STATEMENT OF J. O. MCLAUGHLIN, SUPERINTENDENT CITY SCHOOLS, Corvallis, OREG. The time is near when our education bill will have its hearing before the House committee. I hope that you and your coworkers may have a very fair and complete hearing before the committee, that you may have the opportunity to clarify this aspect of our national situation. Our Congress represents our entire people in their welfare, their work, and their problems. What is the most important task in which we American people as a nation are engaged? Surely it is not soldiers, or ships, or law suits, or even money. These are only accompaniments to the life, the work, and the welfare of the people. That is most important which is primarily occupied in creating habits, character, traits of industry and citizenship in the people who compose the Nation. Yet this is among the last of national activities to receive needed assistance through a special department in our National Government. Everyone rejoices in the tremendous evolution of educational philosophy, psychology, textbooks, school buildings, and methods of teaching that has occurred within the past 20 years-perhaps a larger development than in any other general field. This has come most largely through privately or semiprivately controlled and directed institutions. The loss in the process has been tremendous because an institution could only carry its research or experiment within its own territory and means. Not only could the process have been speeded up, but the tremendous loss in time, effort, and uncompleted projects could have been partially averted by a capable coordinating agency to encourage, to assist, and sometimes to take charge and direct the work. This problem of rebuilding and redirecting our educational activity has only begun. Its further solution and promotion rests upon research activity. A department of education in the Cabinet as outlined in the new education bill hits the nail on the head. It will provide this needed research from a national coordinating agency. It will dignify citizenship training as a national activity. It will hang up a shingle to the world that the United States of American is primarily interested in education and training of its citizens. If the bill provided for national control of State or local units, or financial assistance in such form that national control would be encouraged, we would oppose it. The varied types of peoples in our Nation, together with the local situation and needs, require that the control should rest in more immediate agencies. We feel that our local control is amply safeguarded in the bill. We should also oppose the bill if it aimed to curtail private and parochial schools. These schools have their place in our democracy as it is constituted. Instead of being curtailed, they will be assisted by a department of education and research work. Their problems will also be solved by educational research. While there is general knowledge that this bill is before Congress, I have not heard or read any objections locally to it within the past year. On the other hand, it is indorsed at times by our State organizations. As a local superintendent of schools, we heartily favor the bill as a needed measure for national recognition of education, and we write to wish you God speed in your hearings before the committee. STATEMENT OF F. R. DARLING, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, Dunkirk, N. Y. I favor the creation of a Federal department of education with a secretary in the President's Cabinet in order: First: That it may become generally known and understood that the Federal Government is committed to a policy of universal education in this country and that it holds education to be of equal importance at least to agriculture and business. Second. That leadership in education may remain in the hands of the people and not be committed to privately endowed institutions and foundations. Third: That the results of research, and investigations in education wherever made may become quickly available to schools generally. STATEMENT OF KATE V. WOFFORD, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, LAURENS, S. C. The proposed bill to create a department of education deserves the enthusiastic support of all people interested in rural education. For many years the leaders in this neglected field of education have felt the need of some research group to which they might turn, in their hours of needs, for help and guidance. Particularly is this true of the county superintendent of schools. His is the large task of a county-wide program of school administration. To him the trustees look for guidance on budget planning, the making of county-wide plans for school buildings and school transportation adequate to serve the needs of the remotest country child. Where can he turn for help? If his problem was one of agriculture, or of commerce or of labor he has only to turn for help to a department created for him by a generous government.. Yet in the field of the public's most important activity the rural leader must proceed without guidance hoping that somehow, somewhere, his experiments will turn out well. South Carolina is jealous of its doctrine of States' rights. It has never countenanced, it will never submit to any Federal control of its schools. It is consequently a source of much satisfaction to its friends that the proposed bill does not in any way jeopardize the principle of local control of school so closely interwoven into the life of the people of South Carolina. STATEMENT OF H. E. INLOW, PRESIDENT OREGON STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, PENDLETON, OREG. I hope this Congress will respond to public need and pass the bill providing for a Federal department of education with a secretary in the President's Cabinet. Education is an agency for public welfare which under the Constitution is a matter of concern to the Federal Government and as such merits adequate recognition and treatment. This it does not at present receive. The facts of vastly increased and widely diffused interstate commerce, social relations, and population movements create a practical situation of interdependence between States and sections of the country which makes the questions of educational opportunity, achievement, and standards matters of common interest. This common interest can best be served by the establishment of a department of education which will serve as a clearing house for the assembling and dissemination of educational information and an agency for the general coordination and effective conduct of Federal activities of an educational nature. The service which can be rendered by such a department in the collection of educational data will be of very definite benefit to school officials in the conduct of local school affairs. The functions thus performed by a Federal department would in no wise interfere with State and local conduct of schools. STATEMENT OF ADA York, SUPERINTENDENT OF COUNTY SCHOOLS, SAN DIEGO, CALIF. Again the education bill comes before Congress, but in a revised form. I understand that the bill before the House of Representatives (H. R. 7) will come before the Committee on Education April 25. As a member of the national resolutions committee of the department of superintendence of the National Education Association, recently convened in Boston, I have first-hand knowledge of the interest on the part of school administrators to further the education bill and to do all that is within our power to have it become law. Realizing as we do that the bill in no way encroaches on State management and jurisdiction of the schools, and realizing too that need of information that can be gathered together under the provisions of the proposed department of education, we urged in the proposed resolution that Congress pass the Curtis-Reed bill. This resolution was enthusiastically adopted by the department of superintendence. As a worker in the county department of education, I am especially interested in the advancement of the welfare of country children. I realize that a great impetus to the advancement of rural education would result from the sponsorship of our cause through so important an organization as a national department of education with a secretary in the President's Cabinet. Therefore, I am urging you to use once again your good offices to help us and to use your influence to have the committee consider favorably this bill and pass the same on to the House for action. STATEMENT OF MRS. VICTOR H. MALSTROM, FORMER PRESIDENT WASHINGTON STATE BRANCH, NATIONAL CONGRESS OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS WASHINGTON STATE BRANCH, NATIONAL CONGRESS OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS, Miss CHARL ORMOND WILLIAMS, Chairman Education Committee of the Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MISS WILLIAMS: I am appealing to you as chairman of the school' education committee of our National Congress of Parents and Teachers to use in fullest possible measure the influence of your advantageous position to promote the passage of the education bill in this session of Congress. Organizations and individuals interested in the cause of education have affirmed and reaffirmed their attitude toward the responsibility of the Federal Government in the Nation's greatest enterprise—the education of the children. The particular organization which I represent, Washington State Branch of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, numbering 36,000 members in this State, have for a number of years held such recognition of education as this bill provides as part of its legislative program. Other State and national organizations representing vast numbers of thinking citizens have supported the same policy in regard to education. Surely further postponement of a department of education may be looked upon only as dilatory tactics regarding a most important issue. (If I might say a personal word, it would be to interpolate here that I am strongly of the opinion that no group or church should find objection to the bill. As a Catholic I see no ground for objection. In the development of education benefits accrue to all. Children of all denominations are in the public schools of the country and the advantages offered in Federal recognition of education represent as much to one as to another.) In its present form the bill is easily comprehended and there is no room for question or doubt as to it purport. Very sincerely, Mrs. VICTOR H. MALSTROM, Former President Washington State Branch STATEMENT OF EDWARD W. BOK, AUTHOR AND EDITOR When we stop to think that the United States is to-day the only great Nation in the world which has not an officer of the Government devoting himself to education, it seems to me that the question of whether we should have a secretary of education in the Cabinet answers itself. With a country so needful of the extension of educational advantages, there are few more urgent necessities than that the Federal Government should work with the States along educational lines. Almost every question has two sides, but this, it seems to me, has only one. STATEMENT OF FRANK CRANE, EDITOR OF CURRENT OPINION The real business of every man and woman in the country is education. Everything else is a side line." One hundred years from now the most amazing thing in our present form of government will be that we had a Secertary of War, a Secretary of the Navy, but no secretary of education. If there is any one thing in which Federal aid is justified, it is education. Doctor DAVIDSON. Next I wish to introduce Miss Alice L. Edwards, executive secretary of the American Home Economics Association. STATEMENT OF ALICE L. EDWARDS, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, AMERICAN HOME ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D. C. Miss EDWARDS. I have with me a statement from the president of our organization which I should like to read. The statement I refer to is as follows: Statement of LITA BANE, PRESIDENT, AMERCIAN HOME ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON, Wis. The American Home Economics Association is in favor of the new education bill (S. 1584 and H. R. 7, Seventieth Congress). Through bulletins sent to our members and through the Journal of Home Economics, which are published by the association, our membership has been informed as to the significance of the bill. In 1924 the association indorsed the principle of a United States department of education and each year thereafter has reaffirmed this stand. Our organization believes that through a department of education wider and more thorough research in educational problems would be carried on and more information made available for the use of those who are indeavoring to provide the best possible quality of education in their schools. We further believe that the general educational interests of the people will be furthered by the presence of a secretary of education in the President's Cabinet. We sincerely hope that the Committee on Education will see fit to report the bill favorably to the House at an early date. The CHAIRMAN. That is the concluding witness for this afternoon's session and the committee will resume to-morrow morning at 10.30 o'clock. (Thereupon, at 4.45 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned to meet again at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Thursday, April 26, 1928.) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee this day met, Hon. Daniel A. Reed (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Doctor Davidson, you may proceed to introduce the witnesses. Doctor DAVIDSON. Mr. Chairman, the first speaker whom I would like to present this morning is Dr. Charles H. Judd, of Chicago University, who is chairman of the committee of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, elected at its recent March meeting. Doctor Judd has brought with him a group of men interested in the same phases of the subject as he himself is interested in. Their names are as follows: Dr. W. W. Boyd, president Western College for Women, Oxford, Ohio, and past president of the Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools; Mr. W. I. Earley, principal of the Washington High School, Sioux Falls, S. Dak., and the present president of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The third member of his group is Mr. H. V. Church, of the Morton High School, of Cicero, Ill., who is secretary of the National Association of High School Principals of the United States. The last member of Doctor Judd's group is Dr. W. P. Morgan, president of the State Teachers College, of Macomb, Ill. Doctor Morgan is also president of the American Association of Teachers' Colleges of the United States. Doctor Judd will be the first speaker of this group, and I will ask him to introduce the other speakers now here as I have named them. STATEMENT OF DR. CHARLES H. JUDD, DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, CHICAGO, ILL., AND CHAIRMAN COMMITTEE OF THE NORTH CENTRAL ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS Doctor JUDD. Mr. Chairman, as Doctor Davidson has said, we come representing the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. That association has a membership of about 2,000 secondary schools and 250 colleges. Its territory goes from the eastern border of West Virginia, Ohio, and Michigan, west along north of the Ohio River to Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and it branches off at the south to include New Mexico and Arizona, and its membership is made up of the largest and best organized secondary schools throughout that territory. That territory includes approximately half of the young people who go to college from high schools in the United States. I have also letters from the other so-called regional associations. There is a similar association to the one I have described, for the Southern States, that includes Virginia and south along the Atlantic seaboard, and as far west as Texas and Arkansas. There is a New England association. There is a so-called Middle States and Maryland association. That includes New York Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland. There is a northwestern association which includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. The only State in the Union not included in this regional association is the State of California, and I shall have occasion to refer to that in a moment, to a certain investigation going forward there. Mr. DOUGLASS. Are the associations of which you now speak allied with the National Education Association or are they separate associations? Doctor JUDD. No; they are separate associations. They are associations of colleges and secondary schools that set up the standards for what are called approved lists of those institutions. They are voluntary associations without any authority in law, but in cooperation they prepare lists that are utilized by other institutions. I have letters from other associations and am authorized to represent the North Central Association, the first one I described. At a meeting of the North Central Association held in March, we had a great deal of discussion about the desirability of undertaking certain investigations as the basis for the operation of our association, and a committee was appointed to seek an opportunity to be heard before Congress in favor of national support for certain resources that in our judgment seemed to be very necessary in order to carry on properly the operation of these public institutions. Our association did not by its vote deal directly with the problem of a Federal department, and I would like, Mr. Chairman, to draw, therefore, a distinction between what I have to say as representing the North Central Association, and what I should like to say as a member of the National Education Association. It is my judgment that the best way to effect the ends that the North Central Association seeks |