hereinbefore provided for, but such a question shall not be considered if onethird of the delegates present object thereto, and its submission by mail as hereinhefore provided for shall be ordered on the recording of a two-thirds vote in favor of that method of procedure.

SEC. 12. Action at meeting.-(a) On all questions before a meeting of this chamber on which a vote is taken viva voce, or by division, each duly accredited delegate from an organization member shall be entitled to one vote in person. A yea-and-nay vote may be ordered on any question upon demand of one-fourth of the delegates present officially representing such organization members and on such ballot only the votes of said members shall be counted. On all yea-andnay votes each organization member shall be entitled to as many votes as there are delegates present representing said member, subject to the provisions of Article VI, section 3. All yea-and-nay votes shall be fully recorded and published in the proceedings. An affirmative vote of two-thirds shall be necessary to carry the approval of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America upon any proposition or resolution which may appear upon the official program or be added thereto as provided for by these by-laws: Provided, That such a vote shall be void and of no effect unless the attendance registered at the meeting shall represent one-third of the voting strength of the chamber from at least 20 States.

(b) The list of questions to be considered at each annual meeting shall be mailed to each member at least 30 days in advance of such meeting.

(c) No question shall be received from an organization member for submission to the chamber at the annual meeting within 40 days of the date of said annual meeting, except in case of emergency and unless by a two-thirds vote of the board of directors.

BALLOT

(To be detached)

Individual and associate members of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States are urged to use this ballot to place before the commercial or trade organizations of which they are members their opinions respecting the questions presented in this referendum. They should not send this ballot to the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.

In forwarding ballots to commercial and trade organizations, individual and associate members should act promptly, in order that such organizations may have the benefit of their point of view before the organizations cast their own ballots. The period in which organizations' ballots may be cast expires on February 9,

1923.

I. Do you favor the creation of a Federal department of education with a Secretary in the President's Cabinet?

In favor..

Opposed

II. Do you favor enlarging the present Federal Bureau of Education?

In favor.

Opposed___

III. Do you favor the principle of Federal aid to education in the States on the basis of the States appropriating sums equal to those given by the Federal Government?

In favor
Opposed

(Name of individual, firm, or corporation)

(Address)

This ballot pertains to referendum No. 40 of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, on the subject of education.

DUPLICATE BALLOT

(Not to be detached)

Individual and associate members of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States are urged to use this ballot to place before the commercial or trade organizations of which they are members their opinions respecting the questions presented in this referendum. They should not send this ballot to the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.

In forwarding ballots to commercial and trade organizations individual and associate members should act promptly in order that such organizations may have the benefit of their point of view before the organizations cast their own ballots. The period in which organizations' ballots may be cast expires on February 9, 1923.

I. Do you favor the creation of a Federal department of education with a secretary in the President's Cabinet?

In favor..

Opposed

II. Do you favor enlarging the present Federal Bureau of Education?

In favor

Opposed

III. Do you favor the principle of Federal aid to education in the States on the basis of the States appropriating sums equal to those given by the Federal Government?

In favor
Opposed

(Name of individual, firm, or corporation)

(Address)

This ballot pertains to referendum No. 40 of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States on the subject of education.

EXPLANATION

The board of directors in authorizing submission of a report to referendum neither approves the report nor dissents from it. In order to inform the members as fully as practicable on the subject submitted to referendum a carefully selected committee is appointed to analyze each question and report its conclusions. The purpose of the referendum is to ascertain the opinion of the commercial organizations of the country, not to secure the approval of the recomendations voiced in the report. Only the vote of the member organizations can commit the Chamber of Commerce of the United States for or against any of the recommendations submitted by the committee, and until such vote is taken the report rests solely upon the authority of those who have signed it.

REFERENDUM ON THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

STATEMENT OF QUESTION

At the annual meeting of the national chamber, which was held in April, 1921, a group meeting adopted resolutions asking that proposals for a separate department of education under a separate Cabinet officer in the Federal Government should receive study by the chamber. These resolutions as well as subsequent communications from the Merchants' Association of New York, the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, and the Massachusetts Board of Trade, were referred to the advisory committee of the chamber's department of civic development.

In November, 1921, the advisory committee of the civic development department recommended to the board of directors that it should authorize the appointment of a special committee to examine the question of the Federal Government's participation in education. This recommendation was accepted by the board, and by its authority the following committee was appointed: James J. Storrow, chairman, Boston; Thomas E. Finegan, Harrisburg; Frank J. Loesch, Chicago; John G. Lonsdale, St. Louis; Henry S. Pritchett, New York; R. Goodwin

Rhett, Charleston, S. C.; Henry D. Sharpe, Providence; Mrs. Ira Couch Wood, Chicago.

This committee has now presented majority and minor ity reports, together with briefs of their reports. The board of directors has ordered that the questions presented in these reports should be submitted for a referendum vote to the organizations in the chamber's membership.

In accordance with the board's instructions, the briefs submitted by the committee are printed in this pamphlet, and a copy of the complete majority report and a copy of the complete minority report will accompany the pamphlet sent to each organization member. The pamphlet setting out the text of the reports will be sent to all other members that write for them.

PERSONNEL OF COMMITTEE

Storrow, James J., chairman, banker, of Boston; member of Lee, Higginson & Co.; recently chairman of the Boston School Board; formerly president of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, fuel distributor for New England, etc.

Finegan, Thomas E., educator, of Harrisburg; State superintendent of public instruction, Pennsylvania; formerly deputy commissioner of education, New York.

Loesch, Frank J., lawyer, of Chicago; member of Loesch, Scofield, Loesch & Richards; formerly member of board of education, Chicago.

Lonsdale, John G., banker, of St. Louis; president National Bank of Commerce, St. Louis; director, St. Louis Chamber of Commerce.

Pritchett, Henry S., educator, of New York; president Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching; formerly president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Rhett, R. Goodwyn, banker, of Charleston, S. C.; president of Peoples National Bank, Charleston; formerly president of Charleston Chamber of Commerce and of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.

Sharpe, Henry D., manufacturer, of Providence; president and treasurer of Browne & Sharpe Manufacturing Co.; trustee of Brown University and of Rhode Island School of Design.

Wood, Mrs. Ira Couch, director, Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund for Child Welfare, Chicago; formerly president of Illinois Training School for Nurses.

MAJORITY REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

There are really two major propositions submitted to your special committee on education:

A. Shall the States as heretofore continue to maintain and be responsible for the public schools of the country, or ahall the National Government take over the support and the control of our schools, or shall there be a mixture of the two ideas, namely, divided support and control partly vested in the National Government and partly vested in the States?

B. Shall a new Federal department of education be created and to head it a new cabinet position created for a secretary of education, or shall we go on as now with a Bureau of Education?

Whether some further consolidation of the existing governmental educational activities shall take place is a minor and comparatively unimportant administrative question, open for consideration and action by Congress at any time, whether the activities are to head up with a bureau chief or a new member of the Cabinet. The Sterling-Towner bill now before Congress is referred to not because it is a pending bill but because the bill was drafted after the most elaborate discussion and study by the proponents of national appropriations for our schools, and it represents in concrete, discussable form their ideas of what change should now be inaugurated in our national system of education. We can hardly discuss with profit a sterile abstraction.

The Sterling-Towner bill provides for the appropriation of $100,000,000 by the Federal Government for the public schools, and the creation of a department of education with a secretary in the Cabinet. Of the sum mentioned, the bill provides that $50,000,000 may be expended in raising salaries of teachers, though each State has authority, if it so desires, to divide the $50,000,000 between teachers' salaries and other objects mentioned, intended “to equalize educational opportunities."

The agitation for this bill represents the growing tendency to endeavor to centralize all Government activities in Washington and take away from the

people the practice of the control of their own affairs. If our Government is to survive it can only be by constant exercise of self-government by the people in things which vitally concern them. No activity of the Government is of more vital concern to every citizen than education.

Hitherto the management, control and support of our public-school systems has rested with the local communities and the States. Federal participation in education means a revolutionary change in the conduct of our public schools, for it is the beginning of Federal control. This is the inevitable consequence of appropriations of Federal money for public schools. The proponents of the Sterling-Towner bill have thought to prevent the tendency to Federal control by inserting a clause in the bill to the effect that the Federal Government shall not control the expenditure of the money which is to be turned over to the States. This clause is a Ford brake on a Pierce-Arrow car. It won't hold. The recipients of bounties are sure to be compliant to the views of the dispenser of the funds, even though his wishes are not embodied in words of command. The spirit of the law is more powerful than the letter. The bill itself contains the beginnings of Federal control, as it sets up standards to which the States must conform. It establishes a department of education with a secretary, and it gives him the power to withhold the appropriation from States which do not maintain the standards.

The proposal for Federal participation rests, first, upon the argument that the present method of support and control by States and communities has broken down. We have reviewed the educational development of the nation since the Civil War and find that, far from having broken down, the progress made in the past 50 years represents an achievement unparalleled in any other country. The total expenditures for public schools increased from $63,000,000 in 1871 to $1,103,000,000 in 1920, or more than 16 times, while the school population increased during the same period approximately four times. The value of publicschool property increased from $130,000,000 in 1870 to $1,900,000,000 in 1918. The increase in attendance, the average length of the school year, and in the average amount of education received by the population of the country has been remarkable, but even more notable has been the improvement in the quality of our schools, better teachers, better textbooks, better methods of instruction, better buildings and equipment. The whole siprit of public-school instruction has been revolutionized within the past 50 years. Never have the States and local communities been so interested, so alive to their responsibilities, so progressive and generous in the support of their public schools as at the present time. The steady decrease in the illiteracy rate of the population bears witness to the effectiveness of our public-school system. Despite the great burden thrown upon our public schools resulting from the enfranchisement of the negro (as late as 1880, 700 out of every 1,000 negroes were illiterate), and despite the admission of a host of illiterate immigrants without any literacy test (approximately three and a half million illiterate immigrants, mostly adults, were admitted from 1896 to 1921), the illiteracy rate was reduced from 13.3 per cent in 1890 to 6 per cent in 1920. As a result of the increased attention which the States are giving the problem of adult illiteracy, and as a result of the literacy test for immigrants adopted in 1917, the next census will show a reduction in illiteracy which will surpass all previous experience.

We have given careful attention to the specific charges against the present system made by those who propose Federal participation. We find that the picture of the shortcomings of our educational system is in some respects exaggerated and other cases inadequately analyzed. The important question in considering the criticisms of our public-school system that really have merit, such as the condition of the rural schools, inadequate compensation of school teachers, lack of preparation of teachers, is to know whether we are making substantial progress on these difficult problems under the present system. Looking at the situation historically instead of by the "shock" method, and discounting passing war conditions, we find that although we are still far from the standard of perfection we desire to attain, enormous progress has been made, especially in the past decade. We find also that the various special educational activities for which Federal aid is asked are by no means being neglected by the States but are receiving at the present time special attention in many of the States. In the case of physical education, for example, 38 States have already passed laws for health or physical education in the public schools. The problem of the rural schools is being solved in many States by the creation of consolidated schools. It is clear that our present educational system has not failed. There is no reason for scrapping it and no reason for putting the Federal Government

into our public schools, or for appropriating to-day $100,000,000 of Federal money.

The "poverty" argument is the other premise of the case for Federal participation. Federal aid is needed, it is claimed, because some States are too poor to furnish adequate schools for their children. It is true that the wealth of our States varies, but no State has made the claim that it can not provide a good common-school education for all of its school children. The relative wealth statistics of the States which have been presented to Congress by the advocates of the bill as the basis of the "poverty" argument show that the least wealthy States are all Southern States. There is an abundance of evidence, however, from official State reports within these very States that the real difficulty is not poverty but that their systems of assessment and taxation are poorly administered and are of an antiquated and ineffective character. In our report we have quoted from recent reports of tax commission in regard to conditions in Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi. As an example, we quote from the report of the special tax commission of South Carolina made in

1920:

"It would therefore seem to be a conservative estimate to place the value of all taxable intangible property in South Carolina now escaping taxation at not less than $300,000,000, which is more than 70 per cent of the present assessed value of all property of every character in the State.

"In directing especial attention to the escape of this form of property from the tax rolls, the committee has not been inadvertent to the fact that much real estate is also escaping. The committee has reason to believe that there are thousands of acres of land outside of the towns and cities that are not upon the tax books. The United States Census Bureau (1912) gives the land area of South Carolina as 19,516,800 acres. The acreage returned for taxation in 1919 for all lands outside of cities and towns was 18,693,519. This leaves 823,281 acres to be accounted for as town lots. Even in the cities, where the listing and assessment of real estate would seem to be comparatively easy, improved lots have been known to escape taxation for years. In 1915 the tax commission of this State had surveys made of five of the city blocks in Columbia and found as to three of them that two-thirds of the land and one-half of the buildings in one block were not returned for taxation; in another block twenty-three fortieths, or over half of the land and half of the buildings, were escaping taxation; in the third block 23 front feet, valued at $460,000, and a lot and small building, valued at $600, escaped taxation.".

The income and ability of a State to maintain a satisfactory school system depends only in part on the property within the area; it depends quite as much also upon the willingness of the people of the State to adopt a modern system of tax laws and assess to its real value the property within the State, collect a substantial tax on the property thus assessed, and then to use a substantial proportion of the income thus derived for school purposes instead of using it for other less essential purposes.

The very States on whose behalf the "poverty" argument is apparently put forward are proceeding to modernize their taxation laws and practices, and this will result in increased appropriations for public schools without undue strain upon the public finances.

We have examined in detail the basis of the distribution of Federal funds in the Sterling-Towner bill and find that the framers of the bill have been guided by political considerations rather than educational necessities. It is a log-rolling bill. More than $40,000,000 out of the $100,000,000 appropriation would be apportioned to the following eight States: New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, Michigan, Iowa, Texas. These States can not be classed as States with backward educational institutions; they pay their teachers well above the average for the country. There is neither an educational nor a poverty argument for Federal aid for these States.

The second question referred to the committee is the coordination of the educational activities of the Government; that is to say, do we need a Federal department of education with a secretary in the Cabinet, as proposed in the Sterling-Towner bill? The present bureau of education, established in 1864, although handicapped by the meager appropriations, has played a useful part in the development of our public educational system in the past 50 years. It is argued, however, that having the educational interests in charge of a bureau does not give due recognition to their importance in the life of the Nation.

Placing a secretary of education in the Cabinet would not necessarily add to the appreciation of the importance of education. In no country in the world

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