bound and suppressing rather than
encouraging him to develop precisely those talents he believes are needed by someone who would
explore the uncertainties of the galaxy. At least one other cadet (I think a woman) is in a similar
situation. They are confronted with a series of challenges, and while he seems to succeed in mastering
the problems, he does not follow protocol. Ultimately, after a "final exam", he is called in and informed
that he has flunked out because of his inability to comply with the principles taught by the school.
Discouraged, he returns home. Shortly afterward, he is contacted by someone else (I don't think anyone
he has ever met) and asked to come in for a meeting. There he learns that he will soon be appointed to
the elite unit of space explorers. When he protests that he just flunked out, he receives the following
explanation. In need of a new generation of pioneers, the exploration educators find themselves unable
to craft a curriculum that can teach people to be creative risk takers and ethical pioneers. But they CAN
create a program that no one who has the attributes they wish to teach could possibly tolerate. So they
create an academy where success can only be achieved by those who flunk out! Welcome to your new
calling.
Can anyone remember that story and its author? Or where I might find a copy?
Thanks much.
Answer I remember reading about a half-dozen such stories when I was younger. It was a popular theme among juvenile writers for about a decade. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of the titles or authors. Heinlein is a likely suspect as the author of your story.
Good luck finding it - few people remember, and nobody indexes, the old pulp magazines from way back. Try emailing the world's largest SF library mitsfs@mit.edu
