or imposed by law upon the Federal Board for Vocational Education shall be exercised and performed by the board as a division of the department of education. The secretary of education shall be a member of the Federal Board for Vocational Education and ex officio chairman of said board.

(d) The authority, powers, and duties conferred and imposed by law upon the Secretary of the Interior with relation to the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Howard University shall be exercised and performed by the secretary of education.

SEC. 4. (a) Except as otherwise provided by this act, all authority, powers, and duties held, exercised, and performed by the head of any executive department in and over any bureau, office, or branch of the Government which is by this act tranferred to the department of education, or which is abolished by this act and its authority, powers, and duties transferred to the department of education, or in and over any business arising therefrom or pertaining thereto, or in relation to the duties performed by and authority conferred by law upon such bureau, office, or branch of the Government, whether of an appellate or revisory character or otherwise, shall be vested in and exercised and performed by the secretary of education.

(b) All orders, rules, and regulations which have been made or issued by any bureau, office, or branch of the Government which is transferred under the provisions of this act to the department of education and which are not inconsistent with the provisions of this act shall continue in effect until modified, superseded, or repealed by the secretary of education, or, in the case of the Federal Board for Vocational Education, by the board with the approval of the secretary of education.

SEC. 5. All officers, and employees employed in or by any office, bureau, or branch of the Government, transferred in accordance with the provisions of this act to the department of education, are transferred to the department of education without change in classification or compensation; and the records and property (including office equipment) of any such office, bureau, or branch of the Government so transferred, are transferred to the department of education.

SEC. 6. The secretary of education shall have charge in the buildings and premises occupied by or assigned to the department of education, of the library, furniture, fixtures, records, and other property pertaining to the department or hereafter acquired for use in its business. Until other quarters are provided, the department of education may occupy the buildings and premises occupied by the bureaus, offices, and branches of the Government which are by this act transferred to or included in the department of education.

SEC. 7. In order to coordinate the educational activities carried on by the several executive departments, and to recommend ways and means of improving the educational work of the Federal Government, there is hereby created the Federal conference on education which shall consist of one representative and one alternate appointed by the head of each department. The Federal conference on education shall not report as a body to any one department, but each representative shall report the findings of the Federal conference on education to his own department for consideration and independent action.

SEC. 8. (a) The department of education shall collect such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several States and in foreign countries. In order to aid the people of the several States in establishing and maintaining more efficient schools and school systems, in devising better methods of organization, administration and financing of education, in developing better types of school buildings and in providing for their use, in improving methods of teaching, and in developing more adequate curricula and courses of study, research shall be undertaken in (1) rural education; (2) elementary education; (3) secondary education; (4) higher education; (5) professional education; (6) physical education, including health education and recreation; (7) special education for the mentally and physically handicapped; (8) the training of teachers; (9) immigrant education; (10) adult education; and (11) such other fields as in the judgment of the secretary of education may require attention and study.

(b) The department shall make available to educational officers in the several States and to other persons interested in education the results of the research and investigations conducted by it, and the funds appropriated for printing and binding for the department of education shall be available for the printing and binding of the results of such research and investigations.

SEC. 9. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1929, and annually thereafter, the sum of $1,500,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby authorized

to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to the department of education for the purpose of paying salaries and the conducting of studies and investigations, the paying of incidental and traveling expenses incurred in connection with the investigations or inquiries undertaken by the department and for law books, books of reference and periodicals and for the paying of rent where necessary, and for such other purposes as may be necessary to enable the department of education to carry out the provisions of this act. All unexpended appropriations which shall be available at the time when this act takes effect in relation to the various bureaus, offices, and branches of the Government which are by this act transferred to or included in the department of education, or which are abolished by this act, and their authority, powers, and duties transferred to the department of education, shall become available for expenditure by the department of education and shall be treated the same as if such bureaus, offices, and branches of the Government had been directly named in the laws making the appropriations as part of the department of education.

SEC. 10. There is hereby created a national council on education to consult and advise with the secretary of education on subjects relating to the promotion and development of education in the United States and in its possessions, which national council shall consist of the several State superintendents of education or other State chief educational authorities by whatever title known, and one member from each of the United States possessions, viz: Alaska, Hawaiian Islands, Philippine Islands, Porto Rico, and Isthmus of Panama. The secretary

of education shall be chairman of said council. The members of said council shall meet for conference once each year at the call of the secretary of education; they shall serve without pay, but their actual expenses incurred in attending the conferences called by the secretary shall be paid by the department of education.

SEC. 11. The secretary of education shall annually, at the close of each fiscal year, make a report in writing to Congress giving an account of all moneys received and disbursed by the department of education and describing the work done by the department. He shall also from time to time make such special investigations and reports as may be required of him by the President or by either House of Congress or as he, himself, may deem necessary and urgent.

SEC. 12. This act shall take effect thirty days after its passage, except that the provisions of this act in relation to the transfer of any agency from the jurisdiction and control of one officer to the jurisdiction and control of another, or in relation to the abolishment of any existing agency, or in relation to the transfer of authority, powers, and duties from one officer or agency to another, shall take effect July 1, 1929.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS OF THE NEW EDUCATION BILL

The following is a digest of the bill to create a department of education (S. 1584, H. R. 7), introduced in the Seventieth Congress by Senator Charles Curtis, of Kansas, and Representative Daniel Alden Reed, of New York.

Section 1 establishes an executive department to be known as the department of education. This department is to be administered by a secretary of education who shall have a status similar to that of other secretaries of the President's Cabinet. E

Section 2 provides for the appointment of an assistant secretary of education at a salary of $7,500 per annum. There is also provision for a solicitor, a chief clerk, a disbursing clerk, and for other technical and clerical assistants.

Section 3 transfers the Bureau of Education from the Department of the Interior to the department of education; the secretary of education assuming the powers of the present Commissioner of Education.

The Federal Board for Vocational Education is transferred to the department of education. The board continues to exercise its present functions as a division of the department of education. The secretary of education is made a member and ex officio chairman of the Federal Board for Vocational Education.

The authority of the Secretary of the Interior with relation to the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Howard University is transferred to the secretary of education.

Section 4 transfers to the secretary of education authority and powers exercised by the head of any executive department over any bureau or office transferred by the act to the department of education.

All rules and regulations issued by any bureau or office, transferred to the department of education, except those of the Federal Board for Vocational Education, which are unchanged by the bill, continue in effect until modified or repealed by the secretary of education.

Section 5 provides that officers and employees of offices transferred to the department of education are transferred without change in classification or compensation; records and property of such offices are transferred to the department of education.

Section 6 places the secretary of education in charge in the buildings and other physical property of the department of education.

Section 7 creates the Federal conference on education, consisting of one representative appointed by the head of each executive department to coordinate the educational activities of the several departments and to recommend means of improving Federal educational work. The Federal conference on education does not report as a body to any one department; each representative reports the findings of the conference to his own department for consideration and independent action.

Section 8 provides that the department of education shall collect statistics and facts to show the condition and progress of education in the several States and in foreign countries. It provides that research shall be undertaken in order to aid the people of the several States in establishing and maintaining more efficient schools and school systems.

The results of the research and investigations conducted by the department shall be made available to the educational officers in the several States and to other persons interested in education.

Section 9 provides for annual appropriation of $1,500,000 to enable the department of education to carry out the provisions of the act. The unexpended appropriations of offices transferred to the department of education become available for expenditure by the department of education and shall be treated the same as if such offices had been directly named in the laws making the appropriations as a part of the department of education.

Section 10 provides for creation of a national advisory council composed of the superintendent of education or other chief educational authority in each of the States and possessions of the United States. The secretary of education shall be chairman of the council and shall call the members together for an annual conference. Expenses in connection with this conference are to be paid by the department of education, but otherwise members of the council are to serve without remuneration.

Section 11 provides that the secretary of education shall make an annual report covering the finances and describing the work of the department. He shall make such special investigations as shall be required by the President or either House of Congress, or as he himself may deem necessary.

Section 12 provides that the act shall take effect 30 days after passage, except that the provisions effecting the transfer of any agency from the jurisdiction of one office to another shall take effect July 9, 1929.

Dr. DAVIDSON. At this time I should like to present a statement from the former chairman of the legislative commission of the National Education Association, Dr. George D. Strayer, of Columbia University. His labors in behalf of this bill have been known to many members of this committee and the Congress. He has been an ardent supporter in season and out of season of this proposal. He regrets exceedingly he can not be present this morning to participate in this. He has sent a statement, however, which I should like to have Miss Charl Williams, field secretary of the National Education Association, read for him at this time.

Miss WILLIAMS. The statement referred to is as follows:

STATEMENT OF Dr. George D. STRAYER, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION, TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY

I believe that the welfare of the children now enrolled in the schools of the United States is dependent upon our ability to make available to boards of education, to superintendents of schools, and to teachers throughout the Nation the results of current practice and of scientific investigation wherever undertaken.

This service can, in my judgment, be rendered most efficiently by a Federal department of education which shall include the work now done by the board of education and by the Federal Board for Vocational Education with the provision that the Federal Board for Vocational Education shall operate as a division of the department of education, and that the secretary of education shall be a member of this board and ex officio chairman of it.

There are those who propose that all of the functions of a department of education could be exercised by the bureau of education if the bureau were adequately supported. There are several reasons why it is desirable to create the department rather than to hope for adequate development through the bureau of education. First of all, it is important to bring about the consolidation of Federal agencies concerned with education. No one would seriously propose that this could be accomplished through the development of the Bureau of Education. The undertaking is of greater importance than that associated with the status of a bureau in the Department of the Interior. If educational research is to be adequately supported, it will be necessary that this function of the Federal Government be presented for the consideration of those who make the budget by one of no less rank than a Cabinet officer. All matters of national concern involve education. It is of the utmost importance that the representative of this most important governmental service sit at the council table of the Nation. We have two sorts of executive departments in the Federal Governmentthose charged with administrative responsibility such as War, Post Office, Treasury, and those that have been organized for the promotion of the general welfare, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor. It is not exaggeration to propose that the welfare of all of the people of the United States is more certainly determined by the progress which we make in education than by our economic well-being as promoted by the Departments of Agriculture or Commerce, or by the social adjustments which may be made by the Department of Labor.

The Federal Government has promoted education from the earliest days of the Republic. By grants of land and of money from the Federal Government our school system was first established. The Federal Government is now spending approximately $40,000,000 annually for the support of education, other than that involved in the rehabilitation of the veterans of the World War. The creation of a department of education, the primary function of which is to carry on research and to disseminate useful information, has nothing in common with the administration and control of education. Those who have supported the ereation of a Federal department are unalterably opposed to the centralization of the control of education in the Federal Government. It is just as certainly possible to promote education through reporting experiments which are undertaken, through informing people throughout the country of the adaptation of education to the needs of particular communities, as it has been to promote agriculture through the distribution of the results of experiments in that field. Progress in education is dependent upon the scientific evaluation of current practices and upon the dissemination of the results of such inquiries to all interested in education. The Federal Department of Education should have on its staff a group of the most competent scientific workers in the field of education. These men and women will have as their primary object the assembling of facts and their interpretation. Wherever unusual progress is made or a worth-while experiment carried on, the Federal department of education will be in position to make available for the whole country the results of these undertakings. It is through scientific investigation, and in this way only, that we may be confident of making progress in the development of our school system. It is absurd to propose that we may not cooperate in such an important undertaking because this cooperation in order to be most effective must be carried on by a Federal

agency.

The establishment of a Federal department of education is distinct from the issue of further Federal support. The increase in efficiency and the economy that can be effected by the consolidation of those agencies, now operating in the Federal Government, looks in the opposite direction. The support of research in a Federal department of education returns in increased efficiency and in actual savings which will amount to many times the cost of the researches undertaken. In a single field, like that of developing more adequate and more economical plans for school buildings, it is possible to save to the States and to the localities within the States millions of dollars. Every improvement in methods of teaching, in the adaptation of schools to the needs and capacities of individual children, in the development of more adequate course of study will add untold millions to the wealth of the country and will promote the happiness of our people.

Doctor DAVIDSON. I wish also to present a statement from Hon. Francis G. Blair, who last year was president of the National Education Association, and who is now its first vice president. Doctor Blair is State Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Illinois.

The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection it will be included.

Doctor DAVIDSON. I will ask Dr. John K. Norton, director of research of the National Education Association to read Doctor Blair's statement and also statements from Dr. Frank D. Boynton, superintendent of schools at Ithaca, N. Y., and president of the department of superintendence of the National Education Association, and from two former presidents of the department of superintendence, Dr. J. M. Gwinn, superintendent of schools of San Francisco, and Dr. Randall J. Condon, superintendent of schools at Cincinnati, Ohio, and conclude with a statement from Miss Cornelia Adair, president of the National Education Association, Washington, D. C. Miss Adair is a teacher in the public schools of Richmond, Va.

The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection they may be read.
Doctor NORTON. The statements referred to are as follows:

STATEMENT OF DR. FRANCIS G. BLAIR, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, SPRINGFIELD, ILL.

I have opposed all of the bills which have appeared before the Federal Congress seeking to project the national government into the states along educational lines. I took this position against the National Education Association, of which I am a member. All of the bills presented from 1917 down to the present bill had in them the possibilities of an invasion by the national government into the State authority for establishing and maintaining a system of common schools. If I felt that this proposal to establish a secretary of education in the Cabinet of the President meant any dictation on the part of the Federal Government to the several States in the organization, administration and instruction of their schools, I should oppose it.

My reasons for supporting this bill are as follows:

1. Whether we want the Federal Government in the education business or not, it is already there. It has connections with education—

(a) In Alaska, Hawaiian Islands, and the Philippines.

(b) It is influencing agriculture education in the States through the landgrant colleges, the county agricultural advisors, boys and girls agricultural clubs.

(c) It is very directly affecting vocational education in the various States through the Federal Board for Vocational Education and the large bonuses given to each State which meets the conditions of this Federal board.

(d) In a less direct way through industrial rehabilitation under the Federal Vocational Board.

(e) Under the Bureau of Education through the collection of statistics and surveys, all the State systems are annually reporting to the Department of the Interior.

I believe that these various education and quasi education functions now being performed by the Federal Government should be consolidated under one secretary in the Cabinet. So long as they are distributed through the various departments, it means waste and conflict. During the war we had one representative of the Department of Agriculture and one of the Department of the Interior in Illinois, both claiming the authority to perform a given kind of club work with boys and girls.

2. While education is a function of the State and not of the Federal Government, the Federal Government can not avoid a certain kind of recognition of education and a certain position of leadership in that great field. A Cabinet officer would sit about the table with the President and the other secretaries and have a voice and an influence that the Commissioner of Education does not at the present time have. Education is the largest single public activity within the several States of the Nation. While it should not be, and can not be directed from Wash