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Show DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION FAVORED The proposal for the creation of a Department of Education L nieeting with growing approval as the people throughout the country realize the needt of the schools and the urt that such a department would piay in fulfilling these needs, an exchange says. The Eduoa .,on Bill introduced before the present Congress includes the feature of the Curtis-Reed Bill introduced in the Sixty-ninth Congress, with the additional provision for a council of state superintendents of edu cation or of the highest electee or appointed state school officii, (in some states the highest school officer is a superintendent, in others a commissioner) to meet annually in Washington at the call of the Secretary. This serves as a further safeguard from any possi ble tendency towards federal control or interference with the States rights, practically the only ground on which this has been opposed, in the Representatives Cabinet. It has been apparent from the first that the major part of sue! opposition did not come from those who are intimately connectec with the public schools but rather from outsiders- Moreover the; have made the old bones of contention, States' rights and Federal Control, the main points in their dissertations against the measure, when there is no part of the bill which could be interpreted by un baised minds as in any way threatening the rights of the states o. fostering federal control. Gradually, the public is awakening to thL fact and the present trend is towards country-wide approval to such a step. Excerpts from an editorial in an Oregon paper, commenting oi the creation of a Department of Education and the Curtis-Reed Bil. read as follows: "The teachers of the cquntry have set out to obtain recognition of the impoitance of education and its relation to other aspects o: human activity, through the creation of a Department of Eductaio: with representation in the President's Cabinet. "The pending measure," the writer states further, "is sound fo; several reasons. If it did nothing more than consolidate the variou: agencies which, attached to several departments, are productive o duplication involving unnecessary expense, it would be justified. . . The Government is now engaged in fostering vocational educatioi for veterans, it has extensive responsibilities in association with it: colonial affairs, it is immediately interested in the education of th: Indians, and in the District of Columbia it has certain activities whici might properly be transferred to the new department. But these ar. in all probability secondary issues by comparison with the equaliza tion of opportunity for education which is sought in the provisior which relates to federal initiative in research covering the entire field "It is finally to be considered," it said in conclusion, "that whil. a federal department might in theory accomplish no more than coulc be done by a 'bureau' of the government under ideal conditions, i would in practice give dignity and effectiveness to a principal deepl ingrained in the American political system, which is predicated o. equality of opportunity for the enjoymont of which education is in dispensable. It is true also that a considerable number" of agencies most of them competent and all of them sincere; are engaged in re search into educational problem. But there woud be no interference with private scholarships if a federal department were authorized. The status of these would remain precisely as it is now." Dr. William M. Davidson, Pittsburg superintendent of schools, at a recent meeting of the Education Association of the District of Columbia, said that as one of the big businesses of America, educa tion merits a departmental "clearing house" for educational data with a secretary in the President's Cabinet. He also commended President Coolidge for including in his message to Congress a request for such a department, and declared that there is no reason for fear that such a department would "control" the courses of study prescribed pre-scribed in the states, stating that its function would be one of scientific scien-tific analysis and distribution of educational information. Th District Teachers' Insitute of Nevada passed a resolution heartily endorsing the Education Bill and proposed that a copy of this resolution be sent to their Representatives in Congress. A communication recently recieved from Mrs. Geo. R. Felter Superintendent of Schools, Travis County, Texas states that they heartily endorse a Department of Education with a secretary in the President's Cabinet, and that the phrase "equal opportunities for . all" was especially appealing in respect to rural children. She said also that it is a wonder that the "largest business in the world" has been so long without a representative in the President's Cabinet. "Do we need," she concluded, "to discover that the children are our country's biggest asset?" |