council of a county (other than the London county council) shall not include a duty to establish certified schools for boarding and lodging physically defective and epileptic children.

Dr. STRAYER. I would like to present a resolution adopted at the last meeting of the National Education Association at Milwaukee on July 4, 1919.

Senator KENYON. And how many teachers were there, men and women, at that meeting in Milwaukee, and how many represented? Dr. STRAYER. Well, about 8,000, and the number representedit is hard to get an accurate report of them. When the department of education is established we can get them more accurately. There are something over 700,000, between 700,000 and 800,000 teachers in the United States.

Senator KENYON. And has there not been some legislation of this kind passed in France?

Dr. STRAYER. It is pending. I had a very pleasant opportunity to meet a delegation from France who were visiting here two French gentlemen who came over representing the French Government at the National Education Association-and in talking to them, they told me that they believe a bill almost identical with the Fisher bill will be passed in France.

Senator SMITH. France has a secretary of education, has it not? Dr. STRAYER. Oh, yes; she has had a secretary of education for years.

This resolution which I ask to have placed in the record is a resolution unanimously adopted by the National Education Association at its meeting last week, where 8,000 people were gathered.

I will read the resolution.

One phase of the world crisis in the progress of civilization has just been safely passed in the successful outcome of the Great War. The democratic peoples of the world face another phase of the same crisis in the solution of the problem of making democracy universal and effective. Inasmuch as universal and effective democracy is fundamentally dependent upon a high level of intelligence in the rank and file of the citizenship of a nation as well as upon a properly qualified and trained leadership, a nation-wide, even a worldwide, program in education has become a vitally essential factor in the right solution of the great problem.

The National Education Association desires to outline at this time of crisis an American program in education. In so doing we are not unmindful of the great fundamental lessons taught by the war:

1. That the general ideals, purposes, and methods of American education are consistent with competent and effective democracy because the war has proved the outputs of the schools of America to be resourceful, independent, and reliable in judgment, courageous in the highest degree and consecrated to public duty.

2. That great defects in our national life and in our social and industrial system exists, which are incompatible with the spirit of democracy, which invite the entrance of forces and institutions destructive of our ideals and purposes as a Nation, and which are essentially dangerous to the perpetual prosperity and happiness of the masses of our people and to our leadership in the movement of universal democracy. We recognize these to be

(a) An increasingly large un-Americanized element, both native and foreign born, in our population, evidenced by statistical research to be one in three. (b) An alarming percentage of illiteracy in our population shown by the Army tests to be approximately 20 per cent of the total population.

(c) An astonishing degree of physical unfitness in our people betraying a lack of preparedness either for the duties of defense or the responsibilities of peace amounting to at least one-third of the entire adult population.

(d) A machinery for public education which is distinctly defective in many · vital particulars, namely:

The schools as the principal agent of a democratic people in the training for universal good citizenship fail to reach at least 50 per cent of the youth for whom such training is vitally essential, and for whom a system of public education is intended.

School organization, courses of study, and classroom methods have not been sufficiently differentiated and adapted to the varying needs of different communities and individual children.

A large proportion of the teaching corps of the Nation has had training and experience entirely incommensurate with the responsibilities imposed upon the teachers of the schools of a democracy. Five million children, one one-fourth of our total school population, in the United States go to school in classrooms taught by teachers of less than the regular four years of high-school training. Such inadequate support has been given the public schools of the United States that teachers are leaving the profession in large numbers for more remunerative fields, and ambitious and talented young men and young women are largely refusing to enter the profession of teaching as a life career. (During the past school year from 30,000 to 70,000 children were without teachers in one of our largest metropolitan cities because it was impossible to secure a sufficient number of teachers on account of the fewness of the teachers entering the profession.)

The average salary paid elementary teachers in the United States is $600 a year.

There has never been developed an adequate effectively organized and well supervised system of rural education.

Compulsory education laws have not been well enforced and such enforcement as has been prevalent has not been based upon records showing the numbers of minor citizens of each age in our various communities without which provision complete and universal enforcement is entirely possible.

Our efforts at making education scientific have been largely theoretical. have not adequately followed up our surveys and scientific investigations.

AIM OF A PROGRAM IN EDUCATION.

We

In view of these conclusions forced upon us by the Great War, a program of education in America should aim to bring about the following results:

1. A general high level of patriotic, intelligent, and competent citizenship through the specific training of all the children of the democracy for citizenship to an age approximating maturity.

2. The Americanization of the un-Americanized elements in the United States, both native and foreign born.

3. The complete abolition of illiteracy.

4. The use of English as the universal language of instruction in public education and as the means of making general and common our American ideals.

5. A high degree of physical and moral fitness for both the responsibilities of peace and the duties of war on the part of all our people.

6. An adequate and effective system of public education, both State and national, as the chief agency for the accomplishment of the above ends.

This association has urged for years that education should be given just recognition by the Federal Government, and that a department of education should be established. The war has so emphasized the importance of education from a national standpoint that the necessity of the immediate consideration of this question is universally recognized.

Moreover, a commission on the emergency in education, appointed by this association one year ago, acting under the instruction of the association, prepared a bill creating a department of education with a secretary in the President's cabinet, and authorizing the appropriation of $100,000,000 to encourage the States in the promotion of education, particularly in the removal of illiteracy, the Americanization of immigrants, physical and health education, teacher preparation, and the equalizing of education opportunities; and this association, through its commission, and with the cooperation of other great national organizations, secured the introduction of this bill in the Sixty-fifth Congress, and more recently its introduction in the Sixty-sixth Congress in a carefully revised and perfected form, known as the Smith-Towner bill, H. R. 7 and S. 1017: Therefore,

Resolved, That this association gives its hearty and unqualified indorsement to the Smith-Towner bill, H. R. 7 and S. 1017, now before the Sixty-sixth Congress, and instructs the official staff of this association to use all honorable means to secure its passage.

Dr. STRAYER. And the movement has gone away outside of our profession. There was held in New York in the spring a great convention on social reconstruction, which set for itself the task of proposed. Federal legislation affecting education, civil rights, health, country life, and so on, and so on. They considered every educational measure that was before Congress. They had all of the bills in their possession. They represented every type of social worker in the United States, and every one of them was a party to that conference. I just want to read very briefly from The Survey, which shows a part of their program:

Federal aid to elementary, secondary, and higher education is a practical necessity and is amply justified on every consideration of justice, political theory, and expediency. The Nation has quite as direct an interest in the preparation of its citizens to fulfill their national obligations as have the States in their preparation for local citizenship. This involves not merely ability to read and write, but also fitness as workers, as parents, as self-governing members of a free and progressive Nation, as men and women who know how to use their leisure and to live a good life.

We have already liberally subsidized certain kinds of higher and vocational education. We must now begin further back by cooperating with the States in abolishing illiteracy, increasing the pay of teachers, insuring a modicum of professional preparation for teaching, lengthening the school year, making easier the path of those who want more than an elementary education, promoting the use of school and public libraries, standardizing and unifying our whole educational system, while leaving the States free as heretofore to develop their own plans, to learn from their own mistakes and the experience of one another.

Not less than $100,000,000 should be appropriated for elementary education alone for the first year, and this amount should be increased year by year until some approach has been made to a national, comprehensive eductional system. Two-thirds of the whole cost might be borne by the States.

Various bills calculated to accomplish these purposes will be introduced in Congress. The one which represents the views of the National Education Association provides for Federal aid through a Federal department and carefully safeguards the powers of the educational authorities of the States. There are great advantages in combining the provisions for State aid with that for Cabinet representation. The spokesman for the cause of education in the National Government should not be in a subordinate bureau. He should have an educational policy for the whole Nation and should command the widest and most respectful hearing in announcing and advocating it.

About half of our adult foreign-born male population in 1910 was unnaturalized, the increase in the number of unnaturalized aliens in 10 years having been 147 per cent. The war has given us an opportunity to catch up in some measure with the task of assimilation. The temporary cessation of immigration has coincided with an intensifying of the process of Americanization, and at the present moment there are very few who have not had to face consciously many times, under pressure from their neighbors and the authorities, searching questions as to their loyalty and allegiance, their permanent home, their ideals of democracy. Community singing, Liberty loans, Red Cross drives, food and fuel conservation, even the discussion of the current news of the day have been so many mutually reinforcing elements in the education of prospective citizens. Financial assistance to elementary education, both for adults and for children, is the best possible contribution which the Federal Government can make to the process of Americanization. The various groups of the foreign born might advantageously be represented in the administration of all such funds. Foreignborn children as well as foreign-born parents present special problems which have been too much neglected. The public schools and other educational agencies have the main responsibility for teaching foreigners. Through a special office of the Bureau of Education, the Department of the Interior is engaged in stimulating this work and supplying material for it.

The Government might have skilled field workers constantly at work securing the cooperation of the foreign born in a mutual exchange of cultural wealth. The purposes of the Nation should be made clear to aliens through trade-unions and the numerous societies which exist among the foreign born. Immigrants should be enlisted in the effort to interpret the aims and ideals

of America to their friends at home. Pending the creation of a department of education, cooperation between the Department of Labor and the Department of the Interior in the working out of a coherent program of Americanization is desirable, and the provisional organization in the bureau of education should be continued.

Americanization does not mean forced conformity to a single type; and the learning of English, essential as it is, does not constitute an education. To think like an American is an even more important objective in Americanization than to speak and write English. If there is any one national characteristic above all desirable, it is appreciation of individuality. Freedom to think and the possession of something to think with are the most precious gifts of fathers to sons. To comprehend ideals of democracy and selfgovernment; to have respect for the rights of others, including the rights of minorities and of individuals; to have a worthy ambition to render a creative service to society with hand and brain rather than to remain a social debtor or bankrupt; to become actually skillful somewhere in mine, shop, office, or home, on railway, farm, ranch, or range; to know how to save and invest as well as how to work and to work with fellow workers-are all involved in the process of Americanization.

The obligation is not onesided. It involves adaptation by Americans to one another in a constant process of better utilizing their special gifts to the common advantage. The first condition of the Americanization of the alien is that we shall get acquainted with him. The first condition of the education of the American is better preparation and better status for the teachers.

Mr. DONOVAN. That seems to controvert the policy of this bill, inasmuch as this bill does not direct the curriculum or any certain policy of education. I am afraid that the resolution would not be carried out.

Dr. STRAYER. If I may read the whole resolution, the spirit of it is to stimulate, to lead. It is not a program of domination or control. It is a program of inspiration and stimulation.

Mr. DONOVAN. According to that resolution, it would appear that that body of people desires that certain definite curricula should be adopted throughout the country. That, I think, would be rather objectionable.

Mr. TOWNER. It does not state that.

Mr. DONOVAN. Won't you have it read again?
Dr. STRAYER. It says here:

The one which represents the views of the National Educational Association provides for Federal aid through a Federal department and carefully safeguards the powers of the educational authorities of the States. There are great advantages in combining the provisions for State aid with that for cabinet representation. The spokesman of education in the National Government should not be in a subordinate bureau. He should have an educational policy for the whole Nation, and should command the widest and most respectful hearing in announcing and advocating it.

He says "spokesman for the cause of education "-not a ruler or a controller.

Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, it is getting late and I must conclude. I am reminded of the fact that it was during the period of the Civil War that the Nation first gave support to the agricultural energies of the United States. The Nation has never sought to dominate agriculture, but has supported it—it has stimulated it, rather.

Mr. DONOVAN. May I ask, Dr. Strayer, what you think would be the attitude of the colleges, some of the big colleges, throughout the country toward this bill?

Dr. STRAYER. Well, Mr. Donovan, I come from the Columbia University. We have the largest university in the United States. We

had this matter up before our university senate, which is the governing body, and in that senate this bill was indorsed, and, I think I ought to say, even with the opposition of certain members who might have been expected to more or less control the action of that body.

Mr. DONOVAN. And what is the attitude of the president of Columbia University toward this bill?

Dr. STRAYER. I do not want to speak of the attitude of the president. We consulted with President Lowell, of Harvard, who advised us on the first draft of the bill. I understood from those on the staff at Harvard that he approves the bill as it is. In the first hearing on this bill last October the Council of American Colleges and Universities appeared here in support of the measure.

Mr. DONOVAN. As one of the witnesses?

Dr. STRAYER. Yes.

Mr. REED. Is there anything in this bill that will in any way injure the interests of the old land-grant colleges?

Dr. STRAYER. Absolutely not. The State of Illinois has just passed legislation appropriating $5,000,000 for the next biennial for their State university. I am very sure that no State in the Union would have developed its higher education to the extent that it has had it not been for the stimulus which came from the Government, beginning with 1863. I believe that if our Government enters upon a similar program of stimulating the States in the matter of the eradication of illiteracy, in the matter of immigrant education, in the matter of public-school education, in the matter of physical education, including health education, recreation, and sanitation, and in the matter of the training of competent teachers for the public schools, that similar legislation will be enacted by all the States of our country during the next 50 years in support of public education. Mr. TOWNER. And it is your belief that if these different features are carried out that it will increase the teaching force in America? Dr. STRAYER. Yes, sir; it certainly will.

Mr. TOWNER. About how much?

Dr. STRAYER. Well, that is hard

Mr. TOWNER. Approximately?

Dr. STRAYER. Well, one of the results, of course, would be the increase of our student body in teacher-training schools. I know something of the statistics in that matter, and I think that we might increase the student body 75 per cent over our present enrollment. Mr. TOWNER. We have 700,000 teachers now, do you say? Dr. STRAYER. Yes, sir; between 700,000 and 800,000.

Mr. TOWNER. And does that 700,000 include the superintendents? Dr. STRAYER. It does; we count them all.

Mr. REED. Don't you think, Dr. Strayer, that if this bill would pass that the inspiration and stimulation which would result would mean a raising of the salaries of the teachers, also?

Dr. STRAYER. Yes, sir; undoubtedly.

Mr. REED. And don't you think that it will be practically impossible to raise the salaries of the teachers without some great national movement of this kind?

Dr. STRAYER. Well, I do not think it is possible to meet the emergency in the United States without the sanction of the United States Government back of it. We have gone ahead for 140 years on the basis of the neighborhood-interest system, and if we are going to