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.)

4

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION,
Thursday, April 26, 1928.

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

to effect would be through a department, and I shall confine my remarks to the description of certain lines of inquiry that could be carried on either through a department or by any other agency properly equipped and of national scope. I should like, therefore, to have you accept, if you will, my statement as favorable to the national investigation of certain educational problems as my personal view that the best agency for the execution of such investigations would be such a department.

Many of the inquiries that have been made up to this time have been conducted through the support of certain private foundations. I have brought for the members of the committee, if you gentlemen are interested to look at them, copies of one report that I can describe concretely. As you will see by the title, it is the "Report of the commission on length of elementary education." The gentlemen whose names are mentioned on the cover of this report may be of interest to you. Mr. Eugene C. Brooks is the president of the State School of Mechanical Arts of North Carolina, and was formerly State superintendent. Dr. Samuel P. Capen is chancellor of the University of Buffalo, and is here this morning to participate in the hearings. Dr. Edward S. Evenden is professor of education in the teachers college of Columbia University. Mr. Thomas H. Harris is superintendent of schools of Louisiana. Mr. George Melcher is assistant superintendent of schools in Kansas City, Mo. Mr. Clarence L. Phelps is the head of the normal school at Santa Barbara, Calif. Mr. Peter Sandiford is professor of education in the University of Toronto in Canada. Dr. Payson Smith is commissioner of education of the State of Massachusetts, and Dr. Henry Suzzallo was for a time president of a university and is now in Europe carrying on certain activities for the Peace Commission, and is one of the leading educators of the country.

That commission was organized by the Commonwealth foundation, a private foundation for the purpose of making comparisons as far as possible between the seven-year elementary schools in many of the Southern States with the eight-year schools of the Northern States, and for the purpose of throwing light also on the new organization which has appeared in the American school system, the socalled junior high school, and, briefly, the outcome of this investigation is to call attention to the fact that there has been going on, without any adequate guidance but by using natural forces operating in our American educational system, a movement to build up another character of elementary education. Elementary education is being reduced to a six-year program instead of the eight years that used to be conventional. That has wrought a complete change also in the high school. The consequences of those changes appear in the fact that we now have a junior college that is in many instances being affiliated with the public high schools. We have the junior high school which is dividing the old conventional high school, and I think it is fair to report to you gentlemen that the high school is in flux. It is undergoing a very radical change, and it is the feeling of all of us who are associated with the work of the high school that there ought to be a careful, systematic, national inquiry that will bring to the surface the particular experience of the high schools throughout the country. In further support of the contention that there should be such an investigation, I beg to quote a paragraph

that came to my hand the other day from an article that is published in a periodical which is sent out by the Bureau of Education, called "School Life." This article is prepared by Mr. E. D. Grizzell, chairman of the commission on secondary schools of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Middle States and Maryland. Mr. Grizzell has made a table in the article, showing the practices of these different regional associations to which I referred, and concludes his paper with this statement:

There is great need for research to determine the validity of certain existing standards. For example, the standards for teaching load are being questioned in some quarters. A matter of such importance should not be dismissed with a mere gesture. Standards for laboratory and library should be defined more clearly. There should be adequate standards for school records, pupil load, salaries, expenditures for secondary education, student activities, and a score of other significant features and relationships. The necessity for careful research is apparent if standardization in secondary education is to serve as a means of promoting sound progress.

That quotation is intended to reinforce what I have said. The secondary school is in process of such rapid change that the experience of different parts of the country ought to be collected for purposes of systemization of activities in college institutions and for the purposes of the voluntary associations. These voluntary associations aim to set standards, and I think it is a fair opportunity to make comment that we are not here as a committee of the North Central Association asking the Federal Government to take over standardization at all, but we are asking some assistance in carrying on those scientific investigations which will control and direct the process of standardization. Those have been carried on by these voluntary regional associations, but we are unable to carry on the process in the regional associations because we do not have the facilities and from the nature of the case can not have the facilities for the general investigation of all of the high-school conditions throughout the United States. Our activities must of necessity be somewhat limited, and you can see it would obviously be extremely wasteful as a public undertaking for each one of the regional associations to carry on this investigation needed for all of them, and that is very necessary if we are going to have a genuine, scientific basis for the operations of the regional institutions themselves.

There are various indications of this need that touch the activities of a Federal department. I have in my hand a mimeographed statement which was very recently issued under date of April 13, 1928, from the Department of the Interior. This gives an account of certain studies which have been made by the national committee on research in secondary education, organized by the Commissioner of Education of the United States, but not operated by the bureau for the simple reason that the bureau has not the resources necessary to carry on the investigations. This committee being organized by the bureau has solicited and secured the cooperation of a number of individuals and organizations throughout the country, and this mimeographed statement includes a list of such investigations as have already been carried on by this committee, and they have been very useful and helpful to the colleges and schools of the country.

STUDY OF HIGH SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES

The national committee on research in secondary education, at its annual meeting in Boston, in March, 1928, decided to make a cooperative study of member schools to be carried out in 1930 by the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States, the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and the Northwest Association of Secondary and Higher Schools.

All of these organizations initiate individual studies of their own schools from time to time. The North Central Association carried out elaborate studies of its secondary member schools in 1915, 1920, and 1925. The Northwest Association is committed to the policy of carrying on such a study in 1930 and in every succeeding year divisible by five. The Southern Association has recently brought to a close a study of secondary schools within its territory.

The national committee is attempting to bring greater coordination into these studies by having them all made in the same year, by having them made on a comparable basis, and by having the reports of these studies prepared by a central committee and published in a single bulletin. Since the five associations named above operate in 46 of the 48 States, it is felt that the study under consideration will more closely approximate being national in scope than any heretofore attempted.

The national committee during the past 12 months made a number of valuable studies which were published by the Bureau of Education of the United States Department of the Interior, either as bulletins or as contributions to its periodical, School Life, which has been designated as the official organ of the committee. Eight major investigations are in progress. The following is a list of the studies completed and in progress, issued under the auspices of the Federal Bureau of Education:

1. Completed studies and publications.-An outline of research, with suggestions for high-school principals and teachers, by Arthur J. Jones (bulletin, 1926, No. 24); Bibliography of studies in secondary education, by E. E. Windes (bulletin, 1927, No. 27); Bibliography of current research undertakings in secondary education, by J. K. Norton (mimeographed circular, March, 1927); Study of Southern Association high school, by Joseph Roemer (bulletin); Senior highschool promotion plans, by J. F. Montague (bulletin).

College entrance requirements in relation to curriculum revision in secondary schools, by William A. Proctor, was reported in chapter 7 of the 1928 Yearbook of the Department of Superintendence of the National Education Association. 2. Studies in progress. Small high school, by Emery N. Ferriss; Large high schools, by Wm. A. Wetzel; and Junior high-school conference, by James M. Glass.

The following articles, sponsored by the national committee, appeared in School Life: (1) Good citizenship built upon civic integrity in high school, by Walton B. Bliss, March, 1927; (2) need of uniformity in certification of highschool teachers, by E. J. Ashbaugh, April, 1927; (3) the national committee on research in secondary education, by E. E. Windes, April, 1927; (4) conditions favor integration of junior colleges with high schools, by Leonard V. Koos, May, 1927; (5) wide variations of practice in small junior high schools, by Emery N. Ferriss, June, 1927; (6) general guidance responsibilities of the secondary school, by William C. Reavis, September, 1927; (7) plan of rating teachers based upon pupil accomplishment, by Wm. A. Wetzel, October, 1927; (8) accredited secondary schools of the Southern Association, by Joseph Roemer, November, 1927; (9) secondary schools of Southern and North Central Associations, by Joseph Roemer, December, 1927; (10) must consider pupils' academic ability and requirements of curricula, by Wm. A. Wetzel, January, 1928.

The following officers were elected at the annual meeting of the National Committee on Research in Secondary Education: Chairman, J. B. Edmonson, University of Michigan; vice chairman, W. R. Smithey, University of Virginia; secretary, Carl A. Jessen, United States Bureau of Education.

I submit also another document, a foreign document. The volume that I am referring to is the report prepared by an English commission. All of the countries of Europe as well as our own country find this change going on in secondary education, and the reconstruction of secondary education in England is a very live issue.