Doctor JUDD. I think unquestionably the fact is as I stated, sir. I think what you have probably encountered in the early evidence is a feeling on the part of a great many of us that the achievements of the bureau are so good that they ought to be carried very much further. What has been done, has been accomplished in the face of very great obstacles and in the face of limitations on funds.

Mr. TUCKER. I am very much in favor of just that proposition, but I am not in favor of a substitution. If it has been so, I believe in giving it free course and letting it be glorified. But, if it has shown in its humble capacity in the past such power as you have given it, why not keep that on a basic foundation for good work, and enlarge it where it is needed? I understand that one of the chief values of it is that it gathered from 48 different States the different plans and schemes of education which are transmitted through this bureau to other States, and in that way there is an ambition created among the other States and an incentive which would not come from the systemization of education in the United States.

Doctor JUDD. Well, sir, in that statement you have certainly given yourself free course and glorification. That is not quite what the bureau does, and for reasons which I think can be made perfectly clear to you. The present reports of the bureau are made up in the main of a solid body of statistical returns, from which students of education can extract the information to which you refer. The difficulty is that a great deal of that information lies on the shelves for years and is not extracted, because of lack of interpretation and because the statistics do not come into the hands of those who want to try to interpret them for a period of two years or more. In other words, the excellency of the reports is seriously curtailed by the fact that the information the bureau gets is very slow in appearing and is not digested. What we are considering, therefore, in this larger view which you have expressed is the possibility of a bureau that will first amplify the body of facts collected and in the second place work out the information through careful interpretations and third have the resources to do all this promptly.

Mr. REED of New York. At the present time they have not the facilities to conduct the researches which they ought to conduct. Doctor JUDD. No, sir; and furthermore I am quite satisfied that some of these reports need verification. Last year Congress gave the bureau assistance enough to verify its statistics by going to the source of where these statistics are made and canvassing them on the ground. Further appropriations are needed to improve the bureau as now constituted.

Mr. LOWREY. Apropos of the doctor's statement that the bureau has done such wonderful work with its limited opportunity, I am going to ask the committee's indulgence to permit me to tell a story. A white fellow down South was listening to a speech made by Fred Douglas, and he turned to a negro and said, "John, the man that made that speech was a half nigger." And the negro said, "My Lord, boss, what would he have done if he had been a whole nigger." [Laughter.]

Mr. MANN. Mr. Chairman, those are the three witnesses I have brought here to-day. If I may say a word in further evidence to the point which has just been raised by Mr. Tucker, I want to say that what Doctor Judd has said about the excellency of the reports of the

Bureau of Education, the long black row of volumes compiled by Commissioner Harris is of very great value. I think every one who has studied the American School has reference to those continuously all the time. I know it is so in my own case. The thing that is needed is putting into the hands of the bureau adequate facilities, and I think you got the point that those of us who will study this as friendly critics are not very particular whether the thing is a bureau or division of a department, or department, provided it is so organized that it can do that work and do it well.

STATEMENT OF MR. H. K. BUSH-BROWN, OF WASHINGTON, D. C.

The CHAIRMAN. You live in Washington, do you not?

Mr. BUSH-BROWN. I live in Washington; yes, sir. I have no credentials to appear before you as a representative of the various organizations of which I am a member, but I think it would be interesting to the record to state that I am a member of the National Sculptural Society, the Architectural League of New York, the National Arts Club of New York, the Scenic and Historic Preservation Society of New York; and I am a member of the American Federation of Arts of Washington, D. C., and the Arts Club of Washington, and the Cosmos Club.

I believe that some of the things, at least, which I have to say here would be indorsed by the members of these various organizations if it were brought to their attention.

I have three amendments to offer to this bill, H. R. 3923, and the first of which is embodied in H. R. 5801, which is a bill introduced by Mr. Tinkham, to create a department of the fine arts.

The CHAIRMAN. Did that provide for a member of the Cabinet? Mr. BUSH-BROWN. Yes, sir; it is a Cabinet position, and for the very cogent reasons you have recently had put before you. I believe there are people who are interested in the fine arts who would prefer very much instead of having a Cabinet position if that could be made. a bureau in the department of education. In the first place, whatever we may have of value of the fine arts, it is first and last educational, and therefore a person who is qualified to lead the interests of the United States in the matter of the fine arts is a man who must be of a very high order, and he is a very difficult man to find, and if, when found, could be made the head of a bureau where it might be a possible thing to keep him there as long as he would stay, the benefit of his influence over the affairs of our country would be infinitely greater than if he were made a Cabinet officer, with the possibility of a change every four years. Therefore I would make this bill, in its principal functions, section 21, in order to change the number in going through the thing in this other bill, H. R. 3923, and it would then read:

That there is hereby created a bureau of fine arts, with a director thereof, who shall be learned and experienced in matters pertaining to the fine arts, who shall be the head thereof, to be appointed by the secretary of education, and who shall receive a salary equal to that of the assistant secretary, and whose tenure of office shall be like that of the heads of other bureaus.

Now, all the other changes in that are subsidiary to the change in it from a department to a bureau. Beginning on page 3, after line 9,

94041-24-39

strike out the word "secretary" and the three lines following it, and on line 23 introduce the word "director," etc., and strike out all on page 4, line 4, down to line 11, and in place of section 4 introduce a new section 4 to read as follows:

The director of fine arts shall establish in the District of Columbia a research school of arts which shall experiment in the methods, material, practice, motive, and purpose of artistic expression, especially that of architectural ornament. He shall determine what class of students are eligible for this school and make all necessary regulations and employ such teachers, assistants, and supply of material as may be necessary.

He shall lease or build such quarters as may be necessary.

And then in place of section 5 substitute a section to read as follows: For the purpose of carrying these provisions into effect the sum of $1,000,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby authorized to be appropriated annually.

Before making any discussion I would like to read the remaining amendments to this bill, and then take up the discussion as a whole, because they are all more or less related although they may not be apparent at first.

On page 7 of the bill, H. R. 3923, I would strike out section 9 and substitute therefor a section 9 that would read as follows:

SEC. 9. In order to assist in carrying out the provisions of section 7 and section 8, the secretary of education shall establish civil academies in conjunction with every State agricultural college, wherein any citizen of the United States, or prospective citizen, 14 years of age or over, may be enrolled as a student for not less than two years or more than five years. The entrance examination shall be limited to moral worth and a desire to learn.

During this period the students enrolled shall perform such tasks as may be assigned to them for the purpose of their physical maintenance.

So far as may be, each student may choose the self-supporting occupation most suitable to his or her course of study. However, the tilling of the soil or other agricultural pursuits will be, in part at least, required as of fundamental educational importance.

The students shall be furnished such text books as they may require and receive such advice and guidance in the use of them as may be considered necessary by properly appointed instructors.

In order to carry this provision into effect the sum of $50,000,000, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is authorized to be appropriated annually.

That is taking the same sum of money as is now carried by section 9 and appropriating it to this new section. Therefore it does not increase the amount of money involved in this bill

Then I would add to section 10, on page 10, the following:

In carrying into effect the provisions of this section, especial care should be given to associating physical development with the learning the methods of tilling the soil and the care of orchards, and in so far as may be such instruction should be under the supervision and advice of the State agricultural colleges and experiment stations.

When the free use of municipal park land and vacant lots proves insufficient for city school gardens, and in order to encourage the States to carry out this principle, $1,000,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary is authorized to be appropriated annually for the purchase of school farm land.

It shall be available only when local authorities furnish equal amounts to the sum allotted to their locality. Such land, when no longer needed for school purposes, can be sold by the secretary of education and the funds therefrom may be reinvested in other school garden land where needed.

I think it must be obvious to everyone that if we are to have a department of education its functions would be to do those things in education which the States and localities are not doing and which can not be as well done as they could be by the Government.

The first of these relates to citizenship and the defense of the Nation.

We have a Military Academy at West Point and a Naval Academy at Annapolis, and with the men trained in them with a small Army and a reasonable Navy we are safe against enemies from without. Therefore the danger to our Republic lies in the votes of an unintelligent constituency.

Our recent war disclosed the astonishing fact that one quarter of the men drafted for service were illiterate, and many others could not understand, much less give orders. To correct this defect in the men in the service, the Secretary of War established schools in the Army while in service, as had already been in practice in the Navy.

Since the war the efforts of the several States have been directed to correcting this evil. The heavy burden required is the reason for the existence of this bill.

We have heard very urgent arguments why this bill should not pass on account of education being a State function, but it must be acknowledged that during the past when left to the States we had 25 per cent of illiteracy; therefore, taken as a whole, the States have not met the needs.

Furthermore, this subject of education has not been sufficiently studied from the side of orderly and natural development of the individual.

The home and the locality are undeniably the only place for the education of children, but when we come to age of puberty we must deal with a youth and not with a child, and the frank acknowledgment of the difference between childhood and youth on the part of parents, school boards, and teachers must be had, if we are to cure many of the ills which now are quite generally recognized.

Many of the objections to this bill have been the result of not recognizing these differences between childhood and youth.

It is in the period of budding youth that the child wants to assert his own independence and it is just at this time that he should be given an opportunity to seek his physical, mental, and may I say, moral development, under the guidance of his State assisted by the United States Government in such an academy as is suggested in amended section 9 of this bill.

He would not be dependent on his family or the local taxpayers for his education but on his State and the Nation as a whole, and for his physical maintenance dependent only on his own productive capacity.

This system would greatly reduce the cost of education by making each unit self-supporting, but it would also develop self-reliance, courage, and a spirit service to the good of the whole so necessary to American citizenship.

It would help insure allegiance to the home, the locality, and finally to the State and the Nation.

No one will deny the importance or the wisdom of this allegiance. I think it important to have the civil academies in conjunction with the State agricultural colleges because of their established and recognized usefulness to the Nation, and the great advantage to the younger students to be associated with those who are pursuing a scientific study of the laws of nature through agriculture.

Great as has been the blessing resulting from the invention of the printing press, it is not an unalloyed good for we have so lost sight of the great open book of nature that some people do not know it exists. Books are a storehouse of knowledge and everyone should know how to use them; but to really live one must know life at first hand and have the spirit of research.

It is from such environment that many great men have come and from such training as is here proposed in self-reliance, with a broadening vision we are sure to raise the average of intelligence and make possible more men of genius in the arts and sciences.

Gentlemen, I think it is unanswerable that the tilling of the soil is fundamental, and I believe that it is a heritage of every child that is born in this land of ours that he should know how to produce out of the soil the necessary food for his physical maintenance, and the lack of such articulation with the simple life of the country I think is one of the perils in which we now stand as a nation.

The greatness of a nation and the strength of a nation has always been in the strength of the agricultural resources, and the pages of history are filled with the loss of power of nations in proportion as the population is divorced from the soil. When this country was founded we had a population of about 3,000,000. Probably the entire population was more or less associated with the tilling of the soil. The city of Philadelphia, the largest city in the country at that time, had a population of something like 40,000, and Boston and New York had a population of less than 20,000 each.

I only call to your minds these facts because as we have grown and developed as a nation with ever increasing proportion of our people living in big cities and large towns, until now over half of our population are living an urban life, and the discontent and troubles of our laboring class are always engendered in our dense populations. I think it can be shown by the statistics of several States that those States which have the greater proportion of their population interested and getting their living from the soil, as the State of Iowa, for instance, which has no great large towns, a greater proportion of the people are saving their money, with more wealth in proportion to the population than the other States, fewer illiterates, criminals, and indigents, and consequently they have more real happiness distributed with the people.

Now, I do not want to burden you with a long argument on this subject. I think all of you are more or less familiar with these outlines of facts which I have stated, and I would like to quote George Washington who said that "the tilling of the soil was the most wholesome, the finest and most ennobling occupation of man,' and what was true then I think is true now. We have, unfortunately, a splendid system of education wherein most all of it is the vision of the city life and where the accumulation of wealth and the desire for-I will not say leisure-but say the desire for idleness is the average vision that comes to the average youth.

The supposed advantages and opportunities of the city life makes a constant flow of population from the country to the city and there is much less movement the other way.

One of our humorists said that "Man is an animal that always wants to be somewhere else." There is an element of truth in this, and there would be a natural migration from the city to the country