(The letter referred to is as follows:) Prof. CHARLES H. JUDD, NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF School of Education, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. MY DEAR PROFESSOR JUDD: There will be no meeting of the executive committee before April 25, but I think I can assure you of the hearty cooperation of this association in the work you and your committee are planning for the improve of secondary education and higher education in the country. Sincerely, WALTER BALLOU JACOBS. Mr. DOUGLASS. Is Harvard included in that? Doctor JUDD. Yes. Harvard is a member of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. I have here a list of past presidents and vice presidents, but not a list of the association itself. Harvard is included. Mr. DOUGLASS. You know the president of Harvard is opposed to this bill. Doctor JUDD. The matter we are presenting is the need of certain inquiries of national scope. I should not attempt to represent the president of Harvard, but my understanding of his objection to the bill is that he objected to the features that seemed to imply control, and the contention here is that we are asking for support of inquiries. I know many past presidents of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and I could name Charles W. Elliot. I also know several of the other presidents of related institutions, and Harvard is a member of this association, the representative of which has written the letter I have just read. The following are the letters received from the Association of the Middle States and Maryland and the Association of the Southern States. The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection the letters will be included in the record. (The letters referred to are as follows:) ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS Prof. CHARLES H. JUDD, School of Education, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. MY DEAR DOCTOR JUDD: With the approval of the President of our association, Mr. Arthur F. Warren, Collegiate School, New York City, I am writing to authorize you to state that our association is heartily in favor of a plan for national support of a study of secondary schools and higher institutions and their interrelations. Such an investigation, adequately supported and thoroughly carried through, ought to be of great value to all types of educational institutions in this country. Sincerely yours, GENE WM. MCCLELLAND. ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS Dr. CHAS. H. JUDD, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. MY DEAR DOCTOR JUDD: It seems that a committee recently appointed by the North Central Association will appear before the Education Committee of the House of Representatives on April 25. The purpose of this hearing is to present the need for national support of a study of secondary schools and institutions of higher learning and their interrelations. Permit me to extend to you the hearty support and cooperation of the Southern Association in your efforts in this direction. The program of our last meeting and those of our next several meetings, will be devoted almost exclusively to problems of the nature included in the study suggested. The committees of our association, however, are greatly handicapped in their work on account of the necessary costs involved, and at the same time the results we obtain are not as convincing as they would be if secured from a study of nation-wide conditions. It is the ardent hope, therefore, of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States that the Education Committee of Congress will give favorable consideration to the request of your association. With best wishes, I am, yours very truly, H. M. Ivy, President Southern Association. Doctor JUDD. Summing up what I have said, I shall try to present some concrete illustrations of the types of inquiries that in the judgment of those of us connected with public education and college education would be of very great benefit to the public schools and to the institutions of the country. As I said at the outset, our association is very eager to see those inquiries launched. Our association has taken no action as to the form of the Federal agency under which these inquiries should be made. It is my personal belief that the most efficient agency would be a department suitably equipped to carry on the type of inquiry that is familiar to us in the activities of the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture. But we are very eager to get before your committee the necessity of a nation-wide type of inquiry on many of these problems. With that statement my own presentation as chairman of the North Central Association committee is complete, and if you allow me to I should like to present the other gentlemen of the committee. Mr. KVALE. Could not these various investigations and other activities be carried on under a Bureau of Education, as at present constituted, just as efficiently as if we had a department of education with a secretary in the President's Cabinet? Doctor JUDD. It is obvious that it would be quite impossible to carry on those inquiries with the Bureau of Education unless the resources of the bureau were very greatly increased, and it follows that the increase of the resources of the bureau constitutes one of the major reasons, or the desirability of such increase constitutes one of the major reasons for asking for a department. Apparently, the Bureau is somewhat insulated from the sources of supply necessary to make these inquiries. Whether it will be possible by extending the appropriations of the bureau to do the work that is desirable, I think would have to be a matter of the future. It is our judgment that if we can give you two or three very concrete examples of what ought to be done, it is for your wisdom to decide how that should be done. Inquiries of the sort we are advocating here would ultimately give definite and concrete demonstrations that such a department could probably do very much to correlate existing agencies in the Federal Government. Mr. FENN. I notice that these three letters-one from the Salem, Oreg., public schools superintendent, one from the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, and one from the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States seem to be of the same character. Were they inspired from somebody? Doctor JUDD. Yes. Before you came in I made this statement. Our committee here this morning is a committee of one of these associations. Mr. FENN. Then you are thoroughly familiar with the reason why those letters are sent to the committee? Doctor JUDD. I wrote as chairman of our committee to the officers of each of the regional associations, saying that our association was launching this movement and asking if they would cooperate in this movement. These are replies to the same letter sent to the officers of each of the associations. Mr. FENN. That being so, why are the words, "national support," introduced in these letters? I have understood that this bill did not contemplate national assistance to the States. The CHAIRMAN. It does not. Mr. FENN. But these associations seem to be united for national support. Doctor JUDD. National support for the inquiries, not for the schools. Mr. FENN. Is that support not already furnished through the Bureau of Education? Doctor JUDD. Not at all. Before you came in I made a statement of the desires of the organization. Mr. FENN. If it were furnished by the Bureau of Education could not they conduct this matter as well as a department of education? Doctor JUDD. May I answer that question by saying in the first instance that support is not now available for the bureau, a condition that is evidenced by the status of research in education. Mr. FENN. Are you sure that support would be given to the department of education? Doctor JUDD. It is not for a layman to prophesy on that. Mr. FENN. Why would support be given to a department if not to the bureau? Doctor JUDD. A department would be so much nearer the councils of the Nation than its influence would be greater. Mr. FENN. Why would it be nearer? Doctor JUDD. I assume the head of a department would be in more direct contact with the President than a commissioner. Mr. FLETCHER. The commissioner is in contact with the President to a large degree through the Secretary of the Interior. Mr. FENN. Have the funds for research ever been available to the bureau? Doctor JUDD. No, sir, the bureau has always been meagerly supported. Mr. FENN. That would warrant the assumption that funds never would be available for this purpose. Mr. DOUGLASS. If made by the bureau or a department would those researches be intended for the benefit of the educators of the country? Doctor JUDD. Yes, and those whom they serve. Mr. DOUGLASS. They would be advantageous to the teachers and help the student body. Doctor JUDD. Yes. Mr. DOUGLASS. What value, in the minds of your educators, would the department's recommendation have over that of a private investigation like the reports of the Carnegie Institute? Doctor JUDD. I will answer that question by beginning with the statement that in the initiation of a study, if you have a department or a national bureau already set up, with its machinery in contact with the schools of the whole Nation, you have a very much broader base for any study you are making, and the value of any of these studies will depend on the breadth of the base on which you can operate. I have given you, at an earlier moment, an example of such a national inquiry conducted by a national commission, and the difficulty we have had in getting the thing started. Mr. DOUGLASS. In the case of a difference, for instance, in a report on a specified subject by that national bureau that you have quoted, and a report by the Carnegie Institute on the same subject, what would be the action of you educators in regard to those two reports? Doctor JUDD. I think the action of the educational world would depend entirely on the internal or intrinsic character of the report. Mr. DOUGLASS. Exactly. The Doctor JUDD. And that will depend on the composition of the report, its range. If we could have a series of national investigations on a large scale, through any agency, it would be desirable. history of such investigations shows that all of the inquiries that have been made through private resources have suffered from certain limitations. I think the hope of our group would be renewed if the Federal Government would bring its larger resources and greater influence to the assistance of these inquiries Mr. DOUGLASS. Such large funds as the Carnegie Foundation provide would reach about as far as the proposed Government appropriation? Doctor JUDD. No. There is available in the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching the sum of $50,000 per year. That is the sum total of the investigation fund of that organization and I know of no agency that has resources adequate to such inquiries as would have to be made in 48 States, if they were of broad national scope. Mr. DOUGLASS. You gave us a statement a year or two ago of how much money you thought had been spent by private agencies in these researches? Do you recollect that? Doctor JUDD. If I had those figures then, I do not have them in mind now. Mr. FLETCHER. What amount of money would be adequate for researches such as you suggest? Doctor JUDD. I have not attempted to make estimates. I think the director of the American council on education has gone into that in detail and has put in his estimate of $500,000. Mr. FLETCHER. Annually? Doctor JUDD. For a period of two years. I should not venture to answer the question from my own knowledge. Mr. FLETCHER. In addition to the $50,000 of the Carnegie fund what other funds are available? Doctor JUDD. There are a number of funds available. The Commonwealth Fund gave for a period of six years an annual appropriation of $100,000 for various educational inquiries, of which this was one. The other educational foundation of large composition is the John D. Rockefeller Fund of the General Education Board, and its related organizations. The two great foundations that have dealt in education are the Carnegie and the General Education Board Foundations, but those private foundations are not numerous. The demands made upon them for the conduct of special enterprises are very numerous, and they have never undertaken a general inquiry covering the range of subjects suggested by our committee to this House Committee on Education. Mr. FLETCHER. The States are not adequate? Doctor JUDD. The States have not shown themselves adequate and there is the obstacle of encroaching over their own boundaries if they undertake to make a national inquiry. A very good illustration could be drawn of the difficulty that the State encounters in that case. A number of the States have found it necessary to make inquiries on legislative matters and there has been a certain amount of duplication, because when a State makes an effort to get information it has to do over again what some other State has done. If we had a general national inquiry, it would be available to all the States, and it would be a very much more economical and more efficient type of report. We have found that true in general national discussions of many questions. Mr. SEARS. Do you not think it is well, as a rule, to have school activities removed as far as may be from the domain of those great private foundations? Has there not been some criticism with reference to the Carnegie Institution, by reason of the fact that its funds were provided by wealthy men? Do you not think that their work has suffered by reason of the fact that the results of their work are somewhat questionable as compared with a disinterested public function? Doctor JUDD. I should like to answer that question somewhat evasively. I think any report is of value because of its own scientific value. Mr. SEARS. I agree with you. Doctor JUDD. We have no objection to getting resources for these investigations from any source possible. That is my general theory. Get all you can and turn it into scientific inquiry. The CHAIRMAN. I think what the gentleman from Nebraska means is that no matter how meritorious or accurate the report might be there would be a lurking suspicion or prejudice as to the motives of the people who inspired the investigation, which would not be justified. Doctor JUDD. I think the experience of these foundations would justify the statement that their activities from time to time have been called into question. Whether they should be or not is a question. The CHAIRMAN. You know they have been called into question? Doctor JUDD. They have been called into question, but it is not fair to make a general statement that as a matter of public policy it would be better to enlist public agencies only in any such inquiries, whatever may be the propriety of assistance supplied by private resources. Mr. FLETCHER. You have been identified with the University of Chicago. Is there any evidence of intrusion on the part of the people who contribute to the university? 105682-28-10 |