STATEMENT OF DR. C. R. MANN, DIRECTOR OF THE AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION, SECRETARY OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL ON CITIZENSHIP, TRAINING, AND CHAIRMAN OF THE CIVILIAN ADVISORY BOARD FOR THE WAR DEPARTMENT Doctor MANN. I am director of the American Council on Education and also secretary of the Federal Council on Citizenship Training, and chairman of the civilian advisory board for the War Department. Miss Williams introduced me as representing an organization that has indorsed the department of education. I would say that that indorsement was taken some two years before I had any connection with the American Council on Education. I have considered whether it is possible to get a vote of that organization that would have any significance, and have decided that it is practically impossible, because it is composed of 14 associations, of which the National Education Association is one, and the Catholic Educational Association is another, and it seems very difficult to get a vote of that organization which would have any significance; therefore I have not attempted to get in a vote of the organizations, and I disclaim representing the organizations who are representing any number of voters who are back of this proposition. In a position of the sort that is involved in the American Council on Education, I have endeavored to find out what are the things that everyone is agreed to with reference to this bill, because it seems to me we might find some ground of progress if we could discover what are the things that everyone agrees on. Many of those have been brought out this morning, and in the previous hearings we are all agreed education is not what it should be and there is need of action. We are all agreed that some action is necessary within the Federal Government. I recall to you gentlemen that this bill has been before the committee now for over five years and has received no action. I think there is a unanimous feeling throughout the country that some kind of action is desirable, if possible, in a reasonably short time. On my effort to find out what are the common grounds, and what are the things on which we all agree, I have found three large ideas, large principles, and then I have considered very carefully what are some of the practical considerations that must be taken in achieving those three principles. The first idea which is common is that our present Federal organization of education is entirely inadequate, and that some action ought to be taken to strengthen it. On that point I would say that this bill seems to me to be weak, that if you are going to have that stronger educational agency in the Federal Government legislation department or a bureau, or what not, you want to make the organization within that bureau or department such that it can really do the job that ought to be done. This bill merely takes the Bureau of Education and enlarges it in the department, and makes no provision for the coordination of educational activities within the Federal Government. That coordination is the second point on which there is unanimous agreement. I refer to the letter presented, written by Mr. Smith, of Massachusetts, in which he mentions two major items, namely, coordination of activities within the Federal Government and proper stimulus by the Federal Government of educational activities over the country. However, from the point of view of coordinated activities within the Federal Government this bill is exceedingly weak. As I said, it merely enlarges the bureau of education to a department. It makes no provision for uniting that with the activities of the Federal Board for Vocational Education, for instance. Therefore, if I may, I would like to offer a practical amendment to the bill, which may be a step in the direction of securing coordination of Federal activities. On the second page of the bill, section 3, lines 13 and 14, "Transferred the department of education, the bureau of education and such other offices," and so on. I would suggest there should be added, "the bureau of education, the Federal Board of Vocational Education, and some other agencies." That idea is almost unanimously accepted everywhere. If you will refer to the hearings before the reorganization commission, joint committee, you will find that Secretary Davis, who is chairman of the Federal Board for Vocational Education, makes that same recommendation to that organization commission, and that recommendation is also embodied in the report that Mr. Brown submitted to the joint commission and is unanimously accepted. Now, if you will make that amendment to this bill you will have a very much stronger organization of this Federal educational office, and one that is very much more likely to do the job and win the confidence of our people and of Congress in the activities of the Federal educational office. Mr. BLACK. Does not the Federal Board of Vocational Education cooperate with the different organizations? Doctor MANN. In some States that question of double-heading of education has been argued at length throughout some States, and in the States where a double-heading system was set up it has been abandoned, and in some States, after long debate, the legislature refused to create that double system; therefore it will tend to the strengthening of educational work, and achieving the things that we want to achieve, that everyone wants to achieve, if that step can be taken. That is the practical step that can be taken toward that end; therefore, I would like to make the suggestion that you get more support for the bill, and everyone will recognize it as a step in the right direction if we can have that amendment made. Now the question of other educational agencies in the Federal Government is also very important, that is, such work as State relief service in the Department of Agriculture and the nationalization work mentioned this morning, the training in the War and Navy Departments, and these are important in that they are training some 60 or 70 thousand young men everywhere. There is also the Veterans' Bureau, and so on. Those also should be coordinated with the work of the department. Mr. BACON. In what way, Doctor? Doctor MANN. We have made a practical experiment in the past year in finding out how that can be done. A year ago in January, President Harding created by Executive order, this Federal Council of Citizenship. That was created for the purpose of seeing what could be done to achieve better training in citizenship throughout the country. That consists of one delegate and one representative from each of the executive departments, and they are required to meet once a month. That organization has met since last January on the average of once in three weeks, and one of the first things that it did was to draw a chart showing each agency and department that has any bearing on citizenship training. I brought along 'one of those charts, and I would like to exhibit it. I will show this chart to you. It will show a complicated situation that you have with merely this one factor of citizenship. I would say that this chart has been compiled by delegates to the council from the executive departments, and has been approved as accurately representing the work of the department by the head of each department. The departments are listed here, and the agencies or activities, with reference to citizenship are listed here. Mr. BLACK. Do you not think that that should be coordinated and put in one branch of the Federal Government, whether or not this bill passes? Doctor MANN. That should be coordinated, but I will show you how the thing practically works out. This Federal council has this peculiarity-the Executive order says that the Federal council shall shall not report as a body to any one department, but that each member of the council shall report the findings of the council to his own department for individual action. Therefore the council sits and talks over the problem, reaches a conclusion, and every member of the council takes back that conclusion to his own department for individual action. Mr. BLACK. Who represents the War Department on that? Doctor MANN. I represent the War Department. I am one of the delegates of the War Department. The CHAIRMAN. You may give that to the reporter, if you want to file it. Doctor MANN. I want to file it later on. The important thing is that we have achieved-it is not a theorywe have achieved a large amount of coordination in educational work in citizenship by the process of meeting three times a week together, and taking up the definite problem, and they are all working on similar lines. They know what one another are doing. They are cooperating in the field, for instance, the agents of the Bureau of Naturalization and Labor did not know what the field service in the Department of Agriculture was doing. They did not know what the Public Health agents over the country were doing. They are beginning to cooperate in the field as well as here in Washington, and they understand one another. Therefore, I think it demonstrates the fact that you can produce coordination in education between the strictly educational agencies, like the Bureau of Education and the Federal Board, and the States' Relation Service, in Agriculture, for example, by this process, and I would advocate an amendment to the bill which would transfer this council on citizenship into this organization. Mr. BACON. In other words, that executive order might be translated into law? Doctor MANN. Yes, sir. Mr. BACON. It is a very constructive suggestion. Mr. BLACK. Would it take away from the Department of Agriculture its work in its field and put it in this bill? Doctor MANN. No, sir; the Department of Agriculture is best to carry on the work with the agricultural people. The CHAIRMAN. It is getting very late. What you have to give us is interesting,and I have been wondering if later in the hearing you would be willing to come back when we could give you more time? Doctor MANN. Yes, sir; I have two or three other important practical suggestions dealing with the practical side of this question, that I have been able to work out, due to my intimate connection with the Federal Government as well as outside of the school system. Mr. BLACK. I would like to hear you further at some time. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will adjourn until one week from to-day, and on next Tuesday we will meet at 11 o'clock in order to give the National Conservatory of Music people a chance to be heard. These will be at a Senate hearing, and can come over here. (Whereupon, at 12.45 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned.) COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Frederick W. Dallinger (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. We begin to-day to hear the people who are opposed to H. R. 3923, known as the Sterling-Reed bill. Mr. TUCKER. Mr. Chairman, while you are starting that I would like to put in the record a paper sent by me the faculty of the Washington and Lee University opposing this measure; a very strong letter from Bishop Collins Denny, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, of Richmond, Va.; and a letter from Dr. Thomas C. Johnson, of the Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Va. I think he is the head of that institution now. It is a strong statement against the bill. The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection they will be inserted in the record. (The letters referred to are as follows:) PUBLISHING HOUSE M. E. CHURCH SOUTH, Hon. HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SIR AND FRIEND: Permit me as a friend of many years to offer a few objections to the pending bill known by the name of the "Sterling-Towner bill." I am strongly opposed to the passage of that bill and regret that I can not set forth my objections at some length. Let me slightly touch two objections: First, Congress, to assume the constitutional power to pass the bill, must interpret the general-welfare clause of the Constitution as a blanket power to take any action believed to be for the benefit of the people of this country. Such an interpretation would make meaningless the fact that Congress is limited to enumerated powers granted in the Constitution. Such action would be contrary to the understanding of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, as shown by the debates and votes in that convention; and that interpretation of the clause is specifically denied by the most prominent members of that convention in discussing the clause, is also denied by many of the ablest writers on the Constitution, and has not been accepted by the courts. Second, not only does the Constitution stand in the way of the rightful passage of that bill but, on the ground of expediency, it is condemned. What greater damage could be wrought than to put the education of our people into politics? Of all the vital interests of the people from which politics should be wholly excluded, religion and education are the most important. It is not denied that more true education and far better education is needed. More and better religion is also needed, but neither religion nor education needs to be nationalized. An attempt to nationalize either is not likely to be an improvement. Are we to learn nothing from the disasters of others? Germany adopted a system of standardized education. In addition to many other calamities of that system it is to be noted how wilting was its effect on the independence of its ablest and best-trained scholars and teachers, the "intellectuals." The finer, the more delicate traits of mind and character must have been atrophied before those men, at the command of the German Government, could have signed their abhorrent document. Standardized education tends to produce such results even in those of greatest gifts and highest training, and did produce them in the action cited. Solid objections to this bill are so numerous and so strong that public opinion, once fully informed, will probably make its defeat inevitable. I am, my dear Mr. Tucker, Most truly yours, COLLINS DENNY. DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES, Hon. HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, United States House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: We, the undersigned, members of the faculty of Washington and Lee University, desire to go on record as opposing the passage of the so-called Sterling-Towner bill, in the belief that the bill is unnecessary, inexpedient, and un-American. The matter of education is a question to be settled by those who are locally personally interested and informed, and a Federal officer in Washington can not be thus informed and interested as to the educational needs and the social and intellectual conditions in the several States of this wide-spread Union, nor in the local conditions within the various sections of the several States. An attempt to standardize or federalize education in the manner set forth in this bill would, therefore, be a detriment and not an aid to the cause of true education, and would bring about a Prussianization of American education that would jeopardize individual State, local, and personal development, and make of our educational institutions a series of interlocking cogs, all moving merely at the rate of speed set by the central machine in Washington. The results would be a dead level of mediocrity. And further, if the Central Government were to provide aid for education in the several States, the Central Government would have the right and the duty to control the "how" and the "what" of education throughout the entire country. This direction and control would of necessity in many cases militate against the best interests of education; for the needs and desires of Idaho, for example, would hardly be the same as those of California or Florida, and the central control of education would not, therefore, be for the common welfare. Again, the passage of this bill would add further and unnecessary expenditure of governmental moneys, and this would mean further and unnecessary taxation; for the Government has money to give to the citizens only as the citizens give to the Government. For the reasons above noted and for others that might be cited, we beg to commend most heartily the efforts that you have already made to defeat this bill, and urge that you continue to do all things possible to prevent its passage. Very sincerely yours, R. G. CAMPBELL. H. D. CAMPbell. L. W. SMITH. L. J. DESHA. |