prepared for the United States Senate
Undelivered Address
Mr. President, it is taken for granted by everybody that education must occupy a prominent place in the affairs of a democracy. Notwithstanding this fact, I am not at all sure that the American people and even some of its lawmakers, fully realize the absolute necessity of universal education in a democracy.
I recognize the fact that tremendous progress has been made in our attempt to educate all of the people. I have had the good fortune to stand in the classroom as an instructor, not simply as a supervisor, for half a century. Little else than a revolution has taken place in the efforts of educators to plan and arrange courses of study that are in harmony with the needs of American children. Within the last 25 years great progress has been made in methods of teaching. However, no well-informed man could maintain for a moment that we have, as yet, arrived at a science of education. The science of education is in the making.
Everybody is familiar with the fact that vast sums of money are being expended in the construction and maintenance of educational plants. Notwithstanding these evidences of progress, the World War revealed a condition that was pathetic. Thousands and tens of thousands of our soldiers could not even read or write. We have not yet recovered from this shock. It would be unfair to charge this lamentable condition to the public schools. This condition simply proves conclusively that the American people have not yet awakened to an appreciation of the value of education.
When I use the term "education" I do not use it as an equivalent of schooling. The two terms "education" and "schooling" are not synonymous. A village or city or State may offer an immense amount of schooling; this does not mean that the educational advantages are at all commensurate with the amount of schooling. In the minds of many the expression, "I have no education," means "I have no schooling." Abraham Lincoln did not have to exceed three months of schooling, but he was one of the best educated men that America has ever produced. Schooling at its best in the United States frequently has a tendency to make the acquisition of knowledge its chief objective. Such a view is paralyzing is unsatisfactory. Education has to do with the enrichment of life, and the enrichment of life depends upon productive thinking. Prof. Henry F. Osborne says: "To think, to act, to create, these are our great impulses inherited from far prehistoric past; these are the three objectives in the intellectual education of American youth." The wonderful accomplishment of a Franklin, an Edison, a Burbank hinge not upon schooling but upon education.
Within the last 20 or 25 years our high schools have multiplied above the rate of increase in population. Likewise our colleges and universities have commanded the attention of thousands of American youth whereas prior to that time they commanded the attention of comparatively few. Dean Raymond Walters, of Swarthmore College, says in an article entitled "Getting Into College":
"The American secondary schools since 1900 have increased in enrollment nine times as fast as the population of the country. There are now some 12,000 public high schools offering 4-year courses, with 2,500,000 pupils, of whom nearly 400,000 are graduated each year. There are more than 2,100 private high schools and academies offering 4-year courses, with total enrollments of 225,000 and some 35,000 graduates yearly.
"These figures explain the source of the college expansion in the past quarter of a century the increase from 104,000 liberal-arts students in 1900 to approximately 500,000 this year. They explain the improved average preparation of college applicants and likewise the present stricter enforcement of college entrance requirements and selective procedure.
"As for the reasons which impel three students proportionally to go to college today for one in the days of their fathers, there is the proverbial mixture of motives. One likes to believe that there is at least a corresponding increase in those who go because they love learning."
At first glance this might seem to constitute further evidence of educational progress. Beyond a doubt it does indicate progress to some degree. Granting, however, that it means much, that it is conclusive evidence of great progress, there remains in this country the problem of educating the masses. In other words, the very lifeblood of American democracy lies in the educational advantages which should be offered by the public schools.
The "hewers of wood" and "carriers of water" have never received a square deal. Millions and millions of dollars have been given to educational foundations; millions and millions of dollars have been given to colleges and universities, but very little effort has been made to take care of the great majority who can never hope to enroll in a high school. The real educational problem for America to solve is the problem of enabling the rural schools to provide a practical education through satisfactory courses of study, through adequate equipment, through the best methods of instruction, through the employment of well-trained teachers.
The correct thinking of a child is along lines precisely the same as is the correct thinking of a Newton or a Huxley. In the rural schools the fundamentals must be employed for developing in the child productive thinking. I concede that great progress has been made along certain lines in the rural schools. But, broadly speaking, one great problem in American education consists in revolutionizing our rural schools for a larger degree of efficiency. Objectors will point to the "little red schoolhouse" as the place where this great scientist, this great statesman, and that great inventor received his early training as if there were some magic in the "little red schoolhouse." The truth of the matter is Abraham Lincoln, like many other great men, made progress in spite of the "little red schoolhouse."
In lines of industry and agriculture and commerce we have discarded some of the old ways and adopted methods which are in harmony with present civilization. I am not going to worry the Senate with concrete illustrations of the special weaknesses of present rural education.
Another feature of education that has been neglected is adult education. Not infrequently, when I have had occasion to suggest education to an inquirer, he says, "I am too old." The notion widely prevails that education is for human beings from 5 to 21 years of age that education is simply a preparation for life, whereas real education is life. Education, as I have defined it, begins with the first breath of life and ends with the last breath. When a human being ceases to do constructive thinking, ceases to find new and better ways of living, he is as dead as any corpse in a cemetery. In America our slogan ought to be "Education for all of the people all of the time." Notwithstanding the frequent failure of the schools to educate, I offer as a collateral slogan, "Schools for all of the people all of the time."
Adult education is not to be brought about by agencies of coercion or agencies of control. When the educational philosophy of America is as broad as I have outlined, there will be a demand for facilities whereby every man can secure the necessary advantages through his own ambition and efforts. True, in our larger cities provision has been made to conduct night schools whereby heads of families and members of families who are past the legal school age can secure training in the arts of civilization and in the fine art of making a living. There are skeptics who claim that adults care little or nothing for these advantages. For 43 years I have conducted a unique school. Not infrequently fathers and mothers and sons and daughters have attended the school at the same time. In order to do this they have been obliged to make real sacrifices. They have had to suppress their desire to own more acres of land, their desire to have larger savings account; they have done this in order to pay their carfare, the cost of living, and the cost of tuition at the Ferris Institute. I mention this concrete example to show that when humans know that educational advantages are within their reach, they improve them. Adults in their eagerness to acquire an education and because of ruthless educational advertisers are robbed annually of more than $2,000,000. Dr. George B. Strayer, professor of educational administration, Teachers College, Columbia University, has this to say:
"Hundreds of thousands of people, adults, in the United States have been exploited by private enterprises which have taken their money without an adequate appreciation of what the job of teaching them was."
This indicates that adult education is a problem, and at present the necessary information is not at the command of the thousands of adults who are hungry for the advantages of an education.
When these reforms are suggested, taxpayers emit extra howls about the cost. The truth of the matter is, the method for America to pursue, or any other country that wants to possess even material riches, is to furnish opportunities for real education. Very few patriotic citizens find fault with the cost of enlightenment. It should be remembered that in the last 25 years civilization has undergone a tremendous change. We have annihilated time and distance. The automobile, wireless, radio, movie, and the uses of electricity have revolutionized the old environment.
Our educational problem instead of being simplified has become more complex and difficult.
Thus far I have chiefly referred to problems of rural and adult education. This is only a beginning of an outline of educational needs. I am not going to discuss other problems in education. Many of them that I might discuss are recognized by educators and laymen alike. It is only natural that the great army of teachers should take the initiative with reference to discovering a means of solving some of the great educational problems that confront us. They are in daily touch with American youth. It may be that they are not statesmen; it may be that they overestimate what the Federal Government should do and can do in the way of solving some of their problems.
Proponents of a Department of Education
I am going to quote from a few of the great men and women who appeared at the joint hearings of the Committee on Education during the Sixty-Ninth Congress and give in part their arguments for a department of education. I make these quotations because these men and women have offered what seems to me to be convincing argument for a department of education.
Dr. George D. Strayer, professor of educational administration, Teachers College, Columbia University, said:
"It provides and here is the real significance of the measure that the department of education shall collect statistics and facts, and shall conduct researches and investigations, and that the results of the evidence so collected shall be made available to the people of the several States."
Dr. Charles H. Judd, director of the School of Education of the University of Chicago, said:
"I believe that if we had some central agency that could make us aware of our virtues and that could point out with perfect fairness and accuracy the results of some of our local experiments, that we could bring about exactly what we want, and certainly it would be a step in the direction of making our schools the best institutions."
Dr. S. P. Capen, chancellor of the University of Buffalo, Buffalo, N.Y., said:
"It is also patent that these several divisions of the Government that deal with education have no relation whatsoever with one another and are, for the most part, each ignorant of the other's business. We want to see the enterprises brought together so that what the Government does in education will at least represent a unified point of view and a unified policy. I think that is the first thing we want."
Dr. John H. MacCracken, president of Lafayette College, Easton, Pa., said:
"Education as we now have it in the United States is the chief occupation of more than a quarter of our population. There are 26,000,000 of our population in schools. There are over 800,000 teachers in the United States. We are spending over $2,000,000,000 a year on education. It is one of the leading industries, if not our leading industry."
Miss Selma Borchardt, legislative secretary of the American Federation of Teachers, said:
"One gentleman told me last summer that the reason he opposed a Federal department of education was because we have no national educational policy, and that therefore he would oppose the establishment of a Federal department. I asked him if we had a national agricultural policy. He said: 'Certainly we have; the wiping out of plant and animal diseases.' Well, it seems to me that the wiping out of illiteracy, the wiping out of lower educational standards, is as much a national policy as the wiping out of plant and animal diseases, because we think that our children are as deserving of attention as plants and animals."
Dr. Randall J. Condon, the superintendent of schools, Cincinnati, Ohio, said:
"The thing I want to ask you men to do is this: To think of education as the finest and the biggest and the best thing in our national life and to complete the job by crowning it with a national dome that shall give us a leadership and a system of American education that shall comprehend the development of the lowest, simplest hamlet, village, town, State, and Nation not to dominate but to lead; and we ask you as a step in that direction to give this bill a chance."
Dr. J. L. McBrien, director of rural education, State teachers college, Edmond, Okla., quoting from President Coates, of the Kentucky State Teachers College, Richmond, said:
"The trouble about this rural school problem is that the farmer and the average teacher look upon the country school as a little house on a little ground where a little teacher at a little salary for a little while teaches little children little things in a little way."
Doctor McBrien continues:
"That is severe, but the trouble with it is that it is so true. For example, take the great State of New York; in it there are 3,000 one-teacher schools with an average daily attendance of 10 or less; and I think there are 1,500 with an average daily attendance of 5 or less. I speak of New York just because it is a great State. I do not want to take you out into the wild and woolly West where we have not had the time to develop yet out of some things that are not so desirable."
B. M. N. Marrs, State superintendent of public instruction, Austin, Tex., said:
"We have a Secretary of Agriculture, and I believe in that department. It is promotional; but the Secretary of Agriculture has never attempted to standardize the method of raising cotton in the South; he has never undertaken to standardize the method of raising wheat in the West; but through that great department information has been disseminated in the agricultural sections, and the localities have been stimulated until the country is more prosperous on account of the workings of that department. And so I may say of Commerce and Labor. What is the department of the Government recognized by the world as standing for the cultural and the spiritual among our people? I submit this, gentlemen, as one thought that has not been developed by any other person that I have heard discuss this question."
John H. Cowles, grand commander of the Supreme Council Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, says:
"Finally, I have no fear of federalization, for the provisions of the bill give no more authority to the department of education than is given to the Departments of Agriculture or Commerce in fact, not so much and so far there has been no charge of federalizing the crops, the stock, the mines, the roads, or any industry, while the helpfulness rendered is unquestionable."
Dr. Payson Smith, commissioner of education, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, said:
"With reference to the field of research, I want to point out, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that there is no possibility that this particular field will be entered into effectively by any State. I say that because I have never seen any indication that any State is undertaking that particular work for the State. Even our wealthier States, our States that have the larger State organizations, have not established departments or divisions of research in education. Even if they were to do so, it would be very extravagant for the country as a whole, because the field of research of which I speak is a field of professional research, a field of technical research; and whatever is done, for one State is likewise necessary to have done for another State. We must grant, of course, that there are very marked differences among the States with reference to administrative procedure, with reference to the ways in which they will desire to organize their schools, with reference to the extent to which they will care to carry forward education and support it. Those things are matters entirely to be determined by the several States, and I am very certain always will be so determined. But when you come to the technical practices of the schools, there is not one method of teaching reading that is better for the children of Massachusetts, and another method of teaching reading that is better for the children of Illinois, and still another that is better for teaching that subject in California. The teaching profession has come into that scientific stage where studies are greatly desired in these fields; and it is because I believe that a Federal department of education can so greatly help in these ways that I believe it is a good thing that this department should be established."
Mr. Black of New York, in questioning Dr. C. R. Mann, director of the American Council on Education, asked:
"In case this bill does not become a law, do you think it might be advisable to have a provision to the effect that the money used in the Bureau of Education should be used for the rural school systems of the country?"
"Doctor Mann. It is not necessary, because the things that are the subjects of distinct investigation at the present time are, what are the processes of learning reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography, the fundamental things that are specified."
I now quote from the 1925 report of the Commissioner of Education. This is not quoted as a direct endorsement of the bill for a department of education. It is simply to indicate what some of the present educational needs are. The report says:
"Those responsible for schools administration in the United States are in great need of assistance in certain important fields. At the present time (1925) adequate provision is direly needed for study in the fields of curriculum organization, school finance, buildings and construction, teacher training, and secondary education."
President Coolidge, in his recent message (1927), said:
"For many years it has been the policy of the Federal Government to encourage and foster the cause of education. Large sums of money are annually appropriated to carry on vocational training. Many millions go into agricultural schools. The general subject is under the immediate direction of a Commissioner of Education. While this subject is strictly a State and local function, it should continue to have the encouragement of the National Government. I am still of the opinion that much good could be accomplished through the establishment of a department of education and relief, into which would be gathered all of these functions under one directing member of the Cabinet."
Opponents of a Department of Education
In the foregoing quotations I have tried to deal with different aspects of the bill under consideration. I now make quotations from those who are opposed to the bill.
Dr. Frank J. Goodnow, president of Johns Hopkins University, made the following statement:
"This tendency will be stagnation, standardization, the termination of this process of experimentation as it is going on at the present time, because then everything will be uniform. Now, one State has one idea with regard to education; other States have other ideas; and we find out, through a process of experimentation with these various ideas, whether or not we can make advances. But what I fear will come from what, as I see it, will be the result of the passage of this bill is a standardization, a stagnation, which is going to be extremely bad for our educational system. The period of experimentation is apt to cease, and that is what we need and what we always will need, as I see it."
Valmore Gaucher, president of Assumption College, Worcester, Mass., said:
"It would be a first step, and a very important one, toward complete centralization, and thus open the way to socialism, and who can tell, to dictatorship and tyranny. Centralization is like a gear. Once enforced on one point, it will gradually extend to and corrupt all our social organizations. This is the target at which the socialists aim. But this centralization must be fought by every true American with all possible energy because it is utterly unpatriotic."
I am not sure that Senator Borah was present at the hearings; however, he has said:
"The principle once admitted, the agency once established, the Federal power will ultimately direct, guide, dictate, and control the whole educational system, from the mother's knee to the final departure from the campus. Indeed, that was the original conception of the Federal plan. The original plan and arguments contemplated exactly that, to wit, that the National Government should be omnipotent in educational affairs."
Again I quote from Senator Borah:
"The Government depends at last upon the intelligence and character of the average citizen. His constant, vigilant interest in public matters is indispensable to the success of this great experiment. The idea that the Government should be a universal provider and guarantor against all risks and wants of human existence is at war with our whole theory of government. The theory that there is a wisdom at Washington with reference to purely personal and local concerns superior to the wisdom found at home and in the communities or the States is not the theory upon which our Government was organized."
Harry Pratt Judson, president emeritus of the University of Chicago, said:
"I am strongly opposed to the pending education bill. Education belongs to the States. The Federal Government can be useful, no doubt, by gathering information as to educational procedure and disseminating this information among the States. But this can best be done through a properly supported bureau of the Interior Department. This bureau should be organized on a strictly scientific basis, like the Bureau of Standards. In the last-named bureau there have been but two heads since its organization some quarter of a century since, and the single change was made because the head resigned in order to accept the presidency of an important educational institution. Should the Bureau of Education be converted into a department with its head in the Cabinet there is the certainty of a change with every change of administration. What should be a scientific bureau becomes a political department. I deprecate turning over Federal educational agencies to partisan politics, which is the essence of this bill."
J. Gresham Machen, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J., has said:
"I believe that in the sphere of the mind we should have absolutely unlimited competition. There are certain spheres where competition may have to be checked, but not when it comes to the sphere of the mind; and it seems to me that we ought to have this state of affairs; that every State should be faced by the unlimited competition in this sphere of other States; that each one should try to provide the best for its children that it possibly can; and, above all, that all public education should be kept healthy at every moment by the absolutely free competition of private schools and church schools."
A. Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard University, said:
"I am opposed to the creation of a Federal secretary of education, because I believe it would almost inevitably bring education into politics; or, in other words, make the appointment to that office a political one, whereas it seems to me that it is important to keep the educational as well as the scientific work of the Federal Government in the hands of the experts. Moreover, I much doubt the wisdom of increasing the power of activity of the Federal Government in questions of education, which depend, I think, very much on sectional conditions. In the third place, action by the Federal Government is almost sure to mean a certain bureaucratic uniformity, whereas it seems to me that we need in this country a wide diversity in educational experimentation, for about education we talk much and know little."
James H. Ryan, representing the National Catholic Educational Association said:
"There is no reason to appeal to Washington for assistance in school matters as there is no need to appeal in matters of public health, public morality, or police and fire protection. To do so is to hand over to a central bureaucracy control over local matters. A central bureau may do some things better than local agencies."
"In the long run the effects of bureaucracy are uniformly vicious. With the loss of local control goes inevitably loss of interest in local problems. Dependence on Washington will certainly result in a series of so-called national standards of education, national courses of study, national educational methods, national inspection in a word, in a series of interference with the school which would paralyze local initiative and impose upon the community methods and standards wholly out of harmony with local needs and demands."
In questioning Edward S. Dore, president of the National Catholic Alumni Federation, Senator Ferris had the following to say:
"But that tendency [to create a stereotyped mentality by standardization] is not peculiar to the State nor to the Nation. I am in very close touch with that set of conditions. Why is the drive that way? Why is it that as soon as a man becomes a secretary of education in the Cabinet he should do these damnable things? What in human nature obsesses him? I have heard so much about what will happen if this bill is enacted that I ask, What is the matter with human nature? You do not wish to say that the other members of the Cabinet have blossomed out into archenemies of the National Government. Why should a secretary of education be so much more likely to go wrong?"
The leading opponents of this bill are not from the army of public-school teachers. This fact is indeed significant.
Political Influence
The opponents of this bill seem to be very much alarmed over the prospect of endangering the cause of education through political influence. It is true that the heads of the different departments are appointed by the President. If we have a Democratic President, of course the appointees for the Cabinet will be Democrats. If we have a Republican President, the appointees will be Republicans.
The only possible basis for prophecy rests on what has happened in years gone by. So far as I am able to learn, the departments have not suffered seriously because of political bias. When a department has suffered it has been because of moral turpitude. To be perfectly frank about the matter, when you get down to "brass tacks," there isn't enough difference between the two great parties to permit any special worry over politics. If there are well-defined differences between the two great parties, they are not generally known to the public. It is difficult to imagine that a President of the United States, whether Republican or Democrat, would appoint a mere politician to the position of secretary of education. This would indicate that the office of President is losing its old-time importance. We hear the cry, "Keep the schools out of politics." The schools have always been in politics and always will be in politics. Sometimes this works injury to the schools, sometimes benefit. Much depends upon the quality of politics. The great army of teachers are American citizens and have a right to be in politics.
Public opinion is sufficient to ward off every danger that can arise from having the head of a department a Republican or a Democrat. The personnel of the department would not be seriously modified by a change in the secretary of education. There is no more occasion for alarm over the political attitude of a secretary of education than over a Commissioner of Education or a Secretary of Agriculture. It is true that with every administration there would be a change in the secretary of education. This cry of political influence is nothing more nor less than a scarecrow.
Standardization
Another objection that is raised by the opponents of this bill is the anticipated malicious influence of the standardization of education. Organization, specialization, and standardization constitute the order of the day. The most serious consequences of standardization in education have been brought about by other than governmental influences.
I am not going to cite concrete instances. The matter of standardization is a matter
of emphasis. It is difficult to imagine that educators are to abandon all hope of
a science of education. Human nature is essentially the same in Maine, in California,
in Minnesota, in Louisiana. It is difficult to imagine that there is one best method
of teaching reading, arithmetic, the English language, history, geography, and civics
in one State and an entirely different method for teaching these subjects in another
State. If there is a science of education, there is one best method. When this best
method is discovered and adopted by the 48 States, then we have efficient standardization.
This form of standardization benefits the entire school population of 26,000,000 children.
To fight scientific standardization is to fight progress. It is far better for the
success of education to carry on research work and find out what methods and what
equipment are best for the education
of American youth. It is exceedingly difficult to estimate the saving in time and
money that follows efficient, scientific methods.
State Rights
In present decades there has been a revival of the State-rights doctrine. The individual State seems to be jealous of the functions of the Federal Government.
The opponents of this bill almost invariably declare that the secretary of education would control education in the 48 States. The Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Agriculture have rendered invaluable service to the 48 States, and the element of control has not been a dominating factor. There isn't any more reason for supposing that the secretary of education will exercise control in any other sense than the three departments mentioned above exercise it. The advocates of this bill deplore vicious control as enthusiastically as do the opponents of the bill.
The future progress of the world depends to no small degree upon research, and it is through research that science and invention have made marvelous progress; in fact, more progress in the last 75 years than in all previous centuries.
The opponents of the bill, with but few exceptions, pay tribute to the Bureau of Education. I am not going to take the time to argue the inability of a bureau hidden away in the Department of the Interior to do the great work that is demanded by our educational agencies. The larger part of the evidence has one trend. Many of the opponents say that if necessary funds could be provided for the Bureau of Education the work of a department of education would be uncalled for. The fact that the bureau never has had adequate funds is sufficient argument to prove that there isn't any immediate prospect of its ever having sufficient funds.
Private Schools
The opponents of the bill are fearful that the independence of private schools will
be disturbed by establishing a department of education. I have been engaged in private-school
work for half a century. I realize that the testimony of a single representative is
of little value. I have observed legislation in several of the States in relation
to private schools. I am positive, however, that so far as my own experience in handling
a great private secondary school is concerned, the supervision of private schools
by the State has been beneficial.
It is impossible for me to see how the Federal Government would fail to conserve the best interests of all private schools whether they are secular or religious. Public opinion points in one direction and that is in permitting all private schools that degree of freedom which is conducive to the welfare of the State and the welfare of the Federal Government.
In the arguments of the opponents of this bill the factor of fear seems to dominate. The dynamics of the opposition is primarily emotional. For some unaccountable reason the opponents of the bill seem to be "scared stiff" over the prospect of giving the Federal Government an opportunity to better the educational opportunities for American youth.
Research, the Mainspring of Progress
This applies to our commercial development, to our agricultural advance, and to educational progress. There isn't anything mysterious about research. For example, in industry it means nothing more nor less than "intelligent investigation into how to do practical things; if they are new, how they can be done in the best way; if they are old, how in a better way. In a word, it is invention. It is the most practical thing in the world."
The United States Chamber of Commerce says that "the amount expended annually by American manufacturers in conducting laboratory research alone is $35,000,000." Unquestionably this figure is well on the conservative side. This same authority places the annual saving to American industry by research at a half a billion dollars.
In the field of medical science we must appeal to the imagination in order to appreciate the tremendous change in the last 50 years. The name of Pasteur is familiar to every physician. He wrought little less than a revolution in the field of scientific research. He was not a physician, but his researches have contributed more to medical science than the researches of any other one man.
In the last 25 years agriculture has undergone a revolution. That does not mean that there isn't a farm problem. It simply means that research is of tremendous value in every form of human activity. It has recently been estimated that the aggregate producing power of persons engaged in agriculture has been increased 25 per cent since 1900. Secretary Jardine says that these changes are attributable chiefly to the results of scientific discovery. Whatever view a Congressman may take of the value of research in education, he must admit that in the lines I have already mentioned it has been of gigantic importance. I hold that the value of research would be even more valuable in education than in the fields already mentioned.
In what I have already said about research, the element of governmental control has not been an important factor. There is no reason that I can discover why educational research should lead to the dire results that the opponents of this bill outline.
The marked weakness of this age lies in the handling of our distinctive human interests. We handle the material things of this world almost as if by magic. The human mind, however, has received comparatively little consideration. Mental resources have never been adequately explored; mental possibilities are at this hour undiscovered.
If there was no other argument in favor of this bill than the one that I offer with reference to research, there would be sufficient reason for passing it. It is clearly evident to me that as a question of economy it is a thousand times better that this lack of research should be corrected by the Federal Government than by the individual States working separately. It has been quite clearly indicated that the States work at cross purposes, so to speak. It is important that in this field of research there be unification.
After the experience we have had with the Bureau of Education, a magnificent institution, we can see plainly that if education is to have the attention it deserves, it must be through the agency of a department of education. I have been personally acquainted with two of the Commissioners of Education, William T. Harris and Philander Priestly Claxton. No man can pay higher tribute to these two men than I. Very likely I could pay as high a tribute to some of the others if I had had the honor and good fortune of knowing them as I have known these two men. It seems to me that it is a waste of argument to say that if the Bureau of Education had the money, it would be able to do the work that this bill provides for. The Bureau of Education never has had the money and it is reasonable to say that it will never get the necessary funds.