tion, and I mean by the leaders in rural education not merely superintendent and teachers, but I mean the agricultural interests, the State grange, and the other organizations interested in the probem, and the citizens generally, the lay citizens. We always did that; so that we could say, "Here are the facts related to us; here are the facts and plans and policies of each of the other 47 States in the Union, and you experts on education, you laymen on education, interested in the boys and girls, and interested in maintaining the finest type of schools, you can get together and determine which one of these is best adapted to our conditions in New York." That is what we could do here. Mr. BLACK. You say you did that. You were able to pass this bill without this particular information, except as you gathered it in your own way. Doctor FINEGAN. We passed it, but I am not saying, now, Congressman, that we had the best type of bill we could formulate. Mr. BLACK. Then you were confronted with a new situation. You were confronted with the sentiment, after the bill went into effect, on this local taxation proposition. Doctor FINEGAN. Yes, sir, and a governor who wanted to be elected to a third term. Mr. BLACK. Yes; I remember that. But how would this department of Federal education have helped you in the fight at the time of the repeal? Doctor FINEGAN. I don't suppose it would have helped us on that. But it would have helped in formulating constructive legislation. I want to go back to this research by the National Education Association. Mr. BLACK. You don't want to stick with me in New York for a minute, do you? Doctor FINEGAN. Oh, I will; yes. Mr. BLACK. You will come back to us later; will you? Mr. BLACK. I think the trouble was that you must have had some "help" in fighting the repeal. I think you would have done better alone. Doctor FINEGAN. Well, I was out of town the day they repealed it. Mr. BLACK. I guess that had something to do with it. Doctor FINEGAN. Now, during the last three years the National Education Association has been engaged in one of the most vital and largest research problems that has ever been undertaken in public education in this country. And how did they do it? Three hundred of the leading experts and scholars of education gave their time, all that was demanded, during the past three years, to make a complete study of the curriculum of the public schools from the kindergarten through to the high schools. They didn't receive a dollar for their services. But it is obvious, it must be obvious to this committee, that with the hundreds of problems involved in the administration of a great modern system of education that goes from the kindergarten, not only up through the whole public-school system, but through the colleges and the technical institutions and the institutions of higher learning, there must be a large force constantly at work, if this work is to be kept up to date, and the latest and most desirable things made available for the teachers and for the laymen as well. Mr. DOUGLASS. What was this proposition on which the 300 teachers were working? Doctor FINEGAN. The curriculum. Mr. DOUGLASS. Oh, yes. Doctor FINEGAN. There is nothing more vital. The curriculum is like a boy's jack knife. It is old at the end of seven years. It may appear to be an entirely new knife, but the boy has put in a new blade and a new back and sides, etc. That is the way curriculums have been built. They have to be revised constantly. Mr. DOUGLASS. Just right there. Do you think that a secretary of education could give any more light on the curriculum than your 300 educators could give? Doctor FINEGAN. I do. Mr. DOUGLASS. Where would he get that information? Doctor FINEGAN. Our 300 educators could not devote their time to that. They get no pay for that. Mr. DOUGLASS. Well, they did devote their time to it. I haven't any doubt that that report of those 300 teachers was probably the best that could be gotten in this country, they being what they are. Doctor FINEGAN. I think, Mr. Congressman, if you submitted that question to the 300 men who did the work they would say to you that they regretted that it was not so good as you infer; that they did not have the opportunity to put the time on it, to study and do the research work and make the comparative analyses and studies that are absolutely essential on a work so highly important as that. Mr. DOUGLASS. If you will pardon me, I think you have produced a good example from your National Education Association. You take 300 teachers or students of schools, who are absolutely experts on the subject Doctor FINEGAN. Yes. Mr. DOUGLASS. You have the best in the country, I think, for the work. And when they formulate a report on the curricula, I say that the Government has no agency better placed, or better able than that you have described, to report on such a subject, and so I say the work on that subject is better left with your own National Education Association, which is the highest authority, in my estimation, on the subject in the country. Doctor FINEGAN. What are we going to do during the next two years on that subject? Mr. DOUGLASS. That's all right. You are doing very valuable work. If you continue along the lines you have followed, that is a work you ought to continue, and you can.do it better than the Government could do it. The CHAIRMAN. I would like to make an observation. We have many thousands of very eminent physicians in this country, haven't we? Doctor FINEGAN. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And one of the diseases they have been fighting desparately is diabetes. But one research doctor, a young man, was able to accomplish more than all the doctors in the country without research. Doctor FINEGAN. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. And his discovery has been administered all over the country. Mr. DOUGLASS. Did he do that under Government or private supervision? The CHAIRMAN. It doesn't make any difference. It is research. And the whole world is benefited by it. Mr. DOUGLASS. There isn't anything that is so lacking that it can't be found out. Mr. BLACK. What effect has that report had upon the educational system? Doctor FINEGAN. It has been distributed and is being used by local communities. In that piece of research work the educators did as I would expect the research bureau, if there was a department here, to do. They took the basic things, the fundamental things, and set them forth, and when they were appealed to by a large group of teachers throughout the country to come in and formulate a complete and adequate course of study in each grade, they said, "No; we will not do it, but we will give you the basic things, and make them available, so that Boston and Cincinnati and Los Angeles and all the other communities throughout the country may take these basic things and fill in and build them up. Mr. BLACK. That is all you want the Government to do? Doctor FINEGAN. That particular piece of research work was purely professional and, of course, the lay group would never undertake to pass judgment upon what that should be. That ought to be done by professional people. Mr. BLACK. It was done by the right people. Doctor FINEGAN. But research work that is put out should always come from an authority that will be respected by all. So much research work must have judgment passed upon it by the layman that he is sometimes, and quite often, suspicious, just as your question implied. There were some people in the country suspicious of the National Education Association, thinking its work is solely in the interest of the teacher. So judgment should be passed by a layman Mr. DOUGLASS. Your argument is that a report, for example, on the curriculum, if approved by a secretary of education would have more value than if coming from the National Education Association itself. Doctor FINEGAN. I didn't say that. Mr. DOUGLASS. That is the implication, isn't it? Doctor FINEGAN. No; I didn't say that. I gave you one illustration on only one piece of research work, whereas there are hundreds that ought to be done. Mr. DOUGLASS. But confining ourselves to the one piece of work you have quoted, do you think that the additional approval of a secretary of education upon that report on the curriculum by the National Education Association would give added value to the report, just because it came from the secretary of education? Doctor FINEGAN. I will be glad to answer that question, and I am going to answer yes; and then I will tell you why. I assume that any man who is ever looked up to as being of sufficient intellectual caliber to preside over the head of the Federal Bureau or of the Federal department of education, when he came to the point of working out a strictly professional problem that touched the interests of the million teachers of the country, would have the good administrative sense to call in and have sit in with him in an advisory capacity the leaders in education. Furthermore, take the bill itself, as pointed out by Doctor Keith, my distinguished successor up in Pennsylvania. There is a provision in the bill that provides for this State council. The experts in education of each State are to sit in and advise with the secretary of education upon all problems which are to be taken up. Mr. DOUGLASS. Right there. Don't your State department heads have national meetings? Don't the different organizations of the States meet nationally, somewhat on the lines of your National Education Association? Doctor FINEGAN. I attended perhaps 25 or 30 meetings where the State educational officers were invited to get together, and where we went through the formality of electing a president and secretary. I think we never had over 15 or 16 out, and they never stayed through the full meeting. I had the honor of being president of that once, and there were 16 people at my meeting out of 48 States. Mr. DOUGLASS. So that association does not function? Mr. LowREY. Is this not true? Isn't this your idea? That in these surveys and studies and research work the department of education would have a corps of specialists to give all their time to it, and they would be paid to do that and trained in that? Doctor FINEGAN. That is just it. Mr. LOWREY. Instead of depending on spasmodic efforts of the organization of teachers here and there? Doctor FINEGAN. That is just it. Mr. LowREY. Like your 300 teachers. They worked on it, but they had to do that in addition to their many other duties? Doctor FINEGAN. That is just it. Mr. LOWREY. And they couldn't stick to it very long, or do it very consecutively, and perhaps lacked the means to do it. Doctor FINEGAN. That is it. Mr. LOWREY. Your proposition is that of an organization that has the talent and the means to follow these problems up from year to year and keep the thing shaped up. Doctor FINEGAN. Yes. Mr. SEARS. I suppose it is your idea, isn't it, that a few of the greatest groups in the country should have a place in the Cabinet, and it is up to the Congress to say which ones of these are to be there, and that education, being the greatest of all, should be the first, or one of the first to be represented in the Cabinet. Is that right? Doctor FINEGAN. The one activity, the one interest of the Nation which touches every fireside in the land, and which is of supreme importance to industry, commerce, and the Government, to the home and to christianity, is education. Mr. BLACK. Doctor, you are more concerned with research than with recommendations founded on this research? Re Doctor FINEGAN. Research won't make recommendations. search reveals facts and conditions and makes them available for the intelligent man to use his discriminating sense and select those things which appeal to the interest he represents. Mr. BLACK. Then, what is gained by having a secretary in the Cabinet do the actual fact finding? Doctor FINEGAN. In going over every one of these problems, the wise administrator would have a force, so that when the facts were revealed they would be acted upon without prejudice. They would have the confidence and respect of the public, and they would be available for Pittsburgh and Boston and New York and San Diego and every other city-every community that is charged with the responsibility of administering a school-State departments, etc. Mr. BLACK. Now, the professional school administrator is not going to be carried away with any added dignity attached to research because there happens to be a certificate of the secretary of education. You have in mind the impression it will make on the laity when you speak of this added dignity? Doctor FINEGAN. That is one thing I have in mind. Mr. BLACK. On the other hand, on most of these problems there will be very little contact of the laity with them. For instance, in the shaping of the curricula of the schools, just what contact will the laity have with that? Doctor FINEGAN. You would be surprised, I think, if you knew the number of men and women on boards of education who do have some professional sense. Mr. BLACK. They are not going to be carried away by a certificate from Washington. Doctor FINEGAN. They are not going to be carried away by a certificate from Washington, and I don't want them to be carried away. They are men and women of poise; but there will be this. added advantage that here is a department of the Federal Government making a disinterested study, an unprejudiced investigation into hundreds of professional aspects of education, and just revealing what the facts are and making them available. Mr. BLACF. Now, the bureau of education can reveal what the facts are and the selective process can be undertaken locally. Doctor FINEGAN. I don't quite get your point. Mr. BLACK. You are taking the position that the recommendations are not important; that the research makes its own recommendation. Doctor FINEGAN. Well, if it is conducted Mr. BLACK. Properly conducted research will develop, inferentially, its own information, provided it is a bona fide research or investiga tion? Doctor FINEGAN. Yes. Mr. BLACK. The fact that there happens to be a secretary of education adds to its authenticity? Doctor FINEGAN. Yes. Mr. BLACK. Well, now, if it is the Bureau of Education, properly' backed up financially, and those who are to study the recommendations are people who understand that, the professional teachers, the professional administrators, and so much of the laity as are in this educational fold, as you say, they are not going to pay any more attention to a set of research findings coming from the secretary of education than they are from the bureau of education. They are going to do their own selecting in either case. Doctor FINEGAN. I get your point. My answer to that is this. We have had a Bureau of Education for 50 years. At the head of the Bureau of Education in Washington there has always been one of the outstanding men in education, from Henry Barnard and |