ident Charles Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin, House Bill No. 19,465 was discussed, the principles of the bill approved, and the committee continued.1 In 1912, this committee was enlarged and discussed the matter at length. In 1915, the Department of Superintendence resolved: "We again reaffirm our declaration in favor of a National University and note with pleasure that the Fess Bill establishing such a University has been favorably reported to the House of Representatives." 2 The N. E. A. has always urged the cause of the Bureau of Education because of the benefits which have come to public schools and to teachers through its reports and bulletins. It has, almost without ceasing, asked Congress to give the Bureau better quarters, more equipment, and more money. It went further. In 1895, the Department of Superintendence said in its resolutions: "The importance of public education in this country demands its [the Bureau's] recognition as a distinct and coördinate department of the executive branch of government."3 This has been substantially reaffirmed in 1897, in 1900, in 1903, in 1908, in 1910, and in 1917, with some commendatory resolutions about the Bureau and a plan for its more generous support at every intervening meeting. Many other national legislative measures of minor importance have been advanced for consideration and 2 Ibid., 1915, p. 250. 1 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1908, p. 34. 3 Ibid., 1895, p. 217. have evoked some enthusiasm, but those that have lived through the past half century as the hope of educational leaders are: 1. Federal aid as a means of stimulating the states to an extension and improvement of all forms of public education. This has been accomplished with respect to the Industrial Movement by the acts that have given endowment and maintenance to the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts, and by the Smith-Hughes Act for vocational education "of less than college grade." There still remain the important fields of illiteracy, Americanization, the equalization of educational opportunities involving particularly the improvement of the rural schools, physical and health education, and last but by no means least― the preparation of teachers. These are covered by the bill prepared in 1918 and 1919 by the Emergency Commission of the Association, and known in the Sixty-sixth Congress as the Smith-Towner Bill. 2. The expansion of the functions of the Bureau of Education into a real department of the government, after the pattern set by the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, and Commerce, and the recognition of the importance of education by giving it a voice in the councils of the Nation. 3. The establishment of a National University which should be devoted to national service through the training which it would give in research in fields that are distinctly national in scope and significance. CHAPTER XIII WHAT THE WAR REVEALED OUR analysis of historical material has prepared us to see just what things in the way of educational defects would come to the surface when the Nation engaged in a great war. Notwithstanding our Federal form of government, when it comes to the matter of war we are as homogeneous as any nation in the world, for Congress has the right to make war and it therefore has the right to conscript men, to conscript labor, and to conscript wealth to carry on war. Whenever a nation thus strips for conflict and begins to organize all of its resources and all of its powers for the supreme test which war affords, the defects in its educational policies and practices are clearly revealed. We are all aware of the defects which England found in her educational system. She had been slow to adopt a thoroughgoing system of general public education. In fact, she had never approached it until 1870, and while she has made rapid strides since that time, her schools are still far behind those of many other European nations. In the midst of a most distressing conflict, England found it necessary to reorganize and amplify and expand, in a most remarkable way, her educational system. In our own country, the educational situation, while better in many ways than that in England, was still far from satisfactory. One thing clearly revealed by the war was the high per cent of illiteracy among those summoned by the first draft. Seven hundred thousand illiterates were subject to this first call; two hundred thousand of them were drawn into the training camps. These men could not make good soldiers because in a modern army the soldier must be able to read orders, he must be able to read signs of direction, he must be able to read the printed page in order to get into the spirit and animus of the great organization of which he is a part. Because the illiterate recruits actually delayed the military preparation, the Nation for the first time appreciated the real meaning of illiteracy. No one will now deny that illiteracy is incompatible with our democracy. The long years of patient and persistent effort for the removal of illiteracy through the stimulus of national aid seemed to have been in vain, but now the facts, which every person engaged in education knew all the time, have been brought forcibly to the attention of the general public. No nation can safely permit one in thirteen of its adult population to be unable to read the printed page. The war also brought into high relief the imperative need of "Americanizing" the immigrant population. The unprecedented industrial development of the past quarter century was far from an unmixed blessing, and among the problems to which it has given rise none is more serious than that which the assimilation of the alien workers involves. These foreigners have been drawn to our shores by the economic opportunity which the country has afforded. They have been admitted and permitted to remain in accordance with laws passed by Congress. They have been permitted to seek employment wherever they could find it and to move freely from one state to another. Not only this, but a very large proportion of those who have come to us in recent years are from European countries in which educational opportunities have been very meagre. They have been illiterates in their native lands; unlike the earlier immigrants from Northern Europe, their traditions regarding education are alien to ours. They have come to live among a people whose ideals are strange and unappreciated. Consequently they have flocked in groups because this was the only way in which they could have communication with human kind. They have not resisted Americanization; they have had no chance for it. The employer has felt that his responsibility was discharged when he paid them for their work. It was not conceived to be the business of capital to see that these people learned to read, speak, and write the English language, although there are conspicuous examples of |