are being born into those communities surely does not call upon the Federal Government now to take a hand in the education of those children in those communities. It is contended by some now that because there are people who desecrate the Sabbath, the Federal Government has a right to step in and make laws in relation to Sunday observance something like the old blue laws of the colonial days, which would compel us to go to church or to sit quietly all day, with a long face. These are some of the reasons, gentlemen, that I would present to you as an American citizen why the passage of this bill would be harmful to our country, to our people and harmful to our public schools, harmful to our public schools because they would be centralized, they would become standardized, and all good, healthy competition would be stifled. It would be a detriment to our people because that would lead them more and more from self-government to centralization and to the evils of bureaucracy and paternalism. I thank you. Mr. Chairman, would it be too much for me to ask the privilege of submitting some supplementary notes which I have written out substantiating some of the facts that have been given. Mr. REED. We will be glad to receive them unless there is objection on the part of any of the members of the committee. There seems to be no objection. Mr. WENCHEL. Also I would like to insert a statement of the resolution passed by the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States. This was passed at its last meeting and consists of only one page. Mr. REED. If there is no objection that may be included. Mr. WENCHEL. Also a statement from the president of the Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. This is signed by the president, Mr. Otto Mees and the secretary, Mr. Carl Ackermann. I would also like to have inserted, with the permission of the committee, a short statement by the Rev. F. J. Lankenau entitled "Should Congress enact a Federal education law?" Mr. REED. If it is not too long that may be inserted. Mr. WENCHEL. And in conclusion I wish to say that I have been here in Washington 15 years and I know the political pressure, and I believe that this bill if enacted into law would bring the public school system of our country more and more under political influence. I also know one of the men high in rank in the Navy Department, and he tells me every time a new commanding officer is put in charge of the navy yard that everything is changed, everything overturned. So we would find the same thing in the case of a new Secretary of Education. When a new secretary came in we would have a complete change and probably have chaos, everything being changed according to the personal likes or dislikes of the new secretary. I would like also to say that the illiteracy problem is really solving itself. Why step in at this hour when the States themselves are realizing the importance of dealing with that problem and are taking it up more and more, why should the Federal Government, when such an improvement is already being made in the States as to illiteracy, step in and interfere with the work of the States in that respect? It seems to me we have had so many warnings from our great men, and their warnings and public utterances are often so much at variance with the documents or the bills that they sign; that is, they have not heeded their own warnings, due most likely to political pressure. We have all been warned against the increase in centralization here in Washington. Let us stand firm, because it is indeed the greatest menace. This department, as outlined in the bill, is only the beginning. Where will it end? It is almost impossible to say, and it will put into the political field the most vital thing, as we have heard, to this country-its education. I thank you. Mr. ZORN. Mr. Chairman, it has been remarked here very often that we are here as representatives of the private schools. I want to say that I have children in the public schools and children in the private schools, and my interest in the public schools is just as large or larger than it is in the private schools. That is my personal attitude in the matter. Mr. MANN. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Dallinger asked me if I would supply some witnesses for next Wednesday morning, and I would like to state that Professor Judd, the director of the school of education in the University of Chicago, will be one of the speakers. He is editor of the school journal in touch with the situation in the Middle West and I am glad to say that he is pleased to be here. Also Chancellor Capen, who was for years a specialist in the Bureau of Education and knows the school system of this country as well as anybody else, from personal investigation is coming next Wednesday, and I have also asked President Pearson, of the Iowa State College of Agriculture, who is the president of the Land Grant College Association, which has been receiving these Federal grants under the Morrill Act, and subsequent acts, all these years, to be here and tell you his experience and express the opinion of that association with reference to this legislation. (Thereupon, at 11.45 o'clock, the committee adjourned.) COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Frederick W. Dallinger (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Mr. TUCKER. Mr. Chairman, I have two papers here that I ask to be inserted in the record. One is from a gentleman whom I do not know, but the letter is a very strong one. It is from Mr. W. E. Chancellor, of Columbus, Ohio. I think it is quite an illuminating statement. The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, it will be inserted in the record. (The matter referred to is as follows:) Hon. HENRY ST. JOHN TUCKER, M. C., COLUMBUS, OHIO, April 25, 1924. Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: I am in receipt of a copy of your speech on the so-called SterlingTowner bill. In 1906, 1907, and 1908 I was city school superintendent of the District of Columbia, Roosevelt being President. He asked me to take the position, and I served several days before I saw more than the two board members who offered the election to me. (I was then city school superintendent of Paterson, N. J.) Ever since my experiences in Washington I have been firmly, unalterably, and completely opposed to any and every extension of Central Government powers, duties, functions, and burdens. I am in particular opposed to any larger development of educational authority from Washington. My reasons are as follows, viz: 1. If there should be any appointment of a head of a national department of education with Cabinet rank, such a position would not go to a leading educator for several reasons, viz: (A) No leading educator would give up a permanent post for the doubtful honor of a four years' term at the low salary of $12,000 a year. A score of permanent positions in education are now paying that, and hundreds of positions pay almost as much. Educators look to permanence far more than to mere amount of pay. (B) Cabinet positions go to laymen, not to experts. No admiral heads the Navy; no general heads the War Department; no skilled postmaster was ever made Postmaster General. Many Attorneys General have been in no sense great lawyers. Many Secretaries of the Treasury have not been expert financiers, etc. No really first-class university president or city school superintendent would be appointed to a political position such as this certainly would be. (C) An educator would be out of place in a Cabinet. The very nature of the work of education disqualifies a man from doing easily work of the kind required of Cabinet officers. Educators think and live 10 or 20 years ahead of the times. They should do so. That is their function. 2. Education is essentially a personal, private, direct affair, and the nearer its direction and operation comes to the individual himself, his family, his town, the better. There are no analogies between government and education in this respect. Of course, it is to the interest of the State that everyone should be well educated, but it by no means follows that government should go into the general business of education. In most States of the Union, though the public schools are supported by taxes raised through government agencies, they are actually controlled by boards of education not themselves of political origin. Rural school districts, county boards, city boards, and State boards of education are enough, perhaps even too much, to control this business of education. To add supervision by a department of education would be to regimentate this individual work of education into something monstrous. 3. I have watched with the closest personal attention the entire movement now culminating in this Sterling-Towner bill. I have seen the National Education Association become a politico-education machine with high-salaried officers and with limited suffrage. I was for 10 years a member of the program committee of the old National Education Association, and saw the workings of it from the inside. I have given 17 addresses before annual gatherings of this body, all of them prior to the triumph of these machinists over the voluntary workers, the free enthusiasts of the older days. It is as a profound believer in education, a believer especially in the research work of education, a believer who has worked actively for the new ideas and practices, who has built technical high schools, taught economics himself in colleges, made school surveys, etc., that I write this. I have been in every State of the Union and in every Province of Canada seeking to inform myself regarding the facts about education. I am mortally afraid of standardization of education lest it lower the level of the average schools and kills off the experiments and the enthusiasm of the progressive schools. The proponents of this movement assert that they favor the best courses, the best programs, the best organization for all schools. I submit that it is not given to any man or to any group of men to know what the best is. The notion that a man does know the best suggests to me that this man is on the road to tyranny or to insanity. Life is competition. Moreover, these people say that they will get more money for the schools. This sounds well. My own opinion is that the more the schools are decentralized, the more we allow private schools of all kinds and grades, the more that we encourage localities and philanthropists to get into the game of improving education, and the more we keep out these standardizationists, the more money there will be spent on education, and the more wisely on the whole. I might speak of graft or corruption, of tradition, of other situations that would increase under this plan, but these are obvious enough. In my book Educational Sociology, Century Co., New York, 1919, I worked out a theory of the main social institutions-government, religion, family, school, business, science, etc. I went over much the same ground in my book Motives, Ideals, and Values in Education, Houghton-Mifflin, Boston, 1906, and in other books also. But mine has been a voice crying in the din of the market place, unheeded though not unheard. I am against all movements that tend to take responsibility from individuals. I am a Jeffersonian of the old school, believing in localism, decentralization, democracy. A The notion that Congress has time to take on the control also of education is so absurd that I wonder that sane men can hold it. But they seem to do so. Cabinet seat for a politician to "bring up education to the level" of agriculture in importance is a proposition that should be laughed out of court. Education like religion and like family life is a thing apart from the business of Congress and of President. I even believe that the public schools of the District of Columbia should have an elected board of education and be entirely paid for by the people of Washington. I am, very respectfully yours, W. E. CHANCELLOR. Mr. TUCKER. The other communication is from Miss Crawford, a professor at Green Brier College, which I am proud to state is located in my district. Miss Crawford is a New York woman who has gone there as a professor. Her paper was sent to Doctor Pritchett first, and he sent it to me. I think it is one of the best papers I have seen, and I ask that it be incorporated in the record. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, that will be done. (The matter referred to is as follows:) THE EDUCATION BILL AGAIN Once more a bill has been presented to Congress "to create a department of education, to authorize appropriations for the conduct of said department, to authorize the appropriation of money to encourage the States in the promotion and support of education, and for other purposes.' The present bill is familiarly known as the education bill, or the Sterling-Reed bill (S. 1337; H. R. 3923), and is substantially the same as the Towner-Sterling bill introduced into the last Congress. The main provisions of the bill may be summarized as follows: The creation of a department of education, analogous to the Department of Agriculture or of Labor, whose chief administrative officer shall be a member of the President's Cabinet, appointed in the same way as the other Secretaries, heads of executive departments of the Federal Government. The chief functions of this newly created department of education shall be (1) to investigate and report on the following educational matters: (a) Illiteracy; (b) immigrant education; (c) public-school education, and especially rural schools; (d) physical education, including health education, recreation, and sanitation; (e) preparation and supply of competent teachers for the public schools; (f) higher education; and (g) "in such other fields as, in the judgment of the secretary of education, may require attention and study;" and (2) to give financial aid to the several States for the promotion of these special activities. The funds authorized by this bill for the operation of the proposed new department, and for distribution among the several States, are as follows: (Sections 6 to 11.) Administration, investigations, etc Teachers' salaries, and in other ways to "equalize educational Illiteracy Americanization. opportunities" throughout the States. Physical education.. Training of teachers. Total..... The grants made from this Federal fund are to be matched in each case by at least an equal appropriation from the treasury of each State accepting any part of this Federal subsidy, so that the bill actually provides for the expenditure of $200,000,000 for the first year. In addition it is contemplated that all the various Federal bureaus, boards, etc., now occupied with education will eventually be transferred to the new department of education (sec. 3), and with this transfer will go "all appropriations which have been made and which may hereafter be made" to such bureaus, etc. (sec. 6). The bill is silent as to the particular bureaus which may be thus absorbed (with the exception of the present Bureau of Education, which is expressly mentioned as one of the bureaus to be thus combined with the new department). It is therefore impossible to estimate the total of the combined appropriations which may eventually come under the control of the proposed new department. It is clear, however, that this would be no insignificant sum. The repeatedly avowed intention of the proponents of the education bill is merely to " 'encourage" the States to remove illiteracy, to "equalize educational opportunities," etc. Furthermore, all funds apportioned to the various States are to 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 course of study, plans, and methods of carrying out the purposes" of the bill. (Secs. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). Finally, it is declared that "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 mangement of their respective school systems." (Sec. 13.) Nevertheless, the education bill actually does provide that no State shall be eligible to receive this Federal bounty unless, for the purpose of "equalizing educational opportunity" (1) it establish by law a school term of not less than 24 weeks in each year; (2) unless it have a compulsory school attendance law for all children between the ages of 7 and 14 years; (3) unless the basic language of instruction be English; and in no case (4) unless it appoint a State officer to administer the Federal funds; (5) unless the State keep account of the Federal funds according to a plan to be prescribed by the secretary of education; (6) unless the State officer shall report annually to the Federal department in regard to the administration of funds granted under this act. (If a State be prevented by its constitution from full compliance with these conditions, an apportionment may nevertheless be made, if the conditions are approximated as nearly as constitutional limitations will permit.) These restrictions may seem wise and benevolent in intent. They do nevertheless smack of "paternalism," and are restrictions imposed by Congress upon the State administration of its educational system. They are therefore tantamount to an infringement of State sovereignty in a field where local initiative, responsibility, and control should be supreme, according to the fundamental traditions of our Republic. It may be easier to appreciate the force of the various arguments for and against the bill if we summarize one by one the points urged in support of such a Federal department of education, and then, in each case, immediately following, give the opposing arguments: I The interests of education and of the country as a whole demand that education be taken into account in establishing the general public policies of the Nation. Therefore, the national secretary of education must be a member of the President's Cabinet, and the appropriations provided must be commensurate with the importance of education in national affairs. Under the Federal Constitution, as is admitted by the proponents of the bill, education is primarily and directly the concern of the several States. It is decidedly contrary to American tradition, practice, and temperament to adopt "'general public policies," in so far as these policies involve uniformity and standardization in educational matters, irrespective of peculiar local conditions, and in so far as such uniform standards are set up by a central Federal authority, thus involving an abrogation of local self-government. In support of this point we need only call to witness the friction between National and State educational authorities, already aroused by the operation of the Federal Board for Vocational Education established in 1917. |
