There were of that number 1,340,000, or 22 per cent, who were rejected as being liabilities to the Army in any capacity; that is, they were sent back home as of no value to a fighting army. Some of these 4,650,000 were only of limited value [indicating on chart], but these 1,340,000 were of no value according to the physicians.

Mr. ROBSION. Where are the exemptions? A great many were accepted?

Mr. NORTON. They are outside of this group, they were not examined at all. They were on the list to be examined if the war continued, but they were never actually examined; 6,000,000 were. These figures show the relationship between rejections for physical inefficiency and the killed and wounded. In other words, physical inefficiency was a much more effective fighter against the United States. than all the German shells and mustard gas.

Mr. DOUGHTON. There were 240,170 killed and wounded?

Mr. NORTON. Yes, sir.

Mr. DOUGHTON. How many were killed?

Mr. NORTON. I have not the figures in my head. I think forty or fifty thousand.

Mr. DOUGHTON. I understood about 50,000 were killed.

Mr. NORTON. The point is that many of our men are not fitted for peace as well as war; these figures show that in a striking manner.

Mr. DOUGHTON. Now, we are discussing an educational side. You say the men were rejected. They were rejected for what?

Mr. NORTON. For physical inefficiency, physical disability. Did I answer your question?

Mr. HASTINGS. You see this bill provides for physical education. Mr. DOUGHTON. I am asking whether or not this has anything to do with literacy or illiteracy.

Mr. NORTON. No; it has nothing to do with illiteracy. It concerns physical fitness. One of the sections of the bill would deal with physical efficiency-their proper physical education.

Is education submerged?—Some appropriations for the Department of the Interior,

Bureau of Pensions.

Reclamation Service_

1923

$254, 246, 362. 67

14, 800, 021. 01 4, 510, 210. 00 1, 175, 000. 00

Construction and maintenance of Alaska railroad.
Protection and survey of public lands and timber.
Investigating mine accidents.

Support of Indians in Arizona.

Bureau of Education___

378, 000. 00

185, 000, 00

161, 990. 00 These figures are from the Treasury Department's Digest of Appropriations, 1923. The figures given for the Bureau of Education do not include appropriations made for "education of natives in Alaska," nor similar outside work. It also does not include a sum of approximately $50,000 for printing and supplies, which is available, but not specifically appropriated for bureau use.

Now, this chart has to do with the position of the Bureau of Education, at the present time submerged in one of our very important departments.

The contention of school people throughout the country is that as long as you have these tremendous interests, represented by hundreds of millions of dollars: The Bureau of Pensions, with a budget of $250,000,000 annually; the Reclamation Service, with a budget of $14,000,000; the construction and maintenance of Alaska road, $4,000,000, and these other appropriations under the Interior De

partment; these enormous amounts are bound to receive the attention of the Secretary of the Interior. The Bureau of Education with $161,000, a relatively insignificant amount, is unlikely to receive very much attention from the Secretary of the Department of the Interior. Look at the report of any Secretary of the Interior and you will find he devotes five or six lines to education in his report. The Bureau of Education is submerged and has been, throughout its history in the Department of the Interior.

Our belief is that not until you take education out of its submerged position and make it a department will it receive the recognition that it deserves. Those are some of the facts that stand out.

This last table or chart summarizes some of the outstanding facts pertinent to the educational situation in this country.

They might be called national educational liabilities; I speak of some of the outstanding facts.

We had 1,340,000 men rejected as unfit for military service. If they are unfit for military service they are probably unfit for the greatest efficiency in peace-time service.

A committee appointed by Herbert Hoover, after a very careful investigation by some of the greatest authorities in the country, estimated recently $1,800,000,000 as the yearly economic loss in the working population alone from preventable disease and death. These first two facts go together [indicating]. At the same time they stated that if we went at this problem thoroughly we could take care of it and have a billion dollars surplus. One of the provisions of the bill is a forward-looking step in the direction of bringing up the physical condition of the people of the United States.

We have 5,000,000 confessed illiterates, with no schooling whatever. I showed the figures on that a little while ago. One of the provisions of the bill would encourage an attack of that problem directly wherever it exists. That [indicating] is admittedly a conservative estimate, nearly a billion dollars is lost each year; we are that much poorer each year, due to the fact that people can not read and write. That was an estimate made by former Secretary Lane.

Mr. ROBSION. How do you get that now?

Mr. NORTON. I believe he used some such method as this: He inquired among concerns as to the value of a man's labor, and with particular reference to his literacy, and then he arrived at a certain figure. I do not remember all the details. I believe it is given in one of his reports, though. Then he multiplied that by the number of illiterates, as given by the census, and he arrived at some such figure as this that we would be $825,000,000 better off economically each year if we had no illiteracy.

Mr. ROBSION. But what about having a supply of labor anyway, and would not that create more fellows for jobs, should not that be taken into consideration too?

Mr. NORTON. Well, I believe you will always get more work done, more products and more commodities produced from an intelligent individual, one who is able to read and write.

Mr. ROBSION. But the trouble is you can not count it all being a loss because Congress is now very much concerned with the question of overproduction along certain lines, trying to find a market for goods.

NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL
LIABILITIES

1340,625 MEN REJECTED AS UNFIT FOR MILITARY SERVICE

1,800,000,000 YEARLY ECONOMIC LOSS FROM PREVENTABLE DISEASES AND DEATH

5,000,000 CONFESSED ILLITERATES 825,000,000 YEARLY ECONOMIC LOSS DUE TO ILLITERACY 1060,858 CHILD WORKERS BETWEEN THE AGE OF 10AND15 1,437,000 CHILDREN BETWEEN THE AGES OF 7 AND 13 NOT ATTENDING ANY KIND OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

H

Mr. NORTON. Well, although this is perhaps digressing, I believe we can not produce too much. We may have a faulty system of distribution, and may poorly distribute our economic efforts, but I do not believe we can ever produce too much of the good things of life.

Mr. DOUGHTON. You would not apply that to every line, would you?

Mr. NORTON. Well, that is a problem of distribution of products and of effort. I think the more intelligent human effort you have in producing things the richer we are.

Mr. LOWREY. A gentleman in the Department of Commerce who has just returned from Germany told me that the men in the wheat and grain business there told him that Germany would have used 50,000,000 bushels more of American wheat this year than she did. use, if she could have gotten it, if it could have been arranged so she could pay for it, so she could get it; so the thing is there is not too much wheat but there is too little ability to pay for it. There is not too much production.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Norton.

Mr. NORTON. According to the Federal census we had something over a million child workers between 10 and 15 years old.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not claim that is due to the lack of education, do you?

Mr. NORTON. I believe that is a part of the whole educational program; that is, if these child workers had been given an educational opportunity they could not have been workers.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not see that point.

Mr. NORTON. It is a national educational liability to have these children working when they should be in school.

The CHAIRMAN. The first step to stop that is to have the national child labor law.

Mr. NORTON. But after it is passed you have to take care of the children; but at the present time that is the problem.

The CHAIRMAN. But you can not make the States pass a compulsory education law.

Mr. HASTINGS. If their parents were all educated, perhaps they would take a greater interest in sending their children to school and keeping them at school.

Mr. NORTON. The next fact is that 1,437,000 children, according to the Federal census, between the ages of 7 and 13, were not attending any kind of an educational institution. That quotation is from the Federal census. They were not attending "any kind of an educational institution" between the dates of September 1, 1919, and January 1, 1920. I use those dates, because the question the census enumerators asked is something like this: "Were you in school (addressing parents of children) between September 1, 1919, and January 1, 1920, in any kind of an educational institution a single day?" If they say yes, then they are not included in this million and a half; but if they say they were not, then they are included in these figures.

Mr. ROBSION. I am wondering what part of that number we include in those physically unable, or mentally unable, to attend any school.

Mr. NORTON. That is relatively a small percentage. In our better organized schools, such, for instance, as Cleveland, Ohio and I merely mention that as one example that I happen to know of-they find a very small percentage of children that can not be educated. For example, if a child has some physical defect that would ordinarily prevent him from attending school, they provide for transportation. Mr. ROBSION. But that does not cover the whole country? Mr. NORTON. Well, it could be done in the whole country. fact that we are not doing it is a national educational liability. We would be richer if most of these children were given the opportunity to attend school.

The

Now, remember that is the minimum number. There are millions of children, literally, that do not attend regularly, but these figures show children who are not in school at all, who do not go to school a single day or did not over that period, a period of four months.

Those are some of the outstanding facts behind the statements that have been made by some of the people that have appeared before you. I have passed around tables that deal with physical inefficiency, giving facts and details, and tables that give considerable data relative to educational inequalities. Practically all of these tables are based on Federal sources and Bureau of Education figures. The CHAIRMAN. Are you going to see that all of these go into the record properly corrected?

Mr. NORTON. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I think it would be of value to the record to have all these charts in the record.

Mr. NORTON. These charts have all been presented and are appearing in the hearings of the Senate.

The CHAIRMAN. And will appear in these hearings!

Mr. NORTON. I understand that it has been authorized that they appear here.

The CHAIRMAN. Have they been printed?

Miss WILLIAMS. I think the copy is in the hands of the printer. Mr. NORTON. There are some tables here of which I regret I did not have sufficient copies so that I can give all of you one. I believe it would be valuable to put these tables in with the others. It is a table showing the Federal aid provided for in the Sterling-Reed bill. It gives the amount that each State would receive under the provisions of the Sterling-Reed bill, provided they qualify in full. I may illustrate: $7,500,000 of the $100,000,000 is distributed among the States on the basis of the native-born illiterates under 14 years of age. You can see how much each State would get to tackle that particular problem; also for each of the other provisions, and then a summary table showing how much the States would receive under all the provisions, provided they qualify.

TABLES BASED UPON FEDERAL-AID PROVISIONS OF STERLING-REED BILL

The following six tables show the bases upon which the several States could receive funds under the terms of the Sterling-Reed bill and the maximum amounts that each State might receive for each specific purpose: