Mrs. BAGLEY. Nebraska is very good. I have that impression; I do not know. I have a feeling that Nebraska is very much alive on education and that it stands well. Mr. ROBSION. But there is no report? Mrs. BAGLEY. I do not know; I do not have it with me. Mr. SEARS. It is so good they do not have to use figures. Mr. FLETCHER. These figures are not only National Education Association figures but Bureau of Education figures on illiteracy. Mrs. BAGLEY. This is compiled by the National Education Association. Mr. FLETCHER. Is it not originally compiled by the Bureau of Education? Mrs. BAGLEY. I can not say as to that. I simply take the National Education Association figures. The CHAIRMAN. It is about 12 o'clock and if you like you may file your statement. Mrs. BAGLEY. I have one or two things I want to say. The objectors say, what actually would the department do in research? When you say "research" it means nothing human or important to the average person. They do not understand that research is nothing but an intelligent finding out of how to do practical things. See what the Department of Agriculture has done. The other day a farmer's family were listening in on the radio. "Are you having trouble with your onion crop?" asked the loud speaker, and everyone strained their ears to hear-onions were going bad. "There is no need of anybody losing their onion crop. The Government of the United States has learned how to down the onion borer. Write to Uncle Sam and get a pamphlet about it. Look on page 117 and you will learn exactly what there is to do." There follow directions about how to put one kind of a chemical with another, mix them up in a can and save your crop. There is no compulsion here. The farmer can read, but nobody wants to make him use information unless he wants to. Then the loud speaker added, "If there is anything that you want to know about your farm or your garden write to Uncle Sam and direct your letter to the Department of Agriculture. There is a man there whose business it is to tell you what you need to know to make your farm a success." Here we find the Department of Agriculture scattering wisdom which means success in farming to the men and women and the boys and girls of the United States. And this is research. Take the Department of Commerce. American manufacturers spend for their own benefit annually about $35,000,000 in research. This is a very conservative figure. The annual saving is $500,000,000 resulting from that research. Hundreds of business men annually contribute for industrial research an amount greater than the public debt of this country 70 years ago. The research of the Department of Commerce is invaluable. These men are the hardheaded business men of this country. They can not afford not to have research, but there is no compulsion or control. Take labor. In the United States, the Department of Labor has a board of conciliation with trained and experienced agents. When trouble begins-and the time to put an end to any trouble is at its very beginning-one of these agents, chosen on account of fairness to both parties, listens to each side in the contest and interprets each to the other, and in hundreds of cases the fires of discontent are put out before they burst into flame. Here again there is no compulsion. I do want to show you some of the things that research could do for the country. One of them is in regard to the relation of crime to illiteracy. I would like to say that you know what our record for crime is. It shows the highest rate. Research could make a nationwide survey of the lack of education of prisoners and children in reform schools. This was done in one State. It was found that 42 per cent of those under detention were completely illiterate, and an additional 34 per cent had never gone beyond the third grade in school, leaving only 24 out of every 100 who had received more than a third-grade education. The illiterate, untrained mind is the mind into which vagrant whims have sway. In these undeveloped intellects with few outside interests, the whims become fixed ideas and it is these fixed ideas which ultimately lead to crime. You might read Harper's Magazine, which is quoted in the clipping I have here. (The clipping referred to is as follows:) In the April number of Harper's Magazine a writer, vouched for by editorial authority as nationally distinguished in his special field-an eminent biologistsays that in 1923, 375,000 persons were committed to jails and penitentiaries, and only a fraction of the full number that ought to be, that 1 out of 53 people who commit crime are punished. He gives the astounding news that in 1925 more than twenty-three times as many murders per unit of population were committed in the old United States as were committed in England. He asserts that our murder rate per 1,000 is twice as great now as in 1900. Can this be true? Let me quote his exact words as he compares us with other countries: "In burglary, highway robbery, and other crimes we lead all the world." Now, what is the relation between illiteracy and crime? That is something that needs to be found out. Research is needed to show the illiteracy and crime and how education may lessen crime. We have a higher rate of illiteracy than any other country of equal size in the world. Another thing is that many children every year fail to be promoted, and Payson Smith, Commissioner of Education for Massachussets, says that it costs $85,000,000 every year in the United States for children who do not pass and have to go back and do the same work over again. Why is that? There is no answer to it. There are at least a million such children who fail, and one of the reasons is that they have poor teachers. One of the things that research would do is to find out the cause of these failures. Part of it probably is the lack of good teachers. Mr. FLETCHER. A great many of such children are mental defectives. Mrs. BAGLEY. Yes, and many of them are not. Mr. DOUGLASS. A department of education could not give those children brains. Mrs. BAGLEY. It could not give them brains but it could give them trained teachers. They could promote the idea of a trained teacher. Fifty per cent of the elementary teachers in our schools are without the minimum standard of training, namely a normalschool education. Billions of dollars are spent on education, yet we have millions of illiterates, while other countries spending far less money have practically no illiteracy. We have millions of children poorly taught, millions hardly taught at all. Why is this? This is another field for research. I want to say finally that I had to use some tact and time and effort to find out what I believe is the greatest opposition to this bill, and that is the fear that any department of education may interfere with religious schools, private and sectarian schools. I think that is simply the most inconceivable thing. It is unthinkable. It is the most un-American thing. How could anybody think that the Federal Government would interfere between parents and the children in the education of their children. There could not be such a thing as that. There are many facts that could be brought forward, but that theory is a phantasm that is hiding away in the dark. It ought to be brought to light and when it comes out into the sunlight of open discussion, it will die; it can not live there. There is no such thing in the public schools in our country. The facts as to good and bad ways of teaching good and bad school buildings-extravagance or economy-all these facts and more would be assembled for the use of all to take or leave as they wished. When this bugaboo, this fear for religious schools, so inconceivably foolish, is dragged into the open and looked squarely in the face, it will vanish. It could not live anywhere except in the dark. Such phantasms fade into nothingness in the sunlight of open discussion. Most of the conscientious objectors had not read the bill. I ask you, have people the right to take issue against a bill which they have not read or studied? It is time that those who have read and studied the Curtis-Reed bill should say, "This bill does not give Federal control, nor open the way to it, and if you have read the bill you know it. It does not mean bureaucracy. If you have studied this bill, you know that, and you know it is a measure of economy and efficiency. It does not touch in any way, shape, or manner private or sectarian schools, and those who have studied this bill know that it does not. It is time for those who have at heart the best interests of our country and a square deal for all the children of the land, no matter in what State, no matter whether in city or country, to ask for fair play for this issue and to say, I will not equivocate, I will not retreat; the victory is ultimately coming to this beneficent measure. Please give it your earnest thought now. When it comes before Congress you will earn the gratitude of millions of people. I am one who believes in our Federal Government. Personally, I object to the wholesale condemnation of our Federal Government. I do not know all the men in Congress but I do know some of them, and know every Massachusetts man and have the highest confidence in each of them. They are wise and fine men and I can trust them. I can even trust them when they do not agree with me, to be men of the finest type. They are honest, wise, and trustworthy. They are the flower of our land, the men we sent to Congress. Let us have an end to disloyalty to our Representatives in Congress. We do not fear the Federal Government. I want to say that I do not object to people who do not like the bill. A great many people do not like it; let them say they do not like it. But when they say it means Federal control, I say it does not mean Federal control; it does not mean bureaucracy, and they know it. It does not, above everything, mean interference with the parochial schools, public schools, or any other kind of schools. If it did I would fight it with my last breath. It does not do, can not do, and never will do that, and I do hope you gentlemen will throw this open to the United States and see what would happen. You will find a response which will show you that all these millions of people and these people's organizations mean what they say and I do wish that you would give it your honest thought and try it out anyhow. If it fails all well and good, but I do not think it will fail and I hope you will give it a chance. I should like to file in the record several statements that have come to me from various parts of the country, indicating support for the education bill. Mrs. FREDERICK P. BAGLEY, GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS, Boston, Mass. MY DEAR MRS. BAGLEY: I can not be present at the hearing on April 25, but you are at liberty to use the following as a brief statement of my views on the subject of the adoption of the Curtis-Reed education bill. I do not see how there can be a valid constitutional objection to the establishment of a department of education in the Cabinet. Any such objection would clearly be quite as valid to existing bureaus and other agencies which are expending Government money in the interests of education. And any such objection would apply with equal force to the Departments of Labor, Commerce, and Agriculture. It is their business to promote and conserve the economic resources of our country. Literate adults constitute our greatest economic resource. I do not see how there can be any valid financial objection to the adoption of this program. We are already appropriating by States, or Nation, a sum which is clearly inadequate, for it leaves us with a per cent of illiteracy greater than France, England, Scotland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland, or Germany. Objection to an increased appropriation means that we are satisfied with our present high rate of illiteracy. To be more thorough and efficient always costs more. Objection to this program of placing education in a department of the Government, with a secretary in the Cabinet, because it places education in politics, is not well placed. To be consistent such an objection should be aimed at our whole system of common-school control, for in practically every State schools are already in politics to some extent as they would be under this plan. Superintendents of public instruction are elected by political parties and for short terms. The system may be wrong, but is the best we have, and the proposal now under consideration is by no means a departure from the system but stands a much better chance of being nonpartisan because national in scope. Yours very sincerely, Mrs. EDWARD FRANKLIN WHITE. STATEMENT OF LUCY LEWIS, CHAIRMAN AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP COMMISSION, PHILADELPHIA LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, PHILADELPHIA, PA. The power of the Federal Government has been expended in many directions since the adoption of the Constitution. A department of education is no more unconstitutional than a department of commerce or a department of agriculture. The very high percentage of illiteracy in the United States clearly shows that some States can not or will not unaided solve the educational problem. A minimum standard for all States is certainly to be desired. 105682-28- -26 METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE CO., In re department of education. Mrs. GRACE H. BAGLEY, 3 West Cedar Street, Boston, Mass. DEAR MADAM: As to whether the educational conditions of the young men of this country are a national problem or not will enable anyone to determine in his own mind the problem of a national department of education. The late President Wilson stated: "The future of the Nation depends upon the proper training of its youth." In my opinion, no other subject carries equal importance. Divided responsibility is impractical. Every civilized government, so far as I know, agrees to this. Why should anyone be called upon to make apologies for Uncle Sam? Yours very truly, JOHN DOLPH, NW. UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, Columbia, April 13, 1928. Mrs. FREDERICK P. BAGLEY, 3 West Cedar Street, Boston, Mass. MY DEAR MRS. BAGLEY: Your letter of April 3 is at hand. I am sorry that it will be impossible for me to be present at the hearing of the education_bill in Washington on April 25. In response to your request, I have written to Repre sentative Reed. It seems to me that if there were no other reason for establishing a Federal department of education it would be fully justified on the basis of the economy which would result from correlating and condensing the many educational undertakings of the Federal Government now scattered through many Federal bureaus. The objections that the expenditure of government funds for educational purposes would interfere with States' privileges seems very little short of ludicrous in face of the facts that the government is now spending these sums in many avenues and under many names and by methods which seriously overlap and are wastefully extravagant. It seems to me that were the citizens of the country really awake to the situation that they would demand the prompt passage of the bill and the more economical administration of our Federal educational business. Cordially yours, ELLA VICTORIA DOBBS, Member N. E. A. Legislative Committee. The CHAIRMAN. As far as I am personally concerned, I am willing to continue with these hearings until all the witnesses are heard, even if it means staying here late. It is now after 12 o'clock, and we will recess until 1.30 o'clock p. m. (Thereupon, at 12.10 o'clock p. m., the committee recessed until 1.30 o'clock p. m. of the same day.) AFTER RECESS The committee met at 1.30 o'clock p. m., pursuant to recess, Chairman Reed presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. The next witness is Mr. Edward S. Dore. |