Doctor JUDD. Quite so. Or else I should think that any Federal apportionment to the States should be worked out by some equalizing agency.

Mr. LowREY. Doctor, your suggestion, then, as I understand, is this, that the question of these large Federal appropriations should at least be postponed until the question of a department of education is settled, and then let that department, whatever may be agreed upon, make the surveys and work out the proposition as to the. appropriation; is that it?

Doctor JUDD. Exactly so, sir. Now, Mr. Chairman, if I may regard that portion of my statement as disposed of, I should like to reinforce, if possible, what has already been said to you by the other speakers this morning. We have a school system in the United States which is essentially, and throughout its history, a system of local control. Some disadvantages come to our American schools undoubtedly from the fact that the different districts carry on their own educational experiments. I think the history of American education will show with perfect clearness that local control has brought us also great advantages.

We have tried in this country a great variety of experiments which could never have been tried if there had been anything like a systematized centralized effort to direct educational policies. We have grown to such proportions, however, that experience collected in one of these communities can be made of advantage to other communities only if we set up some agency for collecting information and distributing it. I think it is fair to call the attention of this committee in this connection to the very important fact that we have better school reports at the present time than any other nation in the world. This fact is due to the policy of our Federal Bureau of Education, which has devoted itself altogether to collection of information. There is no other nation which has anything like the type of school reports that we have. You will find that those reports were the admiration of educational authorities in England, and even Germany, before the war. I speak from personal knowledge. I spent the autumn of 1913 as a representative of the bureau making investigations in both of the countries mentioned, and I heard repeated comments by their highest educational authorities to the effect that our system of reports was better than could be found in any other country. Therefore, it seems to me that your committee should be urged to recognize that any new Federal educational agency ought to be one equipped to carry on extensive investigations and make reports that can go back to districts which have been from the beginning the real centers of policies in American education. Information will operate to guide and reinforce the local agency, and information will be free from the dangers which attach to subsidies.

In other words, I think that the financial part of this bill should be cut out because it is not in accord with American experience and American policy. The typical American policy is to have the Federal Government collect and supply information, make it available to all and allow the local communities to carry on their own work of experimentation and work out a policy.

Mr. BLACK. What is there in this bill that makes it possible for the bureau of education to carry on work along those lines that it can not do now?

Doctor JUDD. You have had reference to H. R. 6582, which makes it possible to employ agencies not now employed. In the second place it provides ample funds and by that very means the bureau would be able to do things it can not now do.

The CHAIRMAN. Which of these two bills would you advocate? Doctor JUDD. At the present time I advocate H. R. 6582. My opinion is that bill would be, on the whole, more acceptable to the educational people if its form were modified so as to give us a department rather than merely an enlarged bureau. It seems to me that the department by virtue of the immediate contact of its head with the President would have certain advantages which a bureau does not have.

The CHAIRMAN. What have you to say with reference to the statement made the other day by President Goodnow, of Johns Hopkins University, that cabinet appointments, being political appointments, would be more apt to bring the educational system into politics than a high salaried head for the bureau, or a commissioner who would be more or less a permanent officer?

Doctor JUDD. The answer which I think can be made to that statement is, that the Cabinet officer would be in a position to secure information and resources somewhat more readily than a head of a bureau. It strikes me, that at the same time, various bureau heads serving under a cabinet officer would secure all the advantages provided by the present bureau. I should be quite prepared to face the hazards involved in such a plan.

The CHAIRMAN. But you think the bill ought to provide in some way, as far as possible, that the man who has real charge of the educational activities of the Government should be a man removed from politics?

Doctor JUDD. I do, sir, unqualifiedly.

Mr. BLACK. In other words, you do not think that the bill makes the bureau too important?

Doctor JUDD. I should rather see the department under the control by an assistant secretary or secretary than to leave it in its present condition.

The CHAIRMAN. That brings us to the other question of creating a department of public welfare and education, as recommended to the President in reorganizing the departments, which provides for an assistant secretary in charge of the Bureau of Education.

Doctor JUDD. In my judgment that bill stands between the other two bills-the bill that would be most preferred from the point of view I have attempted to present would be H. R. 6582, enlarged to provide a department.

The CHAIRMAN. Suppose the substance of H. R. 6582 were included in the bill for a department of education and public welfare?

Doctor JUDD. I should be very much for it in that form, with one modification, as suggested by a previous speaker; that is, the elimination of the Veterans' Bureau from the bill H. R. 579.

Mr. TUCKER. Doctor Judd, I have been greatly interested in your statement about this educational bureau, which in our hearings here has been looked upon as the despised and rejected inefficient organism of the Government, totally unfitted for the work; and I have been very much impressed with your statement that the reports from that bureau have been the best of any country in the world.

Doctor JUDD. I think unquestionably the fact is as I stated, sir. I think what you have probably encountered in the early evidence is a feeling on the part of a great many of us that the achievements of the bureau are so good that they ought to be carried very much further. What has been done, has been accomplished in the face of very great obstacles and in the face of limitations on funds.

Mr. TUCKER. I am very much in favor of just that proposition, but I am not in favor of a substitution. If it has been so, I believe in giving it free course and letting it be glorified. But, if it has shown in its humble capacity in the past such power as you have given it, why not keep that on a basic foundation for good work, and enlarge it where it is needed? I understand that one of the chief values of it is that it gathered from 48 different States the different plans and schemes of education which are transmitted through this bureau to other States, and in that way there is an ambition created among the other States and an incentive which would not come from the systemization of education in the United States.

Doctor JUDD. Well, sir, in that statement you have certainly given yourself free course and glorification. That is not quite what the bureau does, and for reasons which I think can be made perfectly clear to you. The present reports of the bureau are made up in the main of a solid body of statistical returns, from which students of education can extract the information to which you refer. The difficulty is that a great deal of that information lies on the shelves for years and is not extracted, because of lack of interpretation and because the statistics do not come into the hands of those who want to try to interpret them for a period of two years or more. In other words, the excellency of the reports is seriously curtailed by the fact that the information the bureau gets is very slow in appearing and is not digested. What we are considering, therefore, in this larger view which you have expressed is the possibility of a bureau that will first amplify the body of facts collected and in the second place work out the information through careful interpretations and third have the resources to do all this promptly.

Mr. REED of New York. At the present time they have not the facilities to conduct the researches which they ought to conduct. Doctor JUDD. No, sir; and furthermore I am quite satisfied that some of these reports need verification. Last year Congress gave the bureau assistance enough to verify its statistics by going to the source of where these statistics are made and canvassing them on the ground. Further appropriations are needed to improve the bureau as now constituted.

Mr. LowREY. Apropos of the doctor's statement that the bureau has done such wonderful work with its limited opportunity, I am going to ask the committee's indulgence to permit me to tell a story. A white fellow down South was listening to a speech made by Fred Douglas, and he turned to a negro and said, "John, the man that made that speech was a half nigger." And the negro said, "My Lord, boss, what would he have done if he had been a whole nigger." [Laughter.]

Mr. MANN. Mr. Chairman, those are the three witnesses I have brought here to-day. If I may say a word in further evidence to the point which has just been raised by Mr. Tucker, I want to say that what Doctor Judd has said about the excellency of the reports of the

Bureau of Education, the long black row of volumes compiled by Commissioner Harris is of very great value. I think every one who has studied the American School has reference to those continuously all the time. I know it is so in my own case. The thing that is needed is putting into the hands of the bureau adequate facilities, and I think you got the point that those of us who will study this as friendly critics are not very particular whether the thing is a bureau or division of a department, or department, provided it is so organized that it can do that work and do it well.

STATEMENT OF MR. H. K. BUSH-BROWN, OF WASHINGTON, D. C.

The CHAIRMAN. You live in Washington, do you not?

Mr. BUSH-BROWN. I live in Washington; yes, sir. I have no credentials to appear before you as a representative of the various organizations of which I am a member, but I think it would be interesting to the record to state that I am a member of the National Sculptural Society, the Architectural League of New York, the National Arts Club of New York, the Scenic and Historic Preservation Society of New York; and I am a member of the American Federation of Arts of Washington, D. C., and the Arts Club of Washington, and the Cosmos Club.

I believe that some of the things, at least, which I have to say here would be indorsed by the members of these various organizations if it were brought to their attention.

I have three amendments to offer to this bill, H. R. 3923, and the first of which is embodied in H. R. 5801, which is a bill introduced by Mr. Tinkham, to create a department of the fine arts.

The CHAIRMAN. Did that provide for a member of the Cabinet? Mr. BUSH-BROWN. Yes, sir; it is a Cabinet position, and for the very cogent reasons you have recently had put before you. I believe there are people who are interested in the fine arts who would prefer very much instead of having a Cabinet position if that could be made a bureau in the department of education. In the first place, whatever we may have of value of the fine arts, it is first and last educational, and therefore a person who is qualified to lead the interests of the United States in the matter of the fine arts is a man who must be of a very high order, and he is a very difficult man to find, and if, when found, could be made the head of a bureau where it might be a possible thing to keep him there as long as he would stay, the benefit of his influence over the affairs of our country would be infinitely greater than if he were made a Cabinet officer, with the possibility of a change every four years. Therefore I would make this bill, in its principal functions, section 2, in order to change the number in going through the thing in this other bill, H. R. 3923, and it would then read:

That there is hereby created a bureau of fine arts, with a director thereof, who shall be learned and experienced in matters pertaining to the fine arts, who shall be the head thereof, to be appointed by the secretary of education, and who shall receive a salary equal to that of the assistant secretary, and whose tenure of office shall be like that of the heads of other bureaus.

Now, all the other changes in that are subsidiary to the change in it from a department to a bureau. Beginning on page 3, after line 9,

94041-24-39

strike out the word "secretary" and the three lines following it, and on line 23 introduce the word "director," etc., and strike out all on page 4, line 4, down to line 11, and in place of section 4 introduce a new section 4 to read as follows:

The director of fine arts shall establish in the District of Columbia a research school of arts which shall experiment in the methods, material, practice, motive, and purpose of artistic expression, especially that of architectural ornament. He shall determine what class of students are eligible for this school and make all necessary regulations and employ such teachers, assistants, and supply of material as may be necessary.

He shall lease or build such quarters as may be necessary.

And then in place of section 5 substitute a section to read as follows: For the purpose of carrying these provisions into effect the sum of $1,000,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby authorized to be appropriated annually.

Before making any discussion I would like to read the remaining amendments to this bill, and then take up the discussion as a whole, because they are all more or less related although they may not be apparent at first.

On page 7 of the bill, H. R. 3923, I would strike out section 9 and substitute therefor a section 9 that would read as follows:

SEC. 9. In order to assist in carrying out the provisions of section 7 and section 8, the secretary of education shall establish civil academies in conjunction with every State agricultural college, wherein any citizen of the United States, or prospective citizen, 14 years of age or over, may be enrolled as a student for not less than two years or more than five years. The entrance examination shall be limited to moral worth and a desire to learn.

During this period the students enrolled shall perform such tasks as may be assigned to them for the purpose of their physical maintenance.

So far as may be, each student may choose the self-supporting occupation most suitable to his or her course of study. However, the tilling of the soil or other agricultural pursuits will be, in part at least, required as of fundamental educational importance.

The students shall be furnished such text books as they may require and receive such advice and guidance in the use of them as may be considered necessary by properly appointed instructors.

In order to carry this provision into effect the sum of $50,000,000, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is authorized to be appropriated annually.

That is taking the same sum of money as is now carried by section 9 and appropriating it to this new section. Therefore it does not increase the amount of money involved in this bill

Then I would add to section 10, on page 10, the following:

In carrying into effect the provisions of this section, especial care should be given to associating physical development with the learning the methods of tilling the soil and the care of orchards, and in so far as may be such instruction should be under the supervision and advice of the State agricultural colleges and experiment stations.

When the free use of municipal park land and vacant lots proves insufficient for city school gardens, and in order to encourage the States to carry out this principle, $1,000,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary is authorized to be appropriated annually for the purchase of school farm land.

It shall be available only when local authorities furnish equal amounts to the sum allotted to their locality. Such land, when no longer needed for school purposes, can be sold by the secretary of education and the funds therefrom may be reinvested in other school garden land where needed.

I think it must be obvious to everyone that if we are to have a department of education its functions would be to do those things in education which the States and localities are not doing and which can not be as well done as they could be by the Government.