Mr. LEATHERWOOD. You underestimate; they claim 2,000,000. I wonder if you can give us any idea how many, at the time the resolution was passed, endorsing this legislation, or similar legislation, were present or knew anything about it.

Doctor DAVIDSON. I almost hesitate, even before this committee, to make this frank admission, but I want to answer that question just as definitely as I think I understand it. The women of that organization, as a whole, are better informed upon the provisions of this bill than even the teaching body of America itself. They have their committees on legislation in every local organization in my town and every other town of which I have knowledge. They have been promoting interest in this bill from the time of its first appearance down to the present time, insistently and without hesitancy, every year, in their meetings and conventions. That has been the situation in every town I have lived in and in every town I have visited. You can always find the organization to which you refer deeply interested in this bill and working for its passage.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Well, I am pretty intimately connected with the organization myself. I think I know pretty well under what circumstances the resolution was passed, and while they may, since that time, have discussed it at their various clubs, I don't think a very large percentage of the women knew anything about it when the resolution was passed.

Doctor DAVIDSON. I concede that this is likely to take place in any organization, or even in a committee, like your own. But I think we should understand that before action is taken on important questions, there has usually been much preliminary discussion. Does not the Congress of the United States act in a similar way for the large constituency which it represents?

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. I am very much interested in just how much individual attention has been paid to it. This same organization, I happen to know, at a certain meeting very soon after the resolu tion we were discussing was passed, passed a group of resolutions en bloc, and in talking with one of the directors of the organization, asking when a certain resolution included in the bloc was passed, she had no recollection of it and didn't know such a resolution had been passed. I was wondering whether or not the whole membership had given this question consideration, and whether or not the resolution. of the board of directors of the General Federation of Womens' Clubs reflected the best thought and judgment of the membership of this great organization.

Mr. ROBSION. Mr. Leatherwood, even that director who didn't know the resolution was passed-don't we many a time, familiar as we are with legislation in the House, find that a certain bill has been passed and we have not known anything about it until we read about it in the newspapers the next morning? But we know what is in the bill.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Absolutely. And a great many times we don't know what is in the bill. That is what I am trying to get at. I am just trying to get at how much individual study has been given to it by the people who are urging this legislation. This director I referred to was present and voted on the proposition.

Doctor DAVIDSON. Well, I think our organization has been educating its membership to a remarkable degree, and, as you will see,

we have set up our national commission of 132 members. We have a committee of 3,000 that represents the State organizations in their several State, county, and local committees. Through the work of these committees we are trying to educate our own membership, feeling that if the people back home are educated that this committee will respond to our urgent request that this bill be reported out for favorable action by the House of Representatives.

Mr. BLACK. And you find it harder to educate us than the teachers? Doctor DAVIDSON. I am not sure about that.

Mr. SEARS. Brother Leatherwood, have you read the McNaryHaugen bill lately?

Mr. ROBSION. I don't think that is a fair question.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. I am interested in this, and want to say I was very much impressed with the statement made by the editor of the teachers' paper. I think that the school-teachers have given very careful consideration, as a body, to this class of legislation, and I think the organization with which you are connected deserves a great deal of credit, but at the same time I am frank to say that I think some of the organizations that are indorsing it know very little about it. That is, they haven't given it very much study.

Doctor DAVIDSON. The next speaker, Mr. Chairman, will be Dr. John K. Norton, specialist in the field of educational research with the National Education Association.

STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN K. NORTON, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Doctor NORTON. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to present certain facts and information with reference to the work that the Bureau of Education has done, with reference to what we might expect a department of education to do, and also to present facts as to how near the Bureau of Education has come to performing the functions that a department of education probably would perform. Before doing that I want to make one point very clear. If I were talking of a Ford automobile it would be no criticism of that machine to say that it did not perform like a Lincoln. That is my spirit throughout in dealing with the Bureau of Education. A Ford may perform perfectly considering the size of the engine and all the other things that make up that machine, but it does not perform like a Lincoln.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Give it the improved parts that the Lincoln has, and it would do the same work as the Lincoln.

Doctor NORTON. Correct. With that as an introduction, I want to make this very careful statement. The United States Bureau of Education has rendered and is rendering notable service. The schools would be lost without it. The Bureau of Education has fully capitalized such resources as it has had. After frequent and intimate contact with the bureau for over six years, I have nothing but praise for it as an organization, and for the efforts its individual members are making.

Due to the fact that my work deals with facts and statistics, I frequently go to the bureau. I know many of the people over there. I could mention Doctor Phillips, who is the head of their statistical division. He is doing splendid work and is issuing the best statistics

they have ever had in the history of the bureau. I want to emphasize the fine work that he has done.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. Let me get this clear. Are you connected with the Bureau of Education?

Doctor NORTON. No; I am director of research with the National Education Association and have no connection with the Bureau of Education.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. But you formerly had a connection?

Doctor NORTON. No; I never had any connection with the bureau. For the six years I have been in Washington I have been director of research of the National Education Association.

I want to be even a little more specific. The bureau is practically the sole source of information for such fundamental statistics as these; the number of children enrolled in our public and also in our private schools; the cost of the schools-we would not know anything about what the schools are costing if it were not for the Bureau of Education-the sources of school funds; how many teachers we have; the number of school buildings, and so on. The Bureau of Education is almost the sole source of those statistics and is the only source that gives them in anything like comprehensive and national form.

Mr. SEARS. Do they get those from State superintendents, or from local organizations?

Doctor NORTON. Both. Some of the statistics they get through the State departments, and some of them they send for directly, according to the class of statistics they are collecting. Now, so much for that.

I want to make one other statement. The United States Bureau of Education has attempted to perform the functions which a department of education would perform. Although the Bureau of Education has done fully as well as could reasonably be expected, it has fallen far short. In fact, it has failed to perform the functions we might expect of a department of education. In order to indicate that that is not purely an opinion of my own, I would like to quote from two reports of the present United States Commissioner of Education. He said in his 1921 report-this is Doctor Tigert, Commissioner of Education at the present time-as follows (reading):

I am of the opinion that the Department [of the Interior] should seriously consider the question as to the advisability of continuing the Bureau of Educa tion on the present basis of wholly inadequate support. The need for a national governmental agency to perform the functions expected of this bureau is imperative and unquestioned. The efforts to meet the need, however, are largely nullified by the legislative restrictions and financial limitations by which the bureau is at present handicapped. In my judgment, it would be better for the Federal Government to withdraw from this field of activity entirely unless provision is to be made for it on a more liberal basis, and the policy definitely adopted of attempting to render in an effective and authoritative way the kinds of constructive service which the people and the educators themselves demand. It is futile to continue this organization on the present penurious basis and to expect returns that will justify the outlay.

Now, I want to again quote from a later report.

Mr. BLACK. What is that from?

Doctor NORTON. From the official report of the Commissioner of Education in 1925.

Mr. BLACK. You do not happen to know what his appropriation was for that year?

Doctor NORTON. No, sir; I can not give you the amount.
Mr. BLACK. You can put it in the record.

Doctor NORTON. I have tables here for every year from 1870 on, from the bureau.

For nonadministrative or investigational work. Does not include appropriations for printing, approximately $45,000 a year.

Growth of national resources and school and Bureau of Education appropriations

I wish to quote from Commissioner Tigert's statement of 1925, in his official report for that year. [Reading:]

I have taken occasion to indicate in previous reports that the research facilities of the Bureau of Education should be considerably enlarged. Those responsible for school administration in the United States are in great need of assistance in certain important fields. The facts must be discovered before a sound educational method and policy can be formulated. No other agency can render such impartial and satisfactory assistance in the discovery of the necessary facts as a Federal agency in education, such as the bureau.

At the present time adequate provision is direly needed for study in the fields of curriculum organization, school finance, buildings and construction, teacher training, and secondary education. The establishment of the various types of service is dependent upon additions to the sums appropriated for the bureau's operations.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. I wonder if the same organizations that are urging the passage of the present legislation, or legislation similar thereto, have ever made any protest or recommendations to Congress to increase the appropriation for the Bureau of Education?

Doctor NORTON. Very frequently, throughout the history of the Bureau of Education. I personally have offered directly to Doctor Tigert to appear before the congressional appropriation committees at any time that I can do him a service in that connection. I should say that probably such increases as the Bureau of Education has

gotten in its funds in recent years are largely due to the hearings just such as this, which have been held, pointing out the needs of the bureau.

Mr. BLACK. What is responsible for the decrease this year?
Doctor NORTON. For the decrease?

Mr. BLACK. Yes; I understood from one of the witnesses that there had been a decrease of a number of thousand dollars. I may be wrong, but I understood him to say that.

Doctor NORTON. It may be. I have the figures. It has not been much, if there was any decrease.

Having that background of the long years-not merely 5 and 10, but 15, 20, and 50 years of ineffectual effort on the part of the Commissioner of Education to secure adequate funds, the many attempts the National Education Association and other organizations have made to secure adequate support, our final conclusion is that it is hopeless; and so that is the reason we are supporting a bill for a department of education.

Mr. BLACK. Will you supplement that table of these appropri ations by these figures showing what the commission has asked for, each year?

Doctor NORTON. Of course, that is extremely difficult to get. do not believe it could be gotten, accurately because the commis sioner trims his budget to about what he knows the Secretary of the Interior, the Budget Director, and the powers that be will approve. He has to be rather cautious. He is a subordinate officer in a very large department, and if he is wise, as he is, he does not run his head into a stone wall.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. I suppose that the people who are urging or recommending increased appropriations-the only hearing that they have is before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations?

Doctor NORTON. I do not know all the details of that. I know one thing, that the commissioner has to go through a number of people before he can get to those who are fixing appropriations. Theoretically he might disregard the wishes of his superiors, but of course that is never done in the Government.

Mr. ROBSION. I think you are correct. I do not think the superiors look with much favor on the fellow that is trying to reach out too far for appropriations.

Doctor NORTON. No.

Mr. ROBSION. For his particular bureau?

Doctor NORTON. No.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. And the fact is that the hearing is usually before a little subcommittee, and one man runs it?

Doctor NORTON. You know better about that than I do. I want to make one other statement before I go into developing my first point, and that is that the present Secretary of the Interior has been extremely cordial-anything I will say in the next few moments should not be interpreted as meaning he has not been helpful to the Bureau of Education. He has done as much as a man could do who must of necessity give most of his attention to matters that are costing hundreds of millions of dollars that are in his department.

Now, let us go to the point I want to deal with, what has the bureau done? What would a department do; and what is the distance between the two?