Now, I think that suspicion is a little unfounded. I have known the foundation officers and their policies for many years, but the suspicion exists and it damages the whole enterprise. I would like to say one more thing before I take my seat, and that is with regard to the dangers of control of education through this measure that is now before you. I have come to the conclusion, after some years of studying this bill, that it is almost impossible to control American education. I doubt if the Federal Government could control education any better than it has been able to enforce prohibition. If it had all the facilities in hand, if it chose to set out on that track, I don't believe it could accomplish that end. Mr. BLACK. Have these private foundations endeavored to control education along the lines of their viewpoint through the research work? Doctor CAPEN. I don't think so. No. I was, however, at the moment addressing myself to the question whether the National Government could control education. I don't think it could do it. Our State governments, which theoretically are in charge of education in this country, really do not control it. The most potent one of the lot is the governmental machinery of the State of New York, the regents of the University of the State of New York, so-called. The regents control a few essential phases, mostly in the interest of educational progress, but, as a whole, they do not control the education of the State of New York. They never could. Mr. LEATHERWOOD. What do you mean by control of education? Doctor CAPEN. I mean actually directing it and telling what is going to be done in this and that school-managing the thing. I don't believe it is possible. Now, as a matter of fact we have a type of control in this country which I think most laymen know nothing about and which most foreigners who study education know very little about. We get our educational direction in the United States by voluntary cooperative action. The people that really control the direction of education in the United States are these associations like the one that Doctor Judd and his colleagues represented here this morning. They have vastly more influence over what shall be done in the schools and colleges, especially the secondary schools and colleges, than any State department of education in the country and vastly more influence than the National Government could under any circumstances exert. The beauty of that situation for us in America is that just as soon as the facts change, this organization, which really directs us, is so fluid that we get a change of direction in accordance with the facts. Now, I have not quite completed the thing as I meant to state it. We have these two ways in which research is done in this country: We have these voluntary cooperative organizations. They express the views; they set the standards. And we have developed in the last 15 years a plan of being guided by the facts that turn up through such scientific inquiries as we can get made. To my mind, in the ordering of the educational processes for the Nation, that is America's greatest contribution. We have stood absolutely aside from what the other nations of the world have done. We have done all this directing out of the vital force of the thing itself, by our own agencies, and I don't for a moment suppose that if a measure that provided for a certain type of super vision, such as is not contemplated in this bill, and such as we deprecate if such a measure were passed by Congress, I do not for a moment suppose it would really control American education. I can give you a pretty good example of that out of governmental workings in the Federal Board for Vocational Education, for instance. There isn't anybody in the United States that has any more potential authority over phases of education than the Federal board has, because it is written in the Smith-Hughes Act that money goes out to the States only on the approval by the Federal board of the States' plans for vocational training. I think it is not an indiscretion to say that when that board was set up I happened to be a member of the Government service. There were persons in charge of the board's activities who believed very strongly that it was their business to tell the States what to do, to control this phase of education in a drastic and masterful way, but they absolutely broke down. They had to. They couldn't do as they proposed. They had the power, they even had the funds, but the reaction in the country at large was so strong, and the force of facts was so great that they simply had to give it up, so that that clause in the Smith-Hughes Act which bothered some of us to death a few years ago is practically harmless to-day. It doesn't make any difference whether the clause is there or not. Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Can you give us a concrete illustration where a State has run in opposition to the Federal board? Doctor CAPEN. There was one of the States, if I am not mistaken, though I don't remember which one it was, that refused to accept the Smith-Hughes grant for some years, because of the insistence of the board on approving their plans or disapproving them. The State's plans were different from those which the Washington authorities desired. I think it was one of the Middle Western States. There was friction for several years. Conference after conference was held, and finally the board saw that that sort of thing was impossible, and its efforts in the last five or six years, anyway, have been thoroughly constructive and in line with our general philosophy in this country. Mr. LEATHERWOOD. I am very much surprised, and glad to hear that statement. It has been my understanding, so far as my observation has enabled me to go, that the States comply pretty strictly to the wishes of the Federal board. Mr. BLACK. What effect do you think this department might have on the installation of certain textbooks in all the schools of the country? Doctor CAPEN. I don't think it would have the slightest. Mr. BLACK. It has been intimated, or there have been charges that the publishers of textbooks have brought pressure to bear on the supervisors in order to get their books into the schools. They would be down here, too, wouldn't they, if that premise is right? Doctor CAPEN. Very likely they would, Mr. Black. Because we know that publishers have lobbied with local school boards. Mr. LEATHERWOOD. There is a school textbook trust, isn't there? Doctor CAPEN. I have heard it so stated. I have had practically nothing to do with that phase of educational work. I am not prepared to answer. Doctor DAVIDSON. Mr. Chairman, Doctor Capen has made reference to the number of educational activities that were scattered through the several executive departments of the Government when he was a member of the staff in the Bureau of Education. I should like to call attention at this point to the fact that these departments are still just about the same in number as they were when Doctor Capen was a member of the bureau. I beg to submit for the record a list of these educational activities showing their wide distribution through the several Government departments and the amount of appropriation for each in the year 1926. Approximate figures for Federal expenditures and appropriations for educational work in 1926 I. United States Veterans' Bureau, vocational rehabilitation... $17, 003, 245 II. Federal Board for Vocational Education__. III. Department of Agriculture: 1. Experiment stations... 7, 399, 017 2. Arizona and New Mexico school funds__ $2,735, 242 10, 167, 328 9, 615, 343 1,810, 294 885, 000 4. Naval reserve officers' training camps... 30, 000 40, 000 105, 000 VI. Department of War: 2,870, 294 2. Army War College.. 1. United States Military Academy. 2, 328, 711 3. Command and General Staff School.... 68, 390 4. Engineers' School.. 40, 599 5. Infantry School... 6. Cavalry School. 7. Field Artillery Schools and instruction__ 8. Coast Artillery School---. 9. Citizens' military training--. 10. National Board for the Promotion of VII. Department of Justice: 1. National Training School for Boys---- VIII. Department of Labor: Children's Bureau (includes $1,000, 29, 835 tion only)... 1. Public schools (this includes Federal por 2. National Training School for Boys- $2,715, 948 3. National Training School for Girls- 11, 500 17, 105 5. National Library for the Blind_ 12, 095 1, 250 7. Industrial Home for Colored Children__ NOTE 1.-These figures do not include a considerable amount expended in educational work by the Public Health Service of the Department of the Treasury and the salaries of Army and Navy officers in the various schools of those departments. NOTE 2.-It will be noted that there are 40 educational activities listed in the above table. They are as follows: These figures do not include the considerable amount expended in educational work by the Public Health Service of the Department of the Treasury and the salaries of Army and Navy officers in the various schools of these departments. The total amount which I have listed, appropriated in 1926, was $63,351,191. That list is the list referred to by Doctor Capen, and is the list usually had in mind when reference is made to the fact that there are a large number of activities scattered in the several executive departments of the Government. I wish to call attention, before introducing the next speaker, who will be Doctor Marvin, to section 7 of the bill itself. Section 7 reads: In order to coordinate the educational activities carried on by the several executive departments and to recommend ways and means of improving the educational work of the Federal Government, there is hereby created a Federal conference on education, which shall consist of one representative and one alternate appointed by the head of each department. The Federal conference on education shall not report as a body to any one department, but each representative shall report the findings of the Federal conference on education to his own department for consideration and independent action. It is believed that this section of the bill will in time result in a natural and proper assimilation of some of the scattered educational activities into the proposed department of education. The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, in carrying on the educational work in each of these various departments, there undoubtedly are times when the same research would answer the problems concerning one or more or maybe a half dozen of these activities? Doctor DAVIDSON. Surely that would be true. The CHAIRMAN. And as a result, if this section were to be carried into effect, it would eliminate much of the over Doctor DAVIDSON. Overlapping of work. The CHAIRMAN. Overlapping of work, yes; and probably save the cost of the department. Doctor DAVIDSON. Undoubtedly it would. 105682-28-12 But it should be made clear that the National Education Association does not expect to see the time ever come when all these activities would be transferred to the Department of Education. The CHAIRMAN. Not at all, but they would get the benefits. Doctor DAVIDSON. Yes; they would get the benefits. But I desire to make the further point that some of the activities would in time on their own volition desire to be transferred to the department of education. The future would take care of that matter, sanely and naturally, without forced transferrence. Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Doctor, did you ever hear of a Federal bureau that wanted to merge itself into another department? Doctor DAVIDSON. I have understood that there have been some expressions from time to time, given by some members of some bureau staffs, that transfers might be made in the interest of better administration, but I am not familiar with concrete examples of such requests. Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Well, I am looking for them, but I have never found one yet. Doctor DAVIDSON. It is a well-known fact that the tendency is not to make such requests. The CHAIRMAN. It is not a question of whether they make the request or not. It is a question of what is good for the country. Doctor DAVIDSON. Yes; and for the development of our educational institutions in this country. Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Doctor, I am very much of the opinion if we were to have a department of education and a secretary at the head of it, that there should be a centralization of the educational activities. I can not understand why, if Congress is going to legislate upon this question, we should not put the activities that should be under the secretary of education under him at once. Why wait for them to drift in haphazard? Doctor DAVIDSON. Well, I think that is a question that the future can decide better perhaps than we can decide it at this time. The bill itself points the way toward gradual and peaceful assimilation. Mr. Chairman, may I now present Doctor Marvin, formerly president of the University of Arizona, at the present time president of George Washington University of this city, as the next speaker? STATEMENT OF DR. CLOYD HECK MARVIN, PRESIDENT, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D. C. Doctor MARVIN. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, the care and culture of man, I think we will all be agreed upon, is pro ductive of the greatest assets of the Nation. The second premise that I want to place before you is that a Nation that believes in democracy must of necessity accept the basic premise that educa tion is fundamental, and being fundamental, it must be dignified in proportion as we believe in it. I want to answer two questions that have come to me out of the hearings this morning. You asked whether the Bureau of Educa tion could not, in its background, carry on in the strength that it should have in the department of education. My answer to you this: If the newspaper has quoted right, for last year the Bureau of Education had $921,000. This year you have allocated to it $914,000, is |