Little Flower Circle, No. 327; with 34 signatures, Monroe, Mich. The Mother of Francis Ward Circle, No. 306; with 27 signatures, Lincoln, N. H. St. Rita's Circle, No. 268; with 42 signatures, Newark, N. Y. Father Bowe Circle, No. 217; with 16 signatures, Fayetteville, Ohio. Our Lady of Lundes Circle, No. 407; with 22 signatures, Versailles, Ohio. Our Lady of the Pines Circle, No. 357; with 8 signatures, Fremont, Ohio. St. Benedict's Circle, No. 423; with 26 signatures, Conimicut, R. I. St. Raymond's Circle, No. 387; with 62 signatures, Providence, R. I. Regina Circle, No. 293; with 44 signatures, Island Pond, Vt. Holy Trinity Circle, No. 156; with 47 signatures, Beaver Dam, Wis. Circle No. 63, Indiana Part; with 7 signatures. Delphi (Ind.) Circle, No. 150; with 13 signatures. Racine Circle, No. 50; with 49 signatures. Winamac Circle, No. 123; with 79 signatures. Leona Circle, No. 130; with 45 signatures. Santa Maria Circle, No. 411; with 10 signatures, Ness City. Kansas City Circle, No. 54; with 49 signatures. De Valera Newburyport Circle, No. 102; with 45 signatures. Our Lady of Lourdes Circle, No. 316; with 47 signatures. Little Flower Circle, No. 426; with 33 signatures. Queen of Peace Circle, No. 262; with 29 signatures. Silver City Circle, No. 16; with 17 signatures. Father Baron's Circle, No. 231; with 10 signatures. St. James Circle, No. 337; with 32 signatures. Starved Rock Subordinate Circle, No. 176; with 30 signatures. Mount Healthy Circle, No. 334; with 32 signatures. Little Flower Circle, No. 295; with 40 signatures. STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL A. REED, CHAIRMAN COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Mr. REED. We have been listening, for the better part of five days, to the arguments advanced for and against enactment of H. R. 7, & bill which provides for the creation of the department of education, with a secretary in the President's Cabinet. Valuable information has been brought out about every point which I set up in my statement at the beginning of the hearing. After listening to the testimony it seems to me that a number of conclusions may be drawn. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS ALWAYS PROMOTED EDUCATION It is not my purpose to review here the significant part which the Federal Government has taken from the very beginning in the promotion of education. I do want to urge the members of the committee, however, to read, in this connection, the testimony of Dr. John A. H. Keith, commissioner of education in the State of Pennsylvania, in which he outlined the history of Federal participation in education. I think it has been definitely demonstrated at this hear hat the present bill does not mean in any sense a departure from established policy of the Federal Government. BUREAU OF EDUCATION INADEQUATE FOR PRESENT NEEDS The present Bureau of Education, created in 1867, is inadequate to meet the needs of a Federal agency in this day and time. It was declared, by one witness who was opposed to a department of education, to be hopelessly inadequate. There was general agreement among the proponents of the bill that the Bureau of Education, under present conditions, can not do the research work that it is hoped and expected a department of education will do. Convincing arguments in support of this point of view have been brought out at the hearing. RESEARCH NOW APPLIED IN MANY FIELDS No one could have listened to these arguments or could read this record without marveling at the gigantic strides that have been made in the whole field of scientific investigation in recent years. Impressive evidence has been given concerning scientific research which is going on in almost every branch of human endeavor. When one contrasts the investigations that are being made in the field of business, agriculture, manufacturing, and distribution with the comparatively small effort which the Federal Government is putting forth in scientific research in education, one can not help being impressed with the need for similar research in education such as would be possible only under a Federal department of education. CONSTITUTIONALITY OF BILL UPHELD The question of the constitutionality of H. R. 7 has been raised during this hearing. The opponents of a department of education very generally agree that the work which the Bureau of Education is doing deserves support and ought to be continued, thereby admitting the right of the Federal Government to promote education. Because I have made a study of this question I should like to add further emphasis to the arguments that have been given to the committee regarding the constitutionality of the bill, which provides for a fourth "welfare" department. Authorization for creation of the Department of Agriculture and later of the Departments of Commerce and Labor was found in Article I, section 8, of the Constitution, which provides that the Federal Government may levy taxes for the general welfare, as follows: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." This clause has given rise to much controversy, but the interpretation given to it by Story in his great work on the Constitution has been followed by Congress in practice since the Government went into operation. As Story observes the clause should be read as follows: "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, in order to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare, of the United States; the common defense and general welfare and the payment of the public debts, being the ends for which the power is conferred, and taxation a means for their attainment." This is the interpretation placed on this clause by Hamilton in 1791, in his Report on Manufactures, who stated it as his clear opinion that the phrase "general welfare is as comprehensive as any that could have been used" and that "there seems no reason to doubt that whatever concerns the general interests of learning, of agriculture, of manufacturers, and of commerce, are within the sphere of the national councils as far as regards an application of money, the only qualification of the generality of the phrase in question which seems to be admissible is this: That the object to which an appropriation of money is to be made must be general and not local, its operation extending in fact, or by possibility, throughout the Union and not being confined to any particular spot." President Monroe in an elaborate and cogent paper entitled, "Views of the President of the United States on the subject of material improvements," submitted with his veto in 1822 of the Cumberland road bill, took the same view. His attitude is expressed in the following sentence: "My idea is that Congress have an unlimited power to raise money, and that in its appropriation they have a discretionary power, restricted only by the duty to appropriate it to the purposes of common defense and of general, not local, national, not State, benefit. Since the Civil War there has been no President who denied the right of Con'gress to raise and appropriate money for purposes of general welfare because such purposes were not within the fields in which Congress is, by other provisions of the Constitution, empowered to legislate. The appropriations made annually since 1862 for the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Labor, the Bureau of Mines, and the Bureau of Fisheries can find no justification except under a power to raise and spend money for "the general welfare." It will be noted, too, that by the Adams Act, the Smith-Lever Act, the SmithHughes Act, Congress has made appropriations of large sums of money raised by general taxation for the advancement of education throughout the country. QUESTION OF FEDERAL AID NOT INVOLVED At this hearing much of the opposition to H. R. 7 has been directed against Federal aid to education, in spite of the fact that no Federal aid is provided for in this bill. The creation of a department of education in no way involves the question of Federal aid for education. The Federal aid which the Government has extended to education in the past has been authorized without any reference whatever to a department of education. In the future Congress could either increase or decrease the amounts granted for Federal aid to education, but such increases or decreases are in no way connected with the proposal for the creation of a department of education. SAVINGS TO TAXPAYERS FORESEEN It has been stated over and over at this hearing that money could be saved for the taxpayers through the elimination of duplication and waste which is to be found not only in the unrelated and uncoordinated educational activities of the Federal Government, but in the needless waste and duplication which is to be found in education in all the States. That being true, it seems to me that Congress would be wise in passing this bill at an early date, thus securing to education the advantages which have been outlined by the proponents of this bill. STATE CONTROL OF EDUCATION NOT ENDANGERED Opponents of the present bill have very generally agreed that there is no provision in it that would result in infringement upon the rights of the States. Their chief fear seems to be that subsequent legislation might be passed that would curtail State rights. In this connection I wish to remind the committee that the tenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States reserves to the States the right to control and administer education. At the same time, the principle of State and local direction of the schools is so thoroughly entrenched in American thought as to provide another guaranty of the continuance of local control of schools. It is noteworthy that every person who has appeared in favor of this bill is opposed to national control of education. To my mind it is clear that a department of education can perform the large and important function for which it is to be created without in the least hindering local and State initiative. On the other hand, I firmly believe, as do many educators who have appeared here, that State and local initiative will be greatly stimulated by making available to all the facts and information which would be collected by the new department. ALL SCHOOLS TO BENEFIT FROM WORK OF DEPARTMENT Private and sectarian schools will benefit alike with public schools from the scientific research which is to be made by the department of education. That they have benefited by the work of the Bureau of Education was cheerfully admitted by a number of opponents of this bill. Several representatives of privately endowed colleges and universities appeared in support of the bill because they believe their institutions would greatly benefit through the work of the depart ment. SUPPORT FOR DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NATION-WIDE Friends of the bill have brought to our attention the fact that 31 great national organizations support the movement for a department of education, and more than a score of these have filed statements, or resolutions, or both, at this hearing. In addition, statements have been filed showing that at least three-fourths of the State superintendents or commissioners of education have gone on record as favoring a Federal department of education and have made it plain that they are not afraid of its interfering with the rights of the States to control and administer their schools in their own way. On the other hand, opposition to the bill has been voiced by representatives of 10 national organizations, 7 of which seem to fear some infringement upon the freedom and initiative of private and sectarian schools. Three local organizations, with a membership largely in Massachusetts and Maryland, appeared in opposition to the bill. QUESTION WIDELY STUDIED IN LOCAL GROUPS The need for a department of education has been presented in hearings to the Committee on Education at every Congress since 1918. The reports of these hearings have been widely distributed, and debates have been conducted in high schools, colleges, women's clubs and men's organizations in practically every State of the Union. There is no question before the country to-day in which more people are interested than the one which this committee has been considering for the past week. Education is a huge enterprise in this Republic. We have more than 27,000,000 school children and nearly a million teachers. School property is valued at more than $4,500,000,000, and the annual expenditure for public education is approximately |