The second great national need recognized by the bill is the education of our enormous alien population. Eight million of our 14,000,000 foreign-born citizens come from countries in which from 25 to 80 per cent of the population is illiterate. Millions of these people are illiterate or unable to speak English. . The lack of facilities for adult education makes it impossible for many of these people to take the first step toward becoming intelligent citizens. To aid in correcting this condition, the bill authorizes an annual maximum appropriation of $7,500,000 from the Federal Treasury for the use of the States in Americanizing our foreign-born adult population. A third object of the bill is the promotion of physical education. One million three hundred and forty thousand six hundred and twenty-three men, one in every six examined during the World War, were rejected for physical deficiencies. These men were supposedly in the prime of life, under 32 years of age. The great majority of their defects were preventable. "The economic loss to the Nation from preventable disease and death is $1,800,000,000 yearly" according to the report of Herbert Hoover's Committee on Waste in Industry. National educational liabilities Men rejected as unfit for military service... Yearly economic loss "from preventable disease and death". Yearly economic loss due to illiteracy. Child workers between the ages of 10 and 15 (1920 census). Children between the ages of 7 and 13 not attending "any kind of educational institution" (1920 census). 1, 340, 625 $1, 800, 000, 000 5, 000, 000 $825, 000, 000 1, 060, 858 1, 437, 000 Three out of every five teachers have less training than is generally required for teaching by advanced nations. The bill would strike straight at the menace of physical degeneration by authorizing the appropriation each year of not more than $20,000,000 for use of the States in promoting physical education. A fourth section of the bill further recognizes that the classroom taught by an untrained and an inexperienced teacher is a menace in a democracy. In the United States in 1923, 50,000 teachers with practically no experience and with no training beyond common school were attempting to prepare 1,000,000 children for citizenship in the world's greatest democracy-unskilled labor for work requiring great skill. Children can not be prepared for successful citizenship in our present complex democracy by immature, untrained teachers. This is no new problem. It existed before the war. The war exaggerated the condition, but little has been done that is fundamentally corrective. The great majority of our teachers still possess less than the minimum amount of training ordinarily recognized as necessary for successful teaching by other civilized nations. By annually appropriating a maximum of $15,000,000 to aid the States in the training of teachers the bill would strike at one of our outstanding educational weak spots. Nothing could do more to elevate the teaching profession to a place of respect throughout the Nation than by allowing none but qualified teachers to undertake the skilled task of instructing the Nation's children. Finally, the bill aims to reduce the glaring educational inequalities that mock the Nation's ideal-an equal chance for all. Millions of American children are now being denied any educational opportunity. One million four hundred and thirty-seven thousand children from 7 to 13 years of age were listed by the last census as not attending "any kind of educational institution." Over 1,000,000 child workers were enumerated, counting only those from 10 to 15 years of age. Millions of other children are being given such meager school opportunities that they may be expected to reach maturity in ignorance, lacking even the fundamental tools-reading and writing-by which information may be acquired. Should education have a spokesman in the President's Cabinet?—Some Federal appropriations, 1923 Investigation and control of hog cholera.. $510, 000 600, 000 Location and destruction of barberry bushes... 350, 000 Purchase and distribution of valuable seeds.___ 360, 000 94041-24-13 Prevention of manufacture and sale of adulterated foods. $671, 401 Preventing spread of moths___ 600, 000 Investigating food habits of North American birds and other animals. 502, 240 'Enforcement of United States grain standard act_ 536, 000 Printing and binding, Department of Agriculture.. 800, 000 Suppressing spread of pink boll weevil.. 547, 840 Field investigations for promotion of commerce_ 379, 100 Investigation relating to production, distribution, and marketing.. 450, 000 To promote and develop the welfare of wage earners.. Securing information for semimonthly reports on cotton production Testing structural material. Promotion of welfare and hygiene of maternity and infancy. For salaries and educational investigations of United States Bureau of Education____ 895, 000 175,000 4, 200, 000 165,000 1, 175, 000378, 000 241, 960 1, 190, 000 225,000 161,990* Such educational inequalities weaken the whole Nation. The intelligent citizen's vote may be nullified by that of the ignorant. The denial of school opportunities to millions of American children is a matter that deserves national attention. This the bill recognizes by authorizing the yearly appropriation of not over $50,000,000 to encourage the States to equalize educational opportunities. This money would be used by the States for the partial payment of teachers' salaries, for providing better instruction, lengthened terms, and otherwise providing educational opportunities for all children. The accomplishment of these five great purposes would infinitely strengthen our schools. They can be most effectively accomplished through Federal aid and encouragement. None of the provisions of the bill would result in Federal control of education. The bill provides in the most specific terms for the continuance of State and local control of the schools. Section 13 states, "That all the educational facilities encouraged by the provisions of this act and accepted by a State shall be organized, supervised, and administered exclusively by the legally constituted State and local educational authorities of said State, and the secretary of education shall exercise no authority in relation thereto; and this act shall not be construed to imply Federal control of education within the States, nor to impair the freedom of the States in the conduct and management of their respective school systems." The bill also provides that all Federal funds apportioned to a State under the act "shall be distributed and administered in accordance with the laws of said State-and the State and local educational authorities of said State shall determine the courses of study, plans, and methods for carrying out the purposes'” for which the Federal money is provided. SOME OF THE NATIONS THAT ACCORD EDUCATION PRIMARY RECOGNITION BY INCLUDING A MINISTER OF EDUCATION AMONG THE CABINET OFFICERS COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Frederick W. Dallinger (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. To proceed with the hearing on H. R. 3923, I believe Miss Williams said to-day she had some representatives from organizations, whom she wanted to have heard in behalf of the bill. Miss WILLIAMS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we have had four sessions of this committee at which we had speakers to appear to discuss the constitutional questions involved and to present all statistical and technical information which the committee might desire for its further consideration of this piece of legislation and, at your request and permission, all of this information has been filed as a part of the permanent record. To-day, we are going to show who is for this bill, what the organizations are; to tell something of their membership; how they arrived at their indorsement of this measure, and, since this is a bill advocated particularly and sponsored by the National Education Association, I shall begin with that organization and ask Mr. Joy E. Morgan, the editor of their Journal, who has had a good deal to do with the promotion of this bill, to speak for the National Education Association; that is, the parent body. STATEMENT OF MR. JOY E. MORGAN, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION Mr. MORGAN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the entire testimony which has been given here, I think, is overwhelming evidence of the powerful stand which the National Education Association has taken for this measure. You have been told how, growing out of the war, there was a realization of pressing educational needs that had to be met and how these needs were studied by the committee of the National Education Association, representing every section of the country and every branch of education, and how, after a careful study, a bill was drafted to meet those needs; how that bill was submitted to the profession, revised, and improved, and how year after year the organization has carried on an extended campaign for the passage of this measure. Now, what is the National Education Association? In the first place, it is an organization composed of some one hundred and thirty or forty thousand members who have paid in $2 for their annual membership, or $5 for a 5-year membership. The members are primarily teachers from every section of the United States and its Territories, many of them poorly paid teachers who could ill afford to take the $2 from their meager salary, and many of them undoubtedly are teachers who have joined because of the association's stand in behalf of this measure. The association is composed of some 50 State and Territorial associations. Every State association in the United States is affiliated with it. There are some thousand local groups of teachers, city associations, county associations, and district associations that are affiliated with it. The State, district, and local associations each year elect delegates which come together in a great representative assembly, that speaks for the 730,000 teachers of this Nation. That is the organization that, for five successive times, has indorsed this bill, in most cases unanimously. That is the organization, whose great Department of Superintendence, representing the men and women who administer education throughout the United States, has indorsed this program for six successive times.. This group, gentlemen, is peculiarly entitled to speak on the question of public education and on the great questions involved in this bill. I doubt if there would be any difference of opinion about this bill, if the Members of the great House which you gentlemen represent could go out into the byways, where the children are, and where the men and women are, and could have first-hand contact with such people as came before the last hearing and told the heroic story of how they had learned to read and write. It is because the teachers, who are banded together in this great professional organization, do have first-hand contact with the youth; it is because they do see the needs and feel the eagerness of the foreign born to get some touch of our national ideals; it is because they do see the pathetic picture of thousands of children whose lives are being cut short for the lack of a health program; it is because they do see hundreds of thousands of children who are denied education because they happen to live in areas too poor to maintain adequate schools, and they feel something of what childhood is missing because we do not have in America adequately trained teachers; it is because they see these things and feel the urgency of them in terms of the lives of the people concerned, that they stand for this measure. And, laying aside minor differences of detail or administration, I am confident they will stand for this program until it is enacted into law. Miss WILLIAMS. The National Education Association has some 23 departments, constituting various phases of the school curriculum and school administration, and, besides that, it has a number of standing committees, the membership of which is devoted to working out certain educational requirements. The department that meets in February all to itself, because of its huge size, is the department of superintendence. Mr. Shankland is here representing that department, and will speak for that group. STATEMENT OF MR. SHERWOOD D. SHANKLAND, REPRESENTING THE DEPARTMENT OF SUPERINTENDENCE, NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION It Mr. SHANKLAND. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, as stated, the department of superintendence meets in February. includes in its membership the superintendents of schools, including city, county, and rural schools. It has allied with it 14 other organizations, including high-school principals, elementary-school principals, deans of colleges, kindergarten supervisors, primary supervisors, and others who are engaged in administrative capacities in the schools. The department of superintendence considered, as it has in previous years, very carefully, the present condition of education in the country, particularly with reference to the bill which you have under consideration, and after careful consideration, as has been stated, for the sixth successive year, the department went on record as favoring the passage of this bill. I may say, Mr. Chairman, that the department of superintendence endeavors in its resolutions only to consider those matters which have a direct bearing on the schools and upon which they feel that they should go on record in the interests of the children. I think, Mr. Chairman, further, I might say that the members of this department, personally, are not actuated by any desire on their own part to change their condition, due to the passage of the bill, for this reason that its benefits, should it pass, would be largely for those in the unfortunate and rural communities; and, these communities, being poor, are ordinarily not present at our convention. Those who considered and who recommended this bill were those in the more favored communities, who were able to be present and to speak in behalf of those who were not present themselves. The resolution as adopted at Chicago was in words very largely as a resolution passed one year ago; in fact, the principal portion of the resolution is a precise reiteration of the resolution in 1922, passed at Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. TUCKER. May I ask: Had your organization ever indorsed the bill before 1922? Mr. SHANKLAND. Yes, sir. This is the sixth year-1923, 1922, 1921, 1920, 1919, and 1918. Mr. TUCKER. You indorsed it every year? Mr. SHANKLAND. Yes, sir. In the year 1922, in Chicago, in order that the department might fully understand the bearing of the bill and in order that both sides might be represented, we held an open meeting on Monday evening of the opening of the convention, at which nine speakers presented nine varying views regarding the bill. The speakers were the best that could be obtained to present their views. Doctor Inglis, of Harvard University; Doctor Capen, of the University of Buffalo; Doctor Strayer, of the Columbia University; Doctor Weavers, of New York University; and four superintendents of schools (and I presume a number of these gentlemen have appeared before your committees) representing all of the views of those who are very strong for the bill as, for instance, Doctor Strayer, and those who are quite definitely of the other view, as, for instance, Doctor Inglis. That was the best public presentation that has been made in any educational meeting which I attended. At the conclusion of that debate, and after very careful consideration, the department went on record in favor of the bill again, either unanimously or practically unanimously. I sat on the stage and was unable to note any who voted against it, although I was informed there were three or four who so voted. The CHAIRMAN. You do not think, Doctor, the fact that this bill contains an appropriation, which can be used to pay local teachers' salaries, has any effect at all on the membership of the association? Mr. SHANKLAND. I think, as far as the superintendents themselves, Mr. Chairman, are concerned, it would not affect them, for the reason stated, that they represent the wealthier communities, and probably would pay more, if you pro rate the payments (their communities would pay in more, would be assessed a greater sum |