It should now be evident that the financial aspects of the equalization of educational opportunities within a state involve many complicated problems. There is all the force of tradition and existing practice to be overcome. Existing practice is often to the advantage of many school units; they are doing well and prospering, even meeting all suggested standards with a plus mark to their credit. They do not wish existing conditions disturbed in the least. Many of them fear a higher local millage if steps toward equalization are seriously undertaken. Other school districts are fearful that their school terms will be lengthened, that their school buildings will be condemned, that salaries of teachers will be increased, and that qualifications of teachers will be so raised and stated that local girls cannot be employed as teachers at the prevailing low wages. The opposition of this group is both considerable and stubborn. There are other districts that would not be materially affected and consequently they are indifferent. The districts that are far below the standard are usually either unaware of the fact or unwilling to admit it. Then there is the heavy taxpayer who regards the whole proposal as just another socialistic scheme of conscripting wealth.

EDUCATIONAL INTERDEPENDENCE

The fundamental fact behind all this opposition is the public attitude toward educational responsibility.

The old notion of education as an individual advantage rather than a national asset and necessity still persists. The reason for the non-achievement of equality of educational opportunity is that the people generally have not sensed its deep and fundamental significance to the welfare of the group as a whole.

The old conception was that the child is the "property" of his parents. Very few parents now regard their children as property. They recognize their responsibility for the development and up-bringing of their children as the direct result of their having brought these children into existence. They earnestly and sincerely desire their children to succeed in a very complex social world. This complex social world, it is true, includes the community, the state, and the Nation; but the child is not educated simply on his own account nor on his family's account. Indeed, if it were not for these wider and more complex social relationships, education of the individual would be impossible, and to little purpose even if possible. It is this broader and more comprehensive attitude that it is so hard to establish in the collective thinking and the collective action of the people.

The plan of having the local community exclusively responsible for the public-school facilities has been tried, and always with failure. The state has found it necessary to set up standards of various kinds and to

provide supervision. And the Nation has contributed in various ways.

The elemental truth is that our form of social organization is complex and multiple instead of simple and unitary. The community has a relation to the state, the state has a relation to the Nation, the Nation has a relation to the state and to the community. The individual has a relation to the community, state, and Nation. Each of the four factors, individual, community, state, and Nation, is vitally related to each of the others; in fact, the relation is organic in that no one could exist without the other. Our recent participation in the World War has made us keenly conscious of the national aspect of this series of relationships. Every sign to-day points to an ever-increasing primacy of the national factor.

Our Federal Constitution, by silence in its original articles and by the negative of the Tenth Amendment, makes the organization, management, and supervision of public education exclusively a matter of state responsibility. No Constitutional barrier, however, lies against the encouragement of public education by the Federal Government. The numerous instances already cited show this clearly. While the early grants of land were without condition other than that indicated by the expressed purposes of the several acts, the later ones have set up conditions that make the Federal aid contingent. This is as it should be.

If the Federal Government desires to appropriate money to the several states to encourage them to equalize educational opportunities within their own borders, it has a clear right to do it; and in this act the Federal Government may include whatever conditions seem to it reasonable and desirable. The money thus expended is the property of the United States. The method by which this money gets into the treasury of the United States may be a matter of question and argument, for no money was ever raised by any kind of tax that was not thus open to criticism and objection. Such questions lie, however, against the method of taxation rather than against the expenditure of the tax-revenues. Those who point out the need of an additional battleship are not called upon to frame and defend a plan for raising the money, nor is the person who points out the need for repairs to a lighthouse expected to be sufficiently expert in revenue matters to frame a bill that will pay the costs of his proposal.

Any funds voted by Congress in aid of public education will be raised largely by income and corporation taxes. They may come in part from taxes on imports, or taxes on amusements, or on railroad fares, or on checks, drafts, notes, agreements, and deeds; but while there are many possible sources of revenue, it is practically certain that the tax on incomes will be the main source of revenue for governmental purposes. The income tax, since the adoption of the Sixteenth

Amendment, has been as constitutional as the Constitution itself. And the income tax is recognized as vastly more equitable and just than are the forms of taxation now depended upon almost exclusively to support the public schools.

FIGURE

5.

(a) Amount of taxable wealth behind each person of school age in the several sections of the United States, and in one state of each section; (b) Average number of days' attendance by each child, 5-18 (1915-16); and (c) Average monthly wage of all teachers (1915-16).

It will be well to have the main facts regarding the wealth of the different states clearly in mind. The following table shows the total wealth in 1912, the per capita of wealth, the taxable wealth back of each teacher, and the taxable wealth back of each person of school age. The diagram above shows graphically the main facts of the table on the following page.