Doctor MANN. On that one question we have got to have either the help of the Government, or we have got to have an adequate study of that thing.

Mr. DOUGLASS. And the educational powers of our several States are not sufficient to tackle that problem of the junior high school? Doctor MANN. No, sir.

Mr. BLACK. If you had the information from Government channels, what could you do?

Doctor MANN. Distribute it.

Mr. BLACK. What effect would it have?

Doctor MANN. It will supply these groups of teachers who get together with a sufficiently broad foundation of facts upon which they can discuss their problems not in a local, one State way, but with a knowledge of how the thing is going in the whole country.

The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, do not all these school laboratories and school systems have to run their experiments over a certain period of time?

Doctor MANN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Before they can arrive at a correct conclusion; isn't that true?

Doctor MANN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Then, if you arrived at a conclusion with regard to the junior high schools and you found, after all, they were not beneficial in the long run, you would save this country countless millions of dollars in the construction of buildings, to say nothing of the teaching force?

Doctor. MANN. Absolutely.

The CHAIRMAN. And that is only one of the hundreds of ramifications you will find in this situation?

Doctor MANN. Yes, sir. I can give you a case, Mr. Douglass. The question is one of financial management. You say, "Can't you teachers get that information, that we need to properly budget and keep financial accounts, and so on?" Our organization two years ago made a study of the financing of public education in four States-New York, Illinois, Iowa, and California. That study cost $200,000 to make, in those four States, and it has been useful in those four States, but not anywhere near as useful as if we had similar information for 48 States.

Mr. DOUGLASS. What would be the expense of publishing that information for the benefit of the entire country through the newspapers or some advertising agency? What would be the whole expense of promulgating to the Nation that particular information?

Doctor MANN. Well, the expense of 13 volumes of reports isn't much for those four States, but we need it for the other States.

Mr. DOUGLASS. Those four reports will be available in libraries all over the country, will they not?

Doctor MANN. They are. There is one other point I want to mention in that connection. There arises a very fundamental point of policy in regard to education. Is education going to depend for adequate study of these fundamental questions upon private endowments?

Mr. DOUGLASS. Don't you think private endowment has helped this matter of research?

Doctor MANN. It has; yes; and it is helping.

Mr. DOUGLASS. And to what extent do you think it is helping financially?

Doctor MANN. It is helping to the extent-well, it has been helping our organization to the extent of $150,000 a year. But do you want the surveys made by private interests?

Mr. DOUGLASS. If you are looking for facts. Whether the surveys are made by the Government or private interests, you can't change facts you find.

The CHAIRMAN. You can change the conclusion, can't you, Doctor? Doctor MANN. Absolutely.

Mr. DOUGLASS. That is just it, the conclusion that your secretary of education might reach might be detrimental to the country. That is one of the reasons we are opposed to this proposition.

Doctor MANN. You spoke this morning about the question of comparing the American schoolboy with the German.

Mr. DOUGLASS. I asked the question whether the American schoolboy was not as patriotic, as good a citizen as the German student. Doctor MANN. We have a case on that, published recently, a report of the Carnegie Foundation, on the subject of the relative efficiency of the American high schools and the German gymnasium. Mr. DOUGLASS. I wasn't talking about efficiency. I talked about good citizenship.

Doctor MANN. Well, if it is a question of whether the American high school turns out as good citizens as the German gymnasium

Mr. DOUGLASS. I will put the question to you that way. Doesn't the American high school, as constituted to-day, turn out comparatively as good a citizen as the German school of the same caliber? Doctor MANN. I will say that the American high school turns out a better American citizen.

Mr. DOUGLASS. And that is pretty good proof that our system of education is all right without Government contribution to it.

Mr. SEARS. I would like to hear you say something about scholastic equipment.

Doctor MANN. Let me finish this. The report says the American high school doesn't do as good a job as the German gymnasium, because it doesn't turn out men of as high scholarship ability.

Mr. DOUGLASS. It probably doesn't send out as good chemists, or things of that kind, but the American high school turns out boys of good character.

Doctor MANN. Absolutely.

Mr. DOUGLASS. That is what I am interested in, rather than pure scientific knowledge.

Doctor MANN. The point is this; that report was published by private interests, is the judgment of one man, and points the American high school teachers to the wrong ideal, namely, scholarship. Mr. DOUGLASS. Naturally, if we had a department of education they wouldn't report anything against American citizenship. Doctor MANN. The fact is, if you are going to rely on private interests only for this information, you are liable to get that kind of a report.

Mr. DOUGLASS. I am hoping to rely on your National Education Association and our own native institutions, and I think they should have spirit enough to carry on this work with some financial aid from private interests. I should think the National

i

Education Association should help us and give us the benefit of their advice and their experience, rather than ask the Government to go into a proposition of this kind that is going to upset, in the end, the whole educational system of the Nation.

Doctor MANN. That last statement is rather strong.

Mr. DOUGLASS. Well, that is my view of this bill, the future effect of it.

Doctor MANN. The thing that is upsetting the educational system is the 50-50 subsidy.

Mr. DOUGLASS. If you put it into the control of one department, as will eventually happen, the control of education, and standardize education, then you can, by standardized education, control the whole educative system of the country, and that is the danger inherent in this bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you agree with that, Doctor?

Doctor MANN. No, sir.

Mr. DOUGLASS. You don't agree that that is the danger, but that is the way many citizens look at it, and I want you to get our point.

Doctor MANN. Well, I have gotten your point of view pretty well, for a number of years, and I want to say that it is absolutely impossible to standardize American education.

Mr. DOUGLASS. Well, the Germans standardized it through just such a condition as this.

The CHAIRMAN. No, no. Nothing like it. Nothing like this at all. You are working in a matter that is entirely foreign to this. Mr. DOUGLASS. This as a so-called German, Prussianizing bill, in the end.

Mr. SEARS. Doctor, has there been any improvement in American schools in the last 25 years?

Doctor MANN. An enormous improvement, particularly since the war. Education has gone at tremendous speed since the war. It is going now very fast.

Mr. SEARS. You think the children are getting better instruction. And are they getting better results?

Doctor MANN. Absolutely. Education is going fast.

Mr. BLACK. It might be really better not to fool with it through this bill, then.

Doctor MANN. If you could see the number of questions that come into my office as to whether to choose this type of work or that type of work, where a little information would help somebody decide the question, you would be in favor of getting this information for them.

Mr. BLACK. Particularly I would be, if your organization is going out of business.

Doctor MANN. It is not going out of business just yet. But the problem is so enormous that if all the income of all the foundations were turned into this research business you wouldn't get the information that is needed, and the information as guided by private interests is spotty, it depends upon the interests of the individuals that take care of it. It doesn't take a national coherent point of view, and we need an information service that is under public control, that will take the proper perspective on the whole problem and give us the data that we need.

Mr. BLACK. Your office is in Washington?

Doctor MANN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any more questions of the Doctor? Mr. BLACK. I think it would be a good thing if you could give us some of those inquiries that are submitted to your office in this respect.

Doctor MANN. Yes; I would be very glad to show you the sort of questions the people ask. Doctor Judd is going to be here to-morrow to state the situation in the Middle States. He is the representative of the North-Central Association of Schools and Colleges, which handles this information gathered amongst the 20 States around Chicago. That association has been on the job for 15 or 20 years. He is going to tell you some of the specific difficulties they have there.

Mr. BLACK. Have they made any inquires of you where they have tried out the Bureau of Education and couldn't get the information they wanted?

Doctor MANN. Yes.

Mr. BLACK. Is there much of that?

Doctor MANN. Yes; there is a great deal, and the immediate question in the Central States and in the Southern States-in fact, four associations are coming here to-morrow, associations of colleges and secondary schools, to show why they are stuck on this question of the secondary school, and its interrelation with the lower schools and the upper schools in their own territories, because of the rapid changes now going on, and why they are incompetent to deal with the question adequately themselves.

Mr. BLACK. Aren't you afraid to have this whole thing go into the national political field?

Doctor MANN. Absolutely not. Some one spoke here about the principle of decentralized responsibility. It is coming into operation in such an effective way, not only in educational matters, but in business matters, that that principle is developing, and it is coming into operation in the Federal Government in its relation to the States. I am perfectly content that in education there is not the slightest danger of any Federal educational officer ever exercising control or standardizing or anything of that sort.

The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, isn't this a fact; if you had the facilities to furnish people with the real facts covering the entire country, then each State becomes self-sufficient?

Doctor MANN. Absolutely.

The CHAIRMAN. Because it is moving along definite and accurate lines?

Doctor MANN. That is the best stimulus.

The CHAIRMAN. And still each State preserves its complete individuality and works out its own process, but saves itself an enormous economic loss and all the wastefulness of following errors rather than facts?

Doctor MANN. Absolutely.

Mr. BLACK. Could you get up a list of the pending difficulties in education that might be cured by sufficient information, showing approximately what it would cost on each item?

Doctor MANN. Certainly I would be very glad to give you some of the major issues.

Mr. BLACK. Yes, the major issues. That is what I mean.

Doctor MANN. We have a list of things people try to get us to do that we can not get the money to do, and we never could get the

money

to do adequately. The Federal Government could command service and cooperation that we private individuals never could; all that is needed is the proper coordination so that the service fits together, in order to get the information from the different States and in comparable terms.

Mr. BLACK. By the way, how does the Carnegie Foundation feel about this bill?

Doctor MANN. They opposed the old bill. They are against the 50-50 subsidy bill. I haven't heard an expression from them on this particular bill.

Mr. BLACK. Neither have I. That is the reason I asked you.

Doctor MANN. But I should like to see the experiment made, as stated. I would like to see a particular subject set up in the Bureau of Education to prove the kinds of information that would be gathered in such a study and let you see what the problem is, that is; how it works out in practice. Suppose the Bureau of Education should make this study of the secondary school situation. This bill I suggested to you calls for $500,000 for two years' study. That is reasonable for two years' study, as we know by experience. If one study could be made to let you see the kinds of information the Federal Government could bring together and prepare that the States can not get separately, and just how that would help this junior college and junior high school situation, I think it would be a very practical way of trying out the thing. Let us give it a demonstration.

The CHAIRMAN. There is one other question I want to ask you along the same line. Have you had any occasion to look into the cost accounting of public schools, the various public-school systems?

Doctor MANN. Well, we made studies in four States.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you find this: That it would vary as much as 10 to 20 per cent in the administration costs in the various cities? Doctor MANN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Showing the enormous amount of waste that is going on?

Doctor MANN. We have more experience in the college field, where it runs as high as 50 per cent.

The CHAIRMAN. I don't like to mention cities, but there are two cities that varied all the way from 10 to 30 per cent in the administration costs alone.

Doctor MANN. Absolutely.

Mr. DAVIDSON. Mr. Chairman, I am now going to ask that we step outside the ranks for a minute and hear from Miss Clara Noyes, representing the American Nurses' Association.

STATEMENT OF MISS CLARA NOYES, AMERICAN NURSES' ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Miss NOYES. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I have been asked by the president of the American Nurses' Association to present this very brief statement of the position of that organization in relation to this bill.

The American Nurses' Association, which is composed of 48 State associations, and represents a membership of 75,000 nurses, has