figures covering the phenomenal rise and growth as well as the increasing efficiency of the public-school systems throughout the country in the matter of wiping out illiteracy and other evils should also have been fairly prepared and presented to this committee? We hold that only absolute proof of poverty and inability on the part of certain States to provide sufficient education themselves-and that, so we contend, has not been presented could possible properly persuade the Federal Government to render State aid in the matter of education, and even then it would be very doubtful if the Federal Government should ever do more than assist certain poverty-stricken States, if there are any such. Furthermore, in our humble opinion, the confession of poverty and the plea for outside help should come from the States themselves.

It has been said that the Federal Government's interest in education would be greatly expanded and increased by the enactment of the Sterling-Reed bill into law. This, gentlemen, we do not believe. In fact, we believe the contrary. We believe that the Federal Government's interest in education generally, in all education-that is to say, in the progress of every reasonable and legitimate experiment in education, both public and private-will be narrowed down to an official interest in public education only, when once this measure has been enacted into law; and not even the most ardent advocate of public education will want to claim that public education and education are entirely the same.

We believe that a Bureau of Education in Washington-possibly a reorganized Bureau of Education-which continually casts its eye over the whole field of education, domestic and foreign, public and private, and which retains a benevolently neutral interest in all phases and ideals of both elementary and higher education, and which does not, by supporting one system or ideal, practically foster and prefer one against the other, and which is able, therefore, impartially to recognize the good in all, will in the long run best serve the great and general cause of education in this country, and in so far as the Government's interest in education-and we do not deny that is dictated by reasonable self-interest, the cause of this country itself will be served best by such a liberal policy.

This bill should, in our humble opinion, have been labeled "A bill to create a department of public education." Everybody would then readily recognize it as a measure which proposes to make the Federal Government a confessed and very practical and, we believe, a dangerous partisan in education. We feel that if this bill had been thus properly labeled, there would have been no need for showing that it is potentially a menace to private schools of all types. Its menace to education privately conducted would then at once have become apparent to all.

We plead, gentlemen, for those whom we represent, as well as for many who believe just as we do and feel as we do, but are not represented here, and will probably never be represented here in person, that you allow this proposed measure to die.

Mr. REED. Are there any questions that any members of the

committee wish to ask?

Mr. ALLEN. I would like to ask a question.

Doctor, you have been very fair, I consider, in your treatment of the question.

Mr. BAUR. Thank you.

Mr. ALLEN. Is not education the pinnacle ideal of our Government? Mr. BAUR. I do not know just what you mean by that.

Mr. ALLEN. Is it not one of the highest essentials of our Govern

ment?

Mr. BAUR. I will say this, as I think I have emphasized in my talk: That education is of vital importance to the welfare of our people and of the Nation. I would not say that because education is of such vital importance to the welfare of our people that therefore education must of necessity in all cases become a governmental function. I think I tried to bring that out at one point in my talk.

Mr. ALLEN. Of course your denomination, like many other Protestant denominations, has denominational schools, has it not? Mr. BAUR. Yes, sir.

Mr. ALLEN. Now, can you find anywhere in this bill that this would prevent or hinder your denomination or your people in having private schools?

Mr. BAUR. I think I have tried to bring out in my talk-and that was the essential point in my argument-that this measure proposes to take the Federal Government away from its neutral attitude, as I have chosen to call it, in education, and make of it a partisan in education; and I think the natural consequence of that, in the long run, will be that it will become a menace to private schools of all kinds.

Mr. ALLEN. Your denomination, as many other and perhaps all other denominations, tries to the best advantage to educate your people?

Mr. BAUR. Yes, sir.

Mr. ALLEN. Now, there are some people that do not have a denomination, and who lack that help and assistance?

Mr. BAUR. Yes, sir.

Mr. ALLEN. If the States, in cooperation with the Federal Government, could bring about the education and Christianization of these people and I desire to state that education is a forerunner to Christianity-I say, if the Federal Government could lend a hand in performing that service for the people who perhaps otherwise might never receive an education, or might never see the light of Christianity, would that not be proper?

Mr. BAUR. I would rather say that education generally is a consequence of the spreading of Christianity; and I would like to say that education should at all times, in our Government as it is constituted, remain the interest of those governmental units that lie closest to the people, namely, the interests of the States and of the local school units. As I have tried to point out in my talk, we are absolutely in accord with these governmental units taking up education and fostering it, and nobody has ever found Lutherans opposing public schools conducted by local units and by the States.

In fact, we are very much for having the public schools made as efficient as possible; also because, as Mr. Zorn has previously pointed out, a quarter of a million of our own boys and girls are attending those schools. We do believe that the States and the local units should have an interest in education, as they do, but that the Federal Government should not, except in the instances enumerated in my talk, take a hand in education, for the welfare, in the long run, of education itself.

Mr. TUCKER. Doctor, let me see if I got your idea. What I got from your remarks at one point was this: That if the Federal Government, by taking charge of the schools, or by giving bonuses to them-not having heretofore assumed any partisanship about it— took hold of a certain ideal and built it up, that the tendency would be that the Lutheran schools, the Baptist schools, the Methodist schools, and those good old Presbyterian schools, of which we know something, would naturally be affected by that, and that their ideals might be absorbed or might be taken away from them.

Mr. BAUR. Might I put it this way, with your permission: That the enmity and opposition which unfortunately exist in a number of States would gradually extend to the Federal Government, and that we would experience the same opposition to all, as I call them, legitimate and reasonable experiments at private education in Federal circles that we now experience in many State circles.

I would also like to add to what I was saying to you, Mr. Allen, that when I said that the interests of education would be best served in the long run if it were left to the States and the local units and, of course, to private interests, but that does not enter into my point now I meant to say this: That I believe that what we ought to aim at in America is the training of a self-reliant, independent and self-helping people. I personally believe that anything that the Federal Government does, particularly in the line of education, that tends to destroy the self-reliance and the spirit on the part of our people, which ought to be that they should help themselves as much as possible, will eventually destroy one of the things that we ought to build up in this country. I am one of those perhaps a little old-fashioned-who are absolutely opposed to looking upon the Federal Government as a Jersey cow for the people to come and milk any time they need a little pap.

Mr. ALLEN. Just one other question, Doctor. This may not be pertinent; if it is not, you need not answer it. Would you consider this bill, if passed, involving Federal interference or Federal aid in education, as being a detriment or as retarding the development of Christianity in your denomination or any other denomination?

Mr. BAUR. I would not put it that way. I think I put it this way before: I think this measure, instead of increasing the interest of the Federal Government in education, would severely restrict it. It would restrict the Federal Government's interest in education generally to education merely in public institutions, and education in public institutions covers only one portion-a very large proportion, of course of the general field of education. I believe and I think I am speaking for my people I know I am speaking for them-when I say that ultimately this will operate to the detriment of all private education throughout the Nation.

Mr. TUCKER. Let me call your attention to this, Doctor, just to see if I am correct about it. Look at the Carnegie Foundation. I am not questioning that they have done great work. But does not that foundation practically control the educational systems of this country to-day by its money? It lays down certain standards. It does not compel anybody to adopt them; but it goes to a college and says, "If you do these certain things according to what we believe is a proper standard of education, when your professors get to be 65 or 70 we will let them in on the Carnegie Foundation.' And that

old man, with his money-I am not criticizing him; I am not saying whether he has done a good work or not-but he has practically controlled the whole educational system of this country. I know in my own State that the University of Virginia and the Washington and Lee University, that were founded on a very peculiar foundation, which I will not go into, have abolished it in order to get in under the Carnegie Foundation. It is the power of money that works.

Mr. BAUR. Mr. Chairman, of course I believe, too-I think the next speaker will bring that point out-that the Federal appropriations will ultimately spell control of even public education in the States. That has been denied, of course. It has been said that the Federal Government can safely appropriate millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars, without exerting control. I would say to that, if that were true, then every good citizen ought to be opposed to the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars if you can not, through the expenditure of that great sum of money, also supervise the things for which it is expended; and, on the other hand, if you want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and actually supervise, that, I think, would bring about the very objections that the proponents of this bill deny that the bill will create.

Mr. HOLADAY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the doctor this question. You are from Indiana, I believe?

Mr. BAUR. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOLADAY. Do you feel that the public-school system of Indiana has ever been detrimental to the private school in Indiana?

Mr. BAUR. I am happy to say that in the State of Indiana the State authorities have not generally made the road difficult for us. But that is not the case in other States.

Mr. HOLADAY. Now let me ask a second question. Can you point out where there would be a greater danger to the private school from a national bureau than there would be from the State bureau of education?

Mr. BAUR. Have I not pointed that out when I pointed to the fact that the Federal Government would no longer be neutral on matters pertaining to education when once it supports one system of education as against others? I think that for the sake of this great educational controversy that is going on throughout the Nation, there ought to be remaining one governmental unit-and that, of course, ought to be the Central Government that remains out of all controversies as to education by remaining out of the business of education itself. Mr. WENCHEL. May I just answer your question to this extent? We can reach the local governments much easier than we can the National Government, when they infringe on personal rights. We can get hold of the State governments much more readily than we can get hold of the National Government.

Mr. HOLADAY. I may say this, to show that there was no malice in my question

Mr. WENCHEL. Certainly not.

Mr. HOLADAY. While I live just across the line from Indiana, I was schooled in a church school that established high schools in Indiana before there were any public schools; and the church that I belong to has many schools in Indiana now. I would like, as a matter of personal interest, on account of my schools, to have pointed out where they would be interfered with in any way by this bill; and, of course, if they would be, the Lutheran schools would be.

Mr. WENCHEL. Certainly. The next speaker will enter on that in more detail.

Our next speaker is the Rev. F. J. Lankenau, of Napoleon, Ohio, vice president of the central district of our body and editor of the Lutheran Pioneer.

STATEMENT OF REV. F. J. LANKENAU, PASTOR OF LUTHERAN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, NAPOLEON, OHIO; VICE PRESIDENT OF THE CENTRAL DISTRICT, THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SYNODICAL CONFERENCE OF NORTH AMERICA, AND EDITOR OF THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

Mr. LANKENAU. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the question of illiteracy vitally concerns us all and fully deserves the attention which it has been receiving during past years. The fact that we have about 5,000,000 illiterates in our country surely ought to bring that home to all of us. The draft during the late Great War awakened most of us to the fact that there were too many American young men who had not received a sufficient education; that too many communities, and even entire States, did not fully evaluate the necessity and the importance of universal education, though we will have to concede the fact that during the past few years there has been an awakening on the part of some of these backward communities and these backward States.

For years it seemed as if the earnest endeavors and unselfish labors of broad and liberal-minded men to arouse the public from its apathy and its indifference in matters of education were to be in vain. As I said, there was a strange artificiality to be noticed in many communities and States-a devitalized interest, if any interest at all-and this we know is exceedingly dangerous. The appropriations continued to remain very small and niggardly, notwithstanding the endeavors of these men to arouse interest in education, and despite many words and even pious promises and vociferous protestations, the appropriations, which were so very niggardly, were a practical demonstration of the fact that the interest in education was not as it should be.

Now, however, the State is a body politic, and everybody exerts an influence upon the other body. When one member suffers, they all suffer; when one member prospers, they all prosper. Therefore we must, as it were, be interested in every community, and it can not be a matter of indifference to us even if that community be very remote and very small. Ignorance is a voracious cancer which has a way of eating at the very vitals of democratic government. An ignorant citizen is a dangerous citizen, because he is swayed by his emotions and passions. A citizen, to be a good citizen, should, as it were, answer to an appeal made to the high ideals and principles of real American citizenship.

Now, I am sure that it is circumstances and conditions such as I have briefly alluded to that have caused the proponents of this bill to present it at this session of Congress. I am sure that the very highest motives have actuated the proponents of the bill and are actuating the supporters of this bill at the present time. Nevertheless we see certain dangers lurking in this bill, and, if you will permit me, I will just call your attention to a few dangers that I see, as an America citizen.