more and more of the burden there, and therefore equalize more and more of the opportunity of the children-to put the burden upon the State.

Mr. BLACK. This is in line with that development.

Doctor ENGLEMAN. This is in line. If there are inequalities among the States, and there are, and they are comparable with inequalities in the State, and inequalities in the given State, in a State that can be partly overcome by a provision which we have in the bill, that will make it possible to give Federal support to those States that can not reach desirable standards and maintain the sort of decent schools that they recognize, as everybody recognizes as desirable as a standard

Mr. BLACK. Who will pass on that?
Doctor ENGLEMAN. Well, I am not.

Mr. BLACK. Will the Federal secretary of education pass on that? Doctor ENGLEMAN. I suppose the Federal secretary of education, aided by the advice and judgment that comes to him through a council, in which every State is represented, through its leading State officer, and in which every phase of education in every State is also represented, and in which the laity is represented by its most intelligent citizens on this national council, I suppose the national secretary, aided by such a council, would have something to do with that.

Mr. BLACK. Suppose there were 48 States pulling and hauling the Federal secretary for funds, and the total demands are greater than the appropriation made by the Federal Government. Who is going to say what State will get the funds and what State will not get the funds?

Doctor ENGLEMAN. All that is a situation that is not very likely to be realized. We might have that same sort of thing in any State, where there is a State fund set apart for equalizing educational opportunities.

That is

Mr. BLACK. You can do it in the State by legislation. what we are trying to avoid. You can do it in the State by political control within the State. Here you have one side, a sovereignty offering funds to other sovereignties, with no control of the sovereignty to which it gives funds.

Doctor ENGLEMAN. I can not conceive a situation like that which would not be easily met by the secretary of education aided by such council.

Mr. BLACK. I am afraid you can not get away from the Federal control of education, once you start to give them money as a practical thing.

Doctor ENGLEMAN. We have had Federal support.

Mr. BLACK. You would not object very much to Federal control, would you?

Doctor ENGLEMAN. I certainly would object to Federal control, but

Mr. BLACK. You would?

Doctor ENGLEMAN. I would not object to Federal help, where it is most needed.

Mr. BLACK. You mean financial help?

Doctor ENGLEMAN. Exactly so; that is what this bill contemplates, in part.

Mr. REED. We have two more speakers.

Miss WILLIAMS. The next witness is a business man from Boston, Mr. A. Lincoln Filene, treasurer and general manager, Wm. Filene's Sons' Co., Boston, Mass.

STATEMENT OF MR. A. LINCOLN FILENE, TREASURER AND GENERAL MANAGER, WM. FILENE'S SONS' CO., BOSTON, MASS.

Mr. FILENE. I feel, gentlemen and Mr. Chairman, a little bit lonesome. I am a business man, and I have this in the background of my mind at the present moment, that my lonesomeness is enhanced a bit from the fact that I come from a State which has neither a Senator nor a Congressman who is behind this bill. That may be a double handicap. I do not know if it is or not, but Massachusetts-and I am only saying this without personal allusions at all, because I am proud of my State, as any of you gentlemen are―I ought not to be expected to represent Massachusetts very much.

I would like to call attention to a few figures that might put a question in our minds as to whether Massachusetts is so much entitled to stand out as its lone star, as she was a few years ago, in 1920, the Sage Foundation, under Dr. Leonard Aires, who was among the most respected educational men in this country, and when he got through he found in 1919 that Massachusetts stood first, but when he got to 1918 Massachusetts stood ninth in rating. A little later, in 1920, in the United States Census report, the figures showed in taking the school ages of children that Massachusetts ranked first up to 13 years of age in children attending schools, but when it got to 14 or 15 Massachusetts was the forty-third State. When it got to the ages of 16 and 17, Massachusetts was the thirty-seventh, and when it got to 18 and 20 it was the twenty-seventh State.

Now, it might, if we were thoroughly unprejudiced in our viewpoint we might consider that Massachusetts had not been entirely progressive in its educational standards and educational ideas of progress.

I want to touch, a moment later, if I may, on the business attitude, the attitude of the business men in Massachusetts, but first I should like to tell you why I have been interested in this question. I shall have to be a bit personal, because I do not want you gentlemen to think I am a theoretical philanthropist among the business group. You do not know me very well. I happen to be in a business that in 12 years has grown from handling about 900 employees to somewhat over 3,000, a business that grew from less than $5,000,000 to $25,000,000 plus, during those two years, and a business that as one of its owners, I think I might say, would be interested in taxes, as the taxes paid to the United States Government roll up into some hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, so you see I am not entirely a theoretical gentleman, although I may be a poor and lonely business man around here.

Now, in 1867 some of these gentlemen, who know education which I do not, tell me we did have a department of education that was a separate department of the Government, and about a year later, as Doctor MacCracken says, we lost that prestige, and we have been looking ever since to get it back. A question was asked about the fact that all these years we have been working, and I would like to call to Mr. Black's attention the fact that while the

particular thing has not been accomplished as yet, there is a great deal of progress during these last years in our educational standards and the conceptions of what the Government is doing for education. I may touch that later.

Mr. BLACK. You think the Illinois schools are better to-day than 20 years ago?

Mr. FILENE. I will let the schoolmasters answer the questions. I am just a business man.

Mr. BLACK. I never thought of that until you got here.

Mr. FILENE. I might answer wrongly. After these interested groups had been working during the last 5 or 10 years, particularly more intensively, some of the group came to me and asked if I would not try to get together the groups interested in the bill, and certain representative laymen and laywomen of the country, with the purpose that when the bill got up here this committee which I happen to be the chairman of could supply to the members of Congress of both Houses a picture of who really wanted this thing in this country, and I think at least there are one or two gentlemen around this table who know I am not looking for additional work. I have considerable to keep me out of mischief, but I thought it was my duty to do this. I had no preconceived ideas, but I thought at least a business man might try to get these groups together and see what they expressed.

I would like the record to show who was represented in the Senate hearings: The National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Federation of Labor, the National Committee for the Department of Education, the National Council of Women, the National Congress of Mothers and Parent Teacher Associations, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the National League of Women Voters, the Supreme Council, Scottish Rite Free Masonry, Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, the International Council of Religious Education, the National Council of Jewish Women, the National Women's Christian Temperance Union, the American Association of University Women, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, the General Grand Chapter Order of the Eastern Star, the National Women's Trade Union League, the National Board of the Young Women's Christian Association, the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the National Federation of Music Clubs250,000 members in that association, it is not so theoretical as it may sound-the American Library Association, the National Vocational Education Association, and the Woman's Relief Corps.

It struck me as a business man that when these national organizations which have been stated were in favor of a department of education, with a Cabinet officer there, ready to back this movement, after years and years of study, that if I could be of any assistance to them that I ought to be, and so with my little knowledge of education, although I have been serving some 17 years on the State board of Massachusetts most continuously, and have had something to do with educational matters in the administrative side, I felt, as I say, it was a duty I had, and I came forward to do it; and I did it because I felt that in Congress the real desire, which has been evident to me around this board to-day by you gentlemen in your earnestness to get the facts-I did it because I knew that if any disinterested group

of people could prove they were disinterested and only had one object in mind, to lay before you the information in one way or the other, as to whether the country really wanted this thing or not, that you would think then and not try to take the attitude that perhaps they were going ahead with selfish motives. That explains my place in this particular matter.

In order to add to that there are perhaps 100 or 150 typical individuals, citizens of the United States, that are a part of this national committee for a department of education, of which I happen to be the chairman. They are not all educators; I will mention quickly a few of the business men on this committee of which I am chairman: Perry Winslow Weidner; Michael H. Sullivan, chairman Boston finance committee; S. W. Straus, of New York, banker; Samuel A. Lewisohn, banker, New York; Henry R. King, merchant, Seattle, Wash.; William W. Hall, manufacturer, New York City; Frank S. Edmunds, lawyer and State representative, Philadelphia, manager of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.; Cleveland H. Dodge, merchant, of New York; George W. Coleman, president of the Babson Institute; Franklin N. Brewer, manager Wanamaker's, Philadelphia; and Edward Bok, former editor of the Ladies' Home Journal, whom I think you know at this time.

Those are read off at random, to show you there are some hardheaded business men that do not think the country is going to pot if it helps education through a Federal aid bill. There is plenty of evidence, gentlemen, that Federal aid has been in existence long enough for you to know, if you look at it dispassionately, and I think you will there is no record in the whole country where Federal aid to education is given, where any advantage has been taken, where it has not been of a decided advantage to the country, were given.

The State of Massachusetts, for instance-I have got the figurethe amount annually spent through Federal aid was $133,000 in the year 1921, but the State itself spent $687,000.

Mr. BLACK. What kind of aid?

Mr. FILENE. Vocational education. That is illustrative of the kind of advantage and the kind of control that has been so much voiced by some as earnestly as I voiced my opinion, and the answer is definite, and it can be traced to other States, as to whether there will be Federal control of education instead of Federal Government aid.

There are certain phases of this as a business man I ought to speak about. It seems to me so simple a fact that the time has come for us in this country to realize that education is pretty nearly as important as labor or commerce or agriculture, or war, or the Navy, or whatever else we may have in our Government. It seems to me it is pretty nearly time for us to recognize, in order to be educationally wise, the President should have sitting beside him in the Cabinet— when budgets are brought up, and education and development of our business interests in this country, are discussed-a man, speaking solely in the terms of education. We have such a man in commerce, such a man in finance, such a man in labor, we have such a man in war and we have such a man in the navy. We have such a man in agriculture and in other ways. We certainly should have. a voice in education. Education should be represented there just as well as any of these interests. That is all.

If there was any other reason for that, it seems to me we ought to accept the fact that we are not going to pot in this country if we create a cabinet officer of education.

Now I am only to try to get on the things a business man ought to talk about. We hear a great deal about why Massachusetts or New York or this State and that State should pay for the education down South. I made a statement the other day in the Senate hearing, and I think bears repeating here. I would like to tell a story about it, after I get through, which will not be a long one.

A. Lincoln Filene, treasurer and general manager William Filene's Sons' Co., Boston, Mass.: If Massachusetts could get the control of the business orders for its products in some of these Southern States-in which some gentlemen of the North are so afraid we will pay for part of their education-we could pay the whole education bill because we could educate them enough to create a demand for our products, and it would be a good business proposition. If you let people live in huts they do not wear clothes, and buy automobiles, and pianos, and victrolas. The more ignorant the population in any State, the less market you have for your merchandise. Massachusetts is just as much interested to know that Mississippi has an educated population as to know that she has an educated population herself, because she has to take care of her industry and unless she gets an outlet for her merchandise she will be short of business.

I would like to tell you a story that happened during the war that illustrates that point, as well as I can tell you.

Am I taking too much time, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. No; go right ahead.

Mr. FILENE. You shut me up when you want to. There was a very remote place in the South-I forget where it was-that a factory was needed for the producing of material, and the entire help were negroes. The wage basis on which they were paid was so much larger than they had been used to, that they worked only two days in the week, and you could never get the negroes to come back the four days, and they could not produce an urgently needed article for the war. What happened? A certain gentleman who owned that factory had what he thought was a kind of fool son, because the son said to him one day, "Leave that factory to me, and I will produce merchandise six days a week." "How will you do it?" "I will not tell you; if you leave it to me I will do it. "Well," the father

said. "I am losing money, so you might have your chance." So he let him go down, and the son shut up the factory and built a big wall around the entire factory so nobody could peep in, and nobody knew what was going on behind the fence. He put a notice on the outside that he would open it in two weeks. At the end of two weeks he opened it, and behind the fence there was a good store, and the store was supplied with everything that the negro liked to put on, high colored stockings, high colored shirt waists, nice underwear and high colored dresses and things, and he put them in the shop and opened the shop. The men came to work on Monday morning, and they did not stop on Tuesday or stop at all, and it was for just one reason. They wanted to buy some of the things they saw, so they worked six days in the week so as to be able to buy them with the wages they got. The factory never had a day short after that in war time because the people would not work. He created a demand for his merchandise right there.

You apply that to education and go down through some of the States, and you find people living from hand to mouth, and you find