Who is opposing the Nation helping to educate its children? Well, there has been this cry of Federal control; but it is not Federal control, but Federal aid.

Who else is opposing this Nation helping to educate its children? Those who are opposed to the public schools. Who is opposed to pubic schools? A great many people are opposed to public schools, I am sorry to say. I come from a State and a city where a very young, vigorous man, an ex-president of the chamber of commerce, told me that he did not believe in public high schools. The man who is opposed to public schools will oppose this bill.

Who else will oppose this bill? I belong to a religious denomination that once believed that the best thing for the denomination to do was to build its own schools and not to have public schools. Now, that denomination has practically given up that point of view, and now believes in public education; but there are still some people who say, "I do not believe we ought to have the public schools.'

Senator SMITH. Would you object to stating what that denomination is?

Dr. CHANDLER. It is Baptist. I am frank to make my confession. And still there is another type. There are people who say it is too much money. We do not want to be taxed. That is the other element. Now, that is the other element that is opposed to it, so much money, and they do not want to be taxed.

Now, gentlemen, I say that it means only $1 per inhabitant in this country. There are those who claim that this country has been taxing the citizens of the States and taking away a great many sources of revenue from the States. In Virginia, through the income tax we used to raise a great amount of money, and that was practically repealed at the last session of the general assembly. Then we did not add to the railroad tax. We thought of putting a tax on soft drinks. But it is much easier for the Federal Government to raise the general taxes on special types of property than the States. It is a great thing for the Nation to promote every type of activity within proper bounds, and I think that this bill will promote education as nothing else has. This $100,000,000 will bring $500,000,000 in the aggregate

Mr. DONOVAN. Of course, the ideal would be for the secretary of education to be a highly trained specialist and educator; that would be the ideal. But you know the way that things go in life. Now, suppose that a secretary of education were appointed who was a politician

Dr. CHANDLER. Yes.

Mr. DONOVAN. Is there any way that it could be safeguarded that the secretary of education who possesses such qualifications would be appointed and would have to possess them in order to have the position?

Dr. CHANDLER. That would be better; but even if that were not done I would not be uneasy. You will never put a man at the head of the department of a Government like this who would not say for himself, "I am going to make this a success for my reputation," and that is a factor that we must take into consideration, and I believe that he would do his best to develop the work.

The CHAIRMAN. May I suggest that in the States where the appointive power has been with the governor of the State superin

tendents, it is a very common thing for the governor to go outside of his own party in order to appoint the head of that department? Over in Pennsylvania the governor went to New York City and appointed a Democrat, although the governor was a Republican; and while it might be thought that a Cabinet officer would always belong to the party of the oppointing power it would not necessarily mean that it would be a political office.

Dr. CHANDLER. Not necessarily. And even if it should be, I would be willing to trust the appointing power to put at the head of the department a man who would not attempt to run it down. I think it would be far better that a man who is doing the work and doing it successfully should be continued in office, and that he should not be a politician.

Gentlemen, I have finished, and I thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it not true that in the agricultural work, which is not political, that the head of that department, a member of the Cabinet, has never been a real politician? Take the heads of the Agricultural Department, and go back as far as you care.

Dr. CHANDLER. I never heard of the Secretary of Agriculture being a real politician. I assumed that he belonged to the party in power. I know that the present head of the Bureau of Education is a Democrat and that he was appointed by a Republican President.

(Thereupon, at 10.15 o'clock p. m., an adjournment was taken until 10 o'clock of the following day, July 11, 1919.)

EDUCATION BILL.

FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1919.

SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,
AND HOUSE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION,

Washington, D. C.

The Committee on Education and Labor of the United States Senate and the Committee on Education of the House of Representatives met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 o'clock a. m., at Room 201, Senate Office Building.

Present: Senators Kenyon and Smith; Representatives Fess, Towner, Donovan, and Reed.

Also present: Mrs. Josephine Corliss Preston, state superintendent of Washington and president of the National Education Association; Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart, Frankfort, Ky., president of the Illiteracy Commission of Kentucky; Miss Mary C. Wood, New York City, chairman legislative committee, General Federation of Women's Clubs; Charles B. Stillman, Wilmette, Ill., president American Federation of Teachers; Mr. L. V. Lampson, Washington, D. C., vice president, American Federation of Teachers; Miss Lorraine E. Wooster, Topeka, Kans., State superintendent of schools of Kansas; Hugh S. Magill, field secretary of the National Education Association; and Henry Sterling, representing the American Federation of Labor.

The joint committee then proceeded to a further consideration of the bills (H. R. 7 and S. 1017) to create a department of education, to authorize appropriations for the conduct of said department, to authorize the appropriation of money to encourage the States in the promotion and support of education, and for other purposes.

The CHAIRMAN. In view of the fact that it is now 10 minutes after the time that our hearing was to begin, and that our time is limited, due to so many other things that are crowded in on the committee, if there are no objections we will proceed at once with the hearing.

The committee will be glad to hear from Mrs. Josephine Corliss Preston, State superintendent of Washington and president of the National Education Association.

STATEMENT OF MRS. JOSEPHINE CORLISS PRESTON, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF WASHINGTON AND PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION.

Mrs. PRESTON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, your interest, manifested last night, leads me to feel that I can discuss rather informally, and comewhat concretely, the problems

involved in the Smith-Towner bill. We have a number of problems involved, but I am going to speak first on the compensation, qualification, and training of teachers. Last night I noticed that you were rather requesting those who were speaking to speak in terms of its application to their own States and their own localities. I have been accustomed for years to speak in terms of the Northwest.

In 1898 we formed the Inland Empire Teachers' Association, which represented the educators of both public and private schools in four States Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana-and we have had yearly meetings since, on the 1st of October, to discuss the problems of education.

I feel that I know the Northwest section, and whatever I have to say applies to that section. I have only recently been elected president of the National Education Association, although I have been a member of the commission on the emergency in education, and have been studying the problem, but only as it applied to the Northwest section, because I was the Northwest representative on the commission.

The compensation and training of teachers is a very important factor. The first to take into consideration is the salary of the teacher. Seattle has found it necessary to raise the maximum of the grade teachers to $1,800; of the high school teachers to $2,100; Tacoma has recently voted 4 mills increase in milage, and it was for the purpose of increasing the salaries. I had a call to Portland recently, where they had to vote on the increase of teachers' salaries, and had the pleasure of speaking before 300 business men and club women and a few educators. We discussed the problem, and I presented the national standpoint, and was much pleased that, by a vote of more than two to one, Portland increased the salaries of the teachers.

I only mention these facts to show what the movement toward an increase in salaries is doing. We have in Washington three classes of schools: We have one-room country districts; the small village not incorporated; and the second-class is the incorporated town; and the first-class district is the town with a population of 10,000 or over. Our difficulty in the State of Washington in the increase in salary comes from the second-class district. The secondclass district does not have the assessed valuation to meet the emergency, and we are needing help; we are needing State aid; and the Federal aid would also be acceptable to us.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Mrs. Preston, may I interrupt you for a moment. The matter of increased compensation to the teachers would be discounted on the basis that it is a purely personal affair. Is this movement backed by local interests outside of the schools, as an interest to the locality and the State and not necessarily an interest to the teacher only, to get an increased compensation?

Mrs. PRESTON. I might answer that, Mr. Chairman, in this way: That the people of our State and of our Northwest realize that something must be done in the way of increased salaries for teachers to hold them in the profession. It has been a well-known fact for years that men have left the teaching profession to go into other lines of work because of greater compensation, and the teaching has been very largely woman's work.

The war has come and the women have learned that they can receive greater compensation outside of the teacher profession, and many of them have gone into other lines of work. We thought that when the war was over they would return. We are not having the large return we expected, and the thoughtful people of our section realize that we must give greater compensation if we expect to attract the best men and women and hold them in our profession. I should say it was a community effort and not the effort of individual teachers.

Coming East I met a young woman, who was one of our very best teachers, who was coming to Washington and quitting her profession. I said to her "Are you not planning to return to the teaching profession?" She answered "Well, perhaps, but at the present time I have home responsibilities that make it necessary for me to receive a greater compensation than I could secure as a teacher."

The CHAIRMAN. The city of Washington is quite filled with women teachers who were brought here for clerical work, due to the demands of war necessities, and many of these came from the schools. I have had a good many of them in the office, interviewing me as to the possible transfer from one department to another, thinking that the department that they were in would be discontinued. I have asked them why they did not return to their homes and take up the work that they left. I find that they do not care to do it unless it is absolutely necessary. Is that because of the salary or the different work here that they like better than the teaching?

Mrs. PRESTON. Well, many of them are here who have been in the teaching profession, from our own State, and they are filled with the desire to see things. It is a great opportunity for them to come to Washington and see things and many of them feel that they are a little freer in the political positions here than they were in the positions as a school-teacher. Those with whom I have talked from our own State are in doubt as to whether they wish to go back and take the positions as teachers, and some of the reasons, I have heard, are that in the clerical work they are more free and independent. There is a sort of independence in that work that the teachers have not had.

The CHAIRMAN. And if the places would remain open, they would not return to teaching?

Mrs. PRESTON. My judgment is that they would not.

The CHAIRMAN. There is no question at all about it in my mind, but I thought I would like to have you give your opinion on it. The Government, because of the stress of war, induced, by a higher level of salaries in the Government work, those people to come here, and it is probable that those salaries will not be reduced.

Is there any likelihood, from your standpoint, that the salaries of the teachers will be increased to meet this higher level of the Government work which now prevails?

Mrs. PRESTON. Mr. Chairman, I think our people are willing to go as far as they can. I am speaking for our people in the Northwest. Our people in the Northwest believe in schools, and they are going to do everything they can to meet the emergency and pay the salary that will meet the clerical salary of the Government.

The CHAIRMAN. And if that is not done, what will be the effect upon the teaching profession?