STATEMENT OF WILLIS A. SUTTON, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, ATLANTA, Ga. It is the earnest desire of the signer of this statement that the House committee shall report favorably the education bill to the present Congress. I believe that such a law would greatly strengthen the cause of education in the United States.

1. There is great need of educational research. Each school system in the 48 different States is attempting to do research but due to lack of unified methods the best results are not obtainable. The present bill, if enacted into a law, would result in saving millions of dollars of educational money through proper research. 2. Such a bill would in no way interfere with local control of schools. It would not violate the principle of State rights.

3. A secretary of education in the President's Cabinet would greatly stimulate interest in educational work throughout the Nation and place emphasis in this Government where emphasis belongs on the education and training of our people. It is inconceivable to a man of sound thinking that the National Government should be called upon to spend multiplied millions in developing plants and animals and should be considered meddling when it develops the man power and woman power of the Nation.

4. Certainly, the National Education Association, representing the best thought on education, has committed itself to this bill. If the advice of physicians is to be taken in medical affairs and if the advice of lawyers is to be taken in legal affairs, certainly the advice of educators should be heeded in educational affairs. Eighty per cent of the people who understand this bill in the State of Georgia favor it. It is only those who do not or will not understand it who are opposing it.

STATEMENT OF F. A. LONGANECKER, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, RACINE,

WIS.

I understand that hearings on education bill before the House Committee on Education will be held in the near future.

I am very much interested in the success of this particular bill. I have given this subject considerable study and am convinced that the welfare of education could be promoted very substantially if there were a secretary of education in the President's Cabinet. I see no good reason why the Federal Government should not lend its aid to the promotion of education as it does to agriculture, commerce, and other activities represented in the President's Cabinet. Personally, I have no fear that the presence of a secretary of education would infringe upon the rights of local or State school authorities. I do not believe there is any greater reason to believe that the Federal Government would control education any more than it does agriculture, for example.

Those of us who are out in the field are eager to secure the results of research which only a central agency such as would be provided by a department of education would be able to furnish. Obviously, we are in great need of scientific study of very many problems in connection with the work of administering the public schools. The impossibilities of conducting such research work satisfactorily, I think, is quite apparent upon reflection. Furthermore, if that could be done it would be difficult to secure nation-wide distribution of the results.

While I recognize fully that the control of education is left under the Constitution to the separate States, there is still left to the Federal Government a very large field in which it can be of service in promoting the welfare of education. I sincerely hope that the House Committee on Education will take a favorable view of the whole question.

STATEMENT OF B. F. STANTON, SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS, ALLIANCE, OHIO

There are two or three reasons why I favor the Curtis-Reed bill.

First. The bill appeals to me as a practical measure. It seems to be in keeping with American ideals. It will promote a department, which, among other things, will serve as a fact-finding agency. We are living in an age when it is absolutely necessary to have facts which are up to date and available in determining the course of our action. By such a department as this bill proposes it will be possible to obtain data of importance before these facts are two or three years old.

105682-28- -9

Second. I favor the bill because it would promote the principle of equality of educational opportunities throughout the country. The time has come when the United States must be thought of as a great unity and not as a mere federation. New England is concerned in the type of education promoted in Texas, and California is likewise vitally interested in the type of education given the youth in Ohio or Pennsylvania or any other State. I believe this bill would help promote national standards in education and would likewise do something toward solidifying the thought of our people in a national way.

In the third place, I favor this bill because of what it will do for the profession of education. By national recognition of education in a department of the President's Cabinet, it will give education equal recognition with some of the other great activities and interests of our country, and this to my mind is important. Every year promising young men who are in the work leave to enter other fields because of greater promise in those fields. And many others are not attracted to the field of education because it does not offer in their thought the attractions that other fields do. The creation of a department of education, therefore, will give the profession a standing and a stability which in the end would operate to the advantages of our country. These are a few impressions that I have of the importance of this bill.

STATEMENT OF DAVID A. WARD, SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS,

WILMINGTON, DEL.

Since the foundation of our Government, public education has been recognized as necessary to its continuance. General intelligence of its citizenship is of prime importance in the successful operation of a republican form of government. The Government, therefore, should assume more than a passive interest in public education. It should not only permit it but should encourage and aid the development of the best organization and facilities for the education of its youth. Agriculture is essential to the existence of the people of the country. Labor is fundamental to the prosperity of the country. Commerce is necessary for the convenience and comfort of the citizens of the country. Likewise, education is necessary to maintain intelligent support of the Government, to prevent the contamination of its people by radicalism and false theories, to promote better and happier homes.

Great stress is laid upon the right of the local community to conduct its own educational program. There is no objection to this theory, yet the education of children is not purely of local concern. With modern facilities for travel and communication, no community can live to itself. Education is as much a national as a local enterprise. No occupation could be more local than farming, yet the Department of Agriculture has not curtailed in any way the right of the farmer to conduct his enterprise according to his own wishes. On the other hand, this Government department has offered to the farmer the services and the results of scientific research with the result that farming to-day is on a better production basis than ever before. Labor is a local enterprise, yet it has not been nationalized by the Department of Labor. Local shippers have been protected and benefited through the wise organization and management of the Department of Commerce.

There is certainly no reason why the education of the citizenship of the country should not have the benefit and assistance of scientific research which can be made possible and can be unified through the organization of a department of education with a secretary in the President's Cabinet. This research service is greatly needed throughout the country. There is, of course, a great deal of educational research carried on by various organizations. These agencies could be brought together, unified, and directed through such a department. Duplication of effort would be avoided and the results would be more readily available for any community needing the information.

This bill, as proposed, would in no way interfere with any local board of education or State in the operation of its own school system in its own way. Neither would it interfere in any manner with the operation of any private agency for the promotion of education. The department, instead of directing or controlling the educational program of the country, would only provide scientific and professional service and make it available for those who desire it. This service would be free and available alike to the public school, the parochial school, and the private school.

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.

A

This problem of rebuilding and redirecting our educational activity has only begun. Its further solution and promotion rests upon research activity. 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,

Tacoma, Wash., January 19, 1926.

Chairman Education Committee of the
National Congress of Parents and Teachers,

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
National Congress of Parents and Teachers.

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.