A New Department

The legislative council of the National Education Association in conference at Cleveland was addressed by United States Commissioner of Education Tigert in favor of the creation of a " Department of Education and Welfare" in the National Government, rather than a " Department of Education " only--as provided in the Towner-Sterling Bill. Commissioner Tigert stated that he appeared with " the consent and approval " of the President. He reminded the council that President Harding's father " is still practicing medicine," that " his only brother is a leading physician," that his sister " was a missionary with medical leanings." Nevertheless, the council voted to stand solidly behind the Towner-Sterling Bill.

This decision has met with popular approval. Although the " Department of Education " of the Towner-Sterling Bill is subject to unlimited attack from the point of view of constitutional law, constitutional policy, administrative efficiency, and the national debt; everything that can be said against that project can be said against the joint department. The public health service, now under the Treasury, the present educational activities of the National Government, homes, hospitals, and social service institutions now scattered under several different authorities, all would be combined.

The 10,000 teachers assembled at Cleveland were emphatic in their demand for an exclusive Department of Education. They intend to launch a nation-wide campaign to arouse public sentiment, and it is asserted that the Department will eventually come into being.

The general argument for a Department of Education at Washington is that the National Government should not neglect a business of such vital importance to the nation. Such a Department, it is said, will not interfere with local institutions except to advise and give useful information. At the same time it can be of immense service in fighting national illiteracy and helping the immigrant.

But opposition to any such department is bitter. The gist of the attack runs: " The whole plan for national control of education in any degree whatever, to the exclusion of local control, is vicious. It means another department, another set of insulating bureaucrats and a complication in the mechanism of administration. The word 'unAmerican' has still a certain meaning, in spite of Mr. Babbitt and his journalistic friends. It describes a point of view out of all harmony with the basic principles of the National Government. And in that sense of the word this entire attempt to place in the Administration at Washington control over the immediate concerns of the several states is ' un-American.'"

Says Dr. Samuel P. Capen, chancellor of the University of Buffalo: " The strength of American education lies chiefly in its diversity, its flexibility, and its freedom. The schools of Nevada, for example, have never been and should never be like the schools of Massachusetts."