STATEMENT OF MISS MARY E. LEEPER, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, ASSOCIATION FOR CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Miss LEEPER. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the Association for Childhood Education, an organization of 38,000 members, has as its purpose improving opportunities for children. Through 52 years its membership has worked toward this objective. For 10 years the voting delegates have endorsed the principle of Federal aid to pubic education. Our plan of action for the present year states [reading]:

We believe that each family, each community, each State, and each Nation bears a joint responsibility for the care of its children and that the degree of sharing that responsibility should be in proportion to the ability of each to assume it.

Translating this belief into action we record our approval of S. 181 and urge your favorable consideration of the bill. To us it represents one step toward the Nation's assuming its share of our joint responsibility for the care of our children.

You have been given graphic pictures and have heard the teachers' first-hand accounts of the desperate situation in many schools in many communities. Our Nation is a family of States-the problems of one must be the concern of all. Some States are richer in dollars; others are richer in children. What is the rightful share of each? What is the Federal Government's share?

According to Frank Graham, president of the University of North Carolina, the southern section of our country

has 28 percent of the population, 8 percent of the Nation's income, and educates 33 percent of the Nation's children.

Our association believes that the Federal Government does have a responsibility to help with the education of the Nation's children, not only those who live in the southern section but children in all sections of our country.

This war period has shown in many, if not in all the States evidences of "invasion from within." Malnutrition and correctible physical defects, illiteracy, and certain forms of delinquency have incapacitated many for military duty and even for work in war industries. The roots of these menaces are in early childhood. Adequate school programs available for all children have prevented in large measure this threat to our Nation's ability to defend itself. Adequate school programs provided for the children of today will go far toward establishing security for our Nation in the years of peace for which we hope.

If the Federal Government will accept its share of the responsibility for the education of the children of all communities there can be many more schools with programs that will build health, foster learning, and encourage right living. Such schools will play a large part in destroying those menaces by which our manpower and womanpower are limited today.

The Association for Childhood Education also wishes to record the belief of its voting representatives that in S. 181 the rights and privileges of the States and the local communities to control their own education programs are preserved through the principle of grants

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in-aid to States to be administered through the regularly constituted agency-the United States Office of Education. Under this bill grants cannot be made by the Federal Government directly to local communities, as is now the practice of the Federal Works Agency. This agency, in addition to its construction program, gives appropriations directly to local communities for educational purposes. In a release of the Federal Works Agency dated January 20 we read:

To date, the FWA has allotted $93,830,767 for maintenance and operation costs of all types of public services, including schools, hospitals, child-care and recreation centers, and venereal-disease rapid-treatment hospitals. The allotments for schools totaled $26,679,799; child care, $42,048,764. * *

Let us put our Nation's "education house" in order-Federal, State, and local each assuming its rightful responsibility. Then we may get on with the job of giving to all the children of our country the opportunities that are rightfully theirs to participate in school programs that will help them develop sound bodies, well-trained minds, upright ways of living. Let us help to protect the future of our country by stemming "invasion from within."

Senator MORSE. May I ask one question?

Senator JOHNSTON. Proceed.

Senator MORSE. I notice in your statement you quoted Dr. Frank Graham, of the University of North Carolina.

Miss LEEPER. Yes.

Senator MORSE. Do you know what position he has taken on this bill?

Miss LEEPER. That quotation was from an address he gave in New York City which was reported in the January 20, 1945, issue of School and Society.

Senator MORSE. I would like to say for the record, Mr. Chairman, that I hold Dr. Frank Graham's views on education, particularly as they relate to the South, in the highest esteem. It would be very helpful to me if the record would show a statement from Dr. Graham as to his position on this bill. It may be contemplated that the he later will be produced as a witness or that his statement will be filed, but, in my judgment, I know of no one more competent to speak on educational problems of the South than Dr. Graham.

Senator JOHNSTON. I will make a notation on that.

Mrs. STERNE. Next will be Mrs. Elizabeth Clarke Babbitt, representing the Service Star Legion, Inc.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ELIZABETH CLARKE BABBITT, REPRESENTING THE SERVICE STAR LEGION, INC.

Senator JOHNSTON. Will you identify yourself for the record, please?

Mrs. BABBITT. I am Mrs. Elizabeth Clarke Babbitt. I live at 1819 Wyoming Avenue, NW, Washington, D. C., and I would also like to tell you that I have been a teacher. I have taught in North Carolina, in Rhode Island, in Massachusetts, in Alabama, and in Pennsylvania, so I am familiar with educational conditions in various sections of the country. I speak for the Service Star Legion, Inc.-you know the

little service star that hangs in the window of every house where there are men and women in the services. I come to speak for the children and the families of the men and women in the service of our country, especially those who are members of our organization. We have a membership of about 35,000 approximately, but we try to serve all of the armed forces and all of the ex-service men, so it reaches up into many millions.

I want to place before this honorable committee this resolution, in the hope that our plans for meeting the changing educational needs for State and Territories where funds are inadequate to provide for the inherent rights of all free-born American children and adults to a good education may be successful.

Gentlemen, I would like to state that we are for Senator Hill's bill, S. 181, placed before the Seventy-ninth Congress, and I would also like to add that we feel that this is a step in the right direction. We are interested in legislation that will provide equalization of educational opportunity.

We wish to express our hearty approval of bill S. 181 and the policies set forth therein.

Even a cursory analysis of this bill electrifies the man and woman interested in educational programs taking root even before the momentum of postwar activities overtake us.

In the fulfillment of this purpose the solution of the problem of illiteracy is most imperative because of the percentage of illiteracy found in the enlisted forces of our Nation, reaching, I think, to the number of 240,000 men or more. It was found that educating these men was a very expensive proposition, also causing a loss of time, and that many regiments of men could have been overseas doing effective service if they had not had educational deficiencies.

In every field of employment we need not only the basic fundamentals of the three R's, reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic, but education must be such that talent and ingenuity can be exercised and developed. It was shown that a very large percentage of the men in the Army had only received a fourth-grade education.

I would like to state here that in the last war I worked with shellshocked soldiers, and I found I could not carry on the work that I was supposed to do because many of them had not had a fundamental education. I have taken this matter up with the Veterans' Bureau, and I hope that in this war this situation will be corrected, because I worked under the University of Pennsylvania during the last war, and I almost lost my position there in trying to get fundamental education for these boys because there was no appropriation for it. We were successful, but it was a very long and hard road. Most of my men made good and went back to civilian life.

It is the work of the Congress, guided by this committee's advice. and ultimate decision, to give an equal chance to the present and coming generations if we are to perpetuate Washington's admonition: "Let us raise our standards to which the wise and prudent can repair. The future rests in the hands of God."

Our modern State rests in the hands of present-day leaders. Gentlemen of this committee, the members of the Service Star Legion, Inc.,

join with you as true officers for fair play for those citizens who have been deprived of educational advantages due to environment or geographical location.

I wish to thank you.

Mrs. STERNE. I will next call on Mrs. Harriet Houdlette, representing the American Association of University Women.

STATEMENT OF MRS. HARRIET AHLERS HOUDLETTE, ASSOCIATE IN CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN

Mrs. HOUDLETTE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, Federal aid to education has been on the program of our association for more than 20 years. During this time the association has grown from a small group of less than 18,000 women to more than 70,000 members in 915 local branches in all the 48 States.

Endorsing a legislative principle by this association means that a majority of the delegates representing the membership in convention assembled have voted favorably on it, after study and voting in the local branches. Our last convention in 1941 adopted the principle of Federal aid to States to equalize opportunity for public education.

The question of the need for Federal aid to education has passed the stage of academic discussion. As the testimony in this hearing has already shown, it now presents itself as a necessary step in maintaining our national security as well as in keeping our faith with democracy by making good our promise of equal opportunity, at least for an elementary-school education.

We concur in the desirability of emergency measures at this time, and we also see the need for Federal aid to education for some time to come, because of the inequalities in the wealth of States and the free movement of citizens from one State to another-which conditions were evident long before the present war, and will probably continue after its close.

Through the years that Federal aid to education has been considered in our association there has grown up the belief that there are certain principles basic to a mutually helpful relation of the Federal Government to the States. Briefly, they include the granting of funds to the States for the purpose of equalizing resources with provision for maximum participation and responsibility of the State and local community and a minimum of Federal control. Some of the principles which, in the opinion of the members of our association, should guide the administration of Federal financial aid to such programs as are appropriate

are:

1. Allocation of Federal funds to the States and of State funds to the local governments should be used to equalize resources.

2. Maximum community participation and responsibility, with ample scope for community programs to go beyond the minimum to which Federal responsibility should extend. Communities should assume administrative responsibility, under minimum standards established as a basis for Federal aid and by their States, and should be encouraged to carry as large a share of the financial burden as their resources permit.

3. Programs of welfare, education, health, and the like should be designed to meet the needs of all the people, and the funds authorized should be sufficiently large and so assured that communities can count on them, under clearly established conditions and standards, and can therefore plan in advance for their use.

Mrs. STERNE. I think everyone has been heard from, except my organization, and I would like to speak on behalf of my organization, if I may.

Senator JOHNSTON. Yes, Madam; you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF MRS. MERVYN H. STERNE, REPRESENTING NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN

Mrs. STERNE. For 20 years the National Council of Jewish Women has favored the principle of Federal aid to education. Its 65,000 members are largely homemakers, who send their children to the public schools.

The members know, from personal experience, that over-crowded classrooms wear down the nerves and enthusiam of both children and teachers. They know that in some areas the annual threat of early closings demoralizes instruction by raising the fear of insecurity. They know, too, the evils of teacher turn-over, which is occurring more and more within the year, as well as at the close of the school term. Children are confused by the resulting lack of continuity in their work.

Teachers have a most astonishing influence. A parent's statement or explanation may be frequently questioned, but a teacher's, rarely— especially in the lower grades. For this reason, among others, parents want teachers with the best training, the best judgment, and the fullest appreciation of the trust children have in them.

There are vast differences in educational opportunity within and among the States-differences due in large measure to factors outside the State's control, differences in natural resources, industrial development, income, tax-paying ability, differences in the proportionate number of children. The council is very much interested in seeing the differences in educational systems equalized.

It was gratifying to read President Roosevelt's statement to the White House Conference on Rural Education that he believed the Federal Government should render aid where needed. It was encouraging to have the President include in his American economic bill of rights the right to a good education.

In his Budget message to Congress, Mr. Roosevelt said:

The records of selective service reveal that we have fallen far short of a suitable standard of elementary and secondary education. If a suitable standard is to be maintained in all parts of the country, the Federal Government must render aid where it is needed-but only where it is needed. Such financial aid should involve no interference with State and local control and administration of educational programs. It should simply make good our national obligation to all our children. This country is great enough to guarantee the right to education adequate for full citizenship.

The National Council of Jewish Women heartily supports Federal aid to education as endorsed by the President. It confidently expects