^vjrv.MiirW/tj, tflIBRARY0/- ^EUNlVtKi/A 1 ^OFCAllFOfy^ ^0FCA1IF(% ^Aavaain^ ^Aavaan^ ^EUNIVERS//, a>:10SANCEI% \MUNIVERV4. ^lOVANGfcUj^ ^UIBRARY^ 'I ^EUNIVERty^ ^vlOSANCElfjv. ^/main/hvw* ^UIBRARV(?x %ojiiv>jo^ %M\m$^ y ? 1 li-^ £ ^lUBRAHYQc .WttUNIVERJ^ ^lOSANCEl£r- ^ojiwj-jo^ %oi\m^ ^»so# ^mmm *0FCALIF(%, 5f ^0FCAIIF(% .^EUNIVER^ ^lOSANCElfj^ THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS A STUDY IN THE APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF FEDERAL AID TO EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES BY JOHN A. H. KEITH PRESIDENT STATE NORMAL SCHOOL INDIANA, PA. WILLIAM C. BAGLEY PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Nefo 2§0tfc THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920 All rights reserved Copyright, 1920, Bv THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1930. NorfoooU press J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE The purpose of this book and the plan of treatment are set forth in Chapter I. The authors desire here to acknowledge their indebtedness to Dr. E. H. Reisner and Dr. I. L. Kandel of Teachers College, Columbia University, for their kindness in reading critically cer- tain of the chapters dealing with the historical develop- ment of Federal aid to education, and to Miss Frances r\ M. Burke, of the Indiana, Pa., State Normal School, tj for her painstaking work in preparing the statistical tables. Paragraphs from an article contributed by one *> of the authors to The New Republic, December 13, - 1919, form part of Chapter XVIII, and are reprinted with the permission of the publishers. Of the earlier - works from which data have been taken in the con- - struction of the tables, especial mention should be made of F. H. Swift's Permanent Public Common-School Funds (Henry Holt and Company) and E. P. Cubberley and E. C. Elliott's State and County School Adminis- tration (The Macmillan Company). TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Preface v Chapter I. Introduction i National influence in everyday life, due to the nature of our common needs — The neighborhood cannot remain isolated — The public schools, in pattern, express the genius of our people, the realiza- tion of this pattern by every school is essential to National welfare — National aid to public education in the states and the establishment of a Department of Education in the National Government are neces- sary to the accomplishment of this purpose and in- volve no new principles. Chapter II. Educational Conditions at the Close of the Revolution 8 State sovereignty preceded our present constitu- tional government — Individualism and the "town meeting" gave rise to the "district system" — The colonial schools were not free — Rate bills — The compulsory rate — Compulsory schools in Con- necticut — Schools in other colonies — The colonial colleges — Universal education was unknown in colonial days — Secularization began before 1776 — The bond of union was hatred — The schools were poor and scattered. Chapter III. The Great Stake 14 The conflict over claims to the Northwest Terri- tory was practically settled by the Act of 1780 — The Land Act of 1785 provided for the survey of this territory and set aside therein Lot No. 16 in every township for "the maintenance of public schools within the said township" — This Act hastened the settlement of the conflicting land claims of the several "sovereign and independent" states — Perma- nent funds for the maintenance of schools date from 1635 — Towns set aside lands for the maintenance of schools (1641) — Colonial governments granted Vlii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE lands to towns and counties (1659) for the support of schools — Connecticut (1726) reserved lands for the schools and ministry and later (1733) created a permanent fund the interest on which was to be ex- pended for the "support of schools required by law" — Georgia followed in 1783 and New York in 1785 — Land endowments for the support of schools in colonial days had set the precedent for the reserva- tion of "Lot No. 16" by the Land Act of May, 1785. Chapter IV. The Endowment Magnificent . 22 The experiences of Ohio with "Lot No. 16" — The difficulties of the grant to separate townships — The grant to the state necessitated some equitable form of distribution of the interest on the funds derived by the states through the sale of school lands — The inadequacy of these "distributable funds" naturally led to state-wide taxation to supplement them — The extension of the Land Act of 1785 to the Louisiana Purchase — The Oregon Territory Land Act, of 1848, set aside sections sixteen and thirty-six for the public schools — The original states received no land from the Federal Govern- ment — Exceptional cases are briefly described — The "Funds" thus derived were often mismanaged — The free public school was firmly grounded by these grants of land and became a great induce- ment to settlement — The silence of the Constitu- tion on education. Chapter V. Land Grants for State Universities . 35 Manasseh Cutler secured, for the Ohio Company, a grant of two townships "for the purpose of an university" in July, 1787 — The strategy of Dr. Cutler — Educational proposals before the Con- stitutional Convention at the time of the grant to the Ohio Company for a university — The organiza- tion, supervision, and administration of education are sovereign functions reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment — This is not in conflict with the principle of Federal Aid to education which was operative before and since that time — The Symmes Purchase in Ohio and Miami University at Oxford, Ohio — The policy established by grants to these two colonizing companies has become the policy of the Federal Government. TABLE OF CONTENTS IX PAGE Chapter VI. Other Federal Land Grants in Aid of Education 45 Salt lands were given by Congress to fourteen states — Internal improvement lands were given to nine- teen states and many used all or a large part of the proceeds for public education — Swamp lands were given to fifteen states and many of these devoted a part or all of the proceeds to public education — Specific grants to states admitted in 1889 and since that time have been exceedingly generous. Chapter VII. Money Grants in Support or Education 53 The "five per cent" funds, derived from the sale of public lands within a state, have been a substantial aid to education in many states — The Surplus Revenue, deposited with the states by the Act of June, 1836, was largely used for educational pur- poses by the several states — The Distributive Act of 1 84 1 yielded only a small amount of money and for only one year — Forest Reserve Funds in some of the western states yield a small annual income for support of schools — Minor grants described. Chapter VIII. The Morrill Acts and the "Land- grant" Colleges 64 The instruction offered by private colleges and early state universities did not meet the needs of pioneers nor of the gradually increasing "working man"— The older states still felt that they should have received, individually, some of the proceeds of the sale of the "public domain" — The first bill of Justin S. Morrill, providing for "the establish- ment, endowment, and maintenance of an agri- cultural and mechanical college" in each state, passed Congress in 1859, and was vetoed by President Bu- chanan — The bill was passed again in 1862 and signed July 2, 1862, by President Lincoln — Scrip was issued to each state, and sold to individuals or land companies — Most of this scrip was sold at a small price — Ezra Cornell, by careful planning, enabled New York to create a large endowment — These "land-grant" colleges had difficulties during and following the Civil War — The Hatch Act, of 1887, established an "Experiment Station" in connection with each "land-grant" college — The second Morrill X TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Act, of 1890, gave to each "land-grant" college $25,000 a year for its "more complete endowment and maintenance" — The Adams Act, of 1906, in- creased the Experiment Station appropriation of the Hatch Act to $30,000 a year — The Nelson Amendment to the Second Morrill Act increased the cash appropriation to $50,000 a year, making the total $80,000 a year to each state — The Smith- Lever Act of 1 9 14 further increased the funds of the "land-grant" colleges for extension work and Farmers' Institutes — This bounty on the part of the Federal Government has been a great stimulus to the states — The public domain is now too small to provide the revenue needed for further educational subven- tions by Congress. Chapter IX. Specific National Educational Acts . 83 The work of the Freedmen's Bureau during the Civil War — The Bureau of Education is inadequately supported and lacks prestige — Congress supports purely national schools at West Point, Annapolis, and various other points. Chapter X. Federal Grants for Vocational Educa- tion 94 The need for vocational education of less than college grade has long been felt. Philanthropy has also been interested in the worker — The Smith- Hughes Act, of 191 7, makes ample provision for encouraging the states to organize and expand voca- tional education — The Smith-Hughes Act embodies several new principles in connection with Federal aid to education. Chapter XL The Principles Embodied in the Educa- tional Acts of Congress 101 The Federal Government has the right to encourage, by grants of land or money, the establishment of public schools, colleges, and universities — Congress has the right to enter into cooperative arrangements with the states, not violating the Tenth Amend- ment, for specific educational purposes, as in "land- grant" colleges and the various provisions of the Smith-Hughes Act — Congress may encourage welfare work in the states — Congress may appropriate money for the preparation of teachers of vocational TABLE OF CONTENTS XI PAGE education — Congress may appropriate money for the collection and dissemination of information about education — Congress has the right to maintain schools for distinctively national ends, for the educa- tion of its wards, and for the people in its territories or in other lands over which it exercises sovereignty — These principles are sufficiently broad to cover every provision of the Smith-Towner Bill. Chapter XII. The National Education Association and Federal Aid 107 The endowed universities have opposed Federal aid — This opposition was clearly voiced in 1873 by Presidents McCosh, of Princeton, and Eliot, of Har- vard — The public school men, generally, have favored Federal aid — From 1873 until 1890, the N. E. A. favored using the proceeds of public land sales for the cause of public education — The re- moval of illiteracy was sought — Senator Blair ap- peared before the N. E. A. in 1887 and explained his efforts in behalf of the removal of illiteracy _ — Federal aid for normal schools was specifically in- dorsed in 1876 and in 1906 — The predecessors of, and the Smith-Hughes Bill itself, were indorsed — The idea of a National University and specific bills in Congress establishing such a university have been favored — For a half century, the leaders of public education have favored Federal aid to education, the expansion of the Bureau of Education into a Department of Education, and a National University — This is reflected in the resolutions and acts of the N. E. A. Chapter XIII. What the War Revealed . . .120 War always reveals educational defects — The war brought out the facts about illiteracy in our country — The need for Americanizing the immi- grant population was clearly appreciated — The inadequate support of education also became evident — The need for equalization of educational opportuni- ties and the taxation burden incident to the support of public education was emphasized — Health de- ficiencies also became matters of common knowledge — Teaching was revealed as a casual and temporary occupation largely made up of young, immature, in- experienced, untrained girls. The strength of the Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE schools, as a means of reaching all of the people, became evident — The N. E. A. appointed an Emer- gency Commission to advise the best procedure in the crisis — The high school and college graduates readily developed the leadership necessary to pre- pare our troops for the conflict. Chapter XIV. Current Proposals in Congress . . 134 The Owen Bill, expanding the Bureau of Education into a Department, attracted some attention in Con- gress — The Lane Bill, prepared in the Department of the Interior, is designed to remove illiteracy among native-born and foreign-born, but is poorly drawn and probably is a violation of the Tenth Amendment — The Lane Bill seeks to remove illiteracy simply by educating existing illiterates and does not seek to prevent the creation of additional illiterates — It also fails to meet the whole educational need of the country — The Smith-Towner Bill seeks to expand the public school system so as to meet the needs of this generation in a comprehensive way by providing for the removal of illiteracy, the Americanization of foreigners, the equalization of educational oppor- tunities, the establishment of programs of physical and health education, the preparation of teachers, and the creation of a Department of Education in the Government. Chapter XV. Reduction of Illiteracy among the Native-born 144 Illiteracy among the native-born is decreasing, but at a very discouraging rate — Present illiterates should be taught through an expansion of the public school system, and the public school system should be so remedied that no additional illiterates will develop — Illiterates in the several states and the allotments of the Smith-Towner Bill for the removal of illiteracy — The function of the Federal Government is to stimulate the states to undertake the removal of illit- eracy and not to set up detailed methods and plans in accordance with which the work must be done — Statistical tables show that illiteracy is not decreas- ing as rapidly as national interest demands — The states have had the problem of illiteracy with them since the founding of the Union and no one of them has worked out an adequate plan for dealing with it. TABLE OF CONTENTS X1U Chapter XVI. Americanization 162 Immigrants present a triple educational problem — Immigrants enter this country and move about freely in it under Federal Government regulations — Therefore, the states have done little about it — Figures showing rate of increase of immigrants are astonishing, especially in view of the enormous in- crease from countries in which education is at low ebb — Americanization problem more than doubled in the ten years from 1900 to 19 10 — Some form of Federal stimulation is necessary to induce the states to Americanize the immigrants within their borders — The number of foreign-born in each state, the percentage of foreign-born for each state, and the allotments of the Smith-Towner Bill show that it is possible to organize state-controlled systems which will Americanize foreigners. Chapter XVII. Physical and Health Education . 173 HI health is a constant economic and social waste. The Surgeon General's report furnishes interesting although disquieting data — The Alabama Survey also shows alarming conditions in that state — Physical fitness does not come about simply through employ- ment — Education is needed — What is now being done in a few states and in several cities points the way to what ought to be done everywhere, but it will not be done if left to local or state initiative. Chapter XVIII. The Weakest Links . . . .184 The rural and village schools are inadequate finan- cially to meet the Nation's needs regarding the removal of illiteracy, the Americanization of foreigners, and the establishment of physical and health education — The rural school is very inadequate in every state of the Union and part of this is due to the low status of teaching as a profession and of the agencies for the preparation of teachers — Sixty per cent of the next generation of American voters are enrolled in rural schools — Rural schools are small with low per capita wealth, thus requiring a high tax rate to secure good schools or the expense of transportation to con- solidated schools — The individualism of the Amer- ican farmer is against paying high wages — The farmer is also tempted to keep his children out of school — The teacher finds it difficult to deal with XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS children of all age limits and does not have adequate supervision — Inadequate rural schools have pro- duced the excess of adult illiteracy in rural as com- pared with urban communities — The rural school also produces a limited literacy that does not meet national needs — Physical deficiencies in rural com- munities are more prevalent than in urban communi- ties — The rural community has no means of Amer- icanizing the immigrant population resident therein — The rural school is proverbially of less average length than urban schools — It is not fair to judge all of our schools by the performances of our best schools — The common defense cannot be safe- guarded so long as rural schools remain as they are. Chapter XIX. The Weakest Links {Continued) . . 208 The immature and untrained teacher can never make the rural school what it ought to be — The best talent should go into these schools — The public attitude toward public school service should be changed — Compensation for teaching should no longer be a gratuity nor pin money — It must be otherwise in order that teaching may become a profession — The business world is competing for ability and public education must be able to attract, train, and retain youth of ability — The personnel of the public school service analyzed — Teachers in Alabama — Teachers in Nebraska — Teachers in Wisconsin — Teachers in Pennsylvania — The present shortage of teachers — The factory plan of administration has come into existence as a substitute for trained teachers — The present inefficiency of schools is due to untrained teachers — The normal schools are not able to train enough teachers for the public school service and therefore need some form of additional revenue. Chapter XX. Equalization of Educational Oppor- tunities 240 Taxation for the support of schools developed slowly and with much opposition — State school funds paved the way for state school taxes — Pro- ceeds were distributed — Table showing present status of educational funds in different states — Equality of educational opportunity is fundamental to democracy and it is the business of the state to see that this equality of educational opportunity becomes the TABLE OF CONTENTS XV opportunity of every boy and girl — The teacher is the key to the situation — Educational and taxation facts regarding Wisconsin and Pennsylvania pre- sented in tabular form and discussed — Education is a National necessity rather than an individual — The Nation has an interest in every boy and girl — There are great variations in the taxable wealth in our different states — Table showing per cent of wealth, per cent of population, and per cent of persons of school age stresses these conditions — Provisions of the Smith-Towner Bill for equalization include setting aside a portion of the fund by the state for the payment of salaries of teachers so that professional preparation will be encouraged — Table showing allotments for equalization of educational opportunities. Chapter XXI. Preparation of Teachers . . . 278 Every child in the land should have a teacher who has been especially selected and especially prepared to teach — Teaching is a national service as well as a state service and a community service — Leader- ship will always emerge — The normal schools, as the agencies for training teachers for the common schools, have been neglected by the states — The Smith- Towner Bill would double the resources of teacher- training institutions — The equalization of educational opportunities will make rural school teaching more attractive — The Smith-Towner Bill makes possible the application of the West Point policy to the prepara- tion of teachers — The Nation has a responsibility in this matter — A study of the facts regarding teachers, population, children of school age, and the average salary of teachers taken in connection with the wealth of the several states convinces one of the necessity for national aid to teacher-training institutions. Chapter XXII. A Department of Education . . 293 A Department of Education is created by the Smith-Towner Bill following the precedent of the non-executive departments such as the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor — Congress has no power to control agriculture or labor or education, but it can be helpful to each without control — A Department of Education is needed to prepare a budget for the present educational activities of the United States — A Department of Education is needed XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS to integrate the various educational activities of the Federal Government and to coordinate and integrate the forces of the Nation — A Department of Educa- tion is needed to represent the people of the United States in the solution of international educational problems — A Department of Education is needed to give to education the status, dignity, and influence that it should have in a great democracy — A Federal Board of Education would be wholly inadequate to the needs of the country — The authority conferred on the Secretary of Education is such that no one need fear domination from Washington — The Secretary of Edu- cation would be appointed by the President, but it is unthinkable that any President would make previous party service a condition of appointment. Chapter XXIII. In Conclusion 309 Congress may appropriate money as well as land for the "maintenance of public schools" — The allotments of the Smith-Towner Bill are really subventions — Each grant of money is conditional on the perform- ance of the states — A piecemeal method of educating each and every community and each and every state to the national point of view is inadequate to the present crisis — The Smith-Towner Bill follows the unquestioned precedent already set up by the National Government — The Sixteenth Amendment provides for taxes on incomes — The money thus derived can be used for educational purposes and because of the relationship between education and wealth, it seems particularly fitting — Wealth is not wholly or even chiefly a matter of state lines — The states are inter- dependent educationally, commercially, and indus- trially — The Federal Government can, by sub- ventions, realize educational ends as truly as if its sovereignty included education — A Department of Education is needed to make effective the educational work which this country now does, for the adminis- tration of the provisions of the Smith-Towner Bill, and for the leadership which it would give to public education in this country. Appendix A 325 Table showing land and scrip granted to the states and territories for educational aid and other purposes. TABLE OF CONTENTS XVU PAOl Appendix B 334 Swamp and overflowed lands granted to different states — A table showing cash and land indemnity given to the several states. Appendix C 336 A complete text of the Smith-Towner Bill. Appendix D 350 Non-English speaking elements in the population. Index 355 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS CHAPTER I Introduction: The National Problem in Education More and more insistently the outstanding problems in American life are becoming national problems, and their solution is being sought on a national basis. The Federation of sovereign states which was brought into existence primarily to provide for the common defense has come slowly but surely to concern itself in increasing measure with the general and internal welfare of its component units. To the organization and control of the army and navy, the regulation of customs duties, the operation of the postal service, and the management of foreign affairs, it has added with each succeeding decade new and unexpected types of domestic responsibilities. Its influence to-day, well- nigh paramount in transportation, is felt with almost equal force in banking, mining, and manufacturing; the productivity of the fields and the forests has long been an object of its interest and its bounty ; and its 2 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS recent efforts toward the improvement of public health and social hygiene have met with a degree of success that has commanded popular approval. It is futile to affirm that this strong and pervasive tendency toward nationalism has been the result of anything less powerful and significant than imperative and fundamental needs. It may be that designing individuals or partisan groups have sought to impose a centralized government upon an unsuspecting people ; if so, their puny efforts could have neither facilitated nor retarded the deep-lying currents that were already sweeping aside all obstacles in their course. Every dis- covery of science, every invention in the arts, every advance in industry has worked throughout the coun- try toward interdependence and unity, toward a multi- plication of common needs, common ideals, and common aspirations, and toward an insistent demand for the kind of far-reaching collective action that will meet these needs and realize these ideals and aspirations quickly and effectively. It has been through the pres- sure of these forces, — impersonal, objective, and irre- sistible, — that the Federation has become a Union, and the Union a Nation. If it is true, however, that impersonal and objective forces have worked toward the primacy of the Nation, it is no less true that they have so far wrought the transformation with little appreciable weakening of the institutions of local self-government. The American THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN EDUCATION 3 people are thinking in terms of a larger unit, but it is still the people who are thinking, and as long as this fact remains, the dangers of paternalism will be negligible. The boundaries of the community have been widened, but the essential condition is unchanged — the community is still a community. What was democratically fit and proper for the little isolated neighborhood may still retain its democratic fitness and propriety when the neighborhood is no longer little or isolated. In certain essential matters to-day, the "neighborhood" can be no smaller than the Nation itself. To approximate in this larger unit the condi- tions of common knowledge, common understanding, and common standards of right and worth that char- acterized the smaller unit is the safeguard that must be raised against any evils that may lie in centralization. To erect such a safeguard is the manifest duty of the only great collective enterprise that has not as yet been touched and quickened by the spirit of the new nationalism, — the public school. The most powerful and the most fundamental force that could be em- ployed to preserve and extend the essential conditions of American democracy has not as yet been explicitly and systematically directed toward this end. The public schools of the United States typify in many ways the genius of our people. They represent in theory the basic principles of democracy. Among the educational systems of the modern world, they 4 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS are almost alone in their freedom from the stratifying influences of caste or class. In pattern and in form, they express clearly and consistently the most char- acteristic of our national ideals — the ideal of equality of opportunity. From the standpoint of the Nation's needs, however, the virtues of our schools are potential rather than dynamic. It is the pattern and the ideal rather than the performance that commands the admira- tion of the informed observer from abroad. Our schools are good — excellent — in certain localities ; but taken in the aggregate, they are inefficient in a measure that the war crisis and its aftermath have clearly revealed. The heavy total of illiteracy among our native-born population is a charge against the school system; the "limited literacy" which the Army tests found to characterize one soldier out of every four can be ex- plained only by the inadequacy of our lower schools; the relatively high proportion of physical deficiency which the draft brought to fight constitutes an edu- cational problem ; and the need of an effective education in American citizenship imposes upon the public schools a national duty not hitherto clearly recognized. ^ The emergency that to-day confronts American 'education is likewise a symptom of a national weak- ness that cries out for correction. The policy that has denied to public-school service the rewards and recognitions essential to make it attractive as a perma- nent calling finds its consistent outcome in the present THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN EDUCATION 5 acute shortage of teachers for the lower schools. In the fall of 1919, it was estimated that a half million children were out of school because teachers could not be found for them. One million more were under the instruction of teachers who were unable to meet the lowest standards of a licensing system already far too low in its requirements. During the winter many schools that had opened in the fall were forced to close because their funds had been exhausted. And added to all this there was an alarming falling-off in the en- rollment of the institutions that prepare public-school workers. Unless remedial measures are soon taken, these conditions will become progressively worse. The situa-* tion that they reveal is not local and sporadic, but nation-wide and general- It constitutes a state problem and a local problem, but far more fundamentally it constitutes a national problem of the first magnitude. It is not too much to say that our educational system is threatened with disruption at the very point where its strength and stability are most significant to the Nation's life. How the public schools may be made efficient upon a nation-wide basis is the problem for which the follow- ing chapters will attempt to outline a solution. The solution that will be proposed involves nothing revolu- tionary. The Nation has already established a policy of Federal aid for education. This policy, which 7 6 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS antedates the Constitution, has been strengthened and developed during the period of our national life. It constitutes to-day a safe and tested framework upon which to build the needed extensions. There is no thought here of a national control of public education. This would be without warrant or justification. What is needed is a measure of Federal cooperation that will correct the underlying defects resulting from a narrow and inadequate conception of educational responsibil- ity, — a type of cooperation that will stimulate the people to see their state and local educational problems in a national perspective, and that will make the pro- vision of good schools and good teachers in every community a matter of duty to the Nation and of fidelity to the ideals for which the Nation stands. The first part of the book briefly outlines the his- torical development of the policy of Federal aid, with the attempt to show how this policy, well-intentioned but defective at the outset, has been gradually refined through progressive legislation to the point where its much wider extension in the form of national sub- ventions is clearly justified. Following this historical survey, the present situation is analyzed and the de- ficiencies revealed by the war are traced to their causes. The measures now before Congress looking toward the remedy of one or more of these deficiencies are then considered. Of these, the Smith-Towner Bill, as representing the most comprehensive proposals, is THE NATIONAL PROBLEM IN EDUCATION 7 selected for detailed treatment and the remaining chapters are devoted to a study of its provisions and of the educational conditions which they seek to im- prove. In this connection the two most serious weak- nesses of American education, — the rural schools and the policies and agencies for the preparation of teachers, — are given especial emphasis and attention. The book concludes with a discussion of the proposal to restore the present Federal Bureau of Education to its original status as a department of the Government, and to make it an executive department with a cabinet officer — a Secretary of Education — at its head.'" The book, in brief, is a collection of fact and argu- ment designed to show that the Nation is, in a very real sense, an educational unit, that the Federal Government should assume a fair proportion of the cost of maintain- ing schools throughout the country, and that there should be established in Washington an adequate agency through which the educational needs of the Nation as a Nation may be made vocal. CHAPTER II Educational Conditions at the Close of the Revolution It is difficult for one of this generation to go back, even in imagination, one hundred thirty-seven years to the time when Great Britain signed treaties of peace with the thirteen Colonies in America recognizing each as "a sovereign and independent State." The images necessary to the reconstruction of the life of that day are not within the experience of most of us. If it be true that the ideals and acts of that distant time have influenced, and still influence, our daily lives, it is important for us to know something of them that we may understand the genesis of our present problems and act intelligently with respect to the present and to the future that ever has its roots in a past that was once a present. Our colonial fathers were afraid of a centralized authority. They lived in a day in which, for the benefit of mankind, it was necessary to assert at every point the "divine right of the individual" as opposed to the "divine right of kings," — and they did it most success- fully. The "town meeting" developed in Massa- chusetts and was copied in many of the other colonies. 8 EDUCATIONAL CONDITIONS AT CLOSE OF REVOLUTION 9 Fundamentally, it expressed the right of a compact and relatively isolated group of people, with common interests and common ideals, to control, as a group, its own affairs. It did not go to that limit of individualism which is destructive of all government, but it clearly emphasized the right of "Hke-minded" people, living in small communities, to direct their own affairs in their own way. It was out of this firm belief in the autonomy of the small like-minded group that the so-called "district system" of public-school administration was born. Be- cause the principles of self-determination and local self- government appealed to the struggling settlers through- out the colonies and on the frontier, the "district sys- tem" became the almost universal pattern for the control of public schools wherever such schools were organized. The colonial schools were not free in the sense that our present schools are free. At first they were sup- ported entirely by a tuition charge paid by the parents. Later, public moneys, in small amounts, were voted by the town meeting to eke out the tuition charges. These appropriations were supplemented by rate bills, — a tax on the parents and guardians of children attending the school. These rate bills were authorized by the town meeting and were collectible by legal processes of seizure and sale of property. 1 1 One is likely to think of the rate bills as a method of supporting public schools belonging to a very remote past. The following table, IO THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Schools supported in part by voluntarily determined rate bills followed the original subscription schools. The next step was a compulsory rate on all the inhabi- tants, first appearing in the Plymouth Colony in 1677. In the same year Connecticut provided compulsory rates "except any town shall agree to some other way to raise the maintenance of him they shall employ [to conduct a Latin school]." l In this matter, indeed, Connecticut really led the way, for its famous Code of 1700 provided: (1) That every town of seventy house- holders or more must maintain a school eleven months ; (2) that every town of fewer than seventy householders must maintain a school for at least six months; and (3) that towns must levy a school tax of 40 shillings on every 1000 pounds. 2 The population of Pennsylvania was a conglomerate of different religious sects up to the close of the Revolu- prepared from material in Swift's Public Permanent Common School Funds (p. 27), may dispel any illusion we may have had on this matter. Rate Bills Abolished Massachusetts . . . 1827 Iowa . . . Delaware 1829 New York Pennsylvania .... 1834 Rhode Island Florida 1869 Connecticut . Vermont 1850 Arkansas . . Indiana 1851 Virginia . . Ohio 1853 Utah . . . 1858 1867 1868 1868 1868 1870 1890 Other states do not appear in this table because they conducted their schools at public expense for a very short term each year, permitting a longer term by rate bills or by subscription, at the option of the district. 1 Com. of Edn. Report, 1892-3, p. 1239. 2 Ibid., p. 1245. EDUCATIONAL CONDITIONS AT CLOSE OF REVOLUTION II tionary period, and the schools — the few that existed — were connected with the churches. The "doctrine of the inner light" * held in common by the Quakers and the German sects was not conducive to the organization of schools. Ability to read the Bible was ample edu- cation for all of life's duties and responsibilities. In Virginia and other colonies of the South, the plantation life rendered schools of the present type practically impossible. There were some "plantation schools"; subscription schools were found in the few large towns; while for the large majority of the land- holders, a tutorial system in the planters' homes sufficed. In certain communities, too, an effort was made to teach the rudiments of reading to the children of the poor. On the whole, colleges were more successful in the colonial period than were public schools as we now know them. The need of an "educated ministry" was keenly felt and, in part, provided for. Harvard was founded in 1636 ; William and Mary in 1693 ; Yale, 1 701 ; Princeton, 1746; Pennsylvania, 1749; King's (Columbia), 1754; Brown, 1764; Dartmouth, 1769; Queen's (Rutgers), 1770; Hampden-Sidney, 1776; Washington and Lee, 1782; Washington University (Maryland), 1782. Preparation for college demanded 1 For an illuminating treatment see Fisher's The Making of Penn- sylvania, pp. 43-64. As to the Germans in Pennsylvania in colonial times, see the same volume, pp. 1 19-127. 12 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS tutors in the South and the grammar school in New England. Generally speaking, however, the education of the great masses of people — "universal" education — was not only an unrealized ideal ; it was scarcely recognized as a worthy ideal, except for the religious sanction that attached to ability to read the Bible ; and, outside of New England, the training requisite to this end was usually held to be the duty of the home. And yet the secular and civic sanctions for education were even then beginning to take root. " The laws . . . prior to 1876 . . . show the state beginning to recognize the importance of education for her own welfare, and begin- ning to contribute to the support thereof, but leaving unto the church a large measure of control in the super- vision and administration of schools." 1 At the close of the Revolutionary period, then, we had thirteen "sovereign and independent States" scattered along the Atlantic coast, each spent with the long struggle for independence, each feeling some distrust of every other, each with its traditions of individual liberty and local autonomy, — modified only by the belief of each that its own views of life, religion, and statecraft ought to be universally accepted. These separate states, in their years of struggle for the realization of common aims, had been brought together 1 S . W . B ro wn : The Secularization of A merican Education. New York , 1912, p. 155. EDUCATIONAL CONDITIONS AT CLOSE OF REVOLUTION 13 under the Articles of Confederation, — a covenant so loose that its weaknesses seemed to spell disaster for any plan of union. The three and a half million inhab- itants of the thirteen states were widely scattered. Means of communication were few and inadequate. It was difficult for one group to know what others were doing or how they felt. The strongest bond of union was found in a common hatred — in a negative rather than in a positive ideal. The schools — few, small, and scattered — shared in the disasters and dissensions which the long years of war had brought. CHAPTER III The Great Stake In colonial days there had been many quarrels over conflicting claims to the territory that lay west of the narrow fringe of settlements along the seaboard. Even during the progress of the war against the Mother Coun- try, the adjustment of these claims and the disposal and settlement of the domain involved gave rise to bitter disputes. In 1778, the General Assembly of Maryland agreed not to sign the Articles of Confederation unless the crown lands that were unsettled at the beginning of the war should become the common property of all the states "to be parceled out by Congress into free, con- venient, and independent governments in such manner and in such time as the wisdom of that assembly shall hereafter direct." The claims of Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut were hopelessly in- volved. Virginia started to sell her western lands in 1779 and the Continental Congress, recognizing that such a step would threaten the weak bonds that held the states together, urged her to stop and also begged the other states to do nothing with their lands until the war should be over. 14 THE GREAT STAKE I 5 This land controversy not only did not help the prosecution of the war ; it delayed as well the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. In the efforts to settle the matter, Congress passed, in October, 1780, a resolution that pledged its attitude and intention as follows : (1) That the western territory claimed by the states should be disposed of for the common benefit of all the states. (2) That it should be divided into states ultimately to be admitted into the Confederation upon a footing equal in all respects to that of the original states. (3) That the expenses incurred by any state in subduing British posts and in acquiring and defending the western territory should be reimbursed. (4) That the manner and condition of the sale of the lands in dispute should be exclusively regulated by Congress. 1 This action by Congress had a salutary effect. In March, 1781, New York gave up her claim to the disputed territory. In October, 1783, Virginia ceded her lands, making only a reservation of about three million seven hundred thousand acres between the Little Miami and Scioto rivers in Ohio, as bounty for her troops. Massachusetts ceded her lands in April, 1785, without reservations. A month later, May, 1785, Congress adopted a plan for the disposal of this new 1 Journals of Congress, VI, p. 213. 1 6 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS national territory. The lands were to be divided "into townships six miles square"; each township was to be subdivided into thirty-six lots, one mile square ; the lines of these 640-acre lots were to be run in the same direction as the external lines of the townships and the lots were to be numbered from 1 to 36. Out of every township, the four lots numbered 8, 11, 26, 29, were reserved by the United States Government for future sale; and the lot No. 16 of every township was dedicated to "the maintenance of public schools within the said township." With the intention and pledge which this "Land Ordinance" of May, 1785, clearly stated, Connecticut made her first cession in September, 1786, and her second one in 1800. South Carolina completed her cession in August, 1787. In December, 1789, North Carolina ceded her claims to Tennessee. Georgia's cession of her claim on lands west of the Chatta- hoochee River, made in August, 1788, was not finally completed until April, 1802, on account of the Yazoo Land Company's troubles. With this one exception, however, and for all practical purposes, the cession to the United States of the lands claimed by the states had been completed by the beginning of 1 790, — that is, within ten years of the declaration of intention and pledge made by Congress in October, 1780. The Congressional action of May, 1785, which directed that Lot No. 16 should be reserved "for the maintenance THE GREAT STAKE 17 of public schools within the said township" was five years from the beginning and five years from the end of the decade. 1 The action of Congress in setting aside Lot No. 16 of each township for the support of schools was an event of prime importance in American history. It will be well to trace the development of the ideals and policies which resulted in this action. The first permanent funds for the maintenance of schools in this country took the form, in part, of private endowment through the donation of lands. Benjamin Simms of Virginia, by his will of 1635, gave "two hun- dred acres of land, with the milk and increase of eight cows, for the maintenance of an earnest and honest 1 It is interesting to compare the areas of the states created out of this vast public domain with the areas of the original states. Area in Made from Ceded Area in Original States Square Miles Domain Square Miles 1 . New Hampshire . 9,341 I. Ohio .... 41 ,040 2. Massachusetts . 8,266 2. Indiana . 36,354 3. Rhode Island . . 1,248 3- Illinois 56,665 4. Connecticut 4,965 4- Michigan . 57,98o 5. New York . 49,204 5- Wisconsin 56,056 6. New Jersey 8,224 6. Tennessee 42,022 7. Pennsylvania 45,126 7- Alabama . 51,998 8. Delaware . 2,307 8. Mississippi 46,865 9. Maryland . 12,327 9- Kentucky 40,598 10. Virginia 42,627 11. North Carolina . 52,426 12. South Carolina . 30,989 13. Georgia . . . 59,265 326,315 429,528 1 8 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS man to keep a free school for the education of the children of the parishes of Elizabeth City and Kiquo- tan." In 1636, Captain John Mason left one thousand acres of land "for maintaining a free grammar school for the education of youth in New Haven." There were many examples of such personal grants in colonial days. Public-land grants for education closely followed these private benefactions. For the maintenance or support of a school, Boston reserved Deer Island (1641), Dorchester reserved Thompson's Island (1639), and later (1657) added one thousand acres of land. This step was followed by the granting of lands by the colonial governments to towns or coun- ties for the support of schools. Each of four counties in Connecticut, for example, received, in 1672, six hundred acres of land for the support of a grammar school. The General Court of Massachusetts, in 1659, granted one thousand acres of land each to Charlestown and Cam- bridge with the understanding that the land was to be forever appropriated to the support of grammar schools. The next step in the development of land-grant policies was taken when the colonies reserved a portion of their unsettled lands for school purposes. Connecticut unwittingly set the precedent for this policy in 1726. Thirty-nine years before, in order to embarrass the royal governor, Andros, the colony had granted a portion of what is now Litchfield County to the towns of Windsor THE GREAT STAKE 19 and Hartford. Contrary to colonial expectation, the towns refused to cede back the land at the termination of the trouble. A compromise was effected in 1726 by which each of the two towns kept half of its original grant. The other half was divided into seven town- ships. Five of these townships were further subdivided into fifty- three parts each. "Three parts in each town were reserved, one for the support of the town school and two for the ministry." This did not settle the matter, for in 1733 the Assembly ordered "that these seven towns be sold and the proceeds divided among the towns of the colony already settled, in proportion to their respective lists of polls and ratable estate, the pro- ceeds to be set apart by each town as a permanent fund, the interest on which is to be faithfully expended for the support of the schools required by law" 1 This action of Connecticut in 1733 is clearly respon- sible for the first colonial or state permanent school fund of which we have record, and its importance can scarcely be overestimated. The precedent was followed by Georgia in July, 1783, in an act which authorized the Governor to set aside "one thousand acres of vacant land for erecting free schools" in each county. In 1786, the State of New York provided for the survey of its vacant lands into "townships of sixty-four thou- sand acres" each. A "State Lot" and a "Gospel and 1 Swift's Public Permanent Common School Funds in the United States, P-35- 20 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS School Lot" were reserved in each township. In 1789, provision was made for the sale of the "Gospel and School Lot," — and thus began New York's system of township school funds. Massachusetts took similar action in 1788. Even before the War for Independence, then, colonial experience had proved the worth of land endowment as a means of insuring free schools. Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, having won the vast pub- lic domain as a national asset, followed the established precedent and decreed that Lot No. 16 in each town- ship of this vast domain was to be dedicated to the "maintenance of public schools." The Ordinance of 1787, in the third article, contained the famous declara- tion, — "Religion, morality and knowledge, being neces- sary to good government and the happiness' of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged." This language is a reaffirmation, in general terms, of the act of May, 1785, but it is not the declara- tion by which Lot No. 16 is specifically set aside for public schools. 1 1 It was not only in the Ordinance of 1 787 that education and religion were coupled together as joint beneficiaries of national bounty. In 1784, Jefferson proposed a plan for disposing of the public lands, but his plan contains no reference to education. Eleven months later, however, Congress considered another bill which granted the sixteenth section for school purposes " and the section immediately adjoining the same to the northward to the support of religion." The latter pro- vision was not repeated in the act of May, 1785, and also failed to appear in the Ordinance of 1787. However, in the reservation of land THE GREAT STAKE 21 How Lot No. 1 6 was made available to the different states and what it meant to them educationally are topics so important as to deserve a separate chapter. in 1787 for the Ohio company, Lot 29 is to be given "perpetually for the purposes of religion," and the Symmes contract for the purchase of land in Ohio, 1787, also made reservation of lands for schools and religion, and one township for an institution of higher education. CHAPTER IV The Endowment Magnificent Potentially, the setting aside of the sixteenth sections constituted a truly magnificent endowment for public education, aggregating, in the territory east of the Mississippi, over seven and a half million acres of land. If all of this land could have been held by the public under a series of ten-year, twenty-year, or even fifty-year leases, it would have yielded a continually increasing revenue, and would have to-day, at the lowest estimate ($3.00 per acre), a rental value of twenty- two and a half million dollars annually. While this sum would be far from sufficient to maintain the public schools of the states carved from the ceded territory, it would be a substantial portion of the total. 1 That the contributions of the land-grant endowments in these states fall far short of what they might have been would be a fact the more lamentable, had it not constituted a probably necessary step in the development of a sound public policy in the granting of lands for educational purposes. To know something of the early disposition 1 The average rental value would be much higher. It has been estimated that the rents from the "Lots No. 16" in Cook County, Illinois, would more than meet the annual cost of operating the public schools of the entire state on the present basis of expenditures. THE ENDOWMENT MAGNIFICENT 23 of the school lands, therefore, is essential to an under- standing of subsequent happenings. Ohio was the first state to receive Lot No. 16 and her experience in its disposition illustrates practically all of the difficulties that the policy involved in its early administration. In 1802, Congress passed an act enabling the people of Ohio to form a constitution and state government under certain conditions that were clearly set forth in the act itself. Relating to land grants, this law pro- vided : First, "That the section numbered sixteen in every township, and where such section has been sold, granted, or disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto and most contiguous to the same, shall be granted to the inhabitants of such township for the use of schools." Second, That certain salt lands and springs should be granted to the state for the use of the people under regulations to be set up by the legislature of the state. Third, That one twentieth of the net proceeds of all lands within the state sold by Congress after June 30, 1802, should be set aside for the laying out and making of public roads. These grants, however, were subject to the following condition : "Provided always that the three foregoing propositions herein offered are on the condition that the convention of the said state shall provide by an ordinance, irrevocable without the consent of 24 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS the United States, that every and each tract of land sold by Congress, from and after the 30th day of June next, shall be and remain exempt from any tax laid by order, or under the authority of the state, whether for state, county, township, or any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years, from and after the day of sale." * This five-year exemption from all taxes, which was to constitute an inducement to settlers, was made a condition of granting the sixteenth section of each town- ship for the use of schools. There were complications, however, in Ohio. Virginia's Military Reserve between the Little Miami and the Scioto embraced 3,710,000 acres and had no reservation of lands for public schools. Connecticut in her Western Reserve had originally some 3,300,000 acres of land within the present limits of Ohio. By 1792 she had disposed of about 524,000 acres of this land by sale, and in 1793 provided for the sale of the remainder, the proceeds of which were to constitute "a perpetual fund, the interest whereof is granted and shall be appropriated to the use and benefit of the several ecclesiastical societies, churches, or congregations of all denominations in this state, to be by them applied to the support of their respective ministers or preachers of the gospel and schools of education, under such rules and regulations as shall be adopted by this or some future session of the general assembly." 2 This arrangement 1 Laws of the United States, 1789-1815, pp. 496-498. 2 U. S. Com. of Edn. Report, 1892-1893, pp. 1257-1259. THE ENDOWMENT MAGNIFICENT 25 did not last, however, for in 1795 the legislature appropriated the income to the "School Societies. " The final disposition of this fund in Connecticut was not helpful to the people who lived within the Western Reserve and who desired an endowment for their schools. The Ohio Company, which by act of Congress, July, 1787, had secured 964,285 acres of land, had agreed to reserve Lot No. 16 for schools. So, also, the Symmes grant, to a New Jersey group, provided a reservation for schools within its domain of 311,682 acres. Notwithstanding, there were over 9,500,000 acres of land within the limits of Ohio covered by Con- gressional grants in which there were no reservations for public schools, including the Military Reservation of the United States, which contained 2,500,000 acres. The Ohio Constitutional Convention made pro- posals (1802) for the reservation of school lands for these areas, and Congress, in 1803, accepted the pro- posals and set aside 269,771 acres for this purpose. This is the equivalent of one thirty-sixth of 9,717,756 acres. Congress, in the act of March, 1803, took another step that promised to produce more complications. In 1802, it had granted the sixteenth section, or its equiv- alent, in each township, "to the inhabitants of such township for the use of schools." The Congressional act of 1803 "vested in trust in the legislature all lands appropriated by the United States for the support of :: THZ NATION AND THI 5". .15 s. - 7 : _:f ::" Dido tried to lease the :o buy lands. Hie state then planned to lease the l::.; this met with only 5~^1 applied to Congress for mthorit [lands outright. Congress z-i: :: : made Ohio the trastee In 1S27. the Ohio \: ie plans ::: the 5 these bo follow ■ : He sale oil e6 was to be voted on by the - ; v^i ; If :^r t red the sale the lands were tofcr zelow ti: ^enent. : In payment in full iser, a deed in : 7 : : : :wn upon the market in i: ~ : he United 5. .t rames com Tinies. They were : inse -..-:: : -cli '-'. - very ..'" zr.-.t :: invest: r= md — :ney th. rate :ne r.i:e treisury h it belonged ials of the : -'zli money became a cons:. roblem. An act of the Ohio legislature THE EKDOWMZ>rT MAG8JFKX HI I " in 1837 prodded that the school funds ~_irli: be '.. to the state, to counties, or to the Canal Fund if sh per cent interest, nve sixths of which wis to go to the : — 7- 5 air Fir.il>- :;.: r.a:e :::a '.:.- ~ a:ie :.:: aati spent it for its temporary needs, substituting : : it an '"irreducible debt" bearing interest at six per cent. This interest is raised by general taratinn; the land endowment, therefore, became a burden to the taxpi quite contrary to the plain intent of I nl legis- lation authorizing the grants The grant of Lot Xo. 16 in Ohio was really a grant to the township instead of to thf state Tai? is true also in the case of : titer eai Indiana. Alabama. Lzaisiiai and Miss :. — and dear expression of the old '"neighborhood ~ eption of educational responsibility and control. XI plications following this plan were obviated by the later grants of L:t No. 16 directly to thf states thus, in a quite :::: - important aken toward the reoog state as the prime unit of eci. . administration. Ti permitted the establishment of pc derived from the pre Deeds These funds, in turn. of distribution. The inade naturally : state va- cation, and thus the pel: 1 local schools gradually evolved. 28 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS The Land Ordinance of 1785 related only to the lands ceded by the original states to the United States. In 1826, Congress passed an act which ordered that the sixteenth section of all lands ceded by France (the " Louisiana Purchase") should "be reserved and appro- priated for the use of schools." The states that received the sixteenth section as an endowment for public schools are shown below : Date of Grant 1803, March 3 1803, March 3 1803, March 3 1806, April 21 1816, April 19 1818, April 18 1820, March 6 1836, June 23 1836, June 23 1845, March 3 1845, March 3 1846, August 6 State Ohio . . Alabama . Mississippi Louisiana Indiana Illinois Missouri Arkansas Michigan Florida Iowa . Wisconsin Acres Received 710,610 x 901,725 838,329 2 798,085 3 601,049 985,141 1,162,137 928,057 1,003,573 1,053,653 978,578 958,649 When the proposals for admitting Wisconsin as a state were before Congress in the early months of 1848, Congressman John A. Rockwell, of Connecticut, moved that the thirty-sixth section in each township also be given for schools. This motion did not prevail. But in August, 1848, Congress authorized the reservation of 1 Two townships were for a university. 2 This includes also the settlements of 1852 and 1857, ' 3 This includes a settlement in 1843. THE ENDOWMENT MAGNIFICENT 29 sections sixteen and thirty- six "in the states and terri- tories hereafter to be created out of the Territory of Oregon." A table is inserted below to show the date and amount of the grants by Congress under the Oregon Territory Act, sections 16 and 36 being thereby reserved for schools. Date of Grant State Acres Received 1850, September 9 . . . . New Mexico . . . 4,309,369 1853, March 2 Washington . 2,448,675 1853, March 3 . California 5,610,702 1857, February 26 Minnesota . 2,969,991 1859, February 14 Oregon . . 3,387,520 1 86 1, January 29 Kansas . . 2,876,124 1 86 1, February 28 Montana . . 5,102,107 1 86 1, March 2 . North Dakota 2,531,200 1 86 1, March 2 South Dakota 2,813,511 1863, March 3 Idaho . . . 3,063,271 1864, March 21 Nevada . . 3,985,422! 1864, April 19 Nebraska . . 2,637,155 1864, May 26 Arizona . . 4,050,346 1868, July 25 Wyoming 3,368,924 1875, March 3 Colorado . . 3,715,555 These tables show the facts for all of the states except those in which unusual cases have arisen. These cases may be briefly reviewed. The original thirteen states received no lands from the Federal Government for the support of schools primarily because the Federal Government did not own any land lying within these commonwealths. Each of 1 Instead of this grant, Nevada elected to select 2,000,000 acres with- out reference to the sections in which the land was located. 3.£ in u T3"c5 3 tn C C •2-3 *(£ 15-s -» 'a 3 "rt S"5 Jfi '>. l o g ""■"rt S III a 3 £ ° ■c £2 u o c 8.2 s^o" ■o"S > a> .E IS CHAPTER VII Money Grants in Support of Education a. the "five per cent" funds The grants by the Federal Government in aid of education have not been limited to lands, but the huge aggregate of the land grants and their distribution throughout the country have combined to make the public familiar with this type of endowment, while the facts regarding the money grants are far less widely known. The first grant of money was to the State of Ohio in the act of April 30, 1802, but it was not for educational purposes. Five per cent of the net proceeds of the sale of public lands in Ohio, after June 30, 1803, was to be given to the state for "laying out and making public roads." The act admitting Illinois, passed in 1818, donated to the state five per cent of the net sales of the public lands within its borders, with the proviso that two fifths should be spent under the direction of Con- gress, in making roads leading to the state ; " the residue to be appropriated, by the legislature of the state, for the encouragement of learning, of which one-sixth part shall be exclusively bestowed on a college or university." In order to make use of this fund, the first normal 53 54 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS school established in that state, in 1857, was called the Illinois State Normal University. Table. — The "Five Per Cent Funds" 1 State Alabama Arizona . Arkansas California Colorado Florida . Idaho . Illinois . Indiana . Iowa . . Kansas . Louisiana Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada . New Mexico North Dakota Ohio . . . Oklahoma . Oregon . . South Dakota Utah . . . Washington Wisconsin . Wyoming . Total . Aggregate June 30, 1913 i,077,904-72 1,652.99 324,911.00 1,080,053.26 460,478.30 I37,336-o6 241,833.36 1,187,908.89 1,040,255.26 633,63 8 - IO 1,125,469.41 468,187.89 587,068.52 588,283.08 1,069,926.62 1,060,430.61 404,245.88 559,394.45 32,124.58 121,040.78 529,027.11 999,117.89 S9,ii7-89 707,016.11 308,068.20 81,694.78 396,930.35 586,408.58 213,387.64 516,093,417-43 Educational Use as Shown Schools State school fund Schools 3% of proceeds to education Permanent school fund For support of common schools 10% to free-school fund Schools Schools Permanent school fund Educational purposes Schools Permanent school fund Common schools Common schools Permanent school fund Common-school fund School fund Perpetual common-school fund 1 This table has been prepared from facts given by Cubberley and Elliott, State and County School Administration, p. 48 (quoted from Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office), and from data in Part II of Swift's Public Permanent Common School Funds. MONEY GRANTS IN SUPPORT OF EDUCATION 55 The clause setting aside a portion of the five per cent fund to the use of education did not again occur until about 1845 when the states themselves began to request it. Twenty-nine states have received such funds from the Federal Government and practically every state admitted since i860 must apply them to educational uses. The Enabling Act of Oklahoma (1906) makes this five per cent fund into a permanent fund, "the interest only of which shall be expended for the support of the common schools within said State." The table on the preceding page shows the aggregate of such funds on June 30, 1913, and the educational uses to which they must be put where such usage has been either required by Congress or voluntarily decreed by the legislature of the state. Many of the funds shown above are increasing as public lands are sold, — at a present rate of about $200,000 annually. No public lands remain in the older states, such as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, and therefore the funds have reached their maximum, but the Government still retains title to a substantial acreage in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast sections. B. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE SURPLUS REVENUE The largest single distribution of money by the Federal Government, however, was made by the act of June, 1836, which apportioned to the states a surplus of twenty- eight million dollars that had accumulated in the Federal 56 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS treasury. The distribution, which was, legally, a de- posit subject to the order of the Secretary of the Treas- ury but which has never been called for, was made on January 1, 1837; on that day all the money in the treasury except $5,000,000 was put on deposit with the states, the allotment made to the several states being "in proportion to their respective representation in the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States." This was most favorable to the original states which had the largest population at that time and consequently the largest representation in Congress. For fifteen years or more some plan of giving money to the states that did not share in the educational land grants of Congress had been urged, and the act of 1836 was a step in this direction, but it was not the end of the effort, as will be shown later. The accompanying table : shows the distribution and uses of the Surplus Revenue Fund. It is particularly instructive in revealing the variations in their employment of Federal subven- tions when the purposes for which the money should be spent are not specified. That so large a proportion of the total amount distributed should have been used for education is significant when one remembers that but few states at that time had made substantial provisions for public schools. 1 Made from data in Swift's Public Permanent Common School Funds, pp. 74-78, and in Cubberley and Elliott's State and County School Ad- ministration, pp. 52-57. MONEY GRANTS IN SUPPORT OF EDUCATION 57 Distribution of the Surplus Revenue, 1837 State No. IN Congress Amount Received Disposition or Present Use Alabama . Arkansas . Connecticut Delaware Georgia . Illinois I 669,088 286,751 764,670 286,751 1,051,422 477,919 Indiana . Kentucky 15 860,254 1,433,754 Louisiana 477,919 Interest at 4% used for schools. Entire fund used by state and lost. Distributed (except $1000) to the towns which still pay interest for use of schools. Invested in bank and rail- way stock. Income di- vided among the counties. Poor-school fund 1840; lost in Civil War. Two thirds used to pay the state's debt to the school fund. This was borrowed and spent by the state for internal improvements. State now pays 6% in- terest on $335,592 to the school fund. In 1 85 1, portion of fund then intact, $567,126, put into school fund. In 1837, $850,000 put into school fund, but interest was used to pay state ex- penses. In 185 1, school portion and interest due were capitalized at $1,326,770. State pays interest on this to school fund. Used for state debts. Con- stitution of 1852 set aside interest for school fund. Constitution of 1864 re- pealed this provision. Since 1876, interest is paid by state to school fund. 58 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Distribution of the Surplus Revenue, 1837 — Continued. State No. m Congress Amount Received Disposition or Present Use Maine Maryland $ 955,838 955,838 Massachusetts . Michigan . . . Mississippi . . Missouri . . . New Hampshire New Jersey . . M i,338,i73 286,751 332,355 332,355 669,086 746,670 Distributed to towns and cities. A few used it for school purposes. Most of them distributed it per capita to their populations. $681,378 set aside for school fund. Money spent for internal improvements. $1000 of interest goes annually to education of blind and $34,069 is dis- tributed to schools. Deposited with towns. A few used it for education, but most of them for other town expenses. Used for current expenses and an internal improve- ment fund. Spent for state expenses by 1842. Invested until it amounted to $500,000. Invested now in state bonds. In- terest goes to common schools. Distributed among towns to be spent for any legal pur- pose. About fifty towns used the money for educa- tion. Distributed to counties and by them to townships on basis of state tax paid. Used for schools, buildings, and other township ex- penses. About $600,000 is now a lost fund on which interest is paid annually by a tax. MONEY GRANTS IN SUPPORT OF EDUCATION 59 Distribution of the Surplus Revenue, 1837 — Continued State New York North Carolina Ohio Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina Tennessee No. in Congress 42 15 30 15 Amount Received $4,014,520 1,433,727 2,007,260 2,867,514 382,335 1,051,422 1,433,727 Disposition or Present Use Deposited with counties to be loaned at seven per cent. Badly managed in some counties. About $334,000 has been lost. Income spent for schools, libraries, and principal of fund. Used $100,000 for state ex- penses. Balance invested for school fund. Bor- rowed by State during Civil War and debt re- pudiated by state. Divided among counties on male population basis. Five per cent interest to be used for schools. State loaned about half for a canal project. Balance, not known, added to school fund. By 1840, whole of fund had been used for state ex- penses. Deposited in banks. Interest for schools. In 1840, State began to borrow it. In 1859, the remainder, $155,541, was transferred to the permanent school fund. Invested in stocks, to the credit of the state. Lost in the Civil War. Invested in stock of State bank; $118,000 of the interest was to go for schools and academies. Bank failed in Civil War. In 1866, an indebtedness 6o THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Distribution of the Surplus Revenue, 1837 — Continued State Vermont Virginia No. IN Congress 23 Amount Received 669,086 3,198,427 Disposition or Present Use of the State to the school fund to the extent of $1,500,000 was recognized. Interest raised by tax goes to schools. Loaned to the towns — the interest to be used for schools. About 20% of the fund is in actual ex- istence. 80% exists only as a "Credit Fund" or state debt. In 1837, transferred $225,792 to "Literary" or School fund. Interest on this paid to the time of the Civil War. Fund lost. 1 C. THE DISTRIBUTIVE ACT OF 1841 This distribution was so popular with the states that attempts were made similarly to distribute each year the net proceeds of public-land sales. No clear, con- tinuing plan could be formulated, and so the act that was passed in September, 1 841, was to lapse automatically (1) if the country became involved in a foreign war, (2) if the minimum sale price of lands was increased, or (3) if the tariff duties were advanced to a "higher rate than twenty per centum." With all these conditions 1 For a most carefully detailed account of each of these funds, see R. G. Bourne's History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837. MONEY GRANTS IN SUPPORT OF EDUCATION 6 1 imposed, the act could not remain long in force ; indeed, the Tariff Act of August, 1842, put an end to it. This "Distributive Act" of 1841 proposed: (1) To give to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Michi- gan, each, an additional and clear ten per cent of the net proceeds of the sale of public lands within their borders. This was over and above the percentages specified in the "compacts" of admission. (2) After deducting from the net proceeds the per- centages specified above, to divide the remainder among all the states of the Union, the District of Colum- bia, and the territories of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Florida, "according to their respective federal representative population as ascertained by the last census." Each state and territory was to be permitted to spend the money as it chose, but the share of the District of Columbia was to be "applied to free schools, or educa- tion in some other form." Only one distribution was made under this act. The amount was $691,116.45. Tennessee put her share ($29,703.28) into the school fund. The District of Columbia received $1,643.72 for schools. 1 The plan was never revived. 2 1 A complete statement of the distribution under the act of 1841 is to be found in Donaldson's The Public Domain, p. 753. 2 The provisions just quoted were the first part of the act which gave 500,000 acres of land to certain public-land states for internal improve- ments. The latter part of the act was not affected by the Tariff Act of 62 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS D. FORESTRY SERVICE RETURNS AND OTHER MINOR GRANTS In 1908, the appropriation act for the Department of Agriculture included a provision "that hereafter twenty- five per centum of all money received from each forest reserve during any fiscal year, including the year 1908, shall be paid by the Secretary of the Treasury to the State or Territory in which said reserve is situated, to be expended as the State or Territorial legislature may prescribe for the benefit of the public schools and public roads of the county or counties in which the forest reserve is situated." The fund amounts to about $500,000 annually. Maine had a claim against the Government for services rendered in the War ofi8i2. In 1823, the money thus received by Maine from the Federal Government through Massachusetts was made part of the school fund. Twelve years later, the legislature took this money out of the school fund and used it for general purposes. The "Direct War Tax" of 1861 was returned to the states and territories by act of Congress in 1891. Three states added this money to their school funds : Mas- sachusetts ($696,407), Kentucky ($606,641), and South Carolina. In 1904, Vermont added $240,000 to her school fund 1842, and it has been applied, in substance and as already shown, to every state admitted since that time. MONEY GRANTS IN SUPPORT OF EDUCATION 63 by appropriating the amount received from the Federal Government as reimbursement for moneys spent in the Spanish American War. Congress appropriated money directly to Oklahoma in lieu of lands in Indian Territory, — a total of $5,000,000 (1906). l The Federal Government provides the entire expense of education in Alaska and one half the cost of operating public schools in the District of Columbia. One of the original states secured a grant of land for educational purposes, for, on March 3, 1819, Congress granted one township (23,040 acres) to the Connecticut Asylum for the education of deaf and dumb persons. In 1906, Congress granted ''to the Sisters of St. Francis 160 acres of land on which the St. Louis School, near Pawhuska, is located, and 160 acres on which the St. John's School, on Homing Creek, Osage Indian Reservation, is located." 2 Practically every session of Congress has educational money grants or land grants to consider. The most famous of the land grants and the largest continuing money grant for educational purposes will be con- sidered in the next chapter. 1 See p. 112. 2 U. S. Com. Report, 1906, Vol. 2, p. 1239. CHAPTER VIII The Morrill Acts and the "Land-Grant" Colleges The principles and policies involved in the foregoing forms of federal aid to education having been tested and established by experience, a new type of federal aid to higher technical instruction was destined to appear. The colleges and universities founded upon the township grants of land came into direct competition with exist- ing colleges which were dependent to a large extent upon tuition from students and upon endowments the income from which had to be devoted to specific ends. Moreover, these new state colleges recruited most of their teachers from the older institutions. In conse- quence, the traditions and points of view of these older colleges determined very largely the policies of the state institutions. Beyond all this was the compelling force of a public opinion formed very largely by people who were familiar with the purposes and standards of the older colleges. Small wonder then that weak, struggling, pioneer colleges and "universities" had as their ideal from 1840 to i860 the reproduction in the new lands of a Harvard, a Yale, or a Princeton. The presence, too, of many denominational colleges in the Middle West made the success of the public-land colleges uncertain. 64 THE MORRILL ACTS AND " LAND-GRANT " COLLEGES 65 Gradually, however, an ever-increasing opposition to the exclusively classical type of collegiate work grew up. This new point of view came to be called the "Industrial Movement," and may be looked upon as the initial educational expression of the great social and economic transformation that is now known as the Industrial Revolution. Although European in its origin, the Industrial Movement in education found a ready soil in America, both along the Atlantic seaboard and in the more remote parts of the country. In Michigan, the State Normal School l at Ypsilanti was the immediate result of this movement; so, too, in Illinois, the State Normal University at Normal. These schools "were to give instruction in husbandry, agri- cultural chemistry, and animal and vegetable physiol- ogy," as well as to prepare teachers for the public schools. In 1857, Michigan opened her State Agricultural College, the first fruit of the Industrial Movement in higher education, although Pennsylvania, in 1855, had es- tablished a "Farmers' High School" which in 1863 became the state's College of Agriculture. 2 Before considering the comprehensive answer made by Congress to this demand for a more practical type of higher education, one other element should be noticed. The original states were never entirely satisfied with the disposal that had been made of the public lands. 1 Now the Michigan State Normal College. 2 Now the Pennsylvania State College, p 66 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Even before the Land Ordinance of 1785, setting aside Lot No. 16, Maryland had memorialized the Conti- nental Congress to make an equitable distribution of the land revenues among the original states whose sacrifices and endeavors had won the National domain. In fact, the Maryland legislature went so far as to make this concession a condition precedent to her acceptance of the Articles of Confederation. 1 While the distribu- tion of the surplus revenue somewhat mollified the original states, the facts regarding this distribution gradually faded from the public mind, and by 1855 the states that had not shared in the benefits of Lot No. 16 were inclined to feel that Congress should do something in an educational way for them. Such was the general situation when, in December, 1855, Justin S. Morrill appeared in Congress as repre- sentative from Vermont. He had been elected by a majority of only fifty-nine votes. Shortly before his election, at the age of about forty, he had given up his business and retired on a modest competence that had been accumulated within fifteen years. December, 1855, however, marks the beginning of his real career. Al- though he was forty-five years old at the time of his 1 Maryland held persistently to this idea, and joined with Pennsyl- vania and other states in 1821 in a second memorial to Congress ; indeed, it was not until 1825 that Maryland took any substantial steps toward establishing a public-school system. Even then the maintenance of schools was made optional with the counties, and the movement conse- quently failed. THE MORRILL ACTS AND "LAND-GRANT" COLLEGES 67 first election, he served twelve years in the House of Representatives and thirty-two years in the Senate. "He was equally the philosopher and the man of ac- tion. . . . Mere majorities had no meaning for him, except as they accorded with his own convictions of truth and duty. ... He always gave the impression of one who walked by an inner light and drew the in- spiration of his life from unseen and immortal springs." 1 Such was the man who during his remarkable service of forty-four years in Congress was the foremost ex- ponent of the Industrial Movement in higher education. His substantial achievements have given him an en- during place in educational history. More than half a hundred flourishing colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts will keep his memory alive as long as the nation lives. The first Morrill Bill, providing for a land grant to each state for the establishment, endowment, and maintenance of an agricultural and mechanical college, was introduced in the House of Representatives in December, 1857. It was unfavorably reported in April, 1858, but with a minority report attached. Mr. Morrill made a clear and convincing speech. He contended that the money derived from the sale of the national domain should be equitably distributed to all sections 1 U. S. Com. Report, Vol. 2, 1899-1900, p. 1324. The Legislative Career of Justin S. Morrill, by G. W. Atherton, President Pennsylvania State College. 68 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS of the country, that the policy of grants of land in aid of education was too well established to be opposed on constitutional grounds, and that to distribute this com- mon fund as his bill proposed would greatly benefit the masses by putting the new discoveries of science at the disposal of agriculture and other industries. In spite of the adverse committee report, the vote in the House was 105 for, and 100 against, the Morrill Bill. The bill, because of the violence of the opposition to it, was not brought up in the Senate until February, 1859. It was championed by Senator Wade of Ohio. The debate was stormy and a few amendments were made. Senator Clay, of Alabama, said : "The Federal Government is the creature of the States and is dependent upon them for its organization and operation. All its powers are subordinate to the States from whom they are derived. The States are in no wise dependent upon the Federal Government for their operation, organization, support, or main- tenance. I stand as an ambassador from a sovereign State, no more subject to the control of the Federal Government, except in a few instances provided in the Constitution, than any foreign and independent State. This bill treats the States as agents in- stead of principals, as creatures instead of creators, and proposes to give them their own property and direct them how to use it." Notwithstanding this argument and many others, the echoes of which are still heard occasionally in Congress, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of twenty-five to twenty- two. The House concurred in the amendments and — President Buchanan vetoed the measure on the : THE MORRILL ACTS AND " LAND-GRANT " COLLEGES 69 ground that the Government was too poor to give up its sources of income for this purpose, and on the further ground that the bill was unconstitutional. There was no thought of passing the measure over the President's veto, and so the bill disappeared until December, 1861, when Mr. Morrill reintroduced it in the House. Finding it impossible to get the bill consid- ered by the House Committee because of the important war legislation that was pending, he had the bill in- troduced in the Senate by Senator Wade in May, 1862. On June 10, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of thirty-two to seven. The Senate bill then went over to the House and was passed by a vote of ninety to twenty-rive on June 17. It was signed by President Lincoln on July 2, 1862. This act, undoubtedly the most momentous law ever enacted in the interest of higher education, included the following provisions : 1. Each existing state and each new state admitted into the Union "shall be entitled to as many times 30,000 acres of public land (not mineral bearing) as it had in i860 or has, at the time of its admission, representatives in both houses of Congress. When there is not enough (or no) public land within a state, scrip x shall be issued ; but no state shall locate lands 1 Scrip is the name applied to a certificate, issued by the Federal Government or State, which entitles the owner to receive a specified allotment of land. 70 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS in another state save through assignees, nor shall any portion of land be located smaller than a quarter sec- tion." This provision gave the older and more populous states the advantage and evened up the score. For example, New York received 900,000 acres and Iowa 240,000 acres. Practically every state that has entered the Union since 1862 has received only 90,000 acres under the provisions of this act, — 30,000 acres for each of its two senators and an equal amount for its repre- sentative. 2. Ten per cent or less of the entire gross proceeds of the grant could be used, if authorized by the legis- lature, in the purchase of land for sites or experimental farms. 3. The interest of the entire remaining gross proceeds of the grant were to be used " for the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the lead- ing object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agri- culture and the mechanic arts in such manner as the legislatures of the states may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and pro- fessions of life." This provision obligated every state accepting the provisions and bounty of the act to maintain a college THE MORRILL ACTS AND LAND-GRANT COLLEGES 71 as a part of its public educational system. The college thus maintained was not to be a trade school, but a technical college with liberal features. The compulsory military-training work in these schools was included because of the existing war situation, and served the country in good stead in 191 7, for it provided a large group of well-educated young men who understood the elements of military drill and who could begin, after a brief period of more intensive preparation, the pre- liminary training of troops. 4. "An annual report shall be made regarding the progress of each college, recording improvements and experiments made, with their cast and result, and such other matters, including state, industrial, and economic statistics, as may be useful, one copy of which shall be transmitted by mail free by each to all the other colleges of the same class, and one copy to the Secretary of the Interior." This provision bound the colleges together, inform- ing each of what the others were doing, and insuring that each would render a service to all. 5. The state legislature must formally accept the grant within three years, must establish at least one school of the character set forth above within five years, must replace all losses to the fund, must invest the en- tire gross proceeds, after making the permitted ex- penditures, in safe stocks yielding not less than five per cent on their par value, and must use the interest wholly 72 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS — excluding the purchase, erection, preservation, or repair of any building or buildings — in support of the school or schools established by the act. This made the fund a " perpetual fund," to remain "forever undiminished," and to be "inviolably ap- propriated" to the purposes prescribed in the act. Such safeguards around the federal land grants from the beginning would have saved many millions of dollars to the cause of education. This first Morrill Act gave to the states a grand total of 10,400,000 acres of land, the equivalent of 12,250 square miles, an area one and a half times as great as that of Massachusetts, or New Jersey, and just about equal to the area of Maryland. The distribution of this land to the several states is shown in the table on the following page. One thing Congress failed to do, — it did not fix, in 1862, a minimum price for which the lands might be sold by the states. The college lands, therefore, came into competition with the unsold national lands. This competition tended to force the price down to the govern- ment price of $1.25 per acre. Some of the states that had no national lands within their borders even sold their scrip to an assignee, at as low a price as fifty to sixty cents an acre. The assignee then either sold his scrip to someone else or located his lands and sold them in the open market. Like Lot No. 16, the Morrill en- dowment fell far short of its possibilities. THE MORRILL ACTS AND " LAND-GRANT " COLLEGES 73 Name of State Acres Received under Grant Acres Unsold Date of Opening of Institution Alabama 240,000 1872 Arizona . . 150,000 150,000 1891 Arkansas . 150,000 1872 California . 150,000 1,042 1869 Colorado . 90,000 34,153 1879 Connecticut 180,000 1881 Delaware . 90,000 1834 Florida . . 90,000 1884 Georgia . . 270,000 1872 Idaho . . 90,000 62,643 1892 Illinois . . 480,000 1868 Indiana . . 390,000 1874 Iowa . . . 204,309 1869 Kansas . . 90,000 7,686 1863 Kentucky . 330,000 O 1866 Louisiana . 209,920 i860 Maine . . 210,000 1868 Maryland . 210,000 1859 Massachusetts 360,000 1867 Michigan . 235,663 50,48S 1857 Minnesota . 94,439 185 1 Mississippi 209,920 1880 Missouri 277,067 47,287 1841 Montana . 138,954 69,147 1893 Nebraska . 90,000 1,727 1871 Nevada . . 90,000 14 1874 New Hampshi re 150,000 1868 New Jersey 210,000 1864 New Mexico 150,000 91,909 1890 New York . 989,920 1868 North Carolina 270,000 1889 North Dakota 130,000 35,843 1891 Ohio .... 629,920 1873 Oklahoma . . 250,000 250,000 1891 Oregon . . . 89,908 920 1865 Pennsylvania . 780,000 1859 Rhode Island . 120,000 1890 South Carolina . 180,000 1893 South Dakota 160,000 141,140 1884 Tennessee . . . 300,000 1794 Texas . . . 180,000 1876 Utah. . . . 200,000 5i,78i 1890 Vermont . . 149,920 1801 Virginia . . 300,000 1872 Washington . 89,438 77,870 1892 West Virginia . 150,000 1868 Wisconsin . . 240,005 40 1850 Wyoming . . 89,832 75,875 1887 74 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Ezra Cornell, of New York, offered to take all of that state's scrip at sixty cents an acre, and to pay the state as he sold the land, with the understanding that all receipts above sixty cents an acre should become an endowment for a university. This offer was accepted. Mr. Cornell located the scrip in the white-pine district of Wisconsin, and eventually sold most of the land at an average price of $6.73 an acre. This gave Cornell University an endowment in excess of five and one half million dollars. Pennsylvania sold most of her scrip for fifty-five cents an acre, and Ohio for fifty-four cents. While this low-priced selling now seems almost criminal, we must remember that each state was anxious to realize immediately on its scrip. The situation was uncertain. The Civil War was at its height, prices were soaring, the currency was inflated, — and the college had to be established within five years. In 1889, Congress corrected this defect in the law, and states coming into the Union since that time are given large blocks of land that cannot be sold until they will bring at least $10 an acre ; the lands consequently are leased, under certain restrictions, until they can be sold for the price that has been fixed. The establishment of colleges, however, is not delayed ; the lands thus conditioned are made security for bonds issued by the state, the state paying the interest annually and using the proceeds of the bonds for educational purposes. THE MORRILL ACTS AND " LAND-GRANT COLLEGES 75 These large blocks of land, as well as meeting the con- ditions of the first Morrill Act, are in lieu of former separate grants such as "internal-improvement grants," "salt lands," and "swamp and overflowed lands." The colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts es- tablished in the several states under the provisions of this act were beset with difficulties during and follow- ing the Civil War. Their particular field was new ; few teachers were qualified to do the specialized technical work demanded by their purpose; perti- nent subject-matter was not abundant, for farming was still very largely an empirical art rather than an applied science; and the established colleges and universities were not friendly. All of these facts should be borne in mind by one who is disposed to criticize the early work of the agricultural colleges. By 1872, these new institutions were in need of additional Federal assistance. The proceeds from the sale of public lands kept pouring into the National Treasury. Senator Morrill wished to create from these receipts an endow- ment or permanent fund, the proceeds of which could be used only for the support of the state colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts. Representative Hoar, of Massachusetts, was equally anxious to use the pro- ceeds of such a permanent fund for the public schools of the several states, apportioning these funds to the states partly on a population basis and partly on an illiteracy basis. The two finally agreed to divide the 76 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS proceeds of the fund equally at the outset, but the college fund was to be limited to $50,000 a year to each state while the common-school fund was to have no limit. Two bills drawn to meet this compromise passed the House in 1872, but were defeated in the Senate. In 1873, Senator Morrill introduced a measure combin- ing the two bills and Representative Hoar reintroduced his own bill in the House. Charges had been made that the land-grant institutions were not fulfilling the pur- pose for which they had been established, and Mr. James Monroe, of Ohio, moved to "investigate the colleges established under the grants of the Act of July 2, 1862." This investigation was completed in 1875 and Mr. Monroe himself made the report, — one entirely favor- able to the colleges, — yet Senator Morrill's plan for a permanent cash endowment had to wait fifteen years after this report before it was written into law. In 1887, March 2, the "Hatch Act" establishing an "Experiment Station" at each college of agriculture and mechanic arts was passed. This act provided an annual subsidy of $15,000 for each such college in order that original researches might be carried on and verifica- tions of experiments made. The general field of such experimentation is specified in the act. Each state is required to accept the act formally and agree to carry out its purposes. Without giving the Federal Govern- ment any real control, the act specified that : THE MORRILL ACTS AND " LAND-GRANT COLLEGES 77 "The Secretary of Agriculture shall furnish forms, ... for the tabulation of results of investigation, shall indicate from time to time such lines of inquiry as shall seem to him important, and in general shall furnish such advice and assistance as will best promote the purpose of the law." Each Experiment Station must publish a bulletin at least once in three months "which shall be sent by Government frank to each newspaper in the State and to such persons who are actually engaged in agriculture who shall request the same, as far as the means of the Station shall permit." The Hatch Act was a needed supplement to the earlier legislation. From the outset, the colleges had been handicapped by the relative paucity of well-established scientific principles in the field of practical agriculture. As a result the instruction tended to be either remotely theoretical or entirely empirical and "rule-of- thumb" in character. The experimental stations, by accumulat- ing an ever-increasing number of tested facts and principles, have given to the colleges the materials which they needed most to meet the clear intent of the first Morrill Act. The law of August 30, 1890, the second Morrill Act, was designed "to more completely endow the colleges established under the law of July 2, 1862." It pro- vided, out of the money arising from the sale of public lands, an annual subsidy of $15,000 "for the more com- plete endowment and maintenance" of each college of agriculture and mechanic arts. This subsidy was to increase by $1000 a year until it should reach $25,000 78 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS as the yearly grant. The amounts thus received "shall be applied only to instruction in agriculture, the me- chanic arts, the English language, and the various branches of mathematical, physical, natural, and eco- nomic science, with special reference to their application in the industries of life and to the facilities for instruc- tion." Reports were to be made and exchanged. The funds available could be divided in any state on the color line, but were to be used exclusively for operating expenses. The Secretary of the Interior was charged with the proper administration of the law, thus re- vealing a slight growth in the principle of Federal supervision over the institutions established by Federal bounty. How this matter was considered by Mr. Morrill is best told by stating that in the title of his bill of 1873 he specifically designates the schools formed under the act of 1862 as "National colleges for the ad- vancement of general scientific and industrial education." The Hatch Act and the second Morrill Act provided money arising from the sale of public lands. This fund would of necessity decrease as the public lands decreased, and the institutions might, in consequence, find them- selves with a decreasing annual subsidy. Senator Morrill, with his usual foresight, did not overlook this danger. In March, 1898, he introduced a bill which provided that, whenever the proceeds of the sales of public lands should be less than is required by the act of 1890, the deficiency should be paid from any funds THE MORRILL ACTS AND "LAND-GRANT" COLLEGES 79 in the National Treasury which are not otherwise ap- propriated. The enactment of this bill into law es- tablished a clear and incontestable precedent for money grants in aid of education, the source of which would be current Federal taxes. 1 In March, 1906, Congress passed the " Adams Act," an amendment of the Hatch Act. This was for the "more complete endowment and maintenance of agri- cultural experiment stations," and increased the ap- propriations by easy stages to $30,000 a year for each of the "land-grant" colleges that maintained an experi- ment station. In March, 1907, the "Nelson Amendment" to the second Morrill Act of 1890 was passed. This amend- ment increased the cash appropriation for "endowment and support" from $25,000 annually, by increments of $5000 a year, to $50,000 annually. Attention should also be called to the Smith-Lever 1 The best available materials on the subject of the Colleges of Agri- culture and Mechanic Arts are : 1. U. S. Com. Edn. Report, Vol. 2, 1894-5, PP- 1 189-12 10. 2. Ibid., Vol. 2, 1896-7, pp. 1137-1264. 3. Ibid., Vol. 2, 1899-1900, pp. 1321-1335. 4. Ibid., Vol. 1, 1902, pp. 1-82. 5. Ibid., Vol. 1, 1903, pp. 39-222. The last two references contain a compilation of the laws of Congress and of the states relative to Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, from 1862 to 1903. 6. I. L. Kandel : Federal Aid for Vocational Education. Bui. No. 10, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (New York, 1917). 80 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Act of May, 1914, which made in 1915-16 an annual appropriation of $1,113,490 to the states for agricultural extension work, including the support of "Farmers' Institutes." The states added $1,364,356 for the same purposes. These latest appropriations would seem to complete in a fair way the Federal subventions for the work of the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts. The Smith-Hughes Act 1 of February, 1917, provides for industrial and agricultural work, but with this later legislation, the Federal stimulus passed from the colleges to schools "of less than college grade." The colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts, starting at the zero point on January 1, 1863, have had a most remarkable growth, notwithstanding the fact that they have been pioneers in a new type of education opposed in many ways to the ideals of existing institutions. The benefits of the act of 1862, or later benefits as a substitute, have been accepted by every state, and fifty- three institutions are to-day thus aided. These institutions enrolled, in 191 5-16, a total of 130,499 stu- dents. Forty-eight states receive $50,000 each annu- ally, — a total of $2,400,000. The insular possessions are also provided for. In addition, almost a million dollars comes each year from interest on the Land- Grant Fund of 1862, the principal being, in 1915-16, $15,105,925.00. The total property values of these fifty- three land-grant institutions in 191 5-16 aggre- 1 See ch. x. THE MORRILL ACTS AND " LAND-GRANT " COLLEGES 8l gated $179,519,438. In 1915-16, the income of these institutions from the bounty of the Federal Govern- ment was as follows : From land grant of 1862 .... $ 884,514.00 From other land grants 193,573.00 From acts of 1890 and 1907 . . . 2,500,000.00 For experiment stations 1,362,000.00 For extension work 1,113,490.00 Total $6,053,577.00! This chapter has been long ; but it is difficult to tell, even in outline, the story of these institutions that in a brief half century have developed so remarkably, that have so fully justified the " Industrial Movement" out of which they sprang, and that constitute so fitting a tribute to the foresight and persistence of Justin S. Morrill. But perhaps the greatest lesson of the Morrill Acts lies in the steadily increasing appropriations that the states themselves have made to these nationally- aided colleges. To-day, by far the greater part of the maintenance expenses of the "land-grant" colleges is met by taxation within the states themselves. Federal aid, far from "pauperizing" the states, or tending toward a reduction of state initiative and effort, has served to stimulate the states to a measure of self-activity quite unparalleled in the development of nationally unaided state enterprises. 2 1 For complete statistics, see U. S. Com. of Edn. Report, 19 17, Vol. 2, PP- 37i-4o5- 2 For example, in the nineteen years following 1896, appropriations from the state treasuries to the land-grant colleges increased eightfold; during the same period state appropriations to the nationally unaided state normal schools increased only threefold. G 82 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS This chapter completes the story of Federal land grants for educational purposes. The public domain is not yet exhausted, — on July i, 1913, there were 1,820,538,240 acres of land as yet unappropriated. 1 Much of it, however, is mountainous, arid, or semi- arid. It will come into the market only as the pressure of population on the means of subsistence forces its settle- ment and cultivation. So far as a source of revenue for the support and encouragement of education is con- cerned, the unappropriated public land is of little ac- count, save in Alaska. 2 1 Quoted in Cubberley and Elliott's State and County School Adminis- tration, p. 108. 2 A summary table setting forth the principal facts regarding Federal land grants for educational and other purposes will be found in Ap- pendix A. This was issued by the General Land Office in August, iqiq. It is corrective of facts previously quoted in tables, variations in which are inevitable, as the tables have been made up at different times. CHAPTER IX Specific National Educational Acts The preceding chapters have considered land and money grants by which the Nation has promoted educa- tion within the states. In each case, the state has, so to speak, been the agent through which the Nation has influenced the schools. The Federal Government, how- ever, has undertaken educational work independently of the states. Federal legislation of this type will be the theme of the present chapter. A. THE FREEDMEN's BUREAU Up to the close of the Civil War, educational affairs in the South were, generally speaking, in a wretched con- dition. Of all the Southern states, North Carolina had made the most creditable record and had made a fair start toward developing a state system of public schools. Elsewhere, a few elementary schools and academies had been established, — but the elementary schools were largely for the poor and the academies for a wealthier group which demanded the classics and "accomplish- ments." In the larger cities, — Charleston, Mobile, New Orleans, — a little progress had been made in 83 84 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS promoting common schools, but, on the whole, free public education in the South had been a failure. When the war closed, "taxable property had depreciated sixty per cent at a stroke, and four million illiterates (negroes) were added to the school population. The educational problem set for solution was how to educate three times the number of children with one third the money." 1 There were no teachers, no schoolhouses ; the private schools had been closed during the war because of finan- cial difficulties. There was a deep-seated prejudice against public schools and especially against educating the negro. One Southern writer has said: "If the tree be judged by its fruits, it [the public school] is poisonous instead of salutary to republican institutions in our great cities." In March, 1865, Congress created a "Bureau of Ref- ugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands." So long a title was impossible ; the organization soon came to be known as the "Freedmen's Bureau." There were many church organizations that bore the same title, some of which had been organized while the war was in progress. The Government Bureau worked with these various agencies and with whatever Southern associations, organizations, or institutions it could interest in its plans and policies. It helped to establish schools in existing buildings, found teachers and employed them, and did perhaps its greatest work in building what would 1 Boone's Education in the United States, p. 350. SPECIFIC NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ACTS 85 be regarded to-day as very crude schoolhouses. It sought the cooperation of every conceivable organization in the North to furnish money for carrying on a work that was too extensive and too far-reaching for a Bureau with a limited budget to handle alone. Indeed, during the four years of its existence, the Freedmen's Bureau of the United States Government did a most helpful piece of work in the South. At the end of the first year of its history, it employed nearly a thousand teachers and enrolled one hundred thousand pupils in its schools. At the end of four years, the total stood : teachers, 2500; pupils, 250,000. The Freedmen's Bureau helped also in the founding of Howard University * and Wayland Seminary, at Wash- ington ; Fisk University and the State Central College, in Tennessee ; Straight University, in Louisiana ; Claf- lin University, in South Carolina; and Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, in Virginia. The last named became the type and pattern for negro industrial schools, and North and South alike are in- debted to the educational sense and sanity which, under the wise leadership of General Armstrong, spread from Hampton as a center. The Peabody Fund for the South ($3,100,000), the Slater Fund ($1,000,000), and many other benefactions were hastened and directed into right channels by the trail blazed by the Freedmen's Bureau. 1 Howard University has continued to draw support from the Federal Treasury, the appropriation by Congress for 1915-1916 being $101,000. 86 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS The Bureau spent $5,250,000 in the four years of its existence, and all of it came from the treasury of the United States. By 1869, however, the Peabody Fund was operative, the work of the churches was well organized, and the South itself had begun to establish schools, spurred on, perhaps, by a conviction that, if it did not do so, the Federal Government would. In any case, the Bureau was discontinued and the work of building up a free public school system was begun in earnest by the reconstructed states. B. THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION Although the Nation, as such, has had no control over education in the several states, it has not been entirely remiss to the obligations that opportunity so clearly implies. The need for a central agency to collect and disseminate statistics and information regarding education in the different states began to be felt just as soon as the national consciousness sensed the fact that universal education was a condition precedent to the realization of its ideals. Such an agency was talked of in the later 'forties and early 'fifties, but the Civil War delayed its establishment. When the war was over, the need -was accentuated by the almost universal ignorance about educational conditions in the South. How to meet this need was a problem that had a prominent place on the programs of the National Education Association in 1864, 1865, and 1866. At SPECIFIC NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ACTS 87 the meeting in 1867, a committee was appointed to me- morialize Congress on the subject. Of this committee, State Commissioner Emerson E. White, of Ohio, was chairman. The memorial was presented to the House of Representatives by James A. Garfield. 1 The bill creating a Department of Education was approved March 2, 1867. The committee had asked for a Bureau, but the House made it a Department. The Depart- ment was established, as stated in the act, "for the pur- pose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several states and territories, and of diffusing such information respecting the organization and management of schools and school systems, and methods of teaching, as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and other- wise promote the cause of education throughout the country." As a Department, this new agency of the government had a short life. The appropriation bill of July 20, 1868, declared that "the department of education shall cease" "from and after the thirtieth day of June, 1869." In its stead, the Bureau was created and attached to the Department of the Interior. The salary of the Commissioner was reduced to $3000 a year and the total appropriation cut from $9400 to $5400 a year. 1 Data relative to this matter, including the speech of James A. Garfield, are found in the U. S. Com. Edn. Report, 1901, pp. 414-38. 88 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS The infant was almost strangled while a-borning, and it is small wonder that it has always been puny. The Bureau of Education has endeavored to do the best that it could with its available funds and oppor- tunities. Generally speaking, it has had to depend entirely upon voluntary cooperation as regards educa- tional statistics — and everything else. Its publications have been timely and helpful. The annual reports con- tain invaluable material not elsewhere available. But, after saying all that can truthfully be said of its work as a Bureau, it has failed to develop that leadership which education in a great democracy needs — perhaps beyond all other types of leadership. Prestige and influence in other types of governmental enterprise come naturally and inevitably; with our Federal plan, a national leadership in education has never come. The states long since learned this, and each of them now has, in the state government, an executive officer or department whose chief business, no matter what words the law may employ, is educational leadership. In a democratic state, the compelling power should be the ideals of the people. The function of leadership is to inspire ideals, — to make articulate and vocal the unformulated but deeply felt wishes and aspirations of the people, — to set up and exemplify those standards of worth which the people will recognize as their own and which they will, by collective action, make real. We do not value very highly a position that is without SPECIFIC NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ACTS 89 prestige. A little Bureau in a big Department cannot have prestige. Without prestige, influence is lacking; and without influence, leadership is impossible. And this — plain, honest work within a narrow field, ham- pered and repressed by beggarly appropriations, and very little influence upon education — has been the history of the Bureau of Education. The total appro- priations for educational purposes by the Federal Govern- ment for the year ending June 30, 191 8, amounted to one hundred sixty million dollars ; of this total the Bureau of Education received $481,800, or less than one third of one per cent! Or, if we take some other govern- mental agencies for comparison, we shall get a relative idea of the importance attached by Congress to the Bureau of Education. The Civil Service Commission receives almost as much money as the Bureau of Educa- tion. The Library of Congress receives one and a half times as much. There is appropriated by Congress for the janitors in the public schools of Washington alone, three fourths as much as the Bureau of Education is given. The Bureau of Plant Industry in the Depart- ment of Agriculture has seven times as much as the Bureau of Education, while the Bureau of Entomology has twice as much. Furthermore, in order to get the proper ratio for revising the comparisons just made, we must bear in mind that over one half of all that is appropriated to the Bureau of Education ($267,000) is specifically 90 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS appropriated for education in Alaska. The Bureau of Education has $75,200 for salaries; the Civil Service Commission has $340,000 ; the Bureau of Plant Industry has $440,000; and West Point alone has $983,602. Control of education by the Federal Government is as undesirable as it is impossible; but if the Federal Government really wishes to promote education, its first step forward might well be to elevate the Bureau of Edu- cation to its appropriate status as an executive depart- ment of the Federal Government. C. PURELY NATIONAL SCHOOLS On its own private account, so to speak, the Federal Government has been in the educational business for a long time for it has had its own wards to look out for, and, in some cases, its own servants to train. Through a long series of blunders, the tragedies of which need not concern us here, it has developed fairly effective plans and policies for the education of the Indians. For the year ending June 30, 1918, the Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior was given $9,565,800, to be spent under Federal control for the education of Indians. Congress has also been under the necessity of edu- cating, under its own management and direction, officers for the Army and the Navy. Washington urged a national school that would insure "an adequate stock of military knowledge," and his wishes were realized SPECIFIC NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ACTS 9 1 with the organization of the Military Academy at West Point in 1802. The institution was not very successful at first, but after the War of 181 2 its curriculum was revised and an excellent system of discipline established. In one way, it remained "close to the people" ; in order to be admitted, the candidate was required only to be "well versed in reading, writing, and arithmetic," and to be physically fit; but the selection was practically upon the basis of political patronage, for the candidates for examinations were appointed by members of Con- gress. The admission requirements have been advanced in recent years. Its purpose has always been "to train young men to arrange squadrons for the hardy fight"; and in spite of its aristocratic tendencies and traditions, its success as a school is unquestioned. In 1913, Congress appropriated $1,246,159.97 for military training in its own institutions. These insti- tutions, in addition to West Point, are : the Army War College and the Army Engineer School, in Washington ; the Coast Artillery School, Fort Monroe; officers' schools, at various military posts ; and the service schools at Forts Sill, Riley, and Leavenworth. Facilities for military training expanded greatly during the recent World War, and will doubtless decrease rapidly at first, then more slowly for a long period, eventually going back to the level which is considered safe from a national point of view. It is also quite probable that the mili- tary training required by the act of 1862 in the 92 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS land-grant colleges will, for many years, be expanded and intensified. The Department of the Navy was established in 1798. In harmony with the old English system, the ship's chaplain served as schoolmaster. About 1813, in- structors were placed on ships. Soon afterward, in- structors were assigned to the Navy Yards at New York, Philadelphia, and Norfolk. Chauvenet, the mathema- tician, was in charge of the instructors at Philadel- phia. He conceived the idea of founding a school for naval training. It was not until 1845, however, that his idea was realized, through the efforts of George Ban- croft, then Secretary of the Navy, by the establishment of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. This provided only for the training of officers. After the lapse of fifty years, Naval Training Stations for the enlisted personnel were established. An idea of the cost of naval training in peace times may be obtained from the appropriations made in 1913. The Naval Academy received $586,150; the four Naval Training Stations — California, Rhode Island, Great Lakes, and Saint Helena — received $278,457 ; the Naval War College (Rhode Island) received $28,500, — a total of $893,457. For 1918, these appropriations were more than doubled and additional facilities were pro- vided. The United States Government, through the Depart- ment of State, provides for the training of student inter- SPECIFIC NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ACTS 93 preters at our embassies in China, Japan, and Turkey. It also contributes liberally toward the support of the Smithsonian Institution and makes arrangements by which its vast collections and libraries are placed at the service of investigators. Congress, also, controls educa- tion in the District of Columbia, Alaska, Porto Rico, the Philippines, and Hawaii. CHAPTER X Federal Grants for Vocational Education The Industrial Movement, already mentioned as becoming active in the early fifties and again after the Civil War, has been intensified and given a new direc- tion by the developments of the past half century. The land-grant colleges, while they have done a superb work, never fully satisfied the ideals of the Industrial Movement, for their efforts were largely limited to the relatively small group of students competent to pursue studies of collegiate grade. The land-grant colleges and the experimental stations did something to bring to the practical farmer the results of modern scientific research in agriculture. In fact, it was, in part, the clear and unmistakable demonstration of practical values that led successive legislatures in the several states to make generous appropriations for the support of these schools. But while no one has ever criticized these colleges with any measure of justification, it is true that there have been many needs and longings which they have not satisfied. The Centennial Exhibition in 1876, too, revealed the backwardness of the country in respect to vocational education on the elementary and secondary levels, and 94 FEDERAL GRANTS FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 95 led to the establishment of courses in manual training in public schools, the organization of trade schools, and a new emphasis upon "practical" instruction. The great private correspondence schools have been nourished and supported by the longings of those who would be adherents of the Industrial Movement if only they knew that there were such a thing. The success of these enterprises and that of private benefactions such as Cooper Union, and the popularity of university exten- sion work are proof conclusive of the fundamental aspiration of the worker to better his condition. Contributing to the demand for "practical" education has been the vast expansion and differentiation of the industrial processes. These require of the workman a highly developed intelligence within a narrow field. For example : while anyone with the necessary physical strength can fill a blast furnace with kindling, coke, limestone, and pig iron, someone must know the pro- portions and sequence of these ingredients. This knowledge was originally gained by "trial and error" and formulated in empirical rules. Within the past half century, however, science, through careful experi- mentation, has worked out accurate formulae, and has furnished explanations as well as rules. From the making of soap and the baking of bread to the manu- facture of steel girders, the industrial processes have been refined and perfected to the point where each is a dis- tinct field of highly specialized skill and highly technical _r 96 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS knowledge. A man may be a very successful soap maker without knowing enough about the blast fur- nace to make even a respectable failure at operating it. With a sufficient number of high-grade men to direct the industries, the actual physical work might be done by men who know very little. One of the tendencies of modern industry, indeed, is to keep a maximum number of low-grade employes at work under a minimum of expert guidance. When the particular industry is "slack," the low-grade workmen have no employment and, consequently, no wage. The social consequences are disastrous. Even if industry could be continuously prosperous, its human employes would still have a human life to live, a human destiny to work out, and community, state, and national obligations to dis- charge. The problem can never, from any angle, be one of dividends merely or chiefly. The individual is more than a cog in the industrial machine ; the Nation is more than a mere aggregate of producers, — basic as production is in social life. Many boys and girls leave school at a very early age to enter upon all sorts of occupations. These boys and girls are not skilled workers ; they are merely hands and feet to fetch and carry ; — and, unless they are kept mentally alive by something outside their routine work, they may mature physically into manhood and woman- hood only to assume the responsibilities of family and community life with the mental equipment and ideals FEDERAL GRANTS FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 97 of childhood or, at best, of early adolescence. They are the most tragic examples of "arrested develop- ment," for mental starvation during adolescence con- demns them throughout life to a relatively low grade of skill. From the individual, economic, and social points of view it is imperative to keep these young people growing mentally. A combination of statesmanship, philanthropy, and good " business sense " has fortunately resulted in the organization within the United States of a vast machinery for vocational education that aims to solve this problem. The embodiment of this plan is known as the Smith- Hughes Act, approved February, 191 7. As a bill in Congress, this act was very carefully considered by the education committees of Congress and by a special commission expressly created to study it. It involves many new features, some of which are to prevent abuses that have attended other forms of Federal subsidies and some of which are theoretical ventures in the field of "grants in aid" of education. The main features of the Smith-Hughes Act are set forth below without comment : 1. The act creates a Federal Board for Vocational Education whose function it is "to make or cause to have made studies, investigations, and reports, with particular reference to their use in aiding the States in the establishment of vocational schools and classes and in giving instruction in agriculture, trades, and indus- H 98 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS tries, commerce and commercial pursuits, and home economies" ; "to cooperate with State Boards in carry- ing out the provisions of the Act"; and "to cooperate with the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, and Com- merce and the Bureau of Education in making studies and investigations." The Federal Board employs a Director, who is the Executive Officer of the Board, and, on his nomination, elects assistants for the direction of certain lines of work, such as agriculture, domestic science, industry, etc. 2. The Federal Board is given $200,000 annually to meet the cost of administering the Act. 3. Increasing funds are set aside for specific purposes which at their maxima are as follows : o. For the preparation of teachers of vocational subjects, $1,000,000, allotted to the states on basis of population. b. $3,000,000 for teaching agriculture in schools of less than college grade, and allotted to the states on the basis of rural population. c. $3,000,000 for teaching trades and industries allotted to the states on the urban population basis. 4. These allotments are conditional upon the agree- ment of each cooperating state to match its Federal allotment dollar for dollar. 5. "The Federal Board for Vocational Education shall annually ascertain whether the States are using or are prepared to use the moneys received by them in accordance with the provisions of this Act." FEDERAL GRANTS FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 99 6. The Federal Board is empowered to "withhold the allotment of moneys to any state whenever it shall appear that such moneys are not being expended for the purposes and under the conditions of this Act." The state, in such a case, may appeal to Congress, and upon the express direction of Congress the state may receive the allotment that has been temporarily withheld by the Federal Board. 7. The state must guarantee the Government against loss of funds allotted "by any action or contingency." The state must also agree to use moneys received under the provisions of the Act solely for operating expenses, — that is, for teaching, supervision, and administration. 8. The states must report annually to the Federal Board. 9. The Federal Board must approve the action of the State Board in setting up minimum qualifications of teachers in agriculture, trades and industries, and home economics. The total maximum appropriation provided in the act is $7,200,000 annually. The features of the act that set new precedents in Federal aid to education are : A. The Federal Board, which is set up separately from any existing agency of the government and which is, consequently, directly responsible to Congress. B. The allotment on the basis of apparent need. C. The requirement that the states must spend, for IOO THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS a specific purpose, at least as much as the Federal Government allots to the state for that purpose. D. The approval of a state's plans for vocational education by the Federal Board, and the making of this approval a condition of allotment. E. The right given the Federal Board to ascertain annually just what has been done in a state and how the money has been spent. These new features safeguard the interests of the Nation as a whole as has never been done before by any grant of land or money for educational purposes. Whether the plan is too highly centralized and whether the Federal Board will infringe upon the "autonomy of the States" are matters which the wise years will reveal. CHAPTER XI The Principles Embodied in the Educational Acts of Congress By way of summary, it will be profitable to state the principles embodied or implied in the educational acts of Congress that have been already considered. (i) The right of the Federal Government to encourage the establishment of public schools, or common schools, by grants of land has been clearly established. The action of the Continental Congress in 1785 with respect to Lot No. 16 in the Northwest Territory is conclusive evidence of this right especially in view of the long record of subsequent acts of Congress in harmony with the declaration of the act of 1785 and in view of the fact that no action even remotely suggesting the invalid- ity of this Federal policy has ever been brought before the Supreme Court. Congress has given lands for the establishment and maintenance of common schools to colonization companies, such as the Ohio Company and the Symmes Company ; to townships as in some of the earlier states, notably Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois ; and later to states. Not only has the Federal Government established the right to give lands for the maintenance of common schools, but it has given money in lieu of IOI 102 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS land. This was done in Oklahoma when the state of Oklahoma was given $5,000,000 in lieu of the sixteenth section lands, the title to which was vested in the Indians. Congress has done the same with respect to North Dakota where a few years ago it voted $180,000 to the state in lieu of lands that were covered by individual Indian titles. (2) The Federal Government has established its right to encourage the development of colleges and univer- sities by land grants. This has been done repeatedly. The first form of grant was the traditional "two town- ships" which started with the grant to the Ohio Com- pany and which was followed by a grant of one township to the Symmes Company. Later came salt lands, internal improvement lands, swamp lands, and finally, crowning all of them, lands for the endowment of colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts. The Federal Government also has established its right to give money as well as lands for the maintenance and en- dowment of colleges, — witness the Hatch Act of 1887, the second Morrill Act of 1890, the later Nelson Act, and the Adams Act increasing the second Morrill allowance to an annual maximum of $80,000 for each state. This is a continuing annual subsidy for the "further endowment and maintenance" of the land- grant colleges. (3) Congress has established its right to enter into cooperative arrangements with the states for specific THE PRINCIPLES EMBODIED IN ACTS OF CONGRESS IO3 educational purposes. This is clearly shown in the preceding acts, especially those relative to the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts and the experiment stations. It is also shown in the Smith-Hughes Act in which a very definite and specific contractual relation has been undertaken, — even to the point of making the state agree to match dollar for dollar its allotment for each specific purpose. (4) The Federal Government has established its right to encourage all kinds of educational and welfare work. In addition to what has already been particularly described in the preceding chapters of this book, Con- gress has established in the Department of Agriculture the States' Relation Service, and in the Department of Labor the Children's Bureau. It has also organized in the Treasury Department a Public Health Service the functions of which are largely educational. Under the States' Relation Service school gardening has been organized on an elaborate scale and various other types of educational activities, small and large, are encouraged by the leadership of its employes, and often by the stimulus of expenditures on the part of the Government. It has also been spending, through the Department of the Interior, small sums of money for the Ameri- canization of foreigners and it has been spending even more in giving publicity to this great educational need. (5) Congress has established its right to set aside money for the preparation of teachers under conditions 104 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS satisfactory to itself. This is shown in the Smith- Hughes Act where $1,000,000 annually is appropriated for the training of teachers of vocational subjects, and also in the Adams Act which provides that a part of the money given to the land-grant colleges may be spent for the preparation of teachers. If it has the right to prepare teachers for certain limited fields of teaching, it has the right to prepare teachers for general fields of teaching. (6) Congress has established its right to spend money for the collection and dissemination of information regarding education at home and abroad. This is shown through the activities and publications of the Bureau of Education. The different educational pro- posals that the Bureau is able to put before the general educational public by use of funds provided by Congress clearly show that Congress has established the right to spend money for educational publicity. Closely associated with this is the evident right of Congress to appropriate money for the carrying on of research work as is done so extensively through the agricultural experiment stations, the various research bureaus of the Department of Agriculture, the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Natural History, the Library of Congress, and the National Research Council. The Federal Government is to-day the largest single employer of research scientists in the world. (7) Congress has exercised its unquestioned right to THE PRINCIPLES EMBODIED IN ACTS OF CONGRESS 105 set up schools for the attainment of its own specific educational ends. West Point, Annapolis, the War College, the Naval College, the Service Stations, schools at Army posts, and Naval training stations, all clearly prove this. It already has a special school for training medical officers for the Army ; it could set up schools for the training of its consular personnel if it so desired, for the training of attaches in its diplomatic service, for the training of teachers to serve in its own schools. There is practically no limit to such educational activi- ties; the field is as wide as the Government service itself. (8) Congress has established and exercised its right to provide for the education of Indians and for the education of people in its territories and outlying possessions. It is now spending something over $9,000,000 annually on the education of Indians. It is spending money for public schools in the Territory of Alaska, and it has previously spent money for the education of people in practically every territory that has been established. It also established and exercised its authority to provide for the education of negroes immediately following the Civil War as shown by the work of the Freedmen's Bureau. These precedents, undisturbed by a single adverse court decision, prove that it is constitutional for the Federal Government to promote education in a variety of ways. It has been promoting education ever since 106 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS 1785. Not a session of Congress closes without the passage of acts designed to promote education. To be sure, these acts are for the most part in harmony with precedents already established, but new precedents are constantly being set. On the other hand, for Congress to attempt to usurp the sovereign right of each state to organize, supervise, and administer education within its own borders and specifically and directly for the state's own citizens would clearly be unconstitutional. It is, indeed, unthinkable. Congress has never at- tempted to do this. It has never been advised or memorialized by educational leaders to attempt it. No one desires this sort of thing to be done ; but there are many who feel that the cooperative relationships already established, already justified by their results, should be extended to include educational needs and activities even more important to the welfare of the Nation than those with which the Government has hitherto concerned itself. If Federal cooperation in education can work the miracles which now stand to its credit, and if it can do this without invading in any respect the rights of the states, it can work other sadly needed miracles with the same efficiency and the same freedom from danger. CHAPTER XII The National Education Association and Federal Aid The annual meeting of the National Education Association in 1873 was held at Elmira, New York. The main topic of interest was Federal aid to education. Dr. McCosh, then president of Princeton, gave a long address on "Upper Schools" in the course of which he clearly revealed the attitude of the older, endowed colleges toward the new land-grant colleges. He said, in part : "What should be done with those ninety millions worth of unappropriated land belonging to the general government? We all know that a proposal was made in the last session of Congress to devote the whole or the half of the sum to be realized by the sale of those lands to what were called agricultural schools. The agricultural schools and schools of science which expected to receive a share of the funds were employed for months in pre- paring and promoting this measure. Members of the Senate and of the House were anxious to be able to go back to their con- stituents with the assurance that they brought down with them to their state half a million of money or $50,000 a year. Friends of education were glad to get the sum allocated to some good educational end, were it only to prevent it from being wasted in 107 . 108 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS political jobbing. But some of us, when we learned that such a measure was quietly passing the House and Senate, courageously set ourselves against the allocation of so large a sum of money to so narrow and so sectional a purpose. We argued that so far as these schools were simply agricultural ones, they were not accomplishing so great a good as to entitle them to so large an endowment. I hold very resolutely that, before so large a sum be lavished on them, there should be a special inquiry into what they are and what they are doing ; into the number of bona fide agricultural pupils, and specially as to the number of those trained who have thought it worth their while to turn to farming. I could show that in no country in the world has agriculture been much benefited by mere agricultural schools. "Why should the excellent college at New Brunswick [Rutger's College] and managed by a few Dutchmen, get $50,000 a year, and Princeton College, with its new school of Science, receive nothing ? We wish nothing in Princeton from the state or general government. I proclaim this publicly. But we are entitled in this country to a fair field and no favor." * After quoting at length from John Stuart Mill, Dr. McCosh finally proposed that the proceeds of the sale of public lands should be made into a permanent fund, and that the interest be used to encourage high schools. In the Southern states, his plan would permit the use of one half of the state's share for common schools. The address of Dr. McCosh was given in the evening and the discussion continued the next day. President Eliot, of Harvard College, carried the argument still further, attacking the whole policy of Federal aid for education. He said : 1 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1873, pp. 32-33. THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 109 "Dr. McCosh proposed that ninety million dollars public money be applied for upper schools in the North and for upper and elementary schools in the South. Ninety millions would be only a drop in the bucket. . . . The one drop is a drop of poison. It demoralizes us and weakens the foundation of our liberty. It interferes with the carrying out of our destiny, — the breeding of a race of independent and self-reliant freemen. I hope no words will go out from this Association which can be held to sanction, in any way or shape, a request for money from the government for education. I know of no more mischievous, insidious enemy to a free republic than this habit of asking help in good works which we ought to attend to ourselves." President Eliot also had a word to say regarding the Congressional situation : "It was to me, I know it must have been to many others, a humiliating spectacle to see, last winter, in the halls of Congress, a half-dozen men, representing a few institutions of education, many of them but half-born, vieing for a share in the public gifts. I was thankful to President McCosh when he ventured to go before Congress and protest against this demoralizing use of public money. I only regret that it was left to a gentleman not American to discharge that public duty." * Mr. G. W. Atherton, one of the "few Dutchmen at New Brunswick," and later president of the Pennsylvania State College of Agriculture, spoke the next evening on "The Relation of the General Government to Educa- tion." After covering the historical ground he presented and elaborated five propositions, as follows : 1. The proceeds of the sales of public lands yet remaining unappropriated should be permanently in- 1 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1873, p. 44. HO THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS vested by the United States Government, as they accrue, and set apart as a perpetual endowment for the support of public education ; the income to be distributed among the states, and administered by them according to their several systems. 2. All grants of land to corporations should cease. "From 1850 to 1873, Congress has given the Pacific roads alone over 150,000,000 acres, — more than all it has ever granted to all educational agencies." 3. A portion of the fund thus set apart for education should be devoted to the further endowment of the national scientific schools, commonly called agricultural colleges. These institutions are the logical and fit completion of the public school system. They are the colleges of and for the people. 4. The Government must hold the states to an account for the right use of its donations. 5. To sum up all in a word, the United States Govern- ment must take a more direct and active interest than it has hitherto done in the promotion of public education. 1 After all this discussion, and much more that was not recorded, the Association "Resolved, That, in the opinion of this Association, the pro- ceeds of the sales of the public lands should be, hereafter, set apart by Congress, under such conditions as it may deem wise, as a perpetual fund for the support of public education in the states and territories." 2 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1873, pp. 7°~73- 2 Ibid., p. 92. THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION III It is interesting in this connection to note that President Eliot at this meeting gave a strong report against a National University, — a project which the Association had indorsed in 1869 and concerning which two bills had been introduced in Congress in 1872, one by Senator Howe, of Wisconsin, on March 25, the other by Senator Sawyer, on May 20. He said : "During the war of the Rebellion, we got accustomed to seeing the government spend vast sums of money and put forth vast efforts, and we asked ourselves, Why should not some of these great resources and powers be applied to works of peace, to creation as well as to destruction ? So we subsidized railroads and steam- ship companies, and agricultural colleges, and now it is proposed to subsidize a university. The fatal objection to this subsidizing process is that it saps the foundations of public liberty. The only adequate securities of public liberty are the national habits, tradi- tions, and character acquired and accumulated in the practice of liberty and self-control." 1 These quotations give us a keen insight into the educational attitude of different groups. One group wished to use the public money for the removal of illit- eracy and the development of the public schools. Another wished to use it for the development and possible endowment of upper schools that would prepare for college. A third group wished to use all of the fund for "the further endowment and maintenance of the Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts." President Eliot and his followers protested against any use of 1 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1873, p. 119. 112 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Federal money for education. These four groups, in Congress and outside, had long and, at times, acrimonious discussions. In 1875, the House Committee on Education and Labor gave the land-grant colleges a ''clean bill of health" so that Dr. McCosh had still further cause for dissent. In 1877, Senator Morrill succeeded Senator Sherman as Chairman of the Finance Committee. Senator Blair of New Hampshire became the Chairman of the Committee on Education. Senator Blair was earnestly and persistently interested in the cause of the common schools and sought to have legislation aiding them passed. All of his efforts failed, but they came sufficiently near to success to keep the idea alive. The National Education Association reiterated its Elmira resolution in 1874 and in 1875. At the latter meeting a committee was appointed to place the res- olution in the hands of each member of Congress. In 1876, the idea was expanded to include "common schools, normal education, and the technical and indus- trial colleges" established under the act of 1862. A committee of one from each state and territory was pro- vided "to prepare a memorial to Congress embodying the views herein expressed, and urging such legislation as shall be substantially in harmony therewith." l In 1877, the same idea is reiterated. In 1879, the Com- 1 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1876, p. 58. They also desired an expanded and better supported Bureau of Education. THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 113 mittee on Publication was "instructed to place a copy in pamphlet form of so much of Dr. John D. Philb rick's paper as refers to the Bureau of Education on the desk of each Senator and Representative." The Association expressed its "gratification at the recommendations in favor of education made by the President of the United States in his several messages." This meeting also declared in favor of the creation of colleges for women in each state, — following what seemed to be the very successful plan upon which the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts had been established. The Asso- ciation specifically indorsed House Bill No. 2059 en- titled, "A bill donating lands to the several states and territories which may provide colleges for the education of females." This bill had been introduced by Roger Q. Mills, of Texas, and a resolution looking to the forma- tion of a similar bill had been introduced in the Senate by John T. Morgan, of Alabama. In 1 88 1, the Association had settled in its own com- posite mind that the fund, already many times men- tioned, should be distributed for the first ten years on the basis of illiteracy and thereafter on the basis of con- gressional representation. 1 It still insisted that Congress should set aside a part of the income for normal schools, and another part for the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts. A committee was directed to present the matter to Congress. It is a great misfortune that 1 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1S81, p. 159. I 114 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS these various committees of the Association did not report. The meeting of 1882 also " resolved" on the subject, — and ordered its resolution sent to members of Congress. The Department of Superintendence had held its meeting in March of 1882 in Washington and a most earnest and able presentation of the need for Federal aid was made by A. D. Mayo, Dexter A. Haw- kins, and J. L. M. Curry, the agent of the Peabody Fund. One sentence deserves a place in every discussion of this subject. Dr. Curry said : "I am only stating a truism when I say that there is not a single instance in all educational history where there has been anything approximating universal education unless that education has been furnished by the government." * In 1884, at Madison, Wisconsin, the Association favored Federal aid to education in the South. In 1885, the resolution became elaborate and declared Federal aid necessary "to the end that every child in the coun- try of school age may receive a good common-school education under the respective systems of the several states." In 1886, A. E. Winship, of Boston, offered a plan for holding an interstate educational convention to be called by the governors of the several states "to consider the various interests involved in the question of Federal aid to education." A whereas in this resolu- tion admits that "the friends of education in Congress 1 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1882. Dept. of Supt., pp. 44-60; especially, for the quotation, p. 56. THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 115 honestly differ in their estimate of the wisdom of making the appropriation provided for by the various bills now before that body." In 1887, Senator Blair appeared before the Depart- ment of Superintendence of the National Education Association and talked freely about the bill he had favored in Congress. This bill appropriated $77,000,000 to be distributed to the states, on the basis of illit- eracy, through a series of years. It began at seven millions, and provided in successive years for ten, fifteen, thirteen, eleven, nine, seven, and five millions. It may be noted in passing that the distribution of the interest on the public land sales had been found to be too small to accomplish any substantial result ; conse- quently all advocates of Federal aid had turned to a lump sum to be so distributed as to accomplish a definite and worthy result. The Blair Bill passed the Senate at three different sessions of Congress, — 1883-5 '■> 1885-7 I 1887-9. It never succeeded in passing the House, although Senator Blair has stated that it had the support of more than two thirds of the members. There was a tangle of some sort, — either personal or political or strategic, — that prevented it from coming to a vote. 1 The N. E. A. repeated its indorsement of the idea in 1887, 1888, and 1889. In 1890, however, it realized 1 See Cubberley and Elliott's Slate and County School Administration, pp. 104-107, for Senator Blair's statement. It is also found in U. S. Bureau of Education Circular of Information, No. 3, 1887. Il6 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS that the Hatch Act and the second Morrill Act con- stituted a first mortgage on the net proceeds of the sale of public lands, and gracefully resolved: "That this Association, recognizing the value of the educational work performed by the land-grant colleges, heartily indorses the movement in Congress for further aid of these institutions." ! The Association remained silent on Federal aid until 1906, when it indorsed the Burkett-Pollard Bill which was designed to provide Federal aid to normal schools to prepare teachers of agriculture and manual training for the public schools. A subsidy similar to that of the Hatch Act was contemplated. It may be remarked, parenthetically, that the vocational education movement finally inherited the Congressional interest which the normal schools had awakened in agriculture and manual training. In 191 1, the Department of Superintendence said in its resolutions: "The question of the extension of the amount and character of Federal aid given to education is assuming great importance and demands the earnest consideration of all interested in education." In 191 2, the Association indorsed "the comprehensive plan now before Congress for increasing the facilities in state colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts, state normal schools, and elementary schools for training in agriculture, domestic economy, and other industrial work for the great mass of our people, through the public schools of our entire country." This meant 1 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1890, Resolutions. THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 117 support for the predecessor of the Smith-Hughes Bill then pending. In 191 6, the Association came out squarely and explicitly for the Smith-Hughes Bill. This brief account of the proceedings of the National Education Association clearly indicates that the men and women in the public-school service have con- sistently advocated Federal aid for education, — always with such provisos as would safeguard the rights of the states to organize, supervise, and administer their own schools. It also shows that a stiff undercurrent of opposition has emanated from educational leaders representing the endowed colleges. This opposition still persists, although it is less in evidence in the councils of the Association than in former years, — largely because the Association itself has become more faithfully representative of the in- terests of public education as contrasted with private and endowed education. Another ideal that has already been mentioned fre- quently recurs in the papers and resolutions of the Association, — the idea of a national university. In 1901, this idea was indorsed. At the same time a report on the subject was presented to the National Council on Education by a committee that had given long and patient study to the subject. President Harper, of the University of Chicago, was chairman of the committee. 1 In 1908, a report was made for the Committee by Pres- 1 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1901, pp. 457-474. Il8 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS 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 191 2, this committee was enlarged and discussed the matter at length. In 191 5, the Department of Superin- tendence 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 equip- ment, and more money. It went further. In 1895, the Department of Superintendence said in its reso- lutions: ''The importance of public education in this country demands its [the Bureau's] recognition as a distinct and coordinate department of the executive branch of government." 3 This has been substantially reaffirmed in 1897, m I 9°°' m I 9°3 J m z 9 o8 > m I 9 IO > and in 191 7, 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 1 N. E. A. Proceedings, 1908, p. 34- 2 ^id., 1915. P- 2 5°- 1 Ibid., 1895, p. 217. THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 119 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 re- spect 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, Ameri- canization, 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 191 8 and 191 9 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 im- portance 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 train- ing 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 WHAT THE WAR REVEALED 121 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 de- layed 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. 122 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS 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 employ- ment 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 ideal? are strange and unappreciated. Conse- quently they have flocked in groups because this was the only way in which they could have communication with human kind. They have not resisted American- ization ; 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 lan- guage, — although there are conspicuous examples of WHAT THE WAR REVEALED 1 23 corporations that have voluntarily assumed this responsi- bility. In a similar way, the states in which these masses of un-Americanized foreigners and non-English-speaking aliens congregated have felt that, in as much as the new- comers might not stay and in as much as many of them were beyond the legal school age, the state as such could do nothing for their Americanization. In fact, we have suddenly become aware that, while we have been setting up rules and regulations in accordance with which aliens might freely enter the country, we have made no effort to have them identify themselves with our national life. The American people as a whole are responsible for the existence of these un- assimilated groups — these " alien islands" — that con- stitute not only a menace to the communities in which they exist, not only to the states to which the immigrants flock in large numbers because of in- dustrial demands, but far more significantly to the Nation as a whole and to the ideals that the Nation represents. The war has also awakened the country to the fact that the institutions of education are without adequate means of support. In every period of war, prices advance and the wages in certain types of occupations advance with them. But the rate at which this re- adjustment takes place is extremely variable — and far from equitable. Long before a new equilibrium has 124 ™ E NATION AND THE SCHOOLS been struck, large groups of individuals suffer. In the war just ended, in the weak, struggling school districts, remote from the centers of wealth, the economic re- adjustments did not affect for a long time the real- estate values which determine the amount of tax- receipts. In spite, then, of the increased cost of all commodities, these districts had no more money with which to support schools than they had in peace times. More than this, our poorest schools are where the best schools ought to be ; that is, they are in the com- munities that have the least in the way of wealth, culture, outlook, and opportunity in life. The child in the remote mountain ravine is a national asset just as truly as is the child on the broad fertile prairies of Illinois or Iowa. The child in the little miserable mining town is just as truly a national asset as is the child born on Fifth Avenue in New York. Our public- school system began with the theory that each commu- nity should support its own school. We have already seen how lamentably, even in colonial times, this theory broke down. After a fashion it answered the needs of pioneer days, but it failed when the pioneer stage had passed, and practically every state in the Union has found it necessary to establish a system of state-wide taxation and distribution. It is now clearly estab- lished that the adequate support of schools should be a charge upon the revenues of the state as a whole. Moneys contributed in proportion to wealth must be WHAT THE WAR REVEALED 1 25 distributed back to the districts of the state in proportion to educational needs. This movement toward equalization has not as yet been carried so far as it should go — so far as it must go, if the needs of the Nation are to be met. Nothing less than a reasonably good teacher and a reasonably good school for every child in America can either satisfy our underlying sense of justice or afford the measure of educational opportunity that is basal to our democracy. It is clear, then, that some stimulus to the states to proceed further in the "equalization of educational opportunities" is most decidedly needed. It cannot be left wholly to the community to say what kind of school it will have. The state has a stake in the schools of every community, and the Nation has an interest in the schools of every state. The war also made us keenly conscious that the level of physical health and stamina among our people was far below what it should have been and what it might have been. Between twenty-five and thirty per cent of all of those within the first draft were found to be physically unfit for military service, and most of the defects were of such a character that they could have been remedied had they been properly attended to in the early years of life. There is, too, a serious reduction of efficiency from forms of illness that are easily avoidable. In Alabama, for example, a recent health survey "re- vealed the fact that an average of approximately one 126 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS fourth of all the people are sick all the time." x This is computed to involve an annual loss in earning power of $250,000,000. There is nothing that will meet the situation except the establishment of large, far-reaching programs of physical and health education. During the past one hundred years medical science has succeeded with meagre cooperation from the public in increasing appreciably the average life-span. This achievement could be vastly extended by a wide dissemination of health knowledge among the masses of the people, — instructing both children in school and adults out of school. This program is not only justified and de- manded on economic grounds ; individual happiness, social welfare, and national advancement are inevitably bound up with it. Then, too, the war revealed the weakness of a policy that makes public-school teaching a casual and tem- porary occupation, — a mere means of earning a living until a girl is ready for matrimony or until a boy has accumulated a little money to start in business or pre- pare for a profession that offers a real "career." At the outset of the war the great majority of the young men in teaching positions went into the service, while thousands of women teachers took the places of other young men in industrial and commercial employment. The schoolrooms were, in many sections, practically 1 See a summary of the Alabama Educational Survey in School Life (the official organ of the U. S. Bureau of Education), July 1, 1919. WHAT THE WAR REVEALED 1 27 deserted. In addition to the patriotic motives which caused heavy inroads upon the teaching population, there was a powerful economic motive. The average annual wage of all teachers in the United States for 191 5-16, the year just preceding our entrance into the World War, was $563.08. The advent of the war did not bring significant advances; with the war in full swing, wages twice as high were easily obtainable in other occupations. The public gradually awoke to the situation — but it was then too late. The younger, less well-trained, and less mature teachers were commonly employed in the school dis- tricts with the lowest economic ability; hence the war affected these the most seriously. Nor did relief come with the advent of peace. Young people had learned that much higher financial rewards could be found elsewhere, and the schools were still more generally deserted. On the positive side, however, the war emphasized, in a fresh and vigorous fashion, the vital importance of the teacher to the Nation's life. Every Governmental agency that aimed to deal directly with the people quickly discovered that the public schools formed a convenient and effective agency both of patriotic pub- licity and of actual patriotic service. In every city, town, and hamlet, and in the district schools of the open country, the teachers soon found themselves literally overwhelmed with national responsibilities. These they 128 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS assumed with earnestness and patriotic devotion. They organized their pupils to sell Liberty bonds; through their efforts very largely the Thrift-stamp and War- savings campaigns met with gratifying success; they formed Junior Red Cross chapters which made millions of bandages and surgical dressings; they directed their pupils in the collection of money and clothing for overseas relief ; they supervised the "War-gardens" ; they were so active in having their pupils gather peach- pits and nutshells for the Chemical Warfare Service that it was necessary to send a special message from Wash- ington stopping the shipments ; at every possible point, in season and out of season, they worked under official Government direction to stimulate and conserve that most important asset of a nation-in-arms, — " civilian morale." This devotion did not pass unnoticed. President Wilson, in September, 191 8, addressed the following message "To School Teachers of the United States": "It is quite unnecessary, I am sure, for me to urge a con- tinuance of the service you and your pupils have rendered to the Nation and to the great cause for which America is at war. Whatever the Nation's call has been, the response of the schools has been immediate and enthusiastic. The Nation and the Gov- ernment agencies know and appreciate your loyalty and are grateful for your unfailing support in every war service." 1 1 Published in National School Service (official Government bulletin, issued during the latter part of the war by the Committee on Public Information, and distributed to all public school teachers), September i, 1918. WHAT THE WAR REVEALED 1 29 The heavy responsibilities for national service thus placed upon an already depleted and overworked teaching personnel, together with the educational inad- equacies and shortcomings revealed by the draft, led the National Education Association early in 191 8 to appoint a Commission 1 to devise ways and means of meeting the emergency. The confusion and congestion caused by the "war work" in the schools received first attention. The Commission had no official status, but the Govern- ment agencies welcomed its cooperation as representing the public-school workers of the Nation. Through its efforts a "clearing house" was established at Wash- ington ; the activities of a score of departments, bureaus, and committees, all attempting to work through the schools, were coordinated, overlappings were eliminated, rival claims reconciled, and the entire range of "war activities" so reorganized that they not only served their immediate purposes much better than before, but also fulfilled an educational function. Once this was accomplished, the Commission devoted its energies to the preparation of a program through which the out- standing defects of public education as revealed by the war might ultimately be remedied. The program which resulted was embodied later in the Smith-Towner 1 Called at first the "N. E. A. Commission on the Emergency in Education and the Program for Readjustment during and after the War"; now generally known as the "Emergency Commission of the N. E. A." 130 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Bill, a measure which will be discussed in detail in the following chapters. 1 If the war revealed elements of weakness in the Nation's life which were due at basis to weaknesses in the educational system, it is none the less true that sources of strength were revealed which could in like manner be traced to the schools. Illiteracy, limited literacy, physical deficiencies, alienism — these are certainly evils which education should have corrected ; but the other side of the ledger is not without its credits. The regime of the public school was not an unimportant factor in making possible the morale essential to the successful conduct of the war ; if the schools had failed to Americanize the adult immigrant, they had at least done passing well with the immigrant's children — even of stock that came originally from enemy coun- tries, the Americanism of the second and third genera- tions, with very few individual exceptions, rang sound and true ; and the studies of the schools, open to criticism though they doubtless are, have given to the great bulk of our population the important elements of common knowledge, common standards, and common aspirations, that enabled them to think together, feel together, and act together when the crucial test came. Another factor on the positive side of the record cer- tainly deserves recognition. The country entered the war relatively "unprepared"; yet the celerity and the 1 See also Appendix C. WHAT THE WAR REVEALED 131 completeness with which the program of preparation was put through served in some measure to mitigate the evils and reduce the perils that unpreparedness clearly involved. At the door of whatever persons, parties, policies, ideals, or traditions our unpreparedness may be laid, the quickness with which the Nation donned its armor must be attributed in large measure to the educational system. It is true that one half of the recruits in the National Army had had not more than six years of schooling ; but, even so, this record left us no worse off than our associates in the war; while, of the other half, the proportion that had reached the advanced work of the high school and the college was far larger than in any other country. Men of the educational attainments necessary in the commissioned personnel were at hand in such numbers that a careful selection could be made. The supply of potential leadership was abundant. It was at this point that the American high school especially justified its existence. It is well to remember the illiterates, the limited literates, the physical defec- tives, and the un- Americanized immigrants ; we should keep them in mind at least until educational conditions have been improved to the point where the handicaps that they represent shall have disappeared ; but it would be most unfortunate to be blind to the real achievements of our educational system, and among these the record of the high schools is the one in which we may glory 132 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS the most. The American high school is our single in- digenous educational institution. Its growth during the past thirty years had been so remarkable — a ten- fold increase in enrollment during a period in which the general population has increased only twofold — that in 1 913-14 we had in these schools almost as many pupils as were enrolled in schools of similar grade in all other countries combined. We had, in other words, approximated universal secondary education far more closely than had any other nation ; we had carried to a relatively high instructional level a larger proportion of our boys and girls ; and we had in consequence a more extensive basis of trained and informed intelligence among the young men who were called to the colors. Because of their attainments, these young men could adapt themselves quickly to the military situation, — and they were sufficiently numerous to "leaven the lump." In 1914, Bethmann-Hollweg, in setting forth the factors that in his judgment comprised the strength of Germany, concluded with the statement that the German continuation schools 1 had been steadily at work for a decade. In 191 7, an American, in making a similar 1 The "continuation" school in pre-war Germany was an institution designed to supplement the education of the masses by providing part- time instruction after boys and girls had left the elementary school and entered productive employment. Like all other phases of mass edu- cation in Germany, it aimed to develop a narrow but efficient proletariat, — a body of skilled workers who would be cheerfully subservient to the will of the ruling classes. WHAT THE WAR REVEALED 133 inventory of the factors determining the strength of his Nation, might well have set in a position of the first rank the fact that the American high school had been steadily at work for three decades. CHAPTER XIV Current Proposals in Congress Such interest in proposed educational legislation as was outlined in Chapter XII and the educational short- comings that were briefly described in Chapter XIII, are naturally paralleled by proposals in Congress. The long-continued interest of the National Education Association in expanding the Bureau of Education has frequently found expression in projected legislation. For several years past, Senator Owen, of Oklahoma, has fathered a measure looking to this end. In the Sixty- sixth Congress, the Owen Educational Bill is known as S 819. It is a very brief bill creating an executive department of government to be known as the Depart- ment of Education. A Secretary of Education is pro- vided for, and the Bureau of Education, now in the Department of the Interior, is transferred to the new department. Beyond this, the bill merely provides : "that it shall be the province and duty of said Department of Education to collect, classify, and disseminate information and advice on all phases of education and through cooperation with State, county, district, and municipal education officers to promote, foster, and develop advancement and improvement in the public school system throughout the United States." 134 CURRENT PROPOSALS IN CONGRESS I35 This bill might, with propriety, have been introduced at any time within the past twenty-five years. This is another way of saying that it does not adequately meet the situation which the war has revealed. Just what it omits will be shown later in the consideration of other bills. The military draft, as we have seen, drew public attention to the high per cent of illiteracy both in the native-born population and in a large section of the immigrant population. In the latter, too, the need of more adequate measures for Americanization was clearly revealed. Under the present organization of the Federal Government, both illiteracy and alienism come properly within the purview of the Department of the Interior. Out of the Department of the Interior, as might be expected, there has come a program for the reduction of illiteracy and for the Americanization of foreigners. This program is embodied in the "Lane Bill," introduced at the instance of Secretary Franklin K. Lane by Senator Hoke Smith, of Georgia (as S 17) and Representative William B. Bankhead, of Alabama, (H. R. 1204). The purpose of the bill, as expressed in its title, is : "To promote the education of native illiterates, of persons unable to understand and use the English language, and of other resident persons of foreign birth ; to provide for cooperation with the States in the education of such persons in the English language, the fundamental principles of government and citizenship, the elements of knowledge pertaining to self-support and home making, I36 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS and in such other work as will assist in preparing such illiterate and foreign-born persons for successful living and intelligent American citizenship." The plan of the bill is as follows : (1) The Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Education, is authorized and directed to cooperate with the several states in the education of illiterates and foreign-born persons, and also in the preparation of teachers for this work. (2) An initial appropriation of $5,000,000 is provided for the first year for the actual instruction of illiterates and immigrants. Annually thereafter, until June 30, 1926, the appropriation is to be $12,500,000. (3) For the preparation of teachers, the first appro- priation is $250,000; annually thereafter, the appro- priation is $750,000. (4) A state must accept the provisions of the act, appoint an official as custodian of the funds, authorize its chief school officer to cooperate with the United States in the work in question, and appropriate for the same purposes an amount equal to its Federal allotment. Both the Federal allotment and the duplicate fund appropriated by the state are to be expended only for instruction, supervision, and administration. The Federal allotment is further subject to the proviso : "That no state shall be entitled to participate in the benefits of this act until it shall, by appropriate legislation, require the instruction for not less than two hundred hours per annum of CURRENT PROPOSALS IN CONGRESS 1 37 all illiterate minors or minors unable to speak, read, or write the English language, more than sixteen years of age, at schools or places or by other methods of elementary instruction, until such min ors have completed a course in English generally equivalent to that supplied by third-grade schools." The plan is to put all illiterates and non-English speaking persons between sixteen and twenty-one into school for at least two hundred hours a year. This program could be worked out in various ways, — five hours a week for forty weeks, ten hours a week for twenty weeks, twenty hours a week for ten weeks. (5) The allotments to the states are to be made annually on the basis of the total illiterate population resident in the states and of persons ten years of age and over who are unable to speak the English language, — in the ratio which these totals bear to similar totals for the entire country. 1 It should be noted that the allotment is on one age basis (ten years and over) while the instruction to be provided is on another age basis (sixteen years and over). (6) Each state must submit to the Secretary of the Interior for approval its : "plans showing the manner in which it is proposed that the ap- propriation shall be used, including the kind of instruction and equipment to be provided, courses of study, methods of instruc- tion, qualifications of teachers, supervisors, and directors, and the kind of schools in which and the conditions under which the training of teachers, supervisors, and directors is to be given." 1 Excluding the District of Columbia. 138 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS If the Secretary of the Interior approves these detailed plans and is convinced that a state is using or is pre- pared to use the allotments, he shall certify to the Secre- tary of the Interior the amounts of money to which the state is entitled. The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to withhold allotments when previous allot- ments have not been expended or when "other terms and conditions of this act have not been complied with." (7) Each state must guarantee against loss or sub- version of the funds. (8) The Department of the Interior is given an initial appropriation of $250,000 and $1,000,000 annually thereafter, "for the purpose of administering, carrying out, and enforcing the provisions of this act," and for making investigations, studies, and reports. (9) No part of a Federal allotment is to be spent "for the support of any religious or privately owned and conducted school or institution." (10) An annual report to Congress is required of the Secretary of the Interior, including a "statement as to what has been done by the several States thereunder." (11) The Secretary of the Interior is: "authorized to perform any and all acts and make all rules and regulations which he shall deem necessary and proper to carry this act into full force and effect." The purpose of this bill is laudable. It starts with the existing native illiterate and un-Americanized groups and proposes a type of education that is designed CURRENT PROPOSALS IN CONGRESS 1 39 to make of these people as good citizens as possible under the conditions. It places a great deal of power in the hands of the Secretary of the Interior, — power that might well be seriously questioned in view of the fact that the Secretary of the Interior already has many very widely different duties to perform. If it be replied that the Commissioner of Education is to exercise this power under the general direction of the Secretary of the Interior, the answer is that the qualifications of neither are changed by this interrelationship and possible divi- sion of power. Clearly, it is not wise to place the powers granted in this bill in the hands of any one but the best- qualified educational administrator in the land. It is equally clear that the services of such a man cannot be secured either in the office of the Commissioner of Educa- tion or in the office of the Secretary of the Interior, for the best-qualified educational administrator could not accept the salary or the subordinate position of the Com- missioner nor would he be willing to undertake the other duties of the Secretary of the Interior. The bill is faulty in four ways respecting the work it undertakes to do. In the first place, the bill does not provide for the group between ten and sixteen years of age, — a period in which children can learn a language and acquire basic civic standards far more readily than after the age of sixteen. To say that a native- or foreign-born person between ten and sixteen years of age is to be put 14O THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS into the beginning class with six-year-old children in the public schools is to admit that one does not under- stand the practical working of our public-school system. In the second place, the bill does not seem to recognize that there are two distinct problems involved in its general terms, viz., the problem of teaching those who already understand spoken English, — the purely techni- cal problem of associating familiar ideas and familiar spoken words with written and printed forms, — and the problem of teaching those to whom English is as Greek, — a problem of associating ideas with strange spoken words and stranger written and printed forms. In the third place, there is no valid reason for limiting the social value of the work contemplated in the bill to those who have not passed the age of twenty-one. Compulsion might not be advisable beyond this age, but opportunity is advisable and desirable. It is a mistake to limit the bounty of the Government to those who have not passed the age of twenty-one. In the fourth place, the bill does not go to the heart of the illiteracy problem, — namely, the underlying deficiencies in the rural schools. To reduce adult illiteracy will bring no permanent relief. The signifi- cance of the rural and village schools to this problem is fully discussed in Chapter XVIII. The crowning objection to the bill, however, is that it does not meet the whole educational need of the coun- try as revealed by the war. It makes no provision for CURRENT PROPOSALS IN CONGRESS 141 physical and health education, for the preparation of teachers for the public schools, nor for the equalization of educational opportunities within the states. It substantially denies the validity of these claims. There is no statesmanship in so narrow a proposal. The provisions of the bill "in and of themselves" are not objectionable, but they represent a delusive surface- measure which, taken alone, will be both uneconomical and disappointing. The defects that it seeks to remedy cannot be considered "in and of themselves," but only as parts of a larger whole. That larger whole is nothing less than the ideal of democracy as embodied in a per- fected free public-school system. When that ideal is realized, there will no native-born illiterates growing up in successive generations, and there will be no non- Americanized foreign-born, because compulsory attend- ance will put all children into school and because the school itself will prepare the foreigner who comes to our shores for citizenship. It seems far wiser to provide for the extension of the public-school system to meet the needs of our day and generation than to create for five or six years a faulty machinery to do very largely under Federal direction a work that the public-school system can and will do if it is given the encouragement and the aid that it ought to have. The one comprehensive educational bill now before Congress is the Smith-Towner Bill. 1 This bill was 1 H. R. 7; S. 1017, 66th Congress. 142 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS prepared in outline form by the Emergency Commission of the National Education Association during the spring and summer of 191 8. It was introduced into the Sixty- fifth Congress by Senator Hoke Smith in October, 191 8, and by Representative Horace Mann Towner on January 30, 1919. During the interval between March, 1919, and May, 191 9, the bill was revised with the active cooperation of the Educational Committee of the American Federation of Labor, and reintroduced in the Sixty-sixth Congress in May, 191 9. The bill is comprehensive because it provides a pro- gram to correct not only the superficial weaknesses which the war revealed in our American public educational sys- tem, but also the underlying deficiencies which stand to these weaknesses as cause to effect. It creates a Depart- ment of Education that has a real function to fulfill, — and a function that can be fulfilled, as the terms of the bill clearly provide, without infringing upon the rights of the states. It includes an appropriation for the removal of illiteracy among the native-born, and another appropriation for the Americanization of the foreign-born. It provides, by appropriation, for a pro- gram of equalizing educational opportunities within every state, and thus aims squarely and effectively at the fundamental defects of rural education. It makes possible a comprehensive and nation-wide program of physical and health education. And, fundamental to the success of all these measures, it places the CURRENT PROPOSALS IN CONGRESS 143 preparation of teachers upon a solid and substantial basis. 1 In the chapters that immediately follow, these provi- sions and the facts associated with them will be con- sidered in detail. 1 The Smith-Towner Bill is found in full in Appendix C. CHAPTER XV The Reduction or Illiteracy among the Native-born We have already seen that the problem of illiteracy was widely discussed during the two decades follow- ing the Civil War, and that several proposals were introduced in Congress looking toward the solution of the problem through national aid. Although these proposals failed, the churches and private philanthropic enterprises worked unremittingly to remedy the situa- tion. Largely as a result of these efforts, — and partic- ularly those of the Southern Education Board, — the southern states have developed free public-school sys- tems which have been important agencies in reducing il- literacy. At the same time, the population has increased rapidly in the South, the increase has come in large meas- ure from desirable sources, and these factors have co- operated with educational efforts to improve conditions. In the North and West, on the other hand, the large influx of immigrants from Southeastern Europe has tended to increase illiteracy, and the failure of most of the states to raise significantly the standards of rural education has prevented the reduction of illiteracy 144 REDUCTION OF ILLITERACY AMONG NATIVE-BORN 1 45 among the native-born in a measure that might have been expected. The situation, then, is still far from comforting. Illiteracy may be considered in totals as well in per- centages of totals. The Abstract of the Census (1910, p. 239) gives a table from which some instructive com- parisons can be made. In 1880, there were 6,239,958 illiterates in the country as a whole. In 1910, there were 5,516,163 illiterates. In thirty years the decrease had amounted to 723,795, or an average annual decrease of 24,126. If this rate of decrease is continued, illiteracy will disappear at the end of 228 years. This seems a hopeless prospect. If we consider whites alone, we get less comfort. In 1880, there were 3,019,080 white illiterates in the United States. In 1910, the white illiterates numbered 3,184,633, — an increase of 165,553. The average an- nual increase was 5518. The explanation of this startling increase is found in the fact that the number of foreign- born white illiterates increased from 763,620 in 1880 to 1,650,361 in 1910, — an average yearly increase of 29,558. This vast group will be considered in Chapter XVI. In the same thirty-year span, 1880-1910, the native- white illiterates decreased from 2,255,460 to 1,534,272 — a decrease of 721,188, or an average annual decrease of 24,039. At this rate, illiteracy among the native whites would disappear after the lapse of sixty-three years. 146 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS The census figures do not permit a thirty-year comparison regarding the negroes or the subdivisions of the native-white illiterates. The figures are available, however, in the table quoted, for a twenty-year span. Illiteracy among native whites of native parentage decreased from 1,890,723 in 1890 to 1,378,884 in 1910, — a decrease of 511,239 in twenty years, or an average annual decrease of 25,562. This annual decrease would need to be repeated fifty-three times to bring this type of illiteracy to an end. The native whites of foreign or mixed parentage decreased from 174,280 in 1890 to 155,388 in 1910, — an actual decrease of 18,892 per year. If this rate were maintained, illiterates of this group would disappear in about eight or nine years. Whenever illiteracy among the native-born is men- tioned, one thinks at once of the negro. In the twenty years from 1890 to 1910, the negro illiterates decreased from 3,042,668 to 2,227,731, — an average annual de- crease of 40,726. If this average annual decrease could be maintained, illiteracy among the negroes would dis- appear fifty-four or fifty-five years after 1910, — or just about one year after illiteracy disappeared among the native whites of native parentage. It is well known, however, that illiteracy does not dis- appear according to such regular decreases as have been assumed for the purposes of comparative illustration. It disappears only as the older illiterates are taught and REDUCTION OF ILLITERACY AMONG NATIVE-BORN 147 as those who are under the age of ten are so taught that they do not become classified as illiterates. The com- plete elimination of illiteracy among the native-born whites and among the negroes is primarily a problem of education during the years of childhood, — not a prob- lem of adult training. The prospects of a substantial reduction through this agency are at the present time very far from encouraging unless the problem of rural education can be attacked on a nation-wide basis. Technically, an illiterate is a person ten years of age or over who cannot write in any language ; the standard assumed is that those who cannot write cannot read. On the educational side, therefore, the problem of removing illiteracy among native-born adults is a problem of organizing means and methods by which those who are ten years of age or over may be taught to read and write the English language. The fundamental purpose of such instruction is to make it possible for these people to participate in the broader social life through the ideas which they may acquire from the printed page and which they may express by means of writing. It is evident that most of these illiterates are over- age, or "retarded," when judged by public-school standards. In justice to them and to the children of normal age-grade in our public schools, an organization distinct but not separate from our present public-school organization should be created. The schools for illit- erates should be a part of the public-school system, 148 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS but they should have their own distinct organization, which, in turn, should be determined by the particular kind of work that is to be done with illiterates. The elimination of illiteracy among the native-born, then, is primarily a public-school problem. All children should go to school long past the age of ten years. Every state in the Union has found it necessary to enact com- pulsory school laws to secure the minimum results expected from education. The right of parents to educate their own children cannot be construed to include the right to leave them entirely unschooled. The state, representing the organized collective interests of the people as a whole, has established its right to compel parents to send children to school to the end that its own future welfare may be safeguarded. If in one state 71.7 per cent of the children from ten to fourteen years of age are in school, while in another state 95.5 per cent of the children of these ages are in school, there will inevitably be a vast social difference between these two states in the years that lie ahead. If the ages from five to nine be considered, and the first state has only 40.2 per cent of these children in school while, between the same ages, the second state has 73.9 per cent in school, the next census will show a much higher per cent of illiteracy in the first state. 1 It is futile to contend that the evil effects of this condition 1 See table 20, p. 238, Abstract of the Census, 1910, for material for data for numberless comparisons of this sort. REDUCTION OF ILLITERACY AMONG NATIVE-BORN 1 49 will be limited to the state itself. Illiteracy anywhere within the national boundaries is a menace to the whole nation. The obvious conclusion is that an effective and thoroughgoing type of elementary education must be made universal if illiteracy is to be stamped out. In age groups, the native illiterates are distributed as follows : * 1910 Negro Per Cent Native White Per Cent 10 to 14 years of age . . . 2i8,555 18.9 131,991 1-7 15 to 19 years of age . . . 214,860 20.3 140,323 1.9 20 to 24 years of age . . . 245,860 23-9 148,541 2-3 25 to 34 years of age . . . 380,742 24.6 247,774 2.4 35 to 44 years of age . . . 351,858 32.3 235,489 30 45 to 64 years of age . . . 584,514 52.7 446,855 5.0 64 and more years of age . 219,255 74-5 179,219 7-3 This table shows that the public school has gradually increased in effectiveness. This is clearly true in the urban communities, and the large increase of the urban population is in part responsible for the improvements that the table reveals. It is clear, too, that the decrease in illiteracy is in part accounted for by death in the older age-groups in which the percentage of illiteracy is high- est. This is only another recognition of the work of the elementary school. If the elementary school could enroll 1 Made from table 27, pp. 241-242, Abstract of the Census, 1910. Note that the time-span is not the same in all cases. It is five years, then ten, and finally twenty years. The percentage columns show the proportion which each illiterate age-group bears to the total of that age-group. To obtain the percentage of literacy, one should take the complement of the percentages shown. 150 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS all children between the ages of six and ten, and teach them with a reasonable degree of efficiency, the next census should show no illiterates in the age-group ten to fourteen years. Another decade should show none in the age- groups fifteen to nineteen and twenty to twenty-four. In this way illiteracy would be prevented, — not removed, for under this plan death alone will entirely eliminate illiteracy. The fundamental cause of illiteracy as it exists to-day in the native-born population is therefore to be sought and found in the inadequate available school facilities and in the lack of an effective policy of compulsory school attendance. There is very little illiteracy that is due to the individual illiterate. The fault lay, then, with whom? To a very small extent, with the parents who would not send their children to school, but chiefly with communities that did not organize good schools, with states that did not safeguard their own welfare by requiring good schools to be established, and with both states and communities that did not compel school attendance. The full significance of this neglect did not appear until illiteracy revealed itself in its true light as a National handicap. The Nation called the men between twenty-one and thirty-one to her defense in 191 7, and found that 700,000 of them were illiterate. These men, no matter how great their desire to serve their country, were, as a group, liabilities instead of assets. Their very presence in the training camps REDUCTION OF ILLITERACY AMONG NATIVE-BORN 151 interfered with the preparation of others and appreciably- delayed our effective participation in the war, and when they were sent to France, their inability to read orders, to interpret signals, and to cooperate in a multitude of other ways in which a knowledge of reading and writing is indispensable, caused no end of confusion and delay, to say nothing of personal embarrassment and mortification. NUMBER OF ILLITERATES IN THE UNITED STATES TEN YEARS OF AGE AND OVER, EXCLUDING FOREIGN-BORN WHITES, 3,762,003. Amount of Federal aid for each illiterate under terms of Bill, $1,994. Continental United States : North Atlantic Division North Central Division South Atlantic Division South Central Division Western Division . . Total North Atlantic Division: Maine New Hampshire . . . Vermont Massachusetts . . . Rhode Island .... Connecticut .... New York New Jersey .... Pennsylvania .... North Central Division: Ohio Indiana Illinois Michigan Wisconsin Minnesota Number of Illiterate I Natives 10 Years or Age AND OVER IN 1910 3,762,003 173,560 315,595 1,403,241 1,810,303 59,304 3,762,003 9,917 2,890 4,564 ",747 4,005 4,375 42,086 19,658 74,3i8 57,77o 47,9H 50,199 18,672 11,581 6,053 Per Cent of Total Illiterate Natives in 1910 100.0000 4-6I37 8.3890 37-3003 48.1207 I-5763 100.0000 .2636 .0768 .1213 .3122 .1064 .1162 1.1187 •5225 1-9754 1-5356 1.2736 1-3343 •4963 .3078 .1608 Allotment ov $ 7,500.000.00 Section 8 $7,500,000.00 346,078.64 629,296.43 2,798,062.55 3,609,744.18 118,252.18 $7,50i,433-98 $ i9,774-50 5,762.66 9,100.62 23,423-52 7,985-97 8,723-75 83,919.48 39,198.05 148,190.09 $ lIS,i93-38 95,540.52 100,096.81 37,231-97 23,092.51 12,069.68 152 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS NUMBER OF ILLITERATES IN THE UNITED STATES TEN YEARS OF AGE AND OVER, EXCLUDING FOREIGN-BORN WHITES, 3,762,003 (Cotlt.) North Central Division (Conl. ) Iowa Missouri North Dakota .... South Dakota .... Nebraska Kansas South Atlantic Division: Delaware Maryland District of Columbia . . Virginia West Virginia North Carolina .... South Carolina .... Georgia Florida South Central Division: Kentucky Tennessee Alabama Mississippi Louisiana Texas Arkansas Oklahoma Western Division: Montana Wyoming Colorado New Mexico Arizona Utah Nevada Idaho Washington Oregon California Number of Illiterate Natives 10 Years of Age and OVER IN 1910 12,813 88,304 1,439 1,277 4,760 14,813 9,870 61,241 ",774 230,407 6i,754 288,492 276,487 398,842 74,374 204,697 219,507 350,396 288,137 339,507 215,209 141,423 5i,427 850 400 8,989 30,529 3,898 881 213 744 2,075 1,887 Per Cent of Total Illiterate Natives in 1910 •3405 2.3472 .0382 •0339 .1265 •3937 .2623 1.6278 .3129 6.1245 1.6415 7-6685 7-3494 10.3363 1.9767 5-44II 5-8348 9-3I40 7-659I 9.0246 5-7205 3-7592 1.3670 .0225 .0106 .2389 .8115 .1036 .0234 .0056 .0197 ■0551 •0501 •2349 Allotment of $7,500,000.00 Section 8 25,549-12 176,078.17 2,869.37 2,546.34 9,491-44 29,537-12 19,680.78 122,114.55 23,477-36 459,43i-56 123,137-48 575,253-OS 551,315.08 775,350.94 148,301.75 408,165.81 437,696.96 698,689.62 574,545.18 676,976.96 429,126.75 281,997.46 102,545.44 1,694.90 797.60 17,924.07 60,874.83 7,772.61 i,756.7i 424.72 i,483-54 4,137-55 3,762.68 17,622.97 REDUCTION OF ILLITERACY AMONG NATIVE-BORN 1 53 Where are these illiterates? The preceding table shows the distribution of native-born illiterates by groups of states, and by states, both as to actual numbers and as to the per cent of the whole number of illiterates resident in a given state or group of states. For con- venience, this table also shows the allotment to each state for the removal of illiteracy in accordance with the provisions of section eight of the Smith-Towner Bill. The Smith-Towner Bill does not seek to impose upon the states any special method or device for the removal of illiteracy. To frame effective programs for the solu- tion of this problem is clearly the duty of the states. The proper place and function of the Federal Govern- ment is to stimulate the states to undertake it, and to render financial assistance to each state, first, in propor- tion to its need as shown by its per cent of the total number of illiterates, and, secondly, in proportion to the effort which the state itself is willing to make toward the removal of illiteracy. The Federal allotment is $1,994 annually for each illiterate. An equal ap- propriation by a state would make available al- most $4.00 annually for each illiterate within a given state. It would be unwise to attempt to teach all of the illiterates of any state in a given year. The work of instruction demands specially prepared teachers who are not now available. If, however, one tenth of the illiterates of the youngest age-groups were selected, and approximately forty dollars made available for the 154 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS instruction of each, a most satisfactory beginning could be made. The teachers would be gaining experience with the group that is easiest to teach, and thus be preparing themselves for the more difficult task of teaching the older age-groups. The plan thus far outlined would not of itself be successful. It needs the assured support which the allotments for the equalization of educational oppor- tunities and for the preparation of teachers afford. It will suffice here to state that these allotments in the Smith-Towner Bill are sufficient to assure twenty-four weeks of school each year for every child in America and to assure, also, in a very short time, a well-prepared teacher for every schoolroom in the land. There is another reason for not attempting to prescribe by Federal legislation the methods of procedure by the states. Constitutionally, the right to organize, supervise, and administer education within a state is clearly the function of the state itself. If a state accepts a law with procedure specifically defined in it, it sub- stantially enters into a contract with the Federal Government. It is an open and undetermined question whether such a contract is not itself unconstitutional. In other words, can a state by contract surrender to the Federal Government a function which the Constitution has reserved to the state? Since the purpose of the bill is to have illiteracy removed, it is wise not to involve in the issue provisions that raise constitutional question's REDUCTION OF ILLITERACY AMONG NATIVE-BORN 1 55 The problem of removing illiteracy has been before the country and before Congress for fifty years. Our participation in the World War has set the disadvantage and menace of illiteracy in unprecedented clearness before the Nation. If the problem is ever to be attacked vigorously, now is the time. The table on pages 156-157 shows the number of native- born white illiterates, negro illiterates, and total native- born illiterates for 1900 and 1910. A careful examination of the data will serve to emphasize the necessity for Federal stimulation. 1 In reading the table, one should keep several things clearly in mind or errors of inference will result : (1) The decrease and the percentage of decrease are for a ten-year period. To appreciate what the decrease is, one should constantly think in terms of one tenth of the figures given. (2) The decrease is in considerable measure due to the high rate of mortality in the older groups. If compulsory school attendance were thoroughly effective in every state, illiteracy would practically disappear in from fifty to sixty years. (3) Compulsory attendance in many of the states actually decreased illiteracy during the ten years in question by preventing any considerable additions from the groups that had reached the age of ten. 1 This table has been prepared from table .30, p. 245, Abstract of the Census, 19 10. 156 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS 5S8 £g*S < w M N CO " M + + ■M 4< (H O H HOO N W»O0>N ( OoO 'Jtoion r- O « in »n " * " ">++ cO <0 ^t CO I"* **• cO 1 O 00 <0 *£ « ^oo^ ■ O 00 M o" NOO" M M Tf t}- O cO O ^ « >0 »noo O r- co "3" O^ r»0 O fO« O>0>0 rO"* TtHtfOOWMfOMO in c> lOt^^'OCT'^ m" to r» *o ■**■ inO o O O ^t O co r*-00 O O > OO O^h o»N r**^t" Ttfo^O (OfiON m w moo \00>""«*0»-"WOCO M00 00 'O'tO O mo DO "lO^O O fO O O cOO »C)N N I Tt Q\ r-.oo M N (N^ o O \Q & M* fO ) O O co cO > r-O m o „ 00 O "* ^foooo 0 ■ rO r^O < ) O ** m rj- TftmfO'N oooo Ov w cO ^O '++ *t o m co co cooo co O - roOiO lOCO m mOO O mo o oo oo m w cOO'^W IO00 ^O co *+ ^ m rONr* "tfsO NO O >n C; co N 4 H rf m" *t O "+ OO CO O M (N O-i'CO'OM N V) CON coco O t^. r^O^ co O co m coo" O co co rC r-C tC > o r- r- ooo < ) o co r-oo co < ■22 O 't 't -*tO *oo V NfOr^ ^t O OoO O rn 0010 tr »«io O>00 cU o NOO -t wr^oto OC>« to« o>n« + + N *D mi/5t^ to^^w'ttt 1 + Q VlOl Tf O MON O^fO O HOOMOOCOWOO Tt <- n M ^ 0"0 o«o O^n «h Ttw» f^csoo c^ <*i 0 VO N « M N M M « tO NfO-NO <0 N to t^sO O "OO fOCO m CO r*-0 1 to 'tO t- ih to w 1000 00 'tcO'-tOCO w O s2 NOCC o -^t-o O CO CO TtCO *~-0 NIOfO-NO Ifl^MVOCO t M M M 2 ^00 ■<* O^ H 00^ * O CO N H P0 m" O *o O Ct^-OO 't w O* t*» + ++ \n m O f^> ^ 0> ts >00 WOM tOCO* OOO *tO N t**0 CO Ow> & & *-> &wO \£> « 5 £3 ^ to D. rt rt — „*• - .- o SotnEinuido *lili|lpi*ss|||-|ll 158 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS (4) The shifting of population also accounts for some decreases and some increases. Oklahoma's increase in negro illiterates probably meant small decreases for Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The increase of white illiterates in the Dakotas was due to the influx of population to take up the land. In this population, there were some illiterates. The num- bers are small, but they illustrate the movement very clearly. (5) How many illiterates a state has acquired by immigration and how many it has lost by emigration cannot be clearly determined. It is safe to say, how- ever, that the older states have lost illiterates by emi- gration while the newer states have gained by immi- gration. Since free movement from one state to another is one of the Constitutional provisions, a National problem is here involved which is usually overlooked. Industrial opportunities in one state may invite the immigration of illiterates from other states, and the first state may be absolutely powerless to protect itself from them no matter how undesirable they may be. (6) The whole array of facts shows that very little was done by the states for the reduction of adult illit- eracy in the decade under consideration. For the most part, the decrease was due to the prevention of additions from the children. If anything is to be done to remove existing illiteracy, the states must be effec- tively stimulated to do it. Merely to contend that it is REDUCTION OF ILLITERACY AMONG NATIVE-BORN 1 59 the duty of the states to remove illiteracy will not bring it about. A substantial inducement, equal to the Nation's interest in the matter, is defensible from every point of view. It is impossible to close this discussion of illiteracy without a glance at illiteracy among the foreign-born. With them, illiteracy also means, in most cases, lack of ability to understand spoken English. There are many foreign-born persons who are classed as literates because, although they do not understand spoken Eng- lish or printed English, they can read and write in their mother tongue. We have already massed the facts regarding illiteracy among the native-born. With this increase or decrease as a starting point, we may set up the facts for the foreign-born illiterates for each state, noting whether there has been an increase or decrease. From this is derived the total increase or decrease for each state. Then from total increases or decreases in the decade we get a final column that shows what the several states have done toward solving the problem of illiteracy dur- ing the decade. This table has been prepared from data found on page 245, Abstract of the Census, 1919. i6o THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS +r. m ^f O co w ^to "* Ttoo^sb q;oo_ o\ ^ ^ ^^ 9.^ °i **; ^ 9* COfOr^cT^ ^ ^f U) N rf o" r^O* t? O* *t O lOsO CO O M N r^Oi^-OfO MOON w WM HI M*fr m m co "* + 111 + I I + + + + + + I + I I I I l + l + I HMOO M m t ro ' ■^-O O m T m O « O »ncO O T IOO r* O O O C^ Cf ^- *n m cOGO »000 >0 O "IN t" t" • i , *t ^"i M - 9, 't °. ^ **<2o$ ^nc^c>m to cTodod nwvO 0*0 vO n "t r-00 • OoOO h ho ro roo"o a* w O\c0 « 0*0 t rO moO t- T io in q> Tt r- q; m O I s * O ro w cO O*. 1OC0 r* *0 i t o w r- co * n* w ^ i> cT cQ CO O cO O O cO TOO -tO T CO H m u-) +++++ wO O T O* < inO 0* O* ^1" CO T CO cO t o u o „ « w O o H Id <: O . < Si g - W Id 8« OOm m <->o * H £ j ►3 K _ > «t -t "t iavO . t^ f^\o o 3 rt «« ^ti'S'ti ,„ to -2 ""-a ' • " rt K 5=5 •3 "3 -z "3 « -S • a • g 5 3 , >>'S ~ • ■ • • . • • £ 2 22^?: te: te; 3-° S REDUCTION OF ILLITERACY AMONG NATIVE-BORN l6l +~ m o o O O ^" O t W IO oh CO C0_QO_ N r- O CS W ■*»oo m" fCoo" m" lOCO C7»0 *t c* to N O h\0 O r-O <* co "O>0 N ^fCO to r^CO ■* (j\ o t--o o o I I I I I I I I +1 +++++++ 1 + ■i O t- too ■( O OoO t-. h co i-* Q\ t^co ) o -* too CO r^fO^O Nf)H no ^ « to »o t^co O to n O w O "t "'t 00 * ^^ < ^°° n^-u)0\ rf to co coco" eTo" rfco" 1 cf *£ w r-00 O to m O ro-^-w es ioiocn 10 °^ 0. M - w - c i'°-. ^ " O o"o0 O «fr "" CO coco r" co to ^t coco coco CO o o "±iooncoo M cO rj- cO M CO CO to tOcO Om r-- m io O O O t~- O r- t^. r-. O Th ■<*■ *teo io O toco NO^'OhO f-O O m to « r^o" l-^o" ^f n O CO *5 00 r-^O cO co c H NO^"5 coO C\ co (*» CO i CO cO O COCO O O O CO w < I I +++ I ++ io «*■ rj-O r- r- C> r-~ ON co O O cO O «t (OOO co CO co ^O toco t-O O CO O OO CO *0 °i. °l *£ m H rC t? tC co *«f «* *C O W Q 2 W w 2 O O H < &J U W W LJ W U a ^ > H o -t «*o o w co O co M CO f- » ■toOM ^.tn tJ-m W00 O ) toco r>*o oo r- *** n OO O CHAPTER XVI Americanization The facts that have just been considered relative to the illiterate foreign-born population are only one aspect of the Americanization problem. We know what a native-born illiterate is in our country. If we transplant him imaginatively into a Spanish-speaking country, we can see what little chance he would have to discharge the common duties of citizenship. And yet, in 1910, we had in this country 1,650,361 foreign-born persons over ten years of age who could not write in any language. These people present a triple problem. To teach them to read, write, and speak the English language is one part of it. To give them that elementary body of common knowledge which most children by the age of ten get through school life, schoolbooks, and teachers is another aspect of the problem. To give them the basal ideas and ideals necessary for partici- pation in our social life — with its political responsi- bilities — is the final aspect of the problem. To the group just considered must be added those foreign-born persons "literate" in their own language but unable to speak or read English, whose ideas of American life beyond their own neighborhood are gained from the foreign-language press — with all the possibil- 162 AMERICANIZATION 1 63 ities for the spread of un-American standards that this medium implies. This group is probably larger than the one previously considered. There are many points of view from which the problem can be considered. The industrial world complains that these men cannot understand directions when given orally or displayed on printed placards; consequently, they fail to catch the spirit of the shop or industry, — they get in the way, they are much more likely to be injured, they are much more likely to quit work because of trivial misunderstandings. From a community stand- point, these people are apart from, instead of a part of, its life. In their segregation, they remain impervious to community ideals and community activities. Often, because they do not understand, they grow sensitive and sometimes even resentful. Thus they are peculiarly liable to exploitation at the hands both of unscrupulous employers and of designing individuals who, to accom- plish their own ends and purposes, misrepresent the at- titude and intent of the community or industry, or of the state or Federal Government toward the conditions that affect them most vitally. We became aware of the extent of radical propaganda during the war, — but it has been going on, for one purpose or another, for years ; l and it 1 Its real dangers came, of course, with the shifting of the source of immigration from Northern and Western Europe to Southeastern Europe. In so far as we are informed the first serious recognition of the peril in this immigration came in an article by Henry Rood in The Forum, Sept., 1892, p. no. 1 64 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS will continue as long as we have this mass of ignorant, non-English-speaking people in this country. There is no advantage to be gained from an analysis of the reasons that brought these aliens to our country. It is sufficient to know that they are here under the sanction of the Federal law. They are, until they become natural- ized, denizens of the country, as free as are the native- born citizens to go where they will. In general, they stay near the port of debarkation. Many of them plan to remain in America only a short time, — until they have made some money. Industrial plants have taken these men for the rough, unskilled work because they were cheaper than other labor ; indeed, it was prac- tically impossible, in many cases, to get any other kind of labor. The Nation has put an end to the importation of laborers under contract, — but this well-intentioned legislation is far from proof against circumvention. The ostensible theory underlying the admission of foreigners to this country implies the assumption that they will become incorporated into our social and political life. The actual sanction in recent years has been the need of cheap labor. Our fine phrases anent the "land of opportunity" have lacked the note of sincerity and the newcomers have reacted as human beings might be expected to react to a palpably hollow stimulus. The Federal Government has prescribed the manner and method of acquiring citizenship and has bestowed AMERICANIZATION 1 65 citizenship when applicants have met its requirements. States, also, have made laws on the same subject. But the language difficulty has been so great that relatively- few of the more recently arrived immigrants have become citizens. With a few notable exceptions, the employer has not felt that he should bear the expense of teaching these foreigners the English language and the ideals of American citizenship. He was engaged in a competi- tive industry, — not in the altruistic work of educating foreigners. The Church has been busy with its own problems, and has felt that Americanization was the function of some other institution. The public school is practically the only agency that has done anything at all. It has done much indirectly through its influence upon the immigrant's children. In a direct and system- atic way, it has done most through night schools, espe- cially in the large cities. In the smaller cities, and in the villages and hamlets surrounding mills and mines, com- paratively little has been even attempted except in spo- radic instances. The reason why we have done so little in the aggregate for the education of the immigrant lies in the fact that the states have not required it to be done. Since so large a part of the foreign-born population has been transient, — now here, now there, — and because it would be so expensive to cope with the problem, the states have felt that it was defensible to fall back on generalities. So far as the observance of law and order was concerned, i66 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS the police power of the state was invoked, — even to the creation of a mounted state police. In many- quarters, too, it was felt that it was hopeless to attempt to teach English and citizenship to adult foreigners. The old saw, "It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks," was a frequent excuse for an inexcusable neglect. If the children of the foreign-born were put into the public school, it seemed the best that could be done. At least, we consoled ourselves with some such philosophy. On the other hand, it is true that we did not know how rapidly this foreign-born population was increasing. The census figures for the total foreign-born population for six decades are astounding to any one who sees them for the first time. The following tabulation l shows the total foreign-born in the United States at decennial periods and the increase over the preceding decade. i860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 Foreign-born Population 4,188,058 5.567,229 6,679,943 9,249,56o 10,341,276 13,515,886 Increase in io-year Periods 1,379,171 1,112,714 2,569,617 1,091,716 3,174,610 Not only was there this enormous increase, but the immigration from countries in which public educational facilities were at a low ebb increased from 1900 to 1910 S»e table, p. 190, Abstract of the Census, 1910. AMERICANIZATION 1 67 at an enormous rate. In the decade just quoted, there was a loss of 275,911 from Northwestern Europe and an increase of 3,215,689 from Southern and Eastern Europe, — Russia showing an increase of 1,024,680. This enor- mous influx from countries in which public education does not exist and in which social and political ideals are so dif- ferent from our own has given a new aspect to the prob- lem of dealing with the immigrant. The matter of self- preservation has entered into the problem as well as our duty to those to whom educational opportunity- has been denied. The gentle process of assimilation can not go on under such conditions unless a special effort is made. Machinery is necessary to cope with such problems. Of the 13,515,886 foreign-born, 12,944,529, or 95.7 per cent, were ten years of age or over in 1910. Inability to speak English is only a partial measure of the need for Americanization. One may be able to speak English " in ordinary conversation " and yet not have that degree of literacy which means ability to comprehend the fundamental principles of our government. The need for Americanization work, therefore, is even greater than the inability to speak English in ordinary conver- sation would indicate. The facts regarding inability to speak English are set forth in Volume I of the Thirteenth Census, pp. 1 265-1 283. In the Appendix (p. 353) will be found a summary of these facts for each division and state. It is sufficient 1 68 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS here to remark that, in 1910, nearly three millions, or 22.8 per cent, of the foreign-born whites ten years of age and over were unable to speak English. In 1900, the corresponding figure stood at 1,217,280. The increase of foreign-born whites ten years of age and over unable to speak English was, for the ten years from 1900 to 1910, 1,735,731. It is evident, therefore, that the Americanization problem more than doubled in ten years, — the increase referred to is 142.5 per cent. This increase, so far as absolute numbers is concerned, was largely localized in the great industrial states, and was made up, in large measure, of those who came from Southern and Southeastern Europe. The Smith-Towner Bill assumes that the Ameri- canization of the foreign-born immigrant is a matter of great importance to our country. The actual work must, of course, be done by state agencies. The bill seeks to stimulate the states to undertake this work. Congress has no power to force the states to undertake it, and even if it did have the power, it would still remain true that voluntary cooperation is always better than coercion. The question, then, is not primarily one of the Consti- tutional right of Congress to expend money under the terms of the Smith-Towner Bill. That right is clear. The question is one of expediency. If Congress does not do something, what will happen with regard to Ameri- canization? If Congress enacts the Smith-Towner Bill AMERICANIZATION 1 69 into law, what will happen with regard to Amer- icanization ? It is practically certain that not all, or even a respect- able fraction of the states, will deal adequately with the Americanization problem wholly of their own initiative, and with their own funds. This judgment is based on what the states have already done with regard to this particular problem, the problem of illiteracy, physical and health education, the preparation of teachers, and the equalization of educational opportunities. It is also based on the workings of the Smith-Hughes Act regard- ing vocational education, the Morrill and related acts regarding technical education, the land grants for state universities, and the grant of Lot No. 16. There is not only the inducement which the money grant sets up ; there is also the appeal to pride in a cooperative move- ment of great worth and magnitude. If the Smith- Towner Bill is enacted into law, the states that have large groups of immigrants will work out plans for the Americanization of these people. A social machinery will be created and the problem will be solved within a decade. As in the case of reducing illiteracy, it is not wise for Congress to specify in great detail just how this work of Americanization shall be done. There is no body of accumulated experience that points infallibly to the best procedure. The states, once entered upon the work, will be anxious to find the best ways of doing it, and 170 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS wholesome rivalry will have its good results. The states are more competent to construct and manage the neces- sary machinery for the solution of this problem than is the National Government, because the latter has no public-school system * under its control and has had no significant experience in creating one for a special pur- pose. Nor is it well to ask the states to accept a long list of specific limiting conditions in their acceptance of the act itself. There is nothing but good faith between Congress and the states in this or any other matter not covered by explicit Constitutional provisions, and good faith does not require prescriptive details. It is fair to assume that the states would undertake to do this work in perfect good faith knowing that by carrying it to successful completion, the state would be benefiting itself and at the same time performing a dis- tinct and helpful national service. The following tabulation shows the number of foreign- born residents in each state, the proportion which this number bears to the total foreign-born population, and the apportionment of funds for immigrant education under the terms of the Smith-Towner Bill. Each state would appropriate for this purpose a like amount. Under the plan here proposed, the completion of a ten-year period would give us a practically complete solution of the present problem of Americanization. 1 Excepting those in the District of Columbia, in Alaska, and among the Indians. AMERICANIZATION 171 Americanization of Foreigners Number of Foreign-born Immigrants in United States . . 13,515,886 Amount of Federal Aid per Capita under Terms of Bill . . $0,555 Number of Foreign-born in United States 1910 Per Cent of Total Foreign- Allotment for Americanization, Section Nine Continental United States North Atlantic Division North Central Division South Atlantic Division South Central Division Western Division . . Total North Atlantic Division: Maine New Hampshire . . . Vermont Massachusetts . . . Rhode Island . . . Connecticut .... New York New Jersey .... Pennsylvania . . . North Central Division: Ohio Indiana Illinois Michigan Wisconsin Minnesota .... Iowa Missouri North Dakota . . . South Dakota . . . Nebraska Kansas South Atlantic Division: Delaware Maryland District of Columbia . Virginia West Virginia . . . 13,515,886 6,676,283 4,690,461 299,994 440,017 1,409,131 13,515,886 110,562 96,667 49,921 1.059,245 179,141 329,574 2,748,011 660,788 1,442,374 598,374 159,663 1,205,314 597,550 512,865 543,595 273,765 229,779 156,654 100,790 176,662 i35,45o 17,492 104,944 24,902 27,057 57,2i8 100.0000 49-3958 34.7033 2.2196 3.2556 10.4257 100.0000 .8180 .7152 •3693 7.8370 1-3254 2.4384 20.3317 4.8899 10.6716 4.4271 1.1812 8.9177 4.4210 3-7945 4.0218 2.0255 1.7000 1. 1590 • 7457 1.3070 1. 002 1 .1294 .7764 .1842 .2008 •4233 $7,500,000.00 3,705,337.07 2,603,205.86 166,496.67 244,209.43 782,067.70 $7,501,316.73 61,361.91 53,650.18 27,706.15 587,880.98 99,423.26 182,913.57 1,525,146.11 366,737.34 800,517.57 332,097.57 88,612.97 668,949.27 331,640.25 284,640.07 301,695.23 i5i,939.58 127,527.34 86,942.97 55,938.45 98,047.41 75,174-75 9,708.06 58,243.92 13,820.61 15,016.64 31,755-99 172 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Americanization of Foreigners — Continued South Atlantic Division Continued North Carolina . . South Carolina . . Georgia .... Florida South Central Division: Kentucky .... Tennessee .... Alabama .... Mississippi . . . Louisiana .... Texas Arkansas .... Oklahoma .... Western Division: Montana .... Wyoming .... Colorado .... New Mexico . . . Arizona .... Utah Nevada .... Idaho Washington . . . Oregon California .... Number or Foreign-born in Unitkd States 1910 6,092 6,179 15,477 40,633 40,162 18,607 19,286 9,770 52,766 241,938 17,046 40,442 94,713 29,020 129,587 23,146 48,765 65,822 19,691 42,578 256,241 113,136 586,432 Per Cent of Total Foreign- born •0457 •0457 •"45 .3006 .3971 .1376 .1426 .0722 •3093 1.7900 .1261 .2992 .7007 .2147 •9587 .1712 .3607 •1456 •3150 1.8958 •8370 4-3388 Allotment for Americanization, Section Nine $3,381.06 3,429-35 8,589.73 22,551-31 22,289.91 10,326.88 10,703.73 5,422.35 29,285.13 134,275-59 9,46b.53 22,445.31 52,565-72 16,106.10 71,920.79 12,846.03 27,064.57 36,531.21 10,928.50 23,630.79 142,213.75 62,790.48 325,469.76 CHAPTER XVII Physical and Health Education No lessons of the war have pointed more compellingly to educational weaknesses than have the rejections from the service and the assignments to limited service because of physical disability. The Nation has become clearly aware of the loss of man-power in war due to these factors. It should see as clearly the enormous loss of man-power from the same causes during peace- times, — a loss the more regrettable in that much if not most of it is easily avoidable. From an economic stand- point, the reduction of the wastage due to physical dis- ability is a policy of both wisdom and expediency. But, beyond this economic aspect of the matter, there is the far more important aspect of human happiness and all the social consequences that are intimately bound up with it. The report of the Surgeon General contains the follow- ing data concerning limited service. In reading the table one should keep constantly in mind that there were, in many states, large numbers exempted on account of oc- cupations who were also physically unfit for military life 173 174 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS or fit only for limited service. The proportions may consequently be considered as representing a "cross section" of our male population between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one. Total number of men examined physically Dec. 15, 191 7, to Sept. 11, 1918 3,208,446 Number fully qualified 2,259,027 Number disqualified totally or partially 949>4i9 Per cent disqualified totally or partially 29.59 ' The following table, made from the one given on page 417 of the Second Report of the Provost Marshal General, follows the general arrangement of the tables already presented in this book, so that regional com- parisons may be easily made. The facts of the table probably give a fairly represent- ative idea of the variations from physical fitness among the total population. Some additional facts from recent surveys may serve to reenforce the point. The Alabama Survey, already quoted, has an excellent statement of the negative aspects of health. Malaria in Alabama averages 13,000 cases constantly. 2 If the earning power be estimated at only $250 per person, the annual loss is $3,250,000 from malaria alone. The death rate from typhoid fever in 191 7 was 38.2 per 100,000, — a rate almost three times as high as in those portions of the United States which are in the "regis- 1 Second Report of the Provost Marshal General, 1919, p. 153. 1 U. S. Bureau of Education, 1919 Bulletin, No. 41, p. 302. PHYSICAL AND HEALTH EDUCATION J 75 &H(J » ^tO> NO nO On ""> ** r- On w On tnoo *o i*»vo fo w co m r» t~*-00 O no O r*- * tJ- On *+nO00 <0nO\ i Is O **vO On **■ OnCO O w Tf w iflOO t^ iO cO fO On PO <0 fO M O M n vjiniOTf « p)0 ^N4rs^O HOS «i lo^-r^ OOO M t>0 ■* I 3a y a <0 fON OnnO t^-\o f» t» r^*o no no On t*- pOOO 1^00 rO On < j iono no no r- ^- t^NO r*. r- l «"*nO nO O nO On w m On On O « O r- m ioOnnO ui rOvO nO *t m m ON w vOOniowvO « woO O r^r-O M NO Tf rf WO N N N< --)■ u-jvO i^C'^ rOsO OO ON t}- no t» < 3.^ Us; ?Q~ 3 3 £££■5-5 2x ?2^c m S 3 , >» £ — uffi o 8 « «5>i>45\C c.a.Sf JK|b|tSi«|l|j '22 J_o e« eg ^zu) 176 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS ^ r*0 hnoO ->o O* O v Tf -*00 O* »^> t*~ f^O m O tJ- r^ 1 8NONi*)Oa 0*00 M 00 O O r-*M o* 'tw »o i/lO •«t M O* t-T PO M (N 00 PO 'f 5 - ft irf^NfOO^ 0*0 tv. 0\ ro 0\ ^J- i/> 0»^0 O* ) rO N f; r* « CO O Tf r*-c© "t « 00 t-» r-*. ps m o CO po pOCO 10 1 M-00 00 'tfco fON»0 O 1 -^ PO •**" ^*- PO PO CO w> pOCO m toO On pOCO > o* po N poo r>. -*t r*. b NNN^VJMNIfl m" N to o" O U"> M O t- TtOO M t^. r- M M fONI co - coo O* O>00 nhoo m ! o O pooo > PO CO ^"Tih Tf O O^ O* NlON 0*0 r)- 0*0 m O* f* O I s * O »oO lOO X s * < Q\ *t t-t t** cO ■** r*« »~ POCO pOO r* *t^O rO H r- O O 55 »00 M - O O r- f- r*» r-O t- r- NOM^O^-'tOOO O pO O* f> O O • t^. t-» t-00 NMONiO f-O r*» too O O* t~^ O^-sO NiflH NO> OS f<50 Tf *fr M O* PN lO *? 't . '"1. °» ™ °.. ^^ 'to" o^ o" 6 >oco"* H t? O *o _ O Tf > 1000 m w ' po po 0* m o" «t 1 »o Tt \n o -t*n 10 (NO O- rh »/■> ( POO NON , tO>< fONOO N POOO f*. m O O 0> pO t— r- q\ o* O*o0 i- N Tt IO N vO CO --o *oo po u*)0 5! rt ■a • £ -111 • -2 ....... • "I . • .8 a • . e u-o o gas s^jj^gcj „, !«;s M -a 3 d 3-S IS SJ o 1 3 S^ = l-SJ'3 p^ 5 § ^ s.i-S g-S s 99 to co B PHYSICAL AND HEALTH EDUCATION 177 tration area." 1 One child out of every four of school age (6 to 20) is suffering from hookworm in some degree. Of the members of the Alabama National Guard that served on the Mexican border, sixty per cent were affected with hookworm. The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, from 1910 to 1915, found 23,403 individ- uals infested with hookworm out of a total of 53,643 persons examined. 2 The Survey Commission had one hundred white school children and fifty colored children examined in each county of Alabama, — with the following results : Pee Cent Affected with White Colored 4. Hookworm "Suspects" . . . 5. Enlarged glands SO 48 29 26 21 56 40 22 24 32 The situation is probably no worse and no better in Alabama than in other states except those in which health instruction has been carried on for some time and in which health inspection is general in the schools. There are defects that come naturally and are easily remedied, such as decaying teeth and wax in the ears. 1 The registration area includes 44 per cent of the total area and 70.2 per cent of the total population, — including all states that are hav- ing 90 per cent or more of all deaths systematically reported in accord- ance with state laws. 2 Ibid., p. 303. N 178 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Defects of vision and hearing, too, are not difficult to identify and usually may be alleviated, if not entirely remedied, by careful treatment. There is needed, however, a nation-wide health cam- paign which will carry the knowledge of health conditions to everybody, — in school and out of school. With the results of such a campaign as a basis, the work can be carried on through the schools and reach practically everybody. In a certain Pennsylvania county, the Red Cross organization is spending a portion of the funds remaining from its war expenditures in employing health teachers who instruct the wives of the foreigners in the simplest elements of the care of the health. The employ- ing companies, the county, and the state have not as yet undertaken this greatly needed work, and there is no better way in which the balances in the hands of Red Cross officials can be spent. But the instance is sporadic and local while the need is universal. The health knowledge to which reference has been made is most valuable, but physical fitness means much more than the mere absence of disease. Health is the bodily condition which results when each organ of the body separately, and all organs of the body co- operatively, fulfill their functions normally and prop- erly. The only dependable factor in securing this desirable result is systematic physical exercise. In this way only can bodily vigor and endurance as well as muscular strength and skill be assured. When this PHYSICAL AND HEALTH EDUCATION 1 79 physical exercise is embodied in games, a host of social and moral benefits follow in its train. These exercises and games are not merely diversion or amusement or recreation ; — they are the means by which the body comes into its own and by which bodily tone becomes transmuted into mental tone. When one contemplates the beneficent results that would come to all from comprehensive programs of physical and health education in every community of the country, — the increased economic efficiency, the reduction of pain and suffering, the positive happiness and enjoyment, and the fine feeling of fitness and poise that would replace the present lassitude and lack of self- control, — one cannot reasonably oppose a movement that promises to secure these ends. No beneficent potentate or fairy will do these things for us. We must do them for ourselves. We must unify present scattered efforts, generalize them, organize and extend them to include every public school and every local community. The collective, cooperative action which we put forth in the recent war is the only type of action adequate to such an undertaking. The Smith-Towner Bill provides for such a collective, cooperative effort. The bill proposes that twenty million dollars annually shall be distributed from the Federal Treasury to the states on the basis of population, and that each state shall raise an amount equal to its allotment to be spent — I So THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS "For physical education and instruction in the principles of health and sanitation, and for providing school nurses, school den- tal clinics, and otherwise promoting physical and mental welfare." The states are wisely left free to make their own programs for realizing these purposes. Rhode Island is almost entirely urban, — Texas is almost entirely rural. The same plan of organization for physical and health education would not succeed equally well in both states. Each state, however, under the stimulus of na- tional interest and national aid would sincerely and faith- fully go to work in an effective way, seeking the best for its own people and thus securing the best for the Nation. There are several states and many cities that are now doing excellent work in physical and health education. The provisions of the Smith-Towner Bill would not interfere with these present efforts. On the contrary, the added support that it proposes would make them more effective. The adoption of this measure would ex- tend these forms of education to all states and to every community. At the present time the United States Government is doing much to promote health in several of the states. It is finding out facts and giving them publicity; it is advising and urging communities and states to put effective programs of physical and health ed- ucation into operation. It does not have the prestige or influence which it would have if it were actually co- operating in a financial way with the several states and working with them for the advancement and interest PHYSICAL AND HEALTH EDUCATION 181 and welfare of the individual, the family, the community, the state, and the nation, as these units are inextricably bound up with physical development and the mainte- nance of health. Promotion of Physical and Health Education and Recreation Population of United States in iqio 91,972,266 Allotment under terms of the Smith-Towner Bill per capita $.2175 Continental United States . North Atlantic Division North Central Division . South Atlantic Division South Central Division . Western Division . . . Total North Atlantic Division: Maine New Hampshire . . . Vermont Massachusetts . . . . Rhode Island . . . . Connecticut . . . . New York New Jersey Pennsylvania . . . . North Central Division: Ohio Indiana Illinois Michigan Wisconsin Minnesota ...... Iowa Missouri North Dakota ... South Dakota . . . Nebraska .... Kansas Population of the United States for 1910 91,972,266 25,868,573 29,888,542 12,194,895 17,194,435 6,825,821 91,972,266 742,371 430,572 355,956 3,366,416 542,610 i,H4,756 9,113,614 2,537,167 7,665,111 4,767,121 2,700,876 5,638,591 2,810,173 2,333,860 2,075,708 2,224,771 3,293,335 577,056 583,888 1,192,214 1,690,949 Amount of Federal Aid under Terms of Act $20,000,000.00 5,626,414.63 6,500,757.88 2,652,389.66 3,739,789-6l 1,484,616.06 20,003,967.84 161,465.69 93,649.41 77,420.43 732,195.48 118,017.68 242,459.43 1,982,211.05 551,833.82 1,667,161.64 1,036,848.82 587,440.53 1,226,393.54 611,212.63 507,614.55 451,466.49 483,887.69 716,300.36 125,509.68 126,995.64 259,306.54 367,781.41 182 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Promotion of Physical and Health Education and Recreation — Continued Population of the Amount of Federal United States Aid under Terms of for 1910 Act 202,322 44,005.04 1,295,346 281,737-75 331,069 72,007.51 2,061,612 448,400.61 1,221,119 265,593-38 2,206,287 479,867.42 1,515,400 329,599-50 2,609,121 567,483.82 752,619 163,694.63 2,289,905 498,054.34 2,184,789 475,191.61 2,138,093 465,035.23 l,797,"4 390,872.30 1,656,388 360,264.39 3,896,542 847,497-88 1,574,449 342,442.65 i,657,iSS 360,431.21 376,053 81,791.52 145,965 31,747-39 799,024 i73,787-72 327,301 71,187.97 204,354 44,446.99 373,351 81,203.84 81,875 17,807.81 325,594 70,816.69 1,141,990 248,382.83 672,765 146,326.39 2,377,549 517,116.91 South Atlantic Division. Delaware . . . Maryland . . . District of Columbia Virginia .... West Virginia . . North Carolina South Carolina Georgia .... Florida .... South Central Division: Kentucky . . . Tennessee . . . Alabama .... Mississippi . . . Louisiana . . . Texas Arkansas . . . Oklahoma . . . Western Division: Montana . . . Wyoming . . . Colorado .... New Mexico . . Arizona .... Utah Nevada .... Idaho Washington . . . Oregon .... California ... The preceding table shows the allotments to the several states, on the basis of population, of twenty- million dollars annually. The census of 1920 will show changes in population, but probably not many radical PHYSICAL AND HEALTH EDUCATION 1 83 changes in percentages of population. Each allotment is to be matched by the state; hence there will be forty million dollars available for this work. With this sum, so much more can be done than has ever been done before in this field that the physical strength of the Nation could easily be doubled or even trebled within a decade. If the program is left to local initiative or to unaided and unstimulated state action, equivalent results would necessarily be delayed, perhaps for a century. CHAPTER XVIII The Weakest Links a. the rural and village schools Illiteracy, alienism, and physical and health defi- ciencies have all revealed themselves as national handi- caps, due in large part to the failure of state and local education to meet adequately the Nation's needs. If, however, the Nation is at all concerned with finding remedies for these defects, it must go behind superficial conditions and seek fundamental causes. Measures that fail to reach the roots of these evils cannot solve the Nation's problem. There are two outstanding sources of weakness in American education upon the correction of which the full effectiveness of every more limited program for reform inevitably depends. Although closely related to one another these two sources of weakness must be considered separately, for to remedy them will require two distinct, though still related, programs. The two "weakest links" in the chain of American education are (i) the almost total inadequacy of the rural- school system in every state of the Union, and (2) the low status of teaching as a profession and the reflection 184 THE WEAKEST LINKS 185 of this low status in the inadequacy of the existing agencies for the preparation of teachers. THE IMPORTANCE AND DIFFICULTIES OF RURAL EDUCATION The rural-school situation presents, from the point of view of national welfare, probably the most important and certainly the most difficult of all educational prob- lems. The importance of the problem is indicated by the fact that sixty per cent of the next generation of American voters are enrolled in the schools classed as rural by the standards of the Federal Bureau of Educa- tion. 1 Of this substantial majority of prospective American voters enrolled in the rural schools, it is clearly predict- able that five sixths, — or at least fifty per cent of all the children of the Nation, — will be limited in their educational opportunities to what these schools are able to provide. No democracy can intelligently disavow its concern in an agency that determines the plane upon which a clear majority of its future citizens are to think 1 This is the standard, also, of the Bureau of the Census. A rural community is one of 2500 inhabitants or fewer. The term rural schools as used in the present discussion includes, then, not only one-room and consolidated schools of the open country, but also the schools of the villages and small towns. The situation depicted in the following pages would show itself as even more serious if the schools of open country alone were considered; but it is bad enough as it stands. Generally speaking, too, the schools of the open country and those of the small centers in agricultural districts constitute a homogeneous problem, and may well be considered as a single group. 1 86 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS ami feel and act in solving their collective problems and transacting their collective business. Humble as the rural school may be as a unit, it is far from humble as a type. In the aggregate of its influence upon the Nation, indeed, it transcends in importance the greatest of our universities. The difficulty of the rural-school problem is partly the product of external forces and factors and partly due to the inherent character of the rural school. Of the external forces and factors that complicate the situation the two most important are the generally low status of public-school teaching as a calling and the "neighbor- hood " tradition of educational responsibility. The former will be discussed in Chapters XVIII and XX; the latter, — the sinister influence of extreme localism in education, — will be an important theme of Chapter XIX. Our present concern, then, is with the inherent diffi- culties of rural-school teaching. Schools in sparsely settled districts will always be handicapped in competing with schools in thickly settled districts. Either the school unit must be small, thus requiring in a group or system of such units a large number of teachers in pro- portion to the pupils enrolled ; or, if the small units are consolidated in central schools, the expense of trans- porting pupils must be met. In both cases, then, the cost of education will be high as compared with the cost of providing the same opportunities in a thickly settled THE WEAKEST LINKS 187 district. If to the bare cost of instruction there be added the "overhead" of equally competent adminis- tration and supervision, the discrepancies in relative per capita cost become even wider. As a result of this inherently greater cost of rural education, only a negligible proportion of school districts in the villages and the open country offer educational facilities equal to those even of the poorest cities. Not only are the sparsely settled districts thus handi- capped, but their situation is rendered even more un- favorable by the fact that their per capita wealth is almost invariably lower than that of the urban districts. Not only, therefore, is the cost of rural education greater, but the resources from which school revenues can be drawn are much more meager. Actual figures revealing the striking differences in the taxable wealth behind each child in typical rural and urban districts will be set forth in Chapter XIX. A third inherent difficulty of rural education lies in the pronounced individualism of the average farmer. His mode of life with its isolation and its emphasis upon independence and self-reliance predisposes him to individualism. He is likely to resent interference from without ; consequently the enforcement of compulsory- attendance laws has been practically ignored in the rural districts. Furthermore, he can use his children in the work of the farm and the household at a profit far beyond that which the city resident can gain by 1 88 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS similar methods. The temptation to keep children out of school is therefore much stronger ; the plea that this practice is justifiable is much more plausible, much harder to prove specious. There are no labor unions to whose self-interest the enforcement of child-labor laws is significant. There are lacking, too, the large and well-appointed school buildings which by their very size and magnificence tend in the cities to impress the people with the importance of education and with the "majesty'' of the law which makes education compulsory. The farmer's individualism also expresses itself in a distaste, not only for paying taxes that would provide reasonably high salaries for teachers, but also for having such salaries paid in any case. Under normal conditions the average farmer's actual cash income is not likely to be large and he does not like to see a young teacher surpass him in earning power. Of course he overlooks the fact that his cash income often measures very fairly his net profits from the gross of which not only his operating expenses but the cost of his own living and the support of his family have been deducted. While this may explain, it does not justify his attitude. The present era of prosperity may, if it persists, alleviate some of the evil effects of this attitude — but there are few signs to-day that the wages of the rural teacher are keeping pace with the increased earnings of the fanner. THE WEAKEST LINKS 1 89 A final inherent handicap under which rural education labors as compared with urban education lies in the relatively greater difficulty of gaining adequate results through teaching. In the graded urban schools, the teacher finds it hard enough to adapt the materials of instruction to thirty or forty children of approximately the same age and the same degree of attainment; in the one-room school these thirty or forty children may represent every age-level from five (or even four) to eighteen or nineteen. The city teacher must cover a wide range of subjects, but the range that the rural teacher must cover is far more extensive. In the city, too, the distinctly backward children are now removed from the regular classrooms and taught in special groups by teachers especially prepared for such work ; in the country school the moron and the gifted child sit side by side, and the failure of the teacher to do for the former what he does for the latter, — what the latter, indeed, often does for himself, — is frequently a source of unjust but no less depressing criticism; even if this be lacking, the presence of the dull pupils is certain to delay the progress of the class as a whole. Not only do the city teachers have a decided advantage on the instructional side of their work ; their problems of discipline are significantly reduced both by this segre- gation of the mentally deficient children and, in added measure, by the machinery of supervision. Practically every city elementary school has its supervising prin- IQO THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS cipal, — either a man or a mature and experienced woman, — one of whose duties it is to aid the classroom teacher in the solution of disciplinary problems. Closely- related to this type of supervision is that which is pro- vided in practically all cities by the staff of special supervisors, — experts in one or another of the school subjects who exercise a more or less thorough oversight of the individual teacher's work. Similar systems of supervision are so rare outside of the cities that the few counties in which supervisory staffs have been created for the rural schools have gained at once a nation-wide reputation. 1 Generally speaking, the rural teacher must struggle with his difficulties in absolute isolation. He lacks not only the help which the super- visor may bring, — he is denied also the inspiration and enthusiasm that come most easily when one has the companionship of fellow-workers. THE RESULTS OF INADEQUATE RURAL SCHOOLS (a) Adult Illiteracy What has been the effect of weak rural schools upon the Nation? This question has been definitely an- swered by the war revelations, although the connection between these acknowledged national weaknesses and the inefficiency of the rural schools has not as yet been 1 These counties most frequently constitute the rural areas adjacent to large cities ; in consequence, they are easily influenced by the ex- ample of the urban schools. Of outstanding reputation in this connec- tion are Baltimore County, Maryland, and Cook County, Illinois. THE WEAKEST LINKS IQI recognized by the public — or, indeed, by a significant proportion of the teaching profession itself. In the first place, adult illiteracy in the native-bom population is primarily and predominantly a rural phe- nomenon and its ultimate elimination is almost exclusively a rural-school problem. The census returns for 1910 show this clearly ; the proportion of native-born illit- erate persons in the rural population is in no division of the country less than twice the proportion in the urban population, and usually the discrepancy is even greater. This is shown by the following comparisons based on a very striking table of the Census Report. 1 Section Per Cent of Illiteracy among Whites Native-born of Native-born Parents Proportion Rural to Urban Urban Rural New England . . Middle Atlantic . 0.5 0.6 1.2 1.9 2.4 times as great in rural 3.1 times as great in rural E. North Central 0.9 2.2 2.4 times as great in rural W. North Central 0.8 2.1 2.6 times as great in rural South Atlantic 2.2 9.8 4.4 times as great in rural E. South Central . 2-4 II. I 4.6 times as great in rural W. South Central. 1-4 6.8 4.8 times as great in rural Mountain . . . 0.9 5-i 5.6 times as great in rural Pacific .... 0.3 0.6 2.0 times as great in rural The situation is even more clearly revealed by a com- parison of the absolute numbers of adult illiterates in rural and urban communities : 1 See Abstract of the Thirteenth Census, p. 249. 192 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Native whites of native parentage . . Native whites of foreign or mixed parent- age ... . Foreign-born whites Negroes Totals Total Number of Illiterate Persons above the Age of Ten Rural 1,247,978 94,394 477,870 1,654,700 3,654,700 Urban 130,906 60,994 1,172,491 393,273 1,757,664 Two thirds of the total adult illiteracy is in the rural communities; but by far the largest proportion of urban illiteracy is in the immigrant population, for the adults of which the public schools are in no sense responsible. The schools must assume responsibility for illiteracy among the native whites, and of the native-white illiterates, 1,342,372 live in rural com- munities as against 191,900 in urban communities. This is in the ratio of seven to one. The total popu- lation of the rural districts as compared with the urban districts is in the ratio of one to nine tenths ; hence, for the native whites, adult illiteracy is six times more prevalent in rural America than in urban America. In every section of the country, then, the per cent of native-born illiterates, whether of native-white, foreign- born, or mixed parentage, is substantially higher in the rural districts than in the urban districts. The following table compares the relative proportions of negro and foreign-born illiterates in the rural and urban districts of different sections of the country : l 1 Abstract of the Thirteenth Census, 1910, p. 249. THE WEAKEST LINKS 193 Section New England : Rural .... Urban .... Middle Atlantic: Rural .... Urban .... East North Central: Rural .... Urban .... West North Central: Rural .... Urban .... South Atlantic: Rural .... Urban .... East South Central: Rural .... Urban .... West Sotdh Central: Rural .... Urban .... Mountain : Rural .... Urban .... Pacific : Rural .... Urban .... United Slates: Rural .... Urban .... Per Cent of Illiterate Persons Ten Years and Over in Total Population Negroes Foreign-born whites 16.9 15-3 7-i 13-7 12.2 20.3 7.0 14.9 15-8 9.6 9-7 10.2 21.0 7.0 12.3 8-5 36.1 17.2 21.4 11.6 37-8 10.9 23.8 9.1 37-2 3°- 7 20.3 17.9 10.6 14.4 7.0 9-7 11.4 II-3 5-3 6.0 36.1 13-2 17.6 12.6 The per cent of negro illiterates is higher in the rural districts than in the urban districts in every section, and the relatively high proportions of negro illiteracy in the rural districts of the North and West prove con- clusively that even this phase of illiteracy is very far from exclusively a Southern problem, o IQ4 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS The per cent of illiteracy among the foreign-born whites is higher in the rural than in the urban com- munities in every section except the two that comprise the North Central states, thus proving that "Amer- icanization" is not exclusively an urban problem. In the United States as a whole, for all groups com- bined, the per cent of illiteracy in the rural districts is i o.i as against 5.1, the per cent in the urban districts. Adult illiteracy is due primarily to inadequate educa- tion before the age of ten. For the native-born popu- lation, the schools must bear the responsibility both for the condition as it exists and for its correction. The conclusion is irrefutable that the rural school has jailed to reach the rural children in the measure that the safety and progress of the Nation demand. The rural-school prob- lem is essentially and fundamentally a national problem. The comparison between " white population native- born of native parentage" and the "white population native-born of foreign and mixed parentage" is most illuminating. Here the Census Report shows that in so far as the prevention of illiteracy is concerned, we have done more than three times as well with the children of the immigrant than with the children of the native-born. The explanation is not far to seek: the immigrant parents are found most numerously in the larger cities where the school facilities are fairly good and where compulsory-attendance statutes are usually rigorously THE WEAKEST LINKS 1 95 enforced ; the native-born parents are found most numerously in the smaller towns, the villages, and the open country, where neither of these conditions is ful- filled. Again we have convincing evidence that illit- eracy is predominantly a rural problem. 1 (b) "Limited Literacy" The conditions regarding absolute illiteracy which the war brought forcibly to public attention could have been inferred long before the war by any one who took the trouble to study the census findings ; but a menace that even those most familiar with the situation did not suspect, — a menace far more significant to the Nation than absolute illiteracy, — was revealed by the war; namely, the vast extent of a "literacy" so limited and so ineffective as to be, from the standpoint of citizenship, practically equivalent to illiteracy itself. As a means of determining what may be called the "intelligence quotient" of the Nation, the Army tests were much more searching than were the questions that the census enumerators asked in 1910. Furthermore, 1 The inference gains added force from the following facts : In three sections of the country illiteracy is proportionately greater among native-born whites of foreign or mixed parentage than among native- born whites of native parentage ; two of these sections, however, — the West South Central and the Mountain states — are exceptions to the general rule that immigrants live in cities; the immigrant popu- lation here is more generally rural. In the third section, — the Pacific states, — the higher per cent of illiteracy among the children of immi- grants may be due to the fact that the immigrants are largely Orientals to whom educational advantages in the cities have often been denied. 196 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS they were inescapable ; it was a very simple matter to determine not only whether a soldier could read, but whether he could read a newspaper intelligently, — not only whether he could write his name, but whether he could write an intelligible letter home. It would be impossible to secure such information from the general population, but the draft furnished a thoroughly rep- resentative group ; whatever was found to characterize the recruits as a group may be safely generalized as typifying the entire male population between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one, — and, in certain respects, the entire adult population. The Army tests revealed the fact that practically one man out of every four (24.9%) was unable to meet the relatively simple test of intelligent reading and in- telligible writing. Merely to be able to "spell out" with great labor the headlines of the newspaper is perhaps a slight advance over absolute illiteracy, but the Nation has little to choose between the two, and in either case it has much at stake. Merely to be able to scrawl one's signature is certainly an individual asset as compared with a complete and total ignorance of writ- ing ; but this achievement adds but a negligible incre- ment to the individual's value as a citizen. The Army tests, in short, disclosed for the first time the serious limitations of technical "literacy" as an index of educa- tional efficiency. It is, of course, impossible to say in what measure the THE WEAKEST LINKS I97 rural school is responsible for this high total of limited literacy ; but, in so far as the native-born population is concerned, it is fair to assume that the relationship between rural and urban communities in this respect would be about the same as in respect to absolute illit- eracy, with the chances in favor of a still greater advan- tage of the city over the country because of the longer school year, the better enforcement of compulsory- attendance laws, and the much higher proportion of trained teachers in the urban districts. (c) Physical Deficiencies While the physical and health deficiencies that con- stitute the third group of serious national handicaps are not so exclusively rural phenomena as is adult native-born illiteracy, it still remains true that the need for educational measures to correct these deficiencies is much more acute in the rural districts than in the cities. The published data regarding the proportion of Army rejections in rural and urban communities are as yet incomplete, but as far as they go they show a slight advantage in favor of the rural districts. This is con- sistent with the census findings of 1910, for the death rate in communities of 10,000 inhabitants and fewer was then somewhat lower than the death rate in the larger cities. There was, however, significant evidence, even in 1910, 1 1 It was during the decade, 1900-10, that health administration in cities and especially in city school systems made its greatest advances. i g8 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS that the better health administration of the cities and the better health provisions in the city schools were already operating to reduce these differences by lower- ing the city death rate; the death rate in the rural districts during the decade, 1900-10, on the other 1900 1901 COMPARATIVE DEATH RATES, URBAN AND RURAL. 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 20.6 20.1 ^19.8 // * <■ 18.6 /I II * 18.3 18.2 18.2 17.9 » 16.2 16.9 16.9 16.6 16.8 15.2 15.1 15.6 15.2 = yt 5 «15.8 J6.7 lsTl^ 15.4 16.3 14.4 U.8 V- .14.8 14 13.9 "**•. 13.7 ■ New York State, outside of New York City. Figure i. hand, remained practically stationary. 1 The compari- son between New York City and the districts of New York State outside of the city is strikingly shown in the above diagram. 2 1 "It is significant that for this considerable proportion of the country [the original registration area], the registration of deaths in which must be considered to be somewhat more complete than for the -registration area as a whole, the death rate for the rural districts shows but little, if any, decrease in the years and periods considered [iqoi— 1905, 1906— 1910]. Practically the entire reduction of death-rate in this group is due to the lower urban mortality." — Bureau of the Census, Mortality Statistics, 1912, p. 12. * From T. D. Wood : Health Essentials for Rural-School Children. THE WEAKEST LINKS I 99 If the two types of communities are compared with reference to the health work undertaken in connection HEALTH DEFECTS OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 — I 33.58 Teeth Defects U&9 Eye Defects Malnutrition Enlarged Glands 4,78 Ear Defects 4.2 2.1 3.5 1 1.65 1.5 1.7 Breathing Defects Spinal Curvature Anemia Unclean Lung Defects City and Country Children Compared Percentages from all Availahle Statistics. * .17 1.25 32 74 40 Heart Disease 8 , Mental Defects Country City Figure 2. with the schools, the contrasts are sharp and clear. Even the smaller cities have made health inspection an 200 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS established feature of public-school administration. Very generally they have their school nurses and their school dental clinics. The larger cities have well- organized staffs of physicians who devote their entire time to the schools, and the more progressive city systems have added clinical psychologists to look after the pupils' mental health very much as the physicians look after their physical health. Beyond this, there is the far more sanitary construction and equipment of the school buildings in the cities. Similar work for the rural schools, especially in health inspection, has been barely begun in a very few of the wealthier counties. Its extension in the absence of national stimulation will of necessity be slow and halting, for it represents an expen- sive phase of school administration. Yet the health of the country child is as much a matter of concern to the Nation as is the health of the city child. The general situation among rural children as compared with city children is shown in the chart 1 (see p. 199), which has been compiled from the best available data. (d) " Native-born Alienism" It was pointed out above that adult illiteracy among the foreign-born is predominantly more a rural prob- lem than an urban problem except in the North Central states. The reduction of immigrant illiteracy, of course, is only one phase of the larger problem of American- 1 Taken from T. D. Wood's pamphlet above referred to. THE WEAKEST LINKS 201 ization. To understand, speak, read, and write the English language is the first essential, but from the Nation's point of view these arts are but means to an end. The all-important end is that the immigrant and his children shall know and appreciate American ideals and standards, and be able to participate intelligently in the conduct of national affairs. The handicap of alienism during the earlier stages of the war was not confined by any means to the alien groups in the cities. For the first time the average American citizen became aware that "alien islands" existed in various parts of the country and that in the rural districts these un- assimilated groups were particularly troublesome. In some cases, indeed, they could not be classed as immi- grant groups, for they were removed two, three, or even four generations from the original settlers, — and yet they formed, to all intents and purposes, thoroughly alien communities. Not only did the people speak an alien tongue, but the schools — sometimes public schools supported in part by general state taxation — were conducted in a foreign language. The problem of Americanization, then, is not ex- clusively a problem of "immigrant" education. Upon the rural school must rest the responsibility of "Americanizing" second, third, and even fourth gen- erations of original European stock, representing families and sometimes entire communities that have not as yet acquired the first essentials of American 202 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS citizenship, although the franchise has been freely granted them. (e) The Low Average Length of Schooling With all these shortcomings of the rural school in mind, it is easy to appreciate their significance and meaning nationally when it is remembered that 53.6 per cent of the total population of this country is resident in rural communities. These shortcomings have a still further meaning when we remember the fact that 58.4 per cent of the total population from six to twenty years of age inclusive lives in rural communities. 1 The greatest significance of these shortcomings of the rural school, however, is to be found in the figures showing enrollment by grades in the public schools. For con- venience this is shown in tabular form below. 2 % Enrolled in First % Enrolled in Second Four "Grades Four Grades North Atlantic S8.SI 41.49 North Central 60.60 39-4° South Atlantic 75-72 24.28 South Central 73-95 26.05 Western Division .... 6 2-55 37-45 United States 65.48 34-52 The preceding table should be corrected by keeping in mind that the population is continually increasing ; this means that the enrollment in the first four grades will 1 U. S. Com. of Edn. Report, 191 7, Vol. 2, p. 37. 2 Ibid., p. 65. THE WEAKEST LINKS 203 be relatively larger than in the second four grades of the public school ; but even when this allowance is made it is evident that there is a marked falling off in the second four grades. The relation of this decrease in the per cent enrolled in the second four grades is closely- connected with the per cent living in urban and rural communities in the different divisions. The following tabular statement shows the per cent resident in urban and rural communities in the different divisions of the United States. Urban Rural North Atlantic North Central South Atlantic South Central 74.2 45-2 254 20.6 48.8 25.8 x 54-8' 74.6 79-4 51-2 When this table is interpreted in connection with the table just preceding it, it is evident that where there is a high proportion of the total population in rural communities, a relatively low proportion of children are enrolled in the second four grades of the public school. This conclusion makes it evident that the schooling of children in urban communities is distinctly longer than the schooling of those in rural communities. 1 The Census Abstract, 1910, p. 54, points out that the urban per cent for New England is too high because it includes all towns with 2500 or more population. In some cases in New England, the town with 2500 people is practically nothing but open country and very small villages. 204 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS It is easy to fall into the error of judging our public school system by the performance of the best public schools. These best public schools are located in the cities where the population is compact and where per capita wealth is greatest. These schools can and do organize classes for adult illiterates and for the Ameri- canization of foreigners. They do superior work in physical and health education. In cities of five thou- sand or more inhabitants, there is 42 per cent of the total population with only 35 per cent of the school en- rollment. This 35 per cent of the school enrollment, however, furnishes 38 per cent of the average daily attendance. Further, these cities have only 33% per cent of the teachers, but these teachers receive 51 per cent of all salaries paid to teachers. Moreover, the best prepared teachers and those with the largest experience are to be found in the cities. These facts do credit to the city schools, but they must be subtracted from the total or average performances if one would determine the actual performance of the rural schools. These high standards attained by city schools simply emphasize the necessity for improving rural schools. Better Rural Schools a National Responsibility Pending the solution of the rural-school problem, then, there can be no permanent solution of the problems of illiteracy, limited literacy, health deficiencies, and "native-born alienism." That these are national prob- THE WEAKEST LINKS 205 lems and that the conditions which make them prob- lems constitute a most serious national menace, the experience of the war abundantly proves. To the Federal Government has been delegated the duty and power "to provide for the common defense." Under modern conditions, the fundamental provisions for the "common defense" are high levels of physical stamina and health and of trained intelligence among the people as a whole. That such levels exist to-day the findings of the Army tests convincingly disprove. No nation one third of whose young men are physically unfit for military service can count itself "strong" — no matter how vigorous the remaining two thirds may be. No nation in which one fourth of the people are essen- tially illiterate can feel secure, — however well it may have prepared its "leaders." No nation so handi- capped can compete on equal terms, either in war or in peace, with nations that are better circumstanced — and such nations exist to-day, — nations, too, with which the relations of the United States may not always be friendly. It requires no prophet's eye to see that troublous decades are ahead. The new world order cannot be expected to establish itself overnight or without twistings and wrenchings that will imperil every ideal for which the Great War was fought and won. Lack of "preparedness" against these clearly predictable crises would be a crime, and certainly the kind of preparedness which is of the highest importance 206 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS for the nation that has set the type and pattern for a democratic world is that which the mental and physical upbuilding of all of the people alone can bring into being. This is the best way to provide for the common defense. This means first of all an immediate and nation-wide reform of rural education. Even if the rural schools did not merit attention from Congress on the ground of the "common defense," they could claim consideration upon the basis of each and every one of the remaining clauses in the great Preamble. What can do so much to "form a more perfect union" as to insure such bases of social soli- darity, such conditions of clear collective thinking and sound collective judgment, as only a system of universal education can provide? What would better "promote the general welfare" than trained intelligence and sound health on a thoroughly national basis? What would more clearly "insure domestic tranquillity," so sadly needed in these days of social and economic unrest, than the provision of a pervasive common culture, — the only sure and dependable basis of mutual understanding? What, other than this, would more certainly "establish justice," - not only justice in the administration of the law, but justice in the determination and direction of that overwhelming power of public opinion upon which even the law itself depends for its effectiveness? What, that is less comprehensive, can "secure the bless- ings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"? For THE WEAKEST LINKS 2CJ is not the security of these blessings dependent first of all upon an appreciation of what liberty means, and how may such an appreciation be developed upon a nation- wide scale except through an educational system that touches and quickens every child in the land, — an educational system, strong, vigorous, and efficient, not only in spots, not only in this state or that county or the other city, but wherever American children are growing into mature and responsible American citizens ? CHAPTER XIX The Weakest Links b. the immature and untrained teacher The soul and substance of every school is the teacher. In the last analysis, all buildings, apparatus, and school revenues are purely material things, — helps, aids, means to an end. The teacher is the personal and human agency that gives life and significance to the work that the school sets out to accomplish. The success of the school and of the school system is measured by the amount of real educative activity that goes on in the minds of the pupils, and it is the personal, human factor that determines this. In so far as the state or the Nation depends for stability and progress upon its schools, it depends upon the teachers. Teaching is an art. Indeed, good teaching is a fine art, — which is to say again that the personal and human factors constitute its soul and substance. But, like other fine arts, it has a technique, and this technique can be mastered by competent persons under the proper conditions. Certain of these conditions are of outstand- ing importance — the maturity of mind that comes only with age and experience ; the knowledge that comes only by study; the character that comes only with 208 THE WEAKEST LINKS 200, reflection, responsibility, and acts of intelligent choice ; and the insight, resourcefulness, and good sense that come in part from native endowment and in part from the discipline of training and experience. The old saw — "Teachers are born, not made" — means that some people possess these fundamental qualifications without a definite and specific course of preparation, — some people have a "knack" of teaching. It is just as true, perhaps, as the statement that musicians are born and not made ; but while a person may be born with every physical and mental quality that goes to make up musical talent, no person is "born" an accomplished musician. And by the same token, no person is "born" an accomplished teacher. Preparation for teaching should rest upon the largest possible equipment of native talent for teaching, but to put persons even well qualified by native endowment into the actual work of teaching without preparation is simply to give them their preparation at the expense of the children whom they teach, — or, as is more fre- quently the case, to leave them permanently on the plane of amateurish bungling. In Chapter XVIII it was pointed out that the solution of the problems presented by illiteracy, limited literacy, and physical and health deficiencies could be effected only through a solution of the rural-school problem. But in its turn, the rural-school problem cannot be solved until the teacher problem has been solved. We 210 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS come, then, in the present chapter to the most funda- mental source of weakness in American public educa- tion. THE RURAL-SCHOOL TEACHER A clear conception of rural-school deficiencies can be gained only by understanding the limitations of the rural-school teacher. There are required for this branch of the public-school service approximately three hundred thousand teachers. These teachers as a group constitute by far the youngest, the most inexperienced, and the least well-educated portion of the total teaching population. Of the three hundred thousand, more than half would be debarred from voting because of their youth, and yet to them the public nonchalantly dele- gates a responsibility in comparison with which the individual franchise is a mere bagatelle — for each of them is a potential factor in determining the votes of from fifteen to forty citizens in embryo. These three hundred thousand rural and village teachers, as a group, have had for their responsible duties no training that deserves the name. Some of them are products of neighboring high schools, and in several states an effort is made to give a little instruction in the high schools that will make the work of a beginner a little less bungling. In no state, however, has this been looked upon as anything more than a temporary and most unsatisfactory expedient, — and the majority of rural-school teachers lack even this modicum of THE WEAKEST LINKS 211 training. A large proportion of them have not com- pleted a high-school course. Indeed, it is estimated that no fewer than a million children now enrolled in the rural schools are under teachers who have had no more than eighth-grade education themselves, — and many even less than that. The rural-school teachers are transient in the calling. The Federal Commissioner of Education estimated the number of recruits needed for this service in a single year (1918-19) as 130,000, — an annual "turn-over" of more than one in three. In one of the most prosperous of the Middle Western states, the Bureau of Education reports the average term of service of the rural-school teacher to be not more than two years. It has already been pointed out that the ultimate elimination of illiteracy and the reduction of limited literacy depend upon the reform of rural education. It should now be clear that the first step in this reform should be to insure for the rural schools a relatively permanent and stable body of teachers, thoroughly trained to undertake the responsible duties which these isolated posts impose. Into these schools should go the best talent that the calling can attract. Obviously, the only way to attain this end is to advance the rewards and raise the standards of the rural-school service. The situation could be entirely transformed in a few years and at a paltry cost, — a cost paltry in comparison with what the Nation would gain. Three hundred 212 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS thousand well-selected, well-trained, and permanent teachers in the rural and village schools could un- doubtedly, as a group, do vastly more for the Nation than an equal number of men and women, as well selected and as well trained, could do in any other form of public or social service, for they could profoundly influence our national life for the greatest good at the very root and source of whatever elements of strength it may possess. THE PUBLIC ATTITUDE TOWARD THE PUBLIC-SCHOOL SERVICE The situation in the rural and village schools throws its dark shadow over every type of educational work. Urban schools are, in many ways, vastly better off, and yet the fact that the rural and village teachers, con- stituting nearly one half of the teaching population, are immature, transient, and untrained, operates to depress standards throughout the entire field. Most of the larger cities, for example, maintain local training schools for elementary teachers, and could easily require reasonably high standards of preparation. With a few notable exceptions they demand but one or two years of professional training after the candidate has completed a high-school course. It is generally agreed that two years represent the lowest minimum that should be tolerated; yet even our largest and richest cities are content with this. Indeed, of all our public-school THE WEAKEST LINKS 213 teachers, a most conservative estimate places the pro- portion that have met this standard at one in five. In England the proportion meeting a comparable standard is four in six, and in many of the countries of continental Europe the proportion is still higher. In so far as our policies of teacher-preparation are concerned, we are surpassed by some of our South American neighbors. A bulletin of the Federal Bureau of Education * author- itatively asserts that the United States gives less atten- tion to the preparation of public-school teachers than does any other civilized nation. Why do we hold this low station in respect to a public business which, theoretically, overtops all others in its significance to the welfare and progress of democratic institutions? Surely the cause is not to be found in our poverty, nor is it to be found in a failure to recog- nize abstractly the importance of public education. It lies primarily in the tradition that the actual work of class- room teaching is not a serious and permanent occupation. That teaching is at best only a transitory calling for either men or women has become, indeed, a fixed tradi- tion. Social and economic forces have been favorable to its cumulative growth. The supply of these temporary teachers until recently has overtopped the demand ; hence wages could be kept low. The girls usually lived with their parents, and their earnings were often more in the nature of pin money than of a living and saving 1 Bulletin No. 12, 1916. 214 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS wage. Public education, indeed, has been far from burdensome to the taxpayer. The entire schooling of the average adult native-born citizen has cost the public less than one hundred and fifty dollars — an amount SALARY IN HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS 1 2 3 4 6 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1314 16 1617 18 1920 Machinists Lathers Bricklayers Inside vAremen Workers, structural iron Blacksmiths Machine tenders {printing) Compositors {English) Glaziers Plumbers Carpenters Hodcarriers Bakers High School Teachers Intermediate Ttachers Elementary Teachers Figure 3. — Chart showing comparison of teachers' salaries in five Middle Western states with the union scale of wages for certain occupations in the same section as indicated by the average of the wages paid in Chicago and Cleveland. From E. S. Evenden's Teachers' Salaries and Salary Schedules. comparable perhaps with that which the village grocer invests in his daughter's piano lessons. Nor is a low wage scale the only sorry result of the tradition that teaching is not a serious business. Stand- THE WEAKEST LINKS 21 5 ards of preparation have been kept low. In general, the requirements for a teacher's license in any com- munity have been those that the average girl graduating from the local school could easily meet. To advance requirements beyond this point would mean that the local girls must go elsewhere for preparation, and this would automatically place appointments in the local schools beyond the reach of the larger part of the other- wise available "home talent." The typical public- school teacher comes from a family of four or five children, and from a family that " enjoys" a very moder- ate income. A study made in 191 1 estimated the earn- ings of the average family from which elementary teachers are drawn at $8ob a year. 1 Any attempt to raise standards for the teacher's license to the point where adequate preparation would be required is met at once by "pressure" from the numerous groups of families that have come to look upon teaching appoint- ments in the local schools as the vested right of their daughters. Under these conditions, too, it is not surprising that the material rewards of public-school service, meager as they are, have acquired the earmarks of a public gra- tuity doled out to the deserving poor, — a point of view that finds a tragic expression in the rulings of most boards of education that a woman teacher's tenure ends automatically with her marriage, — unless, as 1 L. D. Coff man's Social Composition of the Teaching Population. 2l6 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS some boards have charitably decreed, her husband is unable to support her ! J It is small wonder, then, that public-school service has become progressively less and less attractive to the type of young manhood and young womanhood that the Nation needs for this important work. Recent develop- ments have intensified the situation, and have created throughout the country a real crisis. In the early days, conditions were at least tolerable. Teaching was a stop-gap occupation, it is true, but many of the strongest and most promising young men were drawn into the schools for a brief period, and some of these, finding the work to their liking, remained even in the face of meager rewards and inadequate recognitions. The girls, too, who entered the schools temporarily were usually of a fine type, coming from homes that rep- resented the best ideals and traditions of American life. To-day all this is changed. Almost no men become classroom teachers in the urban elementary schools ; they are rapidly deserting the rural schools ; and those seeking even temporary appointments in the high schools are diminishing in number and apparently dete- riorating in quality. Industrial and commercial enter- prise has been quick to see that it pays to catch ability 1 During the war the Boston School Committee permitted certain former teachers, who had married and whose husbands were then in the Army or the Navy, to return to the classrooms. But it explicitly provided that officers' wives should not have this privilege on the ground that an officer's pay was ample for the support of his wife. THE WEAKEST LINKS 217 while it is young and to pay generously for its training. Indeed, it is intelligent enough to recognize ability in those no longer young. A man who had served for thirteen years as a teacher, advancing in that time from the district schools to a high-school principalship, re- cently enrolled at a university to prepare for additional responsibilities in public-school work. Needing funds to meet the increased cost of living, he applied for part- time work in a metropolitan bank. A week later he withdrew from the university, giving as a reason the fact that his work at the bank would be full-time. He was asked by one of his instructors what he knew about banking. "Absolutely nothing," he replied. "I am learning. The bank will pay me while it is training me more than I have ever received as a teacher. The future possibilities are vastly more attractive than anything that public education can promise. To ad- vance in the educational field I must prepare further at my own expense. And," he added, " I have a family." This competition for ability, at first limited to young men, is now rapidly extending to young women. In the cities, the gap between graduation and marriage may now be bridged much more rapidly, much more easily, and much more pleasantly through any one of a score of other occupations than through teaching. Even the girls in the towns and villages who, a few years ago, would have sought appointments in the neighboring rural schools now find more lucrative and attractive 2l8 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS opportunities in business and industry. In practically every state there is to-day an acute shortage of teachers for the rural schools, — and this in spite of the fact that wages have been advanced while the standards of certi- fication have been lowered by the wholesale issuing of "emergency" licenses. The war, of course, is responsible for the desperateness of the present situation, but the social and economic conditions which have been aggravated by the war were already in evidence long before the war began and sooner or later would have produced the same results. For a decade, according to the testimony of those in closest touch with the situation, the type of recruit drawn into the public-school service has been steadily deteriorating. One normal-school principal, for ex- ample, reports that the students now entering his school represent in their scholastic ability the lowest tenth of the high-school graduates of his district ; his school formerly attracted students of a superior quality. An investigation in a typical Mid-Western state revealed the fact that, in personality and often in scholarship, the high-school graduates entering the normal schools to prepare for teaching are distinctly inferior to grad- uates destined for other occupations. In the Eastern states, particularly, the students in the city training schools for teachers represent, in ever-increasing pro- portions, the more recently arrived contingents of the immigrant population, — potentially worthy material, THE WEAKEST LINKS 210 no doubt, but necessarily lacking in American traditions and ideals, and sometimes reflecting manners and standards that certainly should not be engrafted upon the next generation of American citizens. The bearing of this condition upon the problem of "Americani- zation" is obvious. Even if the quality of the teaching population did not reveal these symptoms of deterioration, the facts regarding the youth, inexperience, and inadequate training of public-school teachers as a group should, in all conscience, be sufficiently disquieting. These facts are not generally known because very few people are interested in public education from a national point of view, and it is only when one takes this point of view that the seriousness of the situation becomes fully apparent. THE PERSONNEL OF THE PUBLIC-SCHOOL SERVICE To evaluate the educational strength of the Nation, one must first of all strive to build up a fairly adequate mental picture of the "teaching population." This is no easy task, for more than 600,000 teachers are required for the public-school service. The characteristics of one large element in this heterogeneous group — the teachers of the rural and village schools — have already been referred to ; it is now necessary to describe the teaching population as a whole. \ Imagine these 600,000 teachers to be extended in a 220 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS long line. Allowing three feet of space for each individ- ual, this line will extend unbroken for over three hun- dred miles. By rearranging the line for different quali- fications or characteristics, it will be possible to gain a somewhat concrete picture of the men and women who are intrusted with the Nation's most important work. Let the first arrangement follow the order of age or maturity. The youngest teacher is at one end of the line, the oldest teacher at the other end ; the remaining teachers are arranged in the order of their age. Starting with the youngest teacher and journeying along the line, one will traverse one fourth of the entire distance before reaching a teacher who has passed the age of twenty-one. Roughly speaking, one fourth of all of the Nation's children are receiving their education at the hands of these immature teachers. This, however, does not tell the whole story, for one will have passed in all likelihood more than 100,000 teachers before reaching the first of the twenty-year-old group, while tens of thousands of those first encountered are only sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen years old. Let the line form again on the basis of educational equipment as shown by the length of time that these teachers have themselves attended school. Now the journey along the line will take one past at least 30,000 teachers before one reaches the first individual who has had any education whatsoever beyond the eighth grade of the common school. In terms of the pupils taught THE WEAKEST LINKS 221 there are nearly one million of the Nation's children, — an army half as large as that which was sent to France to save civilization, — whose teachers are limited to this slender educational equipment. Continuing along the line, about 150,000 teachers would be passed before reaching the first individual whose total education had amounted to more than two years of high-school work, and 480,000, — four fifths of the entire group, — would be left behind before one reached the first in- dividual who had met the standard of preparation recognized in all civilized countries as constituting the barest minimum for elementary teaching — two years of training after high-school graduation, or six years of education in all beyond the eighth grade. Forming the line again on the basis of experience in teaching (which is obviously related to the maturity of the teacher), one would pass 150,000 teachers before reaching the first individual who had taught more than two years, while the middle of the line would be reached before one could greet the first " experienced " teacher — one who had taught at least four years. One half of the Nation's children, then, are being taught by teachers who have not served sufficiently long to let the discipline of experience compensate in any marked degree for the deficiencies in their initial training. 1 1 These comparisons are derived from very careful estimates which, in turn, are based upon the most trustworthy available investigations. No complete census of the teaching population has ever been made, but fairly complete data have been collected for different states, and one 222 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS This remarkable result has been achieved under the neighborhood and state conceptions of educational responsibility. In so far as we have been able to learn, it is a record of educational weakness that is unsur- passed by any other civilized nation. The poorest democracy might fittingly blush with collective shame at such a showing. Will the richest and proudest of all the democracies remain smug and complacent ? THE SITUATION IN TYPICAL STATES The types and qualifications of public-school teachers vary widely among the different states, — but the variations represent only different degrees of intoler- ableness ; in no single state does the teaching population represent as a whole the standards that are everywhere accepted as the lowest possible within the limits of a decent regard for the rights and needs of children and the welfare of the social group. In the report of a recent Educational Survey of Ala- bama* the qualifications of teachers in different counties are set forth with clearness : In Escambia County, 2 out of 2360 persons between the ages of ten and twenty, twelve and one half per cent of the total popu- lation were found to be illiterate, although nearly seven tenths of important study of the teachers of the nation as a whole, based upon "random samplings " (Coffman's The Social Composition of the Teaching Population, New York, 1911), is very generally confirmed by the results of the more nearly complete, but also more restricted, investigations. 1 Issued by the Bureau of Education as Bulletin, 1919, No. 41. 2 See pp. 156-162 for details. THE WEAKEST LINKS 223 the population is white. Of the one hundred twenty-four teachers in the county, only one third (forty-one) had had any education whatsoever beyond the elementary school. In thirteen schools visited by the examiners, the pupils present constituted just two thirds of the enrollment. In Bullock County, there are 5500 whites out of a total popu- lation of 30,196. Twenty-three per cent of the whites between ten and twenty are illiterates. In 1910, thirty-eight per cent of the males of voting age were illiterate. "About 2000 children actually of school age are not being reached by the public schools even in the limited degree necessary to overcome absolute illiter- acy." There is no county tax for school purposes. "With the exception of Union Springs, the only town of over 2000 inhabitants, the people depend entirely on state funds, dog taxes, and poll taxes to educate their children." Schools are "supplemented both in length of term and teachers' salaries by subscriptions from the community." In Pickens County, 42 teachers out of a total of 85 "have had no schooling beyond the elementary grades or only a year or two of high school work." ! "In Montgomery County, 33 of the 69 rural schools are taught in schoolhouses, and 36 are taught in churches." In Dallas County, half of the negro schools are taught in churches (p. 181). Only sixty per cent of the negro population between seven and twenty-one is enrolled in schools (p. 185). Taking the state as a whole, the enrollment per teacher is abnormally large, especially in the negro schools (p. 186). Pupils per Teacher White Negro City 42 39-2 41-5 71-3 63.8 70 1 Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1919, No. 41. 224 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS The Alabama need is summed up as follows : "The most urgent need of the colored schools of Alabama is trained teachers. The supply now depends almost entirely upon the secondary schools, most of which are private institutions. . . The pupils in the graduating classes of all the schools offering teacher-training subjects in 191 5 numbered only 270, an annual output obviously inadequate to meet the need for teachers in a state with over 900,000 colored people and 2350 colored public-school teachers, of whom seventy per cent are holding only third grade certificates." 1 The facts regarding the academic and professional qualifications of 3648 rural and village teachers of Alabama are as follows : Sixteen per cent have completed only the elementary school course. 2 Ten per cent have had only one year of high- school attendance,, seventeen per cent have had two years, eighteen per cent three years, and thirty-eight per cent four years. Nearly two thirds (63.6%) have had no professional training, and only about eight per cent have actually graduated from teacher-training institu- tions. 3 These citations of fact are conclusive proof that Alabama needs a form of stimulation and aid that will put her on the right road in education, — that will induce and enable her to become educationally a worthy part of the United States of America. It is not a ques- 1 U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin 1916, No. 39. 2 It should be remembered that the elementary school in the South covers usually only seven years as against eight years in other parts of the country. J U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin 1919, No. 41, p. 349. THE WEAKEST LINKS 225 tion of coercion; there could be no coercion and even if there could be, it would be beside the point. Ala- bama would welcome a way out of her difficulty, and it is to the highest interest of the Nation to prepare the way; stimulation and inducement will do the work. It may be urged that the illustration just cited is exceptional. A study of the table of facts regarding teachers (see page 291) will prove that the illustration represents clearly and fairly the general situation in the Southern states. But it is not merely a Southern prob- lem and a Southern condition that we are discussing. The Graduate School of Education of the University of Nebraska recently made a survey "to ascertain the exact status of the rural teachers of the state in regard to their academic and professional preparation ; their teaching experience and length of service ; their sex, age, and nationality; and such contributory factors in teaching efficiency as salary, living conditions, and the like." The results are published by the Bureau of Education as Bulletin 191 9, No. 20. Commissioner Claxton says: "The survey is, in fact, a study of the preparation and efficiency of rural-school teachers, which may be considered typical of similar studies which might be made in other states." Twenty-eight hundred forty teachers replied to the question as to secondary education. Forty-four per cent had not graduated from a high school. Only four per cent had had more than thirty- six months in high school. Q 226 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS Twenty-one hundred seven teachers replied to the question regarding education beyond the high school. Forty-two per cent of them had no education beyond the high school; twenty-six per cent had one summer term at a normal school ; seventeen per cent had not graduated from a normal school; eleven per cent had spent one summer term or more at college. There were four normal-school graduates in the 2ioj teachers reporting. The teachers who failed to answer this question were probably without high-school preparation. In other words, while 102 out of 2640 admitted they had never attended high school, it is probable that the 37 who did not reply belonged to the same group. If so, then 139 out of 2874, or four and nine tenths per cent, had never at- tended high school at all. 1 The average number of months taught by these teachers (except in the third Congressional district) was seven and two tenths. Thirty-three per cent of the teachers were "beginners." Sixty-seven per cent had to live in unheated rooms. The median monthly wage was $47.69. Fifty per cent of the teachers were not over twenty years of age, and eighty- eight per cent were not over twenty-five years of age. Only twelve per cent had the maturity of mind and the insight into life that come with twenty-five or more years of life. 2 In 1 91 4, Mr. A. N. Farmer made a study of the academic and professional training of teachers in the public schools of Wisconsin, for the year 1913-14. This study was made in two parts, — the first excluding the one-room rural schools, and the second dealing particu- larly with one-room rural schools. Excluding the one-room rural-school teachers, there were 9273 public-school teachers. The net total of normal-school, 1 See pp. 30-31 of U. S. Bureau Bulletin 1919, No. 20. 1 Ibid., pp. 24, 40, 48, 53. THE WEAKEST LINKS 227 college, and university graduates was 6122. That is, sixty-eight per cent of the public-school teachers in all schools, except the one-room rural schools, were normal-school, college, or university graduates, while thirty-two per cent of these town and city teachers did not have qualifications equal to this standard. 1 In the one-room rural schools there were 6639 teachers. Of these, 2820, or forty-two per cent, had had four years or the equivalent in high schools, 1681 had had a two-year course be- yond the elementary school in normal school or county training school, and an additional 268 had had two years in high school. In one-room schools there were, therefore, 1749 teachers, or twenty-six per cent of the total, with only two years of high-school work or its equivalent. The 22 college graduates and 119 normal- school graduates constitute but a trifle over two per cent of the teaching population in these schools. If we grow generous and assume some magical influence developing from casual (and usually very brief) attendance at normal school or college or county training school, the total thus reached is 3446, or a little more than fifty per cent of the entire number. 2 If we combine the two sets of facts already given, we find that Wisconsin employed in 1913-14 a total of 15,912 teachers in the public schools. Of this number, 6233, or almost forty per cent, were normal-school or college graduates. An additional 1681, or ten per cent, had had some specific preparation for teaching by the completion of a course in normal school or county training school. Still another group of 2671, or seventeen per cent, had completed a high-school course. The remaining thirty-three per cent had had less academic preparation than high school graduation implies and practically no specific preparation for teaching. 1 Conditions and Needs of Wisconsin's Normal Schools, by A. N. Farmer, p. 564 a. Issued by the Wisconsin State Board of Public Affairs, December, 1914. 2 Ibid., pp. 574-575- 228 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS One other illustration may fittingly close the matter under consideration. There were in Pennsylvania, for the year ending July 3, 1917, a total of 44,144 teachers in the public schools. 1 Under the jurisdiction of county superintendents, 6643 persons held only the lowest grade of certificate that can be issued, i.e. the "pro- visional" certificate; under the district (or city) superintendents, 988 teachers also held only the provisional certificate. The total of provisionally certificated teachers was 7631, or over seventeen per cent of the entire teaching force of the state. 2 Under county superintendents there were 3561 without previous experience in teaching, and under district superintendents 945 were similarly "beginners" in the work. This gives a total of 4506, or ten per cent of the teaching force in 1916-17, who were without previous ex- perience in teaching. 3 The report quoted enables us to make an additional analysis, the data being put into tabular form below. 4 Teachers who Hold Under Co. Supts. District Supts. 1. Permanent State Certificates . 2. Normal School Dip. and Cert. 3. Provisional College Certificates 4. Permanent College Certificates Totals Total ....... 806 7,822 679 709 10,016 3,283 4,448 553 943 9,227 19,243 out of 44,144 The total of the fairly well prepared teachers in Pennsylvania, then, — 19,243, — is only a fraction over forty-three per cent of the entire number of teachers employed in the state. It is also worthy of remark that the normal schools have furnished almost two thirds of this group. 1 Report of Supt. of Public Instruction, Pennsylvania, 1917, p. 651. 2 See Ibid., pp. 668-669, and 676-677. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., for the detailed figures. THE WEAKEST LINKS 229 RESULTS OF THE LOW STATUS OF TEACHING {A) The Present Shortage of Teachers The popular conception of public-school teaching as a casual and temporary occupation has brought forth its natural fruit in the acute shortage of teachers that constitutes to-day one of the most serious of the crises which the Nation is facing. That the war itself should have caused a shortage was to be expected, but the war, as has been suggested, only brought more quickly to a head the boil on the body politic that had long been festering. The shortage has not only continued un- abated since the Armistice, — it has grown progressively more acute. There is no reason to believe that the status quo can be restored unless a prolonged period of industrial and economic depression supervenes — and it is scarcely comforting to think that the richest and strongest of the world's democracies must wait for hard times to make tolerable the conditions that surround its most important public service. The seriousness of the shortage at the opening of the school year, 1919-20, was revealed by investigations undertaken by the headquarters staff of the National Education Association. 1 Later in the year, the Bureau of Education issued a report in which the shortage was shown to be below the earlier estimates, but scarcely less alarming. 1 See report by H. S. Magill in N. E. A. Bulletin, November, 1919, pp. 15-16. 230 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS There were approximately 18,000 classrooms for which teachers could not be found. Assuming an average of twenty-five pupils to the teacher, — a conservative estimate, — there have been this year 450,000 boys and girls to whom school privileges were denied. This estimate is possibly excessive, because in some cases, pupils are sent to neighboring schools, while in other cases teachers remaining in the service are given additional classes. In either event, there is a deleterious effect upon educational efficiency ; and in any case, the actual number of pupils who are out of school is sufficiently large to be alarming. Approximately 4 2, 000 teachers were classified as "below standard," — that is, these teachers have been unable to meet the very modest requirements for the lowest grade of teachers' license, but because of the impos- sibility of securing qualified persons, they have been granted "emergency" or "provisional" licenses. Again counting twenty-five pupils to each teacher, it is clear that no fewer than 1,000,000 boys and girls are being "taught" by these low-grade teachers. How low the grade may fall is indicated by the reports of county superintendents that some of the teachers to whom they have been forced to issue emergency licenses are practically illiterate ! There is this year a falling off in the enrollment of state normal schools and other training schools for teachers varying from one half to one third of the pre- war figures. The colleges, too, report a decided fall- THE WEAKEST LINKS 23 1 ing off of enrollments in teacher-training courses, al- though the total college enrollment is apparently larger than ever before. These facts mean that the supply of trained teachers for at least three or four years to come will be even more restricted than it has been in the past. This particular phase of the problem will be further dis- cussed in a later section of the present chapter and in Chapter XXI. (B) The "Factory Plan" of School Administration A second lamentable result of the public attitude toward teaching has been the development of a type of organization necessary, perhaps, to secure passable results from a temporary and ill-trained teaching staff, but fundamentally inconsistent with the fine art of teaching. There has been a heavy emphasis upon programs and courses of study prepared in central offices often far removed, both in space and in spirit, from the classrooms. The textbook has acquired an importance in American schools that far transcends its significance in the schools of other countries. Even in the larger cities, where the teachers are much better prepared than in the village and open-country schools, the failure to recognize the actual work of teaching as constituting a worthy career has given rise to a machinery of administration and supervision, the intricate workings of which often hide from both teacher and adminis- trator the purpose that the organization should fulfill. 232 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS The handicaps to educational efficiency and progress which these conditions involve are serious in the ex- treme. The spirit and attitude of the individual teacher has tended to become more and more that of the artisan, less and less that of the artist. The evils of the "fac- tory" system in industry are all too clearly reproduced in the institution that should be as far removed from factory methods as possible. Individual initiative is almost certain to be rated at a discount when plans and specifications are always handed down from above, and when one's duty is simply to carry out orders. It is small wonder that a policy of this sort in school ad- ministration curtails ambition and represses enthu- siasm. The seriousness of the situation is not limited, how- ever, to the formal, lifeless, spiritless teaching that such a system is likely to produce. Upon the teacher him- self and especially upon his attitude toward the ad- ministrative officers, the effect is often most serious. Normally, every element inherent in schoolcraft sensi- tizes the teacher to the responsibilities that the work involves. He or she is not only willing but anxious to do good work. The service itself stimulates the spirit of consecration. "Overtime" is nothing; all of one's time and all of one's energies are at the disposal of one's pupils. This is the natural condition — the con- dition that may even throw its halo over the lame and halting efforts of the young and untrained girl-teacher THE WEAKEST LINKS 233 in the isolated rural school, endowing her crude work with that spirit of devoted service without which the most polished technique is barren and empty. Enter into this situation the foreman, the stereotyped speci- fications, the time clock to be punched — and the magic spell is broken. The workshop where the artist loved to toil has become the factory which he loathes. What this condition has led to in certain communities is sufficiently serious to justify grave concern over the possibilities that may be realized on a larger scale. With school administrators and classroom teachers in a state either of actual opposition or of armed neutrality, there can be no real educational progress. Beyond this, however, there is, from the point of view of national welfare, a danger that cannot be overlooked. A group of teachers who, with or without reason, have developed an aggressive class-consciousness and adopted a militant class-attitude cannot fail to indoctrinate their pupils with their own bitterness and resentment. The unhappy — sometimes tragic — effect upon children of constant quarrels and bickerings between parents has been recognized by authorities in mental hygiene. A quite analogous danger arises in the school in which the teachers and the school authorities are at swords' points. To permit in our school system a condition to develop in which such opposition may easily result in a permanent cleavage between two groups that should work in ab- solute harmony is to invite something more than school 234 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS inefficiency. On a large scale, indeed, such a condition can spell nothing less than national disaster. The way out of this difficulty is to recognize the teacher who has served his or her apprenticeship suc- cessfully as something more than an artisan — to give him or her recognitions, responsibilities, and privileges that are consistent with the significance of the service. One method that has much to commend it is to delegate to the teachers as a group, or to representative councils of the teachers, definite responsibilities that are similar to those usually intrusted to college and university faculties. These would involve the right especially to propose educational policies, and the right to be heard when changes in educational policy which have been proposed by others are under discussion. Recognition of this sort would do vastly more than merely mollify a group of malcontents. It would bring to the service of the school authorities and the public the large fund of first-hand experience in dealing with educational problems which classroom teachers alone possess. It would mean that such matters as changes in courses of study, the introduction of new methods and new text- books, and the standards of promotion and gradation could not be decided without having been submitted to the consideration of the teachers themselves. That the teachers should have the only or the final voice in determining educational policies is not at all proposed in such a plan. The control of public schools must rest THE WEAKEST LINKS 235 in the last analysis with the people themselves, acting through their representatives, — the boards of educa- tion. It is clear, however, that proposals involving professional issues should either come from the pro- fessional workers or be passed upon by these workers before being finally adopted or rejected by the repre- sentatives of the people. There is a distinct need, too, for a much more compre- hensive participation by classroom teachers in the coun- cils of the profession itself. The state teachers' associa- tions are rapidly becoming delegate bodies, representing local and sectional organizations of teachers, and the National Education Association is now planning a reorganization on a representative basis, with the state, sectional, and local associations as constituent units. This means that the teachers as a group will in- evitably wield a far greater influence in the future than they have wielded in the past. That this influence may bring the largest possible returns to public welfare, it is essential to place a proper emphasis upon the pro- fessional preparation of teachers. Such a policy alone can counteract the present perilous tendencies toward the development of this unfortunate class-conscious- ness among the classroom teachers as contrasted with the administration and supervisory officers. Such a policy alone can meet the Nation's greatest educational need — a mature, permanent, and generously prepared teacher for every classroom in the land. 036 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS (C) School Inefficiency A third result of the low estimate in which the teacher's service is held and of the consequent inadequacy of the training agencies is in the low level of school effi- ciency as a whole. ''Emergency" licenses have been issued during the past two years in much larger propor- tions than ever before, but they have always been issued far more frequently than they should be. More than this, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the great majority of teachers in the smaller schools have never been adequately trained for their work. The results that have followed from this situation are serious enough when individual pupils alone are considered ; but the results upon the strength and efficiency of the Nation are far more disastrous. Some of these results have already been referred to in the discussion of illiteracy, limited literacy, and physical deficiencies. Another condition closely related to these was brought to public attention by the Army records, al- though the situation that it revealed has been recognized by public-school workers for two decades. The reference here is to the low average schooling of the drafted men, — representing again the low average schooling of the gen- eral population. The average school attendance of the drafted men was found to be but little more than six years. This means, in general, that, of all the children who have entered the first grade of the public schools, a majority have failed to complete the work of the seventh grade. THE WEAKEST LINKS 237 The fundamental cause of this unfortunate showing is to be sought in the inadequacy of the teaching. Other causes have cooperated, of course, in producing this result, — poverty of parents and communities, a school program ill adapted to the abilities of many children, a lack of appreciation of education upon the part of parents, — but after all due allowance has been given to these factors, the outstanding fact of teaching inefficiency still looms as the largest single factor, and the weak- ness that can be most easily and most quickly rem- edied. The justice and validity of this position will not be gainsaid by anyone familiar with the situation — but unfortunately the average citizen is not familiar with the situation. He is likely to think of teaching as a relatively simple task, and of its simplicity as increasing as one descends the age scale. To collegiate and high- school teaching he may perhaps attribute certain diffi- culties, but anyone who can "keep order" can teach little children. In this plausible but thoroughly falla- cious point of view lies the tragedy of the lower schools, — a collective tragedy that finds concrete expression in millions of individual children who are unable to do the work of the school because the fine art of adapting that work to the widely varying capacities and abilities of children has never been recognized. Expert teaching can solve this problem, and expert teachers can be pro- vided by an adequate system of selection and training. 238 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS THE NORMAL-SCHOOL SITUATION Such a system does not exist in this country to-day. All of the states, and many of the cities, support normal schools, and many of these institutions render excellent service by sending into the lower schools a small but steady flow of well-equipped teachers. But, taking the Nation as a whole, the normal school system is utterly inadequate. The normal schools themselves are more penuriously supported by the public than is any other type of educational institution of comparable grade. Their instructors are notoriously underpaid and over- worked in spite of the momentous character of their service — for what service is more momentous than that which prepares the teachers for the Nation's schools? The period of training is far too short for effective work ; the maximum preparation for prospective elementary teachers involves only two years of professional study and training following the high school, and this, as has been pointed out earlier in this chapter, must be looked upon, not as a maximum but as the barest minimum. The most deplorable fact regarding the normal schools, however, is that they do not attract students in sufficient numbers to begin to meet the need for trained teachers. Even in the pre-war years their total annual output of graduates never amounted in the aggregate to more than one fifth of the number of recruits needed each year in the teaching service. Indeed, if the number of graduates THE WEAKEST LINKS 239 who do not serve in the schools is subtracted from the total output, the annual contribution of the normal schools is but barely adequate to furnish the new teachers needed because of the increase in the general population. For the five years before the war, the average number of new teaching positions opened each year was not less than 12,000. During these years, the public normal-school graduating classes averaged not more than 18,000. When one remembers that the total number of vacancies to be filled each year is upward of 100,000 the quota of trained teachers supplied by the normal schools appears to be almost negligible. It is far from negligible because the better service rendered by this small fraction of trained teachers stands out in conspicuous contrast to that of the immature and untrained recruit; but this very fact only serves to bring into high relief the in- adequacies of the system. The conclusion is inescapable that a comprehensive and nation-wide program for the preparation of public- school teachers is a matter of imperative concern to the Nation. The steps that should be immediately taken to enlarge and improve the teacher-training agencies will be discussed in Chapter XXI. In the following chapter the steps essential to the solution of the rural- school problem will claim attention. CHAPTER XX The Equalization of Educational Opportunities In Chapters XVIII and XIX the outstanding weak- nesses revealed by the war were traced to an educational system that is defective at the very points at which, for the welfare of the Nation, it should have the greatest strength. In so far as the rural schools are concerned, the situation thus revealed may be conveniently re- ferred to as a gross inequality of educational opportunity and its correction must involve policies and programs that will aim to reduce these inequalities. It should be insisted (i) that such a reduction must involve a "level- ing up" rather than a "leveling down," and (2) that it is urged not only as a matter of justice to individuals who are now denied adequate opportunities, but more fundamentally as a means of insuring national security and promoting national progress. To establish firmly the principle of tax-support for public education has required a long, uphill struggle, and the struggle has been the more difficult the larger the unit of taxation. Even in the "neighborhood" unit — the local school district — the individual citizen was slow to see both the justice and the expediency of contributing through taxation to the education of other 240 EQUALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES 24I people's children. The notion that the value of his property and the welfare and prosperity of his own family depended upon the morality, the intelligence, and the industry of his neighbors was slow to dawn. But eventually the light came. Far more difficult of develop- ment has been the notion that the welfare of each unit — neighborhood, town, county, or state — depends upon the level of intelligence that characterizes every other unit. Slowly but surely, however, this principle has taken root, and the roots have deepened and ramified. To-day the principle of general state taxation for school purposes is fairly well established. 1 Eventually the logical extension of the principle will carry the taxing unit to boundaries no less circumscribed than those of the Nation itself. That no unit less comprehensive can satisfy the educational needs of the new era is the thesis of the present chapter. The Justification of "General School Funds" While the essential justice of a large taxing unit for the support of schools has only recently been clearly recognized, efforts were made very early to establish permanent state school funds, — the interest on which was to be distributed to the separate towns, townships, or school districts. These were not, however, funds 1 An excellent account of the struggle for this principle is found in Cubberley's Public Education in the United Slates, pp. 118-181 ; also, pp. 480-492. s 242 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS raised by general taxation ; they were rather funds derived from the sale of public lands, and consequently were not ''felt" by the tax-payer. Connecticut was especially fortunate in the sale of her Western Reserve and the money thus derived became a permanent state school fund. The states that were formed from the public domain, — the land originally ceded to the Federal Government by the original states, together with all other territory acquired through purchase, dis- covery, or conquest, — sought in various ways to estab- lish state funds, the interest on which should be used for the support of education ; but again the funds were not tax-derived. The establishment of general state funds based upon the proceeds from the sale of lands, however, paved the way for a general state school tax, particularly by making necessary the framing of plans and principles governing the distribution of the proceeds of the funds. The constitutions of the states frequently provided a method of distribution. 1 The plan commonly followed in the earlier days was to give to the local school district a sum proportionate to its "school population." The "school age" was usually from six to twenty-one; in some cases it was four to twenty ; in still others it was from six to sixteen. This method of distribution was, 1 See Swift's Public Permanent Common School Funds, Part II, for details; also, Cubberley's Public Education in the United States, pp. 118- 354- EQUALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES 243 at the time, defended on the basis of its fairness, but it is clear that the moneys so distributed served to equalize in a measure the school facilities in sections of varying wealth. They were in effect a stimulation, a subsidy. Usually Constitutional conditions were attached to the distribution of the fund, — a minimum term of three months of school each year ; a legally qualified teacher ; no sectarian instruction. The fund, in other words, became an agency through which the larger interests of the state could be safeguarded. The sovereign powers of the states, of course, could be exerted in a direct control without this agency, but, consistently with the ideals of local self-government, the states on the whole have been slow directly to command the local school officers to do all of the desired things. It is much more in harmony with the Anglo-Saxon tradition of local autonomy that these ends should be indirectly secured by controlling the distribution of public moneys. It is not the purpose of this chapter to trace the genesis of the state public school funds. That has already been most admirably done. 1 The income of these funds, in terms of total expenditures for public schools in the several states, is shown in the accompanying table in columns eight and nine. The other columns show the source of the balance of the moneys expended for the maintenance and support of public schools. 1 See Part II of Swift's Public Permanent Common School Funds. 244 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS 3 £ w £ <• H (J P MMU-lONMtTj-M r-~ -t O O <*• OOO w 00 c^vo" r~ VO00 lONfO •3- <3\ O O ^O M co W n t^ r-* in*o »o O O ON t~ON t W >0 M lpH« tuo 1- vo " O O 0;0 coO^OO 4h n * ■* «? OO M OO fO"^Ov ^t OOOvO l^vO -}■ w M f- WOO O >o> o v-o OC >o> o HinttH -too 00 O 00 NO CO M 00 O CS vO 00 r*- MOO "1 0> « I r^oo 00 vin t^NO M ff) »0 O* ** O*--. ONN\ tt M M „ -t * w 3 fen o <'-' W (/3 H tJ- rO 10O O OO 00 ^ O M OOO* O Ph^ qoq^q h tj- q O O *1" OO ION tOO> 10 -i i_t o^h w m cohvOCO pi r^o w r» t-i pi m h O cOO m W v: o vo wO <0 fOONi 1 POCO O O 10 O « w O O n O n M5 to O n r- pi co I s " pj o O *t r-O w c^ co po w C; ^ fO M CO M H M HI CO w co w >0 N cOcocOO O hvO O f) *o0c0 10 o o t. a; 3 a * & h -O 't-O n co -+O0 CO O co to O O 10 m O m o Tf •'to O COh (ONHO\aTtl O rh 000 O N O N O t "*> OS co w *t O-O -^t to to CS N CO O vO H . ^ °. t "C ^ ^ CO « ^fvo" W M M n O m ■+ r^-vO hvOCO ^ Ov ^00 r-. Tf 10 On 0> cO\O~00" ci \0~ coO0~ m CO*" " ~ OOO -O N >+00 To" cooo" rC - — e j« cQ ;J2 c ■S '-^ ~ l>ffi O y u o>i-,& S 3 S g S^ g gg g fe; c.S •" g «l bog S ^ 0.2'gS s I g fe; EQUALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES 245 •o >o m m moo ei O>HO0 H MO >n M O m O o O *f O o-to COO O 00 N *to in m M M OOO CO cOO co co in 00 -too co w M 4 O MOO CO CO C£ h in CO O M CO ■* ■* ivOO O **» o^ O (<)NM00 f- to r- w Q\ m CO "5h 0«3 « m CO O OnoO C£00^ h wo *t rj- rO r- t^. O i0 1 aow o>o ■£ o" rCoo c£- HCO ^ -tN> 0 r-O *0 {*• t*) Tt loo C\ *7 c " " CO HOO c> io- co ONWC>0^0 , t rt-vO -«tO CO CO r- *noo o *t »-• » O CO TtdO rOO ''tcO t^O ^oo tO w fo «2 ^f c> O M r^ *t -tO m O w ^ O 11COO nOOQ (ON« COCO HCO O^O 100 r— *+ r^ c> O 00 1000 NOO O r- m CO 1000 O •n OcO -t O r— -t co wco 'tO •-• O 100 CO w m vnc O v. - - O <0 r*-0 10 rOO*" IO O ON < r m, q. 0; 1 _ ioo~ol MLOCOlOOO^t- <0 Tt . . J* r- *+ 2 *S °» "1 M « °-.°9. r-o ui toioNtto * CO ON tJ-I -tO CO O MO *t NOO CO m -too t^O ci t- hi O to- ^| *o ■■+ o> o -i; 1 © o- n -t -t O"o rTo" w M r?oo" lo O>^t0 O n i"- *^ n rh n O^ ^ -t 0> ^t fOCO O^ moo 10 w CO m w ■«£ fO 100 O o . .S ° o 36 S 3 v § S-S g_g ^ e Exi'S'S 3 =1 rt |ujh m • nO t^ CO On On H 2 & o 1 o o o o ° OnO ^1 ^ ^ ^°°" ?<£ £ On to^O On a co mo O O O to m OnOO CO co "too O; Oj O C> N lO -cf O O f* too M M M fO CO OOOOO M MO00 O cOCO^ t^;^ co rCco" O* 10 r^o co »-* O 00000 N MNHCO O^ Tf « M VO O* 10 m" ^t rC coo n (OO O O Q O Tj- vo cs 5 O On On ^O^ ^ m" to 4 |C rC On to On ^t On CO M M M OOO0O too" co'co tH co M CO Q O O M CO COO 1>;00_ 0_ ft I s - < W 0. W 0. < is u CO co O m ft OvO O m ft r- *t r»00 O tOCO r» O Tt H ON N ft COO m co t— co to r>- co O r* co p* m O »0 m O O m CO On r^. tC o^co" ft « M M CO CO (^ M lOCOCO CO co On cOO °°„ ^ ^^ **! co r^ ** m O co MOO 10 . 00" r^ m 00* O* M Tt W M *9 H H < < > r- O-O « co od -cf m to ri vo w O N On ^00 r^ m CW CO 00_CO On o"« ti O O r^oO f>» o> ^co^ CO co 1^00*00*" ^fo" O CO CO CO to c* coO 10 r^ N tJ- fl clJS "O c/i rt cd u. 3 3"rtl3i2 wwuuu EQUALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES 253 00 v> q m o" on w «^o 00 V)N« ^ qvtopoo c c :■: ■:' inoo vo q-oo in 4 -fl-CTMo >ONpOO> 4>d o* , o c* ONO M ^NO >ooo tOCO CO ON M MO O ■4 ^j- r^coo o» 00000 vOOO HNN CO. tO O^O lo N O" "* T? NMOOO ^ OOOOO *tO NO M NO* <«* O^ m* \r> O O^co" *- M -«t to lo N W5M »^H 00 rf (S 00 tJ- M *0 **> w t"» f» O 00 *o 00 N CM tO M OOOOO 00O ■» r~ -» pooo r-coe© .O O r~ hi 00 O00 r^ tj- OOOOO m rOM r^co COCO 't toco CI (OWH OOOOO xO n On \n N io 0" « r»co" tTOn ia to OOOOOO nm« 10 po r- W'tf^H fOCO^ CO 0*00* O* cio" w to cO m »/> PO COO CO fOO IO « O m GO ^ W * 't " ^ CO ** **CO M O O m to r* -to^ 0 NO^O^ o ^>O00 m tC po «* *o t^ O0 MO^«N lO NOOCO vO loO C> « on o" rf rC to" 00 ^O 00 r*- m^ci M ON tO V) *fr t- ON hO O « 11 O f» ONO CO ON hT cC ro On r-0 10 m on M Tf ■* O M M rC h o"o"co"" M WOO O^N« ^J- to w> LOO CO O -O n-O Ococo a^ M O* « *0 LO m C7. O ** in SO fO O00 fO inmO t- m 0> o> m m m VOW N^W 10 a- On r^vO -f f>>o CO « <^ q_ w vc 0^ 00 it *} )■ w <■ 1 « O" 0" «CO MOO CO m ON CO NO l « , t v>0 ^ ON ^ PO WJWJM 100 ^^o« C;nO^ "2 to C£ 'f o^o cToo CH CO tO w r^-O ON On tO ONCOCO vo im on 00^ too^ ^O^ 01 10 O 10 O N to ti t to w O to «* tOCO CO M N(^N ON r-o r>- lo fOO> W't h °i °* ^ "2 ^2 ®. ^ "2^ '"i m"co" *0 ON 0" »0 toOO* M -t NfOiOC'fOW moo •© W0-* . Oj °0 -* *£ O xo ^ i-T *f iC o^ r^o ^f On r*-r*fOMfOrOMMt>.M nan mui M t^vO 00 fCO M ir> l^ in h 0_ 0_ in O w" in *oco" r^ O O ^* M 0^ 00 00 O O O -< VN OO m" 4 0" « fn M * N <0 O co 00 ^v^. vc*«)" 10 rC N O . LO 0^ M^ CO M^ tC Tt l-T LO -^ ON LO M .oo to m^ to O ON 10 ci ro O" •*0 tJ- «00 ^> Manitowoc Marathon Marinette Marquette Milwaukee 3 * c3 % «« _. rt be u "^ 8 S -d-^ B-^J e*S (fl 3 3 3 c c r; r: rt C4.33 O Sdodd . . . aj . u •» a,.^ on 3* B* P~ Pi Oh -a >< gS ' "8 3 Ss c5 al >» C/) C/i C/3 C/3 H 254 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS As a further illustration, let us take a state that has not had a Tax Commission, leaving assessments to townships and boroughs and having only an imperfect county and state equalization system. From the many, we shall choose Pennsylvania as fairly typical. The table (pp. 256-257) shows the wealth assessed for school purposes, the wealth per capita that is back of each person of school age (six to twenty), and the millage necessary to provide $30 for each person of school age. The facts are so plain as to need no comment. The extreme variation in current rates is found by comparing Union County (millage 5.42) with Susquehanna County (millage 19.03). To raise $30 for each person of school age (6 to 20, 1910) would require a tax rate of 6.44 mills in Green County and 50.3 mills in Susquehanna County. This wide diversity in tax rate exists in Pennsylvania in spite of a very generous state fund that is distributed to the districts, one half on the basis of the number of children from six to sixteen, and one half on the basis of the number of teachers employed. A district with only seven months of school gets as much for the teachers employed and as much for the children of school age as does a district that has nine or even ten months of school. Yet, as a general rule, the districts with the lowest tax rates have the longest terms, pay the highest salaries, and have the best equipments, courses of study, and supervision. EQUALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES 255 DIAGRAM Showing amount of money behind each child for school purposes In 16 Counties in Pennsylvania 1916 Fulton Sullivan Clearfield Mifflin Tioga Adams Crawford Luzerne Cumberland Beaver Pike Fayette Lancaster Northampton Delaware 1260 2010 2110 2490 2560 S030 3060 8480 8860 4130 4270 6020 5190 5320 7670 012346678 1 DIAGRAM Showing variation in rate of assessment and in Tax Rates for school purposes in 15 Counties in Pennsylvania Sullivan 36 Pike 37 Fayette 45 Clearfield 49 Northampton 68 Delaware 59 Mifflin 62 Cumberland 62 Beaver 62 Adams 64 Lancaster 64 Crawford 64 Fulton 68 Tioga 68 Luzerne 76 Figure 4. — The above diagrams are taken from an article by H. Upde- grafi in Proc. Univ. of Pa., Schoolmen's Week, 1919, pp. 134 2- 256 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS M o J * (/) 10 >O00 t O M 100 t m 6 M t Tt t -t Im.00 NOCO O On qoq no t 00 m r^co o M CO O tfl CS O00 00 M « do COM 00 »-• uj*0 f^- iA 6 i>-ov 6 N00 OnOO q m q 00 OnOOOO 4 ?^ Millace Tax to Raise $30 por Each Person 6-20 Years H On m ©ico no r^-O 00 t coo O M On O r-- OOO 4 o> 6 to N rfN 10O 6 HlO M M CM W CO M >OCO O t I'm t N tO c* -t tONNO w O M to w ^ t co ►> „ -< « N •^ Cm O t en »o N co 6 CN tCO >o t- H0 N M IO t O t M I- M O tO r>. t m t to 6 rood »ood M t^OO t— 00 co r-. O \s> co t t COCO M< t q r;- M. 6 ci wd CO O Cv M O t^O M O ^> O^N N OnO tM, M M -O M On tNNQ t to NO tOOO tJ- m O* 0* O O *+ ^ to O to On N-OO N-SO t o> tM tM M00 M00 tM-CO Ho 2-c P O M p. r, O «o CnO CO 00 co Tfo r- 0" T 0" m" «~ MM CM. c< M cm t »o PO m FlvO\OvO ifl o_ *o <> M H m" t m" m" W CO M CM CM WMOnn co co t to O" cm" 10 co o" W M M CO OOO too N t fM. U-JO O t CO HM MJ^ « M* ON to" lOO O N O NO On ->■ '^■00 ionO* cs H m" CO N- »>>nO N tO C^ CO w -it co toco" tooo" co co CO t no! OT I-) < Pi tM, CO co tfi. m r*o t im. 00 COCO r- O NfONO> t tCO t rf « Cm O od m IO M CO O 00 t »o co r^ M MOO IO CO q m< t ioco N « (O 0*0 MCI uio>0> ncicon") CO O mM t-. r* « n. ■^• O CO no •-( cn to ioco w *o co d -t «-i 10 no r*-No too IO C* tO N to m lOO 6 o- co »o S: Oh O O 0_ MVOW WN to too COCO co m o r>. co O CM CO O O Q\ n«n coco wco m N"o w >onn M tO t co CO t t w hi "OCO t cs VO »0 t 00CO IONV1 coo to ^ >o t >o co O^ CO tO ** m Onco to \0 tO M tO M On tO to to «N ^ to N- O CO Tt •* N. r^oo NO tO O CM O O O* ■O CM IOO* M to 0"o" co o* •N mOO S O CO O O^ co <*> o~co~ 0" cm co" wiflO^ cm O >ON hCO C^m" m 4 O O t CM t CO 10 m M \nO MOM co O co 10 >o q_o_ C> w* ci t C> >^> t "- "2 t - fT COCO COO* O M-00 M Ml O t~- t~ "-> N N 0_ t >0 0* 1-^ o"co" 0" M CN m M O too_ Min* C? 6" m" t t M to -* O tO r- -rt to Ht On ■* m O; N to t? O no" rC ci NO O n-O O NO^ tN^ t^O N 1^. O- »h t^OO" « NO NO c0 On m CO O CO t-.No" O O to co ■>* W IO !>. N -t -t cT to oT On to co 00 00 O tM. O_oo_ CM 0> 00 M CO" f~ 14 i u c . -a |-j .5 3 - rt § 1 SmS • g O ^-o ,2 3 £ CST3 O c/j t. J2.3,"3-?! — oJ2 £ 3 3 •n g c M h cd ci erj oj J3 uuuuu •73 d-M lllll uuuuu q UQQWW 2 si I s &o S3 a EQUALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES 257 NOO M r- CO co -too 00 5-39 10.14 5-93 7.22 7.27 O Tf O O to ■ & 6 w to rt Tt-oco r^ hi O r^o hi o> Ch « C> »o r-» O^ O ro r» to t- CI r~00 «5 6 « t*. m f»o 00 es r- toco O ^IflM (J C» ^0 uiO O ^ co ^i-o a* t^ rCo to eJ 6 HI lO O O O Ml M -H/O M lOO w W CO C* t PO 0»N "t r-^-o m 1-4 cs r^ i-t " « 00 HI M CO O Tj- PO 't hi t»oo o*tt^o* cd « fc n a 6 I^CO ^N^INN O PS O PS H. O tO WWNNIO CO M M O* ■* O" M CO PO Tj- O t- M COO NWO o »h 0*0 ^t r- OO cOCO O co .r*-0 po TtcO 00_ *t r- co . po ps o w CO CO CO MOO p_ PO 10 o" po 10 ~t tC - 6 !>■ PO COCO OOO ©\ M M W PO Ov co O to 10 co «-j c> toco M -rt CS WO HI OO ^ O PO PO hi co ■sf O CO ^O hi tJ- CO poo 0" CO too r- ■«*■ too rj- COCO POO « w«>0 W cOO POOO °. °- l C- 00 - T, r* O OcO po -O t** V) M ^t POCO 0>i^w M O OCO *t OOCOO NO* d" tC tC tC « OOtNN« OOONOO OO O r* pO *oco *o -t m c> ^f pC i-T ^t O M N M O, CO CO O *t O O fONO-O OCO O r^O Tj- C4 O M r- pOO O^ O r- w r^-co ot rC m t^ w O* O HI CO ^t W O po O O ■<*• O to 10 i>.CO PO O O O co too ps^ CO to -+ O O PO O hi too tO CO •<* « CO hi fO a 00 "too «f m" 0" "• CO TtvO co CO "t « M O CO r-O ps O oOCJOnn co r^o" po O po to 0^ O O 00*0 r? « to M fO O 10 O PO Th <0 OvO hi « O NrtO't roO m m 10 m vo O r^. to 10 0" M O M O O PO CO « Ovr» 10 MOOO O rO h « too O PS O^CO O O^ OO^ O M HI CO PS ^O •+ r^ O O POCO hi pO O O O r* OCO t-C co -? m 06" PO fs M M PS M ^" O d en • • c c c i -. 5 3 1 J ) J,JhJ to 1 1 iii 8 o\£ tig c § 'a-o ' Eucc . 3 5 s ° S3 %'.'.m'. cd . . a . . c w 03 S > 3 rt S £/3C/3 C/3Hh^ a . . c - a . . 2 £ bo to • c • g t-^ >»1^ 0-^ £ Cj 03 CI QJ >> co M-^l 258 THE NATION AND THE SCHOOLS But the figures just quoted have scant significance because the assessments are not on a uniform basis in the several school-taxing units. The figures are correct, — but the facts which they are supposed to express are not accurately revealed thereby. Meanwhile, however, the inequality of educational opportunity exists and cannot be removed or remedied by additional moneys distributed on the present bases. 1 This inequality exists within the counties of a state as well as in the state as a whole. A county near the state average for Pennsylvania is presented on page 259 so that the inequality may be seen at a glance. The comparative expenditures for school and road purposes for Washington County, Pennsylvania, are shown in the table on page 260. 2 The facts that are here presented about the finances of education in Pennsylvania show clearly that equaliza- tion of educational opportunities is practically impossible in a state that has no tax commission. The establish- ment of a tax commission is a political matter that must be settled affirmatively before an educational " square deal" becomes a possibility. 1 The diagrams "on page 255 are taken from H. Updegraff's " Appli- cation of State Funds to the Aid of Local Schools," Sixth Annual Schoolmen's Week Proceedings, University of Pennsylvania, 1919, pp. 134 ff. 2 Quoted from the Washington County, Pa., School Annual, 1019, p. 51. County Superintendent L. R. Crumrine has set an example which is worthy of emulation. EQUALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES 259 ih - m h OCO 'tO nO«Ni ;CO*iflO 10*0 ^J' *-" w \0 't OoO -t cot^OoO 100O O O CO io-O t^. w o O t"-CO ro »i O **vO m in Tt m w ro rl- 100 G« f^>^ 100O >-i CO cOCO "O CC \0 O n 10 so O sO so O r^- O O 10CO -tOxO' t*» r*oO O r-00 Oco t^oo NQiO»t* r>-00 - t*»co OcO co CO ** t* r- r^- . O fO -^ CO O 't «0 fO O tO* j Oso o O O O w o * > O »o fO fOO inO r*. tK) \o ^fso OOOOO »osO w O *o ". IOCO CO w *f 3 w £ o w " O *O fOCO o cOpq c & a CO - 662 -°° 990,000.00 270,000.00 86,080.00 130,000.00 82,000.00 1 70,000.00 40,000.00 5,700,364.86 6,705,662.00 990,000.00 270,000.00 APPENDIX A 331 APPENDIX A — Continued State or Territory Purpose of Grant Amount Granted, Acres Total by States North Dakota — Continued Reform School School of Mines Normal School Common Schools, Sees. 16 and 36 Ohio: Internal Improvements .... Seminaries of Learning .... Agricultural College Scrip . . . Common Schools, Sec. 16 . . . Salt Springs and contiguous lands Oklahoma: Normal Schools Oklahoma University .... University Preparatory School Agricultural and Mechanical Col- lege Colored Agricultural and Normal University Common Schools, Sees. 16 and 36 Certain Sees. 13 and 33 . . . . Insane Asylum Oregon : Internal Improvements . . . . University Public Buildings Agricultural College Common Schools, Sees. 16 and 36 Salt Springs and contiguous lands Public Park (Area not yet deter- mined) Pennsylvania : Agricultural College Scrip . . . Rhode Island: Agricultural College Scrip . . . South Carolina: Agricultural College Scrip . . . South Dakota : University Agricultural College Public Buildings 40,000.00 40,000.00 80,000.00 2,495>396-oo 500,000.00 69,120.00 630,000.00 724,266.00 24,216.00 300,000.00 250,000.00 150,000.00 250,000.00 100,000. oc i,375,°° - 00 669,000.00 1,760.25 500,000.00 46,080.00 6,400.00 90,000.00 3,399,36o.oo 46,080.00 780,000.00 120,000.00 180,000.00 86,080.00 160,000.00 82,000.00 3,163,476.00 1,947,602.00 3,095,760.25 4,087,920.00 780,000.00 1 20,000.00 180,000.00 332 APPENDIX A APPENDIX A — Continued State or Territory Purpose of Grant Amount Granted, Acres Total by States South Dakota — Continued Educational and Charitable . Deaf and Dumb Asylum . . Reform School School of Mines Normal Schools Missionary Work Military Camp Ground . . . Insane Asylum Common Schools, Sees. 16 and 36 Tennessee : Agricultural College Scrip . . . Texas : Agricultural College Scrip . . . Utah: University Agricultural College Public Buildings Insane Asylum Deaf and Dumb Asylum . . . Reform School School of Mines Normal Schools Blind Asylum Reservoirs Miners' Hospital Common Schools, Sees. 2, 16, 32, and 36 Vermont : Agricultural College Scrip . . . Virginia : Agricultural College Scrip . . . Washington: University Agricultural College Public Buildings Educational and Charitable . . Normal Schools Scientific Schools Common Schools, Sees. 16 and 36 1 70,000.00 40,000.00 40,000.00 40,000.00 80,000.00 160.00 640.00 640.00 2,733,084.00 300,000.00 180,000.00 156,080.00 200,000.00 64,000.00 100,000.00 100,000.00 100,000.00 100,000.00 100,000.00 100,000.00 500,000.00 50,000.00 5,844,196.00 150,000.00 300,000.00 46,080.00 90,000.00 132,000.00 200,000.00 100,000.00 100,000.00 2,376,391-0° 3,432,604.00 300,000.00 180,000.00 7,414,276.00 150,000.00 300,000.00 3,044,471.00 APPENDIX A APPENDIX A — Continued 333 State or Territory Purpose of Grant Amount Granted, Acres Total by States West Virginia: Agricultural College Scrip . . . Wisconsin : Internal Improvements . . . . University Public Buildings Agricultural College Forestry Common Schools, Sec. 16 . . . Wyoming: University Agricultural College Public Buildings Penitentiary Insane Asylum Educational, Penal, etc Deaf and Dumb Asylum . . . Miners' Hospital Fish Hatcheries Poor Farm Common Schools, Sees. 16 and 36 Grand total 150,000.00 500,000.00 92,160.00 6,400.00 240,000.00 20,000.00 982,329.00 46 90 107 3° 30 290 30 3° 5 10 3,47o 080.00 000.00 000.00 000.00 000.00 000.00 000.00 000.00 480.00 ,000.00 ,009.00 150,000.00 1,840,889.00 4,138,569.00 133,426,478.93 APPENDIX B Swamp and Overflowed Lands Under the grant of swamp and overflowed lands made by the acts of Congress approved March 2, 1849 (9 Stat., 352), September 28, 1850 (9 Stat., 519), and March 12, i860 (12 Stat., 3), now Sections 2479, 2480, 2481, and 2490, United States Revised Statutes, the several states, which were the beneficiaries of it, have received patents for the following areas to and including June 30, 1918 : Acres Alabama 418,520.14 Arkansas 7,686,335.37 California 2,138,745.76 Florida 20,201,660.52 Illinois 1,457,399-20 Indiana 1,254,270.73 Iowa 873,816.42 Louisiana 9,375,766.66 Michigan 5,^55, 7 6 9-56 Minnesota 4,662,927.10 Mississippi 3,284,972.58 Missouri 3,346,683.70 Ohio 26,251.95 Oregon 264,069.01 Wisconsin 3,251,542.34 Total 63,898,731.04 In addition to these lands in place, cash and land indemnity has been given to the same states under the acts of March 2, 1855 (10 Stat., 634), and March 3, 1857 (11 Stat., 251), now Sections 2482, 2483, and 2484, United States Revised Statutes, as follows : 334 APPENDIX B 335 Cash Land (Acres) Alabama $ 27,691.50 20,920.08 Arkansas 374,450-°° Florida 67,221.69 94,782.80 Illinois 473,875-99 2,309.07 Indiana 39,080.14 4,880.20 Iowa S87,477-59 321,976-98 Louisiana 53,118.65 32,630.97 Michigan 15,922.06 24,038.69 Mississippi .... 46,449.62 56,781.76 Missouri 195,874.82 81,016.69 Ohio 29,027.76 Wisconsin 185,278.97 105,047.99 Total $2,095,468.79 744,385-23 APPENDIX C The Smith-Towner Bill, as Introduced in the House of Representatives, May 19, 1919, by Mr. H. M. Towner, of Iowa A Bill to create a Department of Education, to authorize appropriations for the conduct of said De- partment, to authorize the appropriation of money to encourage the States in the promotion and support of education, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there is hereby created an executive department in the Government to be called the Department of Educa- tion, with a Secretary of Education, who shall be the head thereof, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and who shall receive a salary of $12,000 per annum, and whose tenure of office shall be the same as that of the heads of other executive departments ; and section one hundred and fifty-eight of the Revised Statutes is hereby amended to include such department, and the provisions of title 4 of the Revised Statutes, including all amendments thereto, are hereby made applicable to said department. The Secretary of Education shall cause a seal of office to be made for such department of such device as the 336 APPENDIX C 337 President shall approve, and judicial notice shall be taken of said seal. Sec. 2. That there shall be in said department an Assistant Secretary of Education to be appointed by the President, who shall receive a salary of $5000 per annum. He shall perform such duties as may be pre- scribed by the Secretary or required by law. There shall also be one chief clerk and a disbursing clerk and such chiefs of bureaus and clerical assistants as may from time to time be authorized by Congress. Sec. 3. That there is hereby transferred to the Department of Education the Bureau of Education, and the President is authorized and empowered in his discretion to transfer to the Department of Education such offices, bureaus, divisions, boards, or branches of the Government, connected with or attached to any of the executive departments or organized independently of any department, as in his judgment should be con- trolled by, or the functions of which should be exercised by, the Department of Education, and all such offices, bureaus, divisions, boards, or branches of the Government so transferred by the President or by act of Congress, shall thereafter be administered by the Department of Education, as hereinafter provided. All officers, clerks, and employees employed in or by any office, bureau, division, board, or branch of the Government, transferred in accordance with the provi- sions of this act of the Department of Education, shall 338 APPENDIX C each and all be transferred to said Department of Educa- tion at their existing grades and salaries, except where otherwise provided in this act ; and the office records and papers on file and pertaining exclusively to the business of any such office, bureau, division, board, or branch of the Government so transferred, together with the furniture and equipment thereof, shall be transferred to said department. Sec. 4. That the Secretary of Education shall have charge, in the buildings or premises occupied by or assigned to the Department of Education, of the library, furniture, fixtures, records, and other property used therein or pertaining thereto, and may expend for rental of appropriate quarters for the accommodation of the Department of Education within the District of Colum- bia, and for the library, furniture, equipment, and all other incidental expenses, such sums as Congress may provide from time to time. All power and authority conferred by law upon or exercised by the head of any executive department, or by any administrative board, over any officer, office, bureau, division, board, or branch, of the Government, transferred in accordance with the provisions of this act to the Department of Education, and any and all business arising therefrom or pertaining thereto, and all duties performed in connection therewith, shall, after such transfer, be vested in and exercised by the Secretary of Education. APPENDIX C 339 All laws prescribing the work and defining the duties and powers of the several offices, bureaus, divisions, boards, or branches of the Government, transferred in accordance with the provisions of this act to the Depart- ment of Education, shall, in so far as the same are not in conflict with the provisions of this act, remain in full force and effect and be executed by the Secretary of Education, to whom is hereby granted definite authority to reorganize the work of any and all of the said offices, bureaus, divisions, boards, or branches of the Government so transferred, in such way as will in his judgment best accomplish the purposes of this act. Sec. 5. That it shall be the duty of the Department of Education to conduct studies and investigations in the field of education and to report thereon. Research shall be undertaken in (a) illiteracy; (b) immigrant education; (c) public-school education, and especially rural education ; (d) physical education, including health education, recreation and sanitation ; (e) prep- aration and supply of competent teachers for the public schools ; and (/) in such other fields as, in the judgment of the Secretary of Education, may require attention and study. In order to carry out the provisions of this section the Secretary of Education is authorized, in the same manner as provided for appointments in other depart- ments, to make appointments, or recommendations of appointments, of educational attaches to foreign em- 340 APPENDIX C bassies, and of such investigators and representatives as may be needed, subject to the appropriations that have been made or may hereafter be made to any office, bureau, division, board, or branch of the Government, transferred in accordance with the provisions of this act to the Department of Education ; and where appro- priations have not been made therefor the appropriation provided in section 6 of this act shall be available. Sec. 6. That for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1921, and annually thereafter, the sum of $500,000 is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to the Department of Education, for the purpose of paying salaries and con- ducting investigations and paying all incidental and traveling expenses and rent where necessary, and for the purpose of enabling the Department of Education to carry out the provisions of this act. And all appropria- tions which have been made and which may hereafter be made to any office, bureau, division, board, or branch of the Government, transferred in accordance with the provisions of this act to the Department of Education, are hereby continued in full force and effect, and shall be administered by the Secretary of Education in such manner as is prescribed by law. Sec. 7. That in order to encourage the States in the promotion and support of education, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the fiscal year APPENDIX C 341 ending June 30, 192 1, and annually thereafter, $100,000,000, to be apportioned, disbursed, and expended as hereinafter provided. Sec. 8. That in order to encourage the States to remove illiteracy, three-fortieths of the sum authorized to be appropriated by section 7 of this act shall be used for the instruction of illiterates ten years of age and over. Such instruction shall deal with the common-school branches and the duties of citizenship, and when advis- able shall prepare for some definite occupation. Said sum shall be apportioned to the States in the proportions which their respective illiterate populations of ten years of age and over, not including foreign-born illit- erates, bear to such total illiterate population of the United States, not including outlying possessions, according to the last preceding census of the United States. Sec. 9. That in order to encourage the States in the Americanization of immigrants, three-fortieths of the sum authorized to be appropriated by section 7 of this act shall be used to teach immigrants ten years of age and over to speak and read the English language and to understand and appreciate the spirit and purpose of the American Government and the duties of citizenship in a free country. The said sum shall be apportioned to the States in the proportions which their respective foreign- born populations bear to the total foreign-born popula- tion of the United States, not including outlying pos- 342 APPENDIX C sessions, according to the last preceding census of the United States. Sec. io. That in order to encourage the States to equalize educational opportunities, five- tenths of the sum authorized to be appropriated by section 7 of this act shall be used in public elementary and secondary schools for the partial payment of teachers' salaries, for providing better instruction and extending school terms, especially in rural schools and schools in sparsely settled localities, and otherwise providing equally good educational opportunities for the children in the several States, and for the extension and adaptation of public libraries for educational purposes. The said sum shall be appor- tioned to the States, one-half in the proportions which the number of children between the ages of six and twenty-one of the respective States bears to the total number of such children in the United States, and one- half in the proportions which the number of public- school teachers employed in teaching positions in the respective States bears to the total number of public- school teachers so employed in the United States, not including outlying possessions, said apportionment to be based upon statistics collected annually by the Department of Education. Provided, however, That in order to share in the appor- tionment provided by this section a State shall establish and maintain the following requirements unless pre- vented by constitutional limitations, in which case these APPENDIX C 343 requirements shall be approximated as nearly as con- stitutional provisions will permit: (a) a legal school term of at least twenty-four weeks in each year for the benefit of all children of school age in such State ; (b) a compulsory school attendance law requiring all children between the ages of seven and fourteen to attend some school for at least twenty-four weeks in each year; (c) a law requiring that the English language shall be the basic language of instruction in the common-school branches in all schools, public and private. Sec. ii. That in order to encourage the States in the promotion of physical education, two-tenths of the sum authorized to be appropriated by section 7 of this act shall be used for physical education and instruction in the principles of health and sanitation, and for providing school nurses, school dental clinics, and otherwise pro- moting physical and mental welfare. The said sum shall be apportioned to the States in the proportions which their respective populations bear to the total population of the United States, not including outlying possessions, according to the last preceding census of the United States. Sec. 12. That in order to encourage the States in the preparation of teachers for public-school service, par- ticularly in rural schools, three- twentieths of the sum authorized to be appropriated by section 7 of this act shall be used to provide and extend facilities for the improvement of teachers already in service and for the 344 APPENDIX C more adequate preparation of prospective teachers, and to provide an increased number of trained and compe- tent teachers by encouraging, through the establishment of scholarships and otherwise, a greater number of talented young people to make adequate preparation for public-school service. The said sum shall be appor- tioned to the States in the proportions which the number of public-school teachers employed in teaching positions in the respective States bears to the total number of public-school teachers so employed in the United States, not including outlying possessions, said apportionments to be based on statistics collected annually by the Department of Education. Sec. 13. That in order to secure the benefits of the appropriation authorized in section 7, and of any of the apportionments made in sections 8, 9, 10, n, and 12 of this act, a State shall by legislative enactment accept the provisions of this act and provide for the distribution of such funds as may be apportioned to said State, and shall designate the State's chief educational authority, whether a State superintendent of public instruction, a com- missioner of education, a State board of education, or other legally constituted chief educational authority, to represent said State in the administration of this act, and such authority so designated shall be recognized by the Secretary of Education : Provided, That in any State in which the legislature does not meet in 1920, the governor of said State, in so far as he may have APPENDIX C 345 authority so to do, may take such action, temporarily, as is herein provided to be taken by legislative enactment in order to secure the benefits of this act, and such action by the governor shall be recognized by the Secre- tary of Education for the purposes of this act, when reported by the chief educational authority designated to represent said State, until the legislature of said State shall have met in due course and been in session sixty days. In any State accepting the provisions of this act, the State treasurer shall be designated and appointed as custodian of all funds received by said State as appor- tionments under the provisions of this act, to receive and provide for the proper custody and disbursement of the same, such disbursements to be made in accordance with the legal provisions of said State, on warrants duly drawn by the State's chief educational authority desig- nated to represent said State in the administration of this act. A State may accept the provisions of any one or more of the respective apportionments authorized in sec- tions 8, 9, io, ii, and 12 of this act, and may defer the acceptance of any one or more of said apportionments : Provided, however, That no money shall be apportioned to any State from any of the funds provided in sec- tions 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 of this act, unless a sum equally as large shall be provided by said State, or by local authorities, or by both, for the same purpose: And 346 APPENDIX C provided, That the sum or sums provided by a State for the equalization of educational opportunities, for the promotion of physical education, and for the preparation of teachers, shall not be less for any year than the amount provided for the same purpose for the fiscal year next preceding the acceptance of the provisions of this act by said State: And provided further , That no money apportioned to any State under the provisions of this act shall be used by any State or local authority, directly or indirectly, for the purchase, rental, erection, preserva- tion, or repair of any building or equipment, or for the purchase or rental of land, or for the payment of debts or the interest thereon. Sec. 14. That when a State shall have accepted the provisions of this act and shall have provided for the distribution and administration of such funds as may be apportioned to said State, as herein provided, the State's chief educational authority designated to repre- sent said State shall so report in writing to the Secretary of Education. If such report shows that said State is prepared to carry out the provisions of this act with respect to any one or more of the apportionments authorized in sections 8, 9, 10, n, and 12 of this act, the Secretary of Education shall apportion to said State for the fiscal year, or for the remainder of the fiscal year, as the case may be, such funds as said State may be entitled to receive under the provisions of this act, and shall certify such apportionment or apportionments to APPENDIX C 347 the Secretary of the Treasury : Provided, That this act shall not be construed to require uniformity of plans, means, or methods in the several States in order to secure the benefits herein provided, except as specifically stated herein : And provided further, That all the educational facilities encouraged by the provisions of this act and accepted by a State shall be organized, supervised, and administered exclusively by the legally constituted State and local educational authorities of said State, and the Secretary of Education shall exercise no authority in relation thereto except as herein provided to insure that all funds apportioned to said State shall be used for the purposes for which they are appropriated, and in accordance with the provisions of this act accepted by said State. Sec. 15. That the Secretary of Education is author- ized to prescribe plans for keeping accounts of the ex- penditures of such funds as may be apportioned to the States under the provisions of this act, and to audit such accounts. The Secretary of Education may withhold the apportionment or apportionments of any State for the next ensuing fiscal year whenever he shall determine that such apportionment or apportionments made to said State for the current fiscal year are not being ex- pended in accordance with the provisions of this act: Provided, however, That before withholding any such apportionment from any State, as herein provided, the Secretary of Education shall give due notice in writing 348 APPENDIX C to the chief educational authority designated to represent said State, stating specifically wherein said State fails to comply with the provisions of this act. If any portion of the money received by the treasurer of a State under the provisions of this act for any of the purposes herein provided shall, by action or contingency, be diminished or lost, the same shall be replaced by said State, and until so replaced no subsequent apportionment for such purpose shall be paid to said State. If any part of the funds apportioned annually to any State for any of the purposes named in sections 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 of this act has not been expended for such purpose, a sum equal to such unexpended part shall be deducted from the next succeeding annual apportionment made to said State for such purpose. Sec. 16. That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and directed to pay quarterly, on the 1st day of July, October, January and April, to the treasury of any State designated to receive such funds, such apportionment or apportionments as are properly certified to him by the Secretary of Education, and he shall discontinue such payments when notified so to do by the Secretary of Education, as provided in this act. Sec. 17. That the chief educational authority desig- nated to represent any State receiving the benefits of this act, shall, not later than September 1 of each year, make a report to the Secretary of Education showing the work APPENDIX C 349 done in said State in carrying out the provisions of this act, and the receipts and expenditures of money ap- portioned to said State under the provisions of this act. If the chief educational authority designated to represent any State shall fail to report as herein provided, the Secretary of Education shall notify the Secretary of the Treasury to discontinue the payment of all apportion- ments to said State until such report shall have been made. Sec. 18. That the Secretary of Education shall annu- ally at the close of each fiscal year make a report in writing to Congress giving an account of all moneys received and disbursed by the Department of Education, and describing the work done by the department. He shall also, not later than December i of each year, make a report to Congress on the administration of sections 7, 8, 9, 10, n, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 of this act, and shall include in said report a summary of the reports made to him by the several States showing the condition of public education therein, and shall at the same time make such recommendations to Congress as will, in his judgment, improve public education in the United States. He shall also from time to time make such special investigations and reports as may be required of him by the President or by Congress. Sec. 19. That this act shall take effect April 1, 1920, and all acts and parts of acts in conflict with this act are hereby repealed. APPENDIX D Non-English Speaking Elements in the Population The Census of 1910 shows that of the 12,944,529 foreign-born whites ten years of age or over in the United States, 2,953,011, or 22.8 per cent of the group, were unable to speak English. In 1900, there were 1,217,280 foreign-born whites, ten years of age or over, or 12.2 per cent of the total of 10,014,256. The number of foreign-born whites unable to speak English increased from 1,217,280 to 2,953,011 in ten years, — an increase of 142.6 per cent in a decade. Only seven states had a population larger than this total. The entire population of the eight Mountain states ■ — Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada — would have to be increased by the population of Delaware and by 117,172 to equal the number of non-English speaking foreign-born whites ten years of age or over who lived in the United States in 1910. This group of non-English speaking foreign-born whites, 2,953,011, is 4.12 per cent of the total of 71,580,270 who were ten years of age or over. This means that more than one in twenty-five of those ten years of age or over are unable to speak English. Of the foreign-born whites of this group resident in urban communities 21.9 per cent could not speak English, while 25.2 per cent of the foreign-born whites resident in rural communities could not speak English. 350 APPENDIX D 35* Since the facilities for teaching foreigners to speak English are available chiefly through the night schools of the cities, it is well to know that of the total already mentioned, 2,042,881, or 61.17 per cent, lived in urban communities and 910,130, or 30.82 per cent, lived in rural communities. Those living in rural communities have very little opportunity of learning to speak English. They remain practically illiterate even though they learn to speak the little English which their occupation forces on them, " except in New England and the East North Central division, the percentage unable to speak English for foreign-born whites was higher in the rural population of each division than it was in the urban." * This is such an important matter that the following table has been prepared 2 to show the per cent of foreign- born white population ten years of age and over unable to speak English in the urban and rural communities of different divisions of our country. Per Cent Foreign-born Whites Ten Years of Age and Over Unable to Speak English and Resident in Urban Communities Rural Communities New England . . Middle Atlantic . . East North Central West North Central South Atlantic . . East South Central West South Central Mountain . . . . Pacific 14.9 24-5 24.8 14.8 20.2 8.7 3°-9 15.2 9.9 16.2 34-3 19-3 19.1 35-7 18.0 53-9 27.9 19-3 1 Thirteenth Census Reports, Vol. i, p. 1274. J Made from Table 15, p. 1275, Thirteenth Census Reports, Vol. 1. 352 APPENDIX D The preceding table shows conclusively that the prob- lem of Americanization is not exclusively an urban problem, and hints that possibly the most difficult phases of it will be found in rural communities, in which the public-school facilities are so hopelessly inadequate. It is quite generally known that a great number of immigrants entered our country from 1900 to 1910, and quite as generally known that many of these immi- grants have not learned to speak English. Just how great is this increase in foreign-born whites unable to speak English is shown in the table which follows. The number of foreign-born whites ten years of age and over and unable to speak English in each division and state is shown in column one for 1900, for 1 910 in column two. The increase for the decade is shown in column three and the per cent of increase is shown in column four. When we bear in mind that immigration continued unchecked until 1 91 4 and that very little has been done to teach foreigners to speak English except in the night schools of our cities, it becomes evident that the language aspect of Americanization is as vast as it is important. Foreign-born White Population Ten Years of Age and Over Unable to Speak English in 1900, 19 10, the Increase, and the Per Cent of Increase 1 Number in 1900 Number in 1910 Increase from 1900 to 1910 Per Cent of Increase Continental United Slates: North Atlantic Division North Central Division South Atlantic Division South Central Division Western Division . . 1,217,280 585,617 471,418 19,518 85,661 55,o66 2,953,on 1,544,588 968,581 71,389 158,011 210,442 i,735,73i 958,97i 497,163 51,871 72,350 155,376 142.6 163.7 105.4 26s. 7 84.4 282.1 North Atlantic Division: New Hampshire . . . Massachusetts . . . Rhode Island .... Connecticut .... New Jersey .... Pennsylvania .... 13,919 17,107 3,921 76,637 17,029 26,816 220,306 48,709 161,173 19,589 26,783 8,342 171,014 36,961 64,201 597,012 153,861 466,825 5,670 9,676 4,421 94,377 19,932 37,385 376,706 105.152 305,652 40.7 56.S 112. 7 123. 1 117.0 139-4 170.9 215.8 189.6 North Central Division : . North Dakota . . . South Dakota . . . 51,752 n,339 103,301 49,342 86,797 68,894 25,544 I4,5H 18,082 13,104 17,908 10,844 163,722 40,731 266,557 102,286 120,665 89,850 37,169 37,747 33.491 18,486 29,519 28,358 111,970 29,392 163,256 52,944 33,868 20,956 11,625 23,236 15,409 5,382 11,611 1/014 216.3 259.2 158.0 107.3 39o 30.4 45-5 1 60. 1 85.2 41.0 64.8 161. 5 South Atlantic Division: District of Columbia . West Virginia .... North Carolina . . . South Carolina . . . 1,529 7,520 254 827 3,6l2 123 52 177 5,424 4,824 17,544 1,349 3,983 27,461 779 447 953 14,049 3,295 10,024 1,095 3,156 23,849 656 395 776 8,625 215-5 133-3 43I-I 381.6 660.2 533-3 759-6 438.4 I59-0 South Central Division: Mississippi .... Louisiana Texas 1,850 675 759 334 877 7,8i7 1,718 71,631 3,816 1,648 3,028 i,49i 2,741 11,547 7,975 125,765 1,966 973 2,269 1,157 1,864 3,730 6,257 54,134 106.2 1441 298.9 346-4 212.5 47-7 364.2 755 Western Division: Wyoming New Mexico .... Utah Nevada Washington .... California 3,109 921 1,962 6,429 5.478 9,775 2,208 477 3,8l5 2,oR 7 18,805 I3,7i8 S,8os 5,970 22,610 11,776 25,072 8,129 3,557 25,568 13,5^1 74,7o6 10,609 4,884 4,008 16,181 6,298 15,297 5,921 3,o8o 21,753 n.444 5S,9oi 341-2 530-2 204.2 251-7 II4-9 156.5 268.1 645.7 S70.I 548.3 297-2 1 From Table 18, Thirteenth Census Reports, Vol. i, p. 1277. 2 A 353 INDEX Ability to speak English: not a test of literacy, 167. Abstract of the Census (1910) : quoted, 145, 146, 148, 149, 156-157, 160- 161, 166, 167, 191, 192, 193, 203, 3Si. 353- Act of July 23, 1787, 35-36. Act of 1785, 16; 28; 29; 33. Act : Adams, 79 ; Hatch, 76-77 ; Morrill, 69-73; 77~78; 78-79; Nelson, 79; of July 23, 1787: 35- 36; of 1785, 16, 28, 29, 53; Smith- Hughes, 97-100; Smith-Lever, 79- 80; Surplus Revenue, 55-60; of 1841, 60-61. Adams Act of 1906, 79. Administration, machinery of: ob- jectionable to teachers, 231-232. Alabama: malaria in, 174; typhoid fever in, 174; hookworm in, 177; diseases among school children in, 177; educational conditions in, 222- 225; diagram comparing rural and urban children by age-grade dis- tribution in, 274. Alabama Survey, 174, 177. Aliens, 121-123. "Alien Islands," 201. Allotments of Smith-Towner Bill : for removal of illiteracy, 152-153; for Americanization, 171-172; for equal- izing educational opportunities, 276; for establishing health programs, 181-182. Amendment, Sixteenth, 314. Americanization, 162 ff; problem of, doubled in ten years, 168; must be solved by the states, 168; Congress should stimulate states to under- take effective programs of, 169; details of should be left to the states, 169-170. A more perfect union : dependent on public education, 206. Analogy : between state boards and national executive departments, faulty, 304-306; between voca- tional education and the Smith- Towner Bill, faulty, 305-306. Annapolis, genesis of, 92. Armstrong, General : organized Hamp- ton Institute, 85. Army Engineer School, 91. Army tests and literacy, 196. Army War College, 91. Arrested development, 97. Athens, Ohio University, established at, 38; grant for, 38. Atherton, G. W. : quoted on relation of general government to education, 109-110; for Federal Aid, 109-110. Attitude of public toward teaching, 212-219. Bankhead, Representative W. B., 135- Bill: Fess, 118; Burkett-Pollard, 116; Lane : 135-141 ; objection to, 139- 141 ; inadequate, 141 ; faulty, 139- 141 ; Owen Educational, 134-135 ; by Senator Blair, 115; Smith- Towner : introduced in Congress, 142 ; general provisions of, 142-143 ; text of, 336-349; Blair Bill of 1887, US- Blair, Senator: for Federal aid for the removal of illiteracy, 112; be- fore the Department of Superin- tendence, N. E. A., 115. Board of Education (Federal) : cannot take place of Secretary of Education, 300-306. Board, Southern Education, 144. Bourne, R. G., quoted on Surplus Revenue Act of 1837, 60. Buchanan, James P., vetoed Morrill Bill, 68-69. Bureau of Education, 86-90; estab- lished as a Department in 1867, 87; made a Bureau in 1869, 87; de- fects of, 88-89; excellent work of, 88-89 ; leadership, 88 ; meager sup- 355 356 INDEX port of, 8g-go; approved by N. E. A., 118; expansion into a Department, no; in Owen Bill, 134-135- Burkett-Pollard Bill, 116. Cash and land indemnity grants, 335. Chart: showing comparison of teachers' salaries and wages in other occupations, 214. Children: once regarded as property of parents, 264. Claflin University, founded, 85. Coast Artillery School, gi. Coffman, L. D., quoted on composition of teaching population, 215. Colleges: colonial, 11-12. Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts: House Committee report on in 1875, 112; established, 6g. (See "Land-Grant" Colleges.) Common Defense: dependent on public education, 205. Common Schools: fundamental prob- lem of, 281. (See Public Schools and Schools.) Communities: cannot solve educa- tional problems alone, 312. Community : boundaries of widened, 3. Congress: has no right to control education in the states, 3og ; has the right to promote education in the states, 300-310; summary of its grants in aid of education, 3og- 310; has made grants rather than subventions, 310-31 1; has always been interested in the development of public education, 313 ; since 1862, has been interested in vocational education, 313; how is it to get money for aiding education in the states? 313-314- Connecticut: Western Reserve in Ohio, 24-25 ; grant of one township to, by Congress, in i8ig, for educa- tion of deaf and dumb persons, 63 ; school fund of, 242. Constitution : its silence on education explained, 34; the General Welfare clause, 34 ; provisions that included Federal aid to education, 40 ; educa- tional inferences, 41 ; Tenth Amend- ment to, 40; gives no control over public education in the states to Congress, 41. Constitutional Convention of 1787, 3g- 40 ; Madison's educational proposals, 3g; National university, 3g; agree- ment concerning, 40; visited by Rev. Manasseh Cutler, 3g. Continuation Schools: purpose of, in Germany, 132 (footnote). Cornell, Ezra: secured endowment for New York's "Land-Grant" College, 74. Cubberley and Elliott: table showing specific land grants quoted from, 52. Cubberley, E. P., quoted on principles of state taxation, 241. Curry, J. L. M., quoted on function of government in education, 114. Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, 35, 36 £T ; letter of, quoted, 37 ; Poole, W. F., quoted, concerning, 37~38. Democracy : fundamental characteris- tic of, 280 ; fundamental educational problem of, 281. Department of Education : argument for, 2g2-3o8; domination from Washington, in educational matters, impossible, 2g3 ; how created and organized, 2g3-2g4; precedent for, 2g4-2gs ; to secure leadership, not control, 2gs; necessary to prepare educational budget for Congress, 2g5-2g6 ; needed to integrate present educational work of Federal Govern- ment, 2g6-2g7 ; needed to coordinate and integrate educational forces of the nation, 2g7~2g8; needed for educational leadership, 2g8-2gg ; needed for solution of international educational problems, 2gg-3oo ; needed to give to education status, dignity, and influence it should have, 300-301 ; and politics, 306- 307 ; not a step toward national control, 307-308. Diagram : showing percentages of chil- dren of normal age-grade in rural and urban schools of Alabama, 274 ; showing comparative death rates, urban and rural, ig8; showing health defects of school children, igg; showing amount of money INDEX 357 behind each child for school pur- poses in is counties in Pennsylvania, 255 1 showing variation in rate of assessment and in tax rates for school purposes in 15 counties in Pennsyl- vania, 255. "Direct War Tax" of 1861 : returned to states in i8gi, 62. Diseases among school children, in Alabama, 177. Distribution of school funds: on basis of need, 260 ; present plan of, wholly inadequate to present needs, 261- 262 ; origin of present plan, 261- 262 ; on basis of aggregate days, 262 ; on basis of teacher, 262 ; present plans of, are intrenched, 263 ; should create a "square deal" educationally, 263. Distribution of school funds on basis of need, 260. Distributive Act of 1841, 60-61 ; pro- visions of, 60-61 ; proceeds applied to education in District of Columbia, 61 ; related to grants of land for internal improvements, 61-62, foot- note. (See Surplus Revenue Act.) District system : outgrowth of theory of local self government, 9. Domestic tranquillity: dependent on public education, 206. Domination from Washington: im- possible, 304. Donaldson: author of The Public Domain, quoted on distribution of money under act of 1841, 61. Education, Bureau of, 86-90; ap- proved by N. E. A., 118; expansion into a Department, 119. (See Bureau of Education and Depart- ment of Education.) Education : controlled by Congress in territories, Porto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines, and in the District of Columbia, 93 ; control of, in the states, 106 ; control of, by Congress, impossible and undesirable, 106 ; in remote districts, of national significance, 124; a national neces- sity, 264; parents' responsibility for of children, 264; is complex and, multiple, 265 ; national interest in, 265; reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment, 265-266; may be promoted by the Federal Govern- ment, 265-266; development of, in states, stimulated by national grants, 28S. Education of foreign-born: neglected, 165-166. Educational Opportunities, Equaliza- tion of: need for, 125; equalization of, 240-277 ; and social justice, 240 ; does not exist in any state, 247-248 ; meaning of, 248 ; movement toward, 249; impossible without equally well prepared teachers for every school, 249; lack of, revealed by war, 249 ; relation of assessment rates to, 218; cannot be brought about by higher rates of taxation, 258; impossible without a state tax commission, or similar body, 218; demands on financial side, 260; demands on educational side, 261 ; in Smith-Towner Bill, 272- 273 ; effort and need are factors in, 273 ; funds for by Smith-Towner Bill, 275 ; distribution of funds for, 276; right of the Federal Govern- ment, 266. Eliot, Dr. Charles: quoted, 108-109; against Federal aid, 108-iog ; against a National University, in. English: inability to speak among foreign-born, 167-168. Evenden, E. S., quoted on teachers' salaries, 214. Factory plan of school administration, 231-232; evil effects of, in schools, 232-233 ; how to overcome, 234. Fanner, A. N., quoted on qualifica- tions of teachers in Wisconsin, 226- 227. "Farmers' High School," 65. Farmers' Institutes: provided for by Congress, 80. Federal Aid to Education and the N. E. A., 107-119. Federal aid to education: Lot No. 16, 16; 22-34; Fi ve P er cent lun d s > 53-55 ; salt lands, 45~46 ; swamp lands, 48-50; university grants, 35-44; discussed in Constitutional 358 INDEX Convention of 1787, 30-41 ; internal improvement lands, 46-48; specific land grants, 51-52; money grants, 53-63; Hatch Act of 1887, 76-77; second Morrill Act, 77-78; does not pauperize the states, 81 ; voca- tional, 94-100; Smith-Hughes Act, 97-100; principles embodied in various acts of Congress granting, 101-106; for public schools, 101- 102 ; for colleges and state universi- ties, 102-103 ; for educational and welfare work, 103; for preparation of vocational teachers, 103-104 ; for collection and spread of information relating to education, 104; for purely national ends, 105 ; for ed- ucation of Indians and other wards, 105; opposed by the endowed colleges, 117; to stimulate the states, 119; needed particularly in post-war days, 290; 292. Federal Board for Vocational Educa- tion: duties of, 97-100; appropria- tions for use of, 98 ; type of, not suited to purposes of Smith-Towner Bill, 305. Federal Control of Education : im- possible, 90; by contract with the states, of doubtful validity, 154. Federal Government : not qualified to undertake programs of Americaniza- tion, 170. Female Colleges, 113. Fess Bill, 118. Fisk University, established, 85. Five per cent funds, 53-55 ; to Cali- fornia, 43.. Foreign-born: under the sanction of Federal law, 164 ; theory of ad- mission of, 164; education of, neglected, 165-166; increase of, since 1S60, 166; shift in origin of, 167; table showing distribution of by states and divisions, 171-172. Foreign-born illiterates, 162-163; do not fit into our social life, 163. Foreign-language press, 162-163. Fort Monroe, school at, 91. Free public schools: relation of to democracy, 32-33 ; to the develop- ment of the Middle West, 34. Freedmen's Bureau, 83-86 ; created in 1865/84; educational work of, 84- 85 ; discontinued, 86. Garfield, James A., speech of, 87-88. Gospel and school lot: in New York, 19-20; in Ohio, 20-21. Grant, defined, 310. Grants of land to states : tabular state- ment showing grants to separate states and for specific purposes within each state, 325-333. Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, established, 85. Harper, President : report on National University, 117. "Hatch Act," 76-77. Hawkins, Dexter A., need of federal aid, 114. Health Defects: largely remedial, 173. Health education, 173 fi. ; necessity for, 126; in cities and country, 197- 200; diagram comparing, in cities and country, 199. Health programs: need for nation- wide, 178; desirable results from, 179; and the Smith-Towner Bill, 178-179; administration of, left to states by the Smith-Towner Bill, 180; nation-wide would stimulate states to action, 180-181. High School, the American: its rapid growth, 132; and military needs, 132. Hoar, Senator, on plans for removing illiteracy, 75-76. Hookworm, in Alabama, 177. Howard University, established, 85. Illiteracy: work for removal of, by churches, 144 ; present status, 144 ff. ; rate of decrease, 145-146; how it is removed, 146-147; educa- tional problems involved in, 147 ; how deal with through the schools, 147-148; removal of, primarily a public-school problem, 148; effect of, on social conditions, 148; due to inadequate public-school facilities, 150; not due to the individual, 150; revealed by the draft, 150; problem of, before Congress for fifty years, 155; among the foreign-born, 159, INDEX 359 160-161 ; primarily a rural problem, 192 ; due to inadequate educational facilities, 194; more prevalent among native-born in rural com- munities than among children of immigrants in cities, 194-195; a rural problem, 195 ; army tests revealed "near illiteracy," ig6. Illiterates: totals, thirty years, 145; white only, 145 ; native-white, 145 ; negro, 146 ; definition of, 147 ; table showing distribution of negro and native-white, 149; age groupings of, 149 ; table showing distribution by divisions and states, by numbers and per cents, 1 51-15 2; table show- ing distribution of Smith-Towner Bill funds for removal of by divisions and states, 152-153 ; classes of in 1900 and 1 9 10, compared by states and divisions, 156-157; state and divisional distribution of foreign- born in 1900 and 1910, 160-161; foreign-born, 162 ; triple problem in Americanizing foreign-born, 162; proportion of in rural and urban communities, 191 ; number of, in rural and urban communities, 192 ; more prevalent in rural than in urban communities, 192. Immigrants: change in character of, 167 ; over ten years of age, 167. Income : not determined by place of residence, 316. Income tax : bulk of Federal income, 314; based on ability to pay, 315; amendment authorizing, 314; pro- posed as source of moneys allotted by Smith-Towner Bill, 315-316; argument for, as source of revenue for educational purposes, 320-322. Indian education, provided for by Congress, 00. "Industrial Movement," 65-69; edu- cational fruits of, 65; related to founding of "Land-Grant" Colleges, 81 ; demanded work of less than college grade, 94 _ Q5- Inefficiency of schools, 236-237. Interdependence, economic, 275, 277. Interior, Department of : related to alienism and illiteracy, 135. Interior, Secretary of, 139; not quali- fied to act as Secretary of Education, 139- Internal Improvement Grants, 46-48. Irreducible debt : in Ohio, in exchange for the public school fund, 27. Jefferson's plan of 1784, 20. Johnston, Henry, quoted on waste of school lands, 32. Justice, dependent on public education, 206. Kandel, I. F., quoted on federal aid for vocational education, 79. Land Act of 1785: provisions of, 16; extended to Louisiana Purchase, 28; not applicable to original states, 29 ; significance of, 33. "Land-Grant" Colleges: genesis of, 64-82 ; early difficulties of, 75 ; President McCosh, regarding, 108; investigation by Congress, in 1875, 76, ii2 ; endowment for, sought, 75 ; Justin S. Morrill, efforts of, in 1872 to get funds for, 75 ; experiment stations established at, 76-77; agri- cultural extension in, 80; growth of, 80; related to "Industrial Move- ment," 81 ; income of, in 1915- 1916, 81. Land grant funds: not always wisely used, 44. Land grants, private: for support of schools, in Virginia, 17; in New Haven, 18. Land grants, public : for support of schools, in Boston, 18; in Dorches- ter, 18; in Connecticut, 18-19; in Massachusetts, 18-20; in Georgia, 19; in New York, 19-20; wasted, 22; waste probably necessary to working out a clear policy, 22; in aid of state universities, 35, 41 ; saline lands, 45 ; saline lands to Ohio, 45 ; saline lands to Indiana, 45 ; saline lands, intention of Con- gress, regarding, 45 ; saline lands, disposition of by the states, 45-46; saline lands, table of, 46; thought of little value, 46; for internal im- provements, 46-48 ; for internal im- provements in 1841, 46-47; for 360 INDEX internal improvements, table of, 47 ; for internal improvements, use of proceeds, 47-48; for internal im- provements, used for educational purposes without authority, 48; swamp lands, 48-50; swamp lands, origin of grants, 49; swamp lands, to Louisiana, 49; swamp lands, to other states, 49 ; swamp lands, table of, 50; swamp lands, disposal of, by states, 50; specific grants, dating from 1889, 51 ; specific grants, table of, 52; to states, for colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts, 64- 76 ; objected to by original states, 65-66. Land grants to state universities : genesis of the policy, 42 ; table show- ing various, 43 ; special, to Utah, 43. Lane, Secretary F. K., author of bill for removal of illiteracy and Ameri- canization of aliens, 135. Lawrence County, Pa., educational, wealth, and taxation facts regard- ing, 259. Leadership in education : 279-280. Lincoln, Abraham: signed Morrill Bill, 69. Literacy, limited, 195-197. Lot No. 16: set aside for the main- tenance of public schools, 16; genesis of plan, 16-17; conditions of grant to Ohio, 23-24 ; in Ohio, equivalent of, 25 ; Ohio made trustee for, 25-26; disposal of in Ohio, 26 ; proceeds made into a fund, 27; granted to townships, 27; granted to states, 27 ; school funds from sale of, 27 ; states receiving, table of, 28; mismanagement of funds from disposal of, 31-32; national sanction of public school involved in grant of, 32. Lots No. 16 and No. 36: set aside for schools in Oregon Territory, 29 ; states receiving, table of, 29. McCosh, Dr., quoted on Upper Schools, 107-108; on Federal aid, 107-108. Maine : claim against Federal Govern- ment, 62. Malaria, in Alabama, 174. Mayo, A. D., on need of federal aid, 1 14. Miami University, Oxford, Ohio: founded on Federal land grant to the Symmes Company, 41. Millage taxes: theory of, 246; prin- ciples controlling, 246; unrealized implication of, 246-247; and equal- ity of educational opportunity, 247. Mills, Roger Q. : Bill for female colleges, 113. Money grants, 53-63; five per cent funds, 53-55 ; five per cent funds, table of, showing use of, 54 ; surplus revenue act, 55-60 ; surplus revenue act, tabular statement showing dis- position of by states, 55, 57-60; distributive act of 1841, 60-61 ; forest reserve proceeds, 62; minor grants, 62-63. Monroe, James, of Ohio: moved to investigate the "Land-Grant" Col- leges, 76. Morgan, John T., Senator, on female colleges, 113. Morrill Act of 1862: introduced in December, 1861, 6g; signed by President Lincoln, 69 ; provisions of, 69-7 2 ; aggregate of land given by, 72; table showing distribution of land to states and dates of open- ing of colleges, 73. Morrill Act of 1899, 78-79. Morrill Act of 1890, 77-78. Morrill Bill of 1857 : history of, 67-69; vetoed by President Buchanan, 68- 69 ; opposed by the South, 68. Morrill, Justin S., 66-67 ; efforts of in 1872 to get funds for "Land- Grant" Colleges, 75. Mortality statistics : quoted, 198. National aid to public education : older than the Constitution, 5-6; needed in the present crisis, 7 ; need for in inverse ratio to wealth, 316. National colleges: contemplated by Senator Morrill, 78. National influence, growth of, 1. National interest : outgrowth of nation- wide needs, 2 ; not opposed to local self-government, 2-3. National safety : dependent on im- proved rural schools, 205. National schools, 90-93. INDEX 361 National service schools, 91. National University : N. E. A. reports, favoring, 117-118; need for, 119. Naval Academy, established, 92. Naval Training Stations, appropria- tions for, 92. Naval War College, appropriation for, 92. N. E. A. : Emergency Commission of, 129; and Smith-Towner Bill, 129- 130; and federal aid to education, 107-119. Nebraska : status of rural teachers in, 225-226. Nelson Act of 1907, 79. Non-English speaking elements in the population, 350-353 ; increase of, from 1900-1910, 353. Normal Schools: and teachers, 238- 239 ; and the Nation, 239 ; must be improved, 281 ; parallel public opinion of teaching, 281-282 ; should be the best among higher schools, 281 ; the least attractive of all pro- fessional schools, 282 ; have been meagerly supported, 282 ; present resources doubled by Smith-Towner Bill, 284 ; should expand and recon- struct curricula, 284-285 ; improved personnel needed, 285 ; relation of salaries of teachers to growth of. 285 ; might adopt West Point policy, 286-288; necessity for, recognized by the states, 289 ; private, 289. Northwest Territory : controversy re- garding, 14-15; Act of 1780, re- garding, 15 ; claims to, given up, 15- 16. Ohio Company : first purchaser of land from the federal government, 35, 38. Oklahoma, land grants to, 31 ; money grants to, 31 ; grant of $5,000,000 to in 1906, 63. Ordinance of 1787, 20. Owen, Senator: educational bill, 134- 135- Parents: right of to educate children, 148. Pauper-school idea : combated by New Jersey, 277. Peabody Fund, established, 85. Pennsylvania : qualifications cf teachers in, 228; diagrams showing wealth and taxation facts in certain counties of, 255; educational, wealth, and taxation facts of, (table) 256-257. Permanent school fund : created in Connecticut, 19. Physical defects: prevalent in rural districts, 197-198; diagram showing prevalence of, 198; revealed by the war, 125-126; national loss from, 126. Physical fitness, 178. Population : of school age in different divisions and states, 291 ; increase of, demands 12,000 additional teachers each year, 290; non- English speaking elements in the, 350-353 ; non-English speaking, in rural and urban communities, 351. "Practical," demand for, 94-96. Preamble to the Constitution : means national aid to public education, 205-207. Preparedness : impossible without ade- quate public schools, 205-206. Promotion of general welfare : depend- ent on public education, 206. Provost Marshal General's Report, 174; details of, 175-176. Public Domain : practically exhausted, 3"- Public Education: must be paid for largely out of current funds, 312; way to insure increasing effective- ness of, 312. Public Lands Sales Fund: decreasing and inadequate for support of " Land- Grant" Colleges, 78. Public Schools: effective agents for publicity during the war, 127-128; effective agents for aiding war measures, 128; and civilian morale, 128; appreciation of by President Wilson, 128; development of, in the South, 144. (See Schools.) Randolph, quoted on wisdom of land grants, 44. Rate bill-: defined, 9; table of, 10. rea, defined, 177. Rural school standards: depress teacher standards, 212-213. 362 INDEX Salt Lands, 45-46. Schools, Colonial, not free, 9; planta- tion, 1 1 ; early, in Pennsylvania, 1 1 ; religious sanction for, 1 2 ; secular sanction for, 12; at the close of the revolutionary period, 13. Schools : defects of, revealed by War. 4; poorest, where best ought to be 124; rural and village, are weak 184; rural, problems of, are most difficult and most important, 185 what are included in, 18s ; aggregate size of, 185 ; national significance of 185-186; rural, difficulties of, 186 necessary expenses of conducting 186-187 ; wealth resources of, small 187 ; individualism of farmer affects 187-188; difficulty of securing good teaching in, 189; disciplinary troubles in, 189-190; lack of super- vision in, 190; rural, responsibility of, for illiteracy, 191 ; rural, failed to reach children as Nation's needs demand, 194 ; rural, have responsi- bility for Americanization, 201-202 ; rural, enrollment of, chiefly in lower grades, 202-203 ; attainment of, below the general average, 204; rural and urban compared, 204; rural, better, a national responsi- bility, 204-207 ; rural, problem of, demands prepared teachers, 209; poorest, in poorest communities, 272; fundamental problem of, 281. School Funds : origin of, in states, 241- 242 ; justification of, 241-242 ; dis- tribution of, 242-243 ; state con- stitutional provisions concerning, 243 ; really a subsidy, 243 ; in different states, (table) 244-245. School inefficiency, 236-237. Second Morrill Act, 77-78. Secretary of Education : provided for, in Owen Bill, 134; provided for by Smith-Towner Bill, 301-303 ; powers of, 301-303 ; to be educa- tional leader rather than executive, 302-304 ; and politics, 306-307. Shortage of teachers : meaning of, 230- 231. Sixteenth Amendment : income tax, 266-267 I 314- Slater Fund, established, 85. Smith, Senator Hoke: introduced educational bills, 135, 142. ^ Smith-Hughes Act, 97-100; approved, 97; precedents set by, 99-100. Smith-Hughes Bill : indorsed by N. E. A., 116-117. Smith-Lever Act, 79-80. Smith-Towner Bill : introduced in Congress, 142 ; general provisions of, 142-143 ; distribution of funds to states for removal of illiteracy, 151-152; not prescriptive as to methods or devices for the removal of illiteracy, 153 ; how its provisions would operate in removing illiteracy, i53 -I 54; and Americanization, 168- 169; stimulates the states, 168; provisions regarding health educa- tion, 179-180; provisions of, relative to equalization of educational oppor- tunities, 270, 272-273; provisions of for preparation of teachers, 283- 284; provisions of, regarding secre- tary of education, 301-303 ; com- plete text of, 336-349. Smithsonian Institution, supported by U. S. A., 93- South: education in, at close of Civil War, 83-84. Southern Education Board, work of, 144. Specific Grants, 51-52. State Funds: distribution of, in Pennsylvania, does not equalize local tax rates, 254. State Taxes: for support of schools, (table) 244-245; distribution of, 246 ; theory of, 246 ; distribution to counties does not equalize local rates or educational opportunities, 251 ; actually lower local rates, 251. State universities: early ones did not meet the needs of pioneers, 64-65. States : cannot solve educational prob- lems alone, 312-313; are interde- pendent economically, 319; are interdependent educationally, 310- 320. States not receiving Federal land grants in aid of public education, 20-30; Vermont, 30; Maine, 30; West Virginia, 30; Texas, 30; Tennessee, 30. INDEX 363 Statistics, Mortality, quoted, 198. Straight University, established, 85. Student interpreters: trained at gov- ernment expense, 93. Subsidies for teachers in training, 287. Subvention, defined, 310. Surgeon General's Report, 173-174. Surplus Revenue Act, 55-591 really a deposit of funds with the states, 56 ; table showing distribution to the states and uses by the several states, 57-60. Swamp Lands: granted to states, 48- 50; 334- Swift, F. H., quoted on permanent common school funds, 54, 57-60, 243- Tax for support of schools : made compulsory, 10; in Connecticut Colony, 10; grew out of funds derived from Lot No. 16. Tax rates: in Pennsylvania counties, 254- Taxable Wealth: variations in, 269; (and table on page 268). Taxation for public schools: estab- lished with difficulty, 240-241 ; followed precedent State School Funds, 242. Taxes : Federal, 266. Teachers: shortage of, due to War, 4-5; the soul and substance of every school, 208; need to acquire technique, 208 ; immature and un- trained, 208-212; born and made, 209 ; prerequisites of becoming, 208- 209 ; preparation of, necessary, 209 ; prepared, necessary in rural schools, 209 ; rural school, characteristics of, 210-211; transient in service, 211; tenure of, 211; prepared, needed, 21 1 ; should be chosen from best talent, 211; described, 219-222; pictures of, 219-222; number of, 220; educational equipment of, 220- 221; experience of, 22 1 ; in Alabama, 222-225; rural, in Nebraska, 225- 226; qualifications of, in Wisconsin, 226-227 ; qualifications of, in Penn- sylvania, 228; present shortage of, 229-231; and normal schools, 238- 239; key to equalizing educational opportunities, 249 ; necessary to save what we gained in the war, 279; remedy for present situation regard- ing, 279; national servants, 279; preparation of, in Smith-Towner Bill, 282-284 ; recruited from middle class, 288; number of, in different states, 2gi ; tendency to lower stand- ards for, 290, 292. Teaching: a casual and temporary occupation, 126; average salary for, 127; regarded by public as a part- time occupation, 213 ; is a transitory occupation, 213-214; a source of pin money, 213 ; traditional attitude toward, 213-214; a temporary em- ployment for "home girls," 215; open to graduates of the home school, 215 ; not usually open to married women, 215-216; not attractive to those who ought to enter it, 216; meager compensation for, 213-216; present crisis in, 216-217; does not compete with other callings open to youth, 217-218; classes now pre- paring for, 218-219; personnel of force, 210-222. Teaching profession : status of, is low, 184-185. Textbook: why so important in our public schools, 231. Third Morrill Act, 78-70- Town meeting: educational signifi- cance of, 8-9. Towner, Representative H. M., intro- duced Smith-Towner Bill in House, 142. Typhoid fever, in Alabama, 174. Updegraff, H. D., quoted on equaliza- tion, 255. Upper Schools: plan for by Dr. McCosh, 107-108. Utah, grant of land to, 31. Van Hise, President: report on National University, 118. Vermont : Spanish-American War claims, 62-63. Virginia: reservation of land in Ohio as bounty for revolutionary troops, is- Vocational Education : 94-100. 364 INDEX Wages and the War, 123-124. War: reveals defects in educational system, 120; and education, in England, 120; modern, and illit- erates, 121 ; and non-English speak- ing aliens, 121-123; as related to the support of education, 123-124; and physical defects, 125-126. War and wages, 123-124. Washington County, Pa., taxation facts regarding, (table) 260. Wayland Seminary, established, 85. Weakest Links, 184-239. Wealth : taxable, in the counties of Wisconsin, for each person, 252-253 ; for each child of school age, 252-253 ; variations in taxable, 268-269; re- lated to population and school popu- lation, by divisions and states, 270- 271 ; not a matter of state lines, 318; due to reciprocal relations, 318- 319; of U. S. by sections, (map) 267. West Point, established, 91. West Point policy : applied to normal schools, 286-288. White, Emerson E., and Bureau of Education, 87. Wilson, President: letter to public school teachers, 128. Winship, A. E., resolution in N. E. A. by, in 1884, 114. Wisconsin : qualifications of teachers in, 226-227; educational and wealth facts concerning counties of, 252-253. Wood, T. D., quoted on health defects, 198. World War: revealed teaching as a casual and temporary occupation, 126-127 ! revealed strength of public school system, 130-133 ; rapid prep- aration for, facilitated by previous work of public school system, 131 ; and high school graduates, 131- 132. CD r> LO CO CD CD Printed in the United States of America. % r ^WEUNIVER% .^lOS