II. STATE

1. Adequate financing of public education.

2. Compulsory education for all children between 6 and 16, nine months yearly.

3. Public school adult extension classes (including classes for aliens). 4. Consolidated rural schools.

5. Trained teachers in all schools.

6. English the basic language in all schools where courses in general education are conducted.

Miss WILLIAMS. I should like to file at this time a statement of Mrs. Maud Wood Park, president of the National League of Women Voters.

(The statement of Mrs. Maud Wood Park, president National League of Women Voters, is as follows:)

At its last annual convention the National League of Women Voters gave formal indorsement to a plan of department of education headed by a secretary who shall sit in the President's Cabinet.

It is the belief of the league that effective cooperation among the States to give every American child its American right, a fair education, can be brought about best and most quickly through the help of such a department.

The league believes, also, that the safety of a democracy rests on the trained intelligence of its citizens, it is the part of justice and wisdom to make education not a minor but a major concern of the Federal Government.

Miss WILLIAMS. I would now like to introduce Miss T. Rose, of the National Council of Jewish Women.

STATEMENT OF MRS. MARK LANSBURG, OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN

Mrs. LANSBURG. I am speaking for Mrs. Alexander Wolf, chairman of the committee on education of the National Council of Jewish Women. The National Council of Jewish Women, which is organized in more than 200 sections, is an organization of 30 years' standing all over the country, including 50,000 members. It indorses this legislation as follows:

A local section may act upon local or State legislation, but if it wishes to do anything in regard to national legislation, any section may submit a bill which it has duly considered to the national legislative committee. After discussions, if it is deemed of sufficient interest and importance, each of these bills is referred back to all of the sections for action.

They must give them at least 60 days in which to consider it, and the consideration is done by the body general, and voted upon by them, and the delegates then go to conventions, instructed how to vote on the resolutions which are to be passed.

At the triennial convention in St. Louis, Mo., in November, 1923, the National Council of Jewish Women unanimously indorsed the bill for a department of education, with a secretary in the President's Cabinet, and for Federal aid. I do not know if they indorsed this specific bill. They indorsed the Sterling-Towner bill, and I believe this bill has been considered, although I am not sure that it has been considered in its entirety.

Miss WILLIAMS. The Young Women's Christian Association is represented here to-day by Miss Elizabeth Eastman, member of the national board of the Young Women's Christian Association, who will speak to you for a few minutes.

STATEMENT OF MISS ELIZABETH EASTMAN, MEMBER OF NATIONAL BOARD YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Miss EASTMAN. On recommendation of the committee on education and research, of which President Woolley, of Mount Holyoke College, is chairman, the national board of Young Women's Christian Associations of the United States indorsed the principles of a Federal department of education and Federal aid for the promotion of education within the States. This action was taken at a meeting of the board held October 3, 1923.

The conventions of Young Women's Christian Associations do not indorse bills. They indorse general principles and the principle of education is one of the foundations of our organization. We carried on a great educational work recently in our schools. This measure was studied for four years, nearly four years, before it was indorsed, and it was indorsed at the recommendation of the committee on education and research, of which I am also a member, and I can testify as to the thorough way in which it was studied.

The national board is empowered to indorse bills that are in agreement with the principles that are voted for at conventions. Each local association received copies of the bill and a statement of the argument for and against the bill, and every membeer of the assotion had an opportunity to hear discussions. We had a number of educators on the national board, and I think that there was a good deal of opposition to the bill before it was studied. There was a fear that it would produce a standardization, whatever that is, artificiality, perhaps, in education, but after the bill was studied, all of this opposition was removed, and there has been a great demand for our indorsement from the local association, 600,000 members. There have been a great many letters and a great many requests for more materials, and it has been the subject for the summer pro

gram.

Miss WILLIAMS. I would like to file a statement of Mrs. Robert E. Speer, president national board of the Young Women's Christian Associations, and a statement of Mr. Hugh S. McGill, general secretary International Council of Religious Education as well as the resolutions of the council. This is his statement:

The International Council of Religious Education is the one accredited agency for cooperative, interdemonational work in religious education of 35 Protestant Christian denominations, and also of the organized territorial forces, including the State councils and their auxiliary accounting and local councils of religious education which took the place of the old Sunday school associations.

(The statement of Mrs. Robert E. Speer, president national board of Young Women's Christian Associations, and the resolution adopted by the executive committee of the International Council of Religious Education, February 14, 1924, are as follows:)

Believing that the development of personality is the goal of all education, the association's program is based on education, to the end that young women may be able to adapt themselves to their social environment, to appreciate the world in which they live, and to intelligent and creative citizens in the social order of their day. Therefore, the Young Women's Christian Association is particularly glad to see education come to be considered as one of the major interests of our national life, and to see adequate provision made therefor in our local and national budgets.

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The provision for research in education is one of our greatest needs to-day, and should lead us forth into new ways of enriching the life of our people as well as the lives of others.

As a Nation we are striving to achieve democracy. This may only be done by building on the foundation of an educated citizenry. We can not look with complacency upon the changing forms of our social life so long as their growth and stability are menaced by illiteracy, and the bitterness of soul which comes from lack of opportunity to find one's self in unselfish service. All of these things are problems of education which alone can insure the creation of a sane, intelligent public opinion which shall not become the tool of half-truths nor of propaganda. Mrs. ROBERT E. SPEER, President National Board of the Young Women's Christian Association.

Whereas there is a nation-wide movement for the creation of a department of education with a secretary in the President's Cabinet, promoted by the National Education Association and many other organizations interested in social welfare, and there is now a bill before Congress known as the SterlingReed bill (known in the last Congress as the Towner-Sterling bill) for the creation of a department of education, and for the promotion of education generally; and

Whereas when our general secretary was elected in 1922 it was with the express understanding that he should give so much of his time as in his judgment might be advisable for the promotion of this cause; Therefore

Resolved, That the principles embodied in the education bill now before Congress, known as the Sterling-Reed bill, be indorsed and that the general secretary be authorized to cooperate in the promotion and passage of this measure to such extent as in his judgment may seem advisable and proper.

Miss WILLIAMS. Another statement sent me by Hugh S. McGill, general secretary International Sunday School Council of Religious Education is as follows:

The supreme importance of education to the life of our Nation is conceded by all thoughtful persons, and yet our Federal Government shows a greater interest in many other subjects. Agriculture, commerce, and labor are each represented in the President's Cabinet. No satisfactory reason can be given why education should not be accorded the same recognition. To deny it is to hold that the training of the future citizens of our Republic is of less importance from a national standpoint than the development of the material resources of our country.

The movement for a department of education with a secretary in the President's Cabinet is gaining in the approval of those who are most deeply concerned in the highest welfare of our Nation, and the perpetuity of our free institutions. This movement can not be stopped because it is founded upon right principles and must ultimately win.

At this time I should like to file a statement of Mary Garrett Hay, president Women's City Club, New York City.

(The paper referred to is as follows:)

I favor the Sterling-Reed bill because it provides sufficiently effective means on a national scale for the coordination and sifting of the educational work and experiments throughout the country.

Education is one of the major concerns of daily American life. Our public education system employs more workers than any given industry, excepting the farmers. It molds the character and outlook of the growing generation as well as of millions of adults, and yet this deep national concern is not now representei by Cabinet office. The new bill provides for it.

But the bill would not merely create a secretary of education in the President's Cabinet, a great administrative department in touch with the 48 State departments of education. It provides for a genuine social exchange of national educational problems by creating a national council of 100 representative educators and laymen, who would coordinate Federal, State, and private interest in education as applied to such outstanding social and civic problems as the removal of illiteracy, the education of the foreign born, and the training of teachers.

The present Commissioner of Education in the Department of the Interior is doing all these things, with remarkable success in view of its limitations, but it has not the means nor can it command the public mind to the degree that a Cabinet administration could.

MARY GARRETT HAY,

President Women's City Club, New York City.

Miss WILLIAMS. At this time I would like to introduce Miss Ethel Smith, representing the National Women's Trade Union League. STATEMENT OF MISS ETHEL SMITH, LEGISLATIVE SECRETARY, THE NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE

Miss SMITH. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the headquarters of the National Women's Trade Union League are in Chicago, with the legislative headquarters here, 1427 New York Avenue.

The National Women's Trade Union League is a federation f women workers and their friends and allies. We have indorsed this measure on two occasions, at the two general conventions, the principles of the bill involving the idea of a department of education and Federal aid to the States being indorsed as such principles. That was in 1919. Succeeding biennial conventions indorsed the Sterling-Reed bill as such.

I think I may say, and this is all that I have to say on the subject, that our organization, not only because this is a measure for the general welfare, but because we are among the people who need it— there are many members of our organization who have not had educational opportunities, because of the fact that they had to go to. work too soon. They are getting all the education they can at the present time, going to night schools, and attending classes of that kind. These people support this bill. I believe that speaks the real sentiment of our people on this subject.

Miss WILLIAMS. I should like to file a statement at this time from Mr. Will. W. Grow, most worthy grand patron, General Grand Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star.

I will read it. It is very short:

I am thoroughly convinced in the need of a national department of education with a secretary in the President's Cabinet whose sole interest would be the solution of the great problems of American education which is so sorely needed. The Nation's future progress demands adequate education for the youth of the present day.

I will now call on Mrs. Francis Eliot Clark, who will speak for the National Federation of Music Clubs.

STATEMENT OF MRS. FRANCIS ELIOT CLARK, SECOND VICE PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN OF THE LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE, FORMER CHAIRMAN OF EDUCATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF MUSIC CLUBS

Mrs. CLARK. My name is Mrs. Francis Eliot Clark, second vic» president and chairman of the legislative committee, former chairman of education of the National Federation of Music Clubs. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, it may seem strange that the National Federation of Music Clubs should be interesting themselves in a bill for education, but the reason is not far to seek. This organi

zation is now a large organization, 28 years old, formed in the beginning by a very small group of sincere, philanthropic women who wished to see music function more abundantly than it had been or was doing in the lives of our people. It did not have far to go before it was realized that the crux of the situation lay in reaching the children of the public schools.

We adopted some years ago a slogan to make wider music in the homes, and it was easily determined that to get American music in the homes that goal meant some better facilities for education in our rural schools, as we all know almost 50 per cent of the children of our schools are in one-room schools in little nooks in the Adirondacks, the Rocky Mountains, in the Southern States, here and there, without adequate facilities for modern education.

We have thought very seriously that if music could be made to serve in the way that it has the power to do we might contribute very largely toward the bettering of our citizenship.

It is with very serious purposes that we are giving our aid in every degree it is possible to do, to the public schools particularly, and we are interested in the rural schools. We have now something like 2,000 clubs, the membership fluctuating, comprising approximately 250,000 women. These women are all giving their time to it. There is no money in connection with it, no paid officers, no general headquarters, but a nation-wide organization, State organizations in every State of the Union, district organizations, carrying on musical contests and various activities.

It has been our thought, as I say, gentlemen of the committee, that it is impossible for us to reach our goal, or for American education to function in the lives of the American people until there may be an equalization of opportunities. It is that particular part of the bill that appeals to us, more than any other part of it.

A short while ago you were discussing the possible localization of the problem of immigration and the problem of caring for our alien population. It is squarely the other way about. The children of our alien immigrants arrived in Gloucester, Mass., on Saturday, and this morning they are in the schools in New York City, Philadelphia, and other large cities, where they are offered the best educational facilities in the world, with the opportunity of learning a trade, a vocation, all sorts of arts, culture, whatever can be done for them in the very, very fine public schools. The children who are descendants of our ancestors from Plymouth Rock, Jamestown, etc., are to-day sitting in the waste places. The people who have had the pioneering instinct, who went ahead and broke the track westward, the children of these people are suffering. It is not our alien children. They are having the best of everything, although their parents have contributed little, if anything, to our institutions, but the children of our Puritan and Pilgrim ancestors are those, who, following their bent, went westward, and are now sitting hundreds and thousands of them, in these little one-room country schools.

I taught a one-room country school. I was born and reared on a farm in Indiana, taught school there, and have been in educational work all my life, and I know the situation now, having given myself to music in the last years. Naturally our attention is given to the equalization of opportunities through music, through every other

sort of line.