Cabinet Post

Educators' eyes are turning toward Washington. There the new Congress will be asked among other things to consider the establishment of a Federal Department of Education, with a Secretary in the President's Cabinet.

Thomas Sterling, Senator from South Dakota, will introduce a bill similar to the Towner-Sterling Education Bill, which was not acted upon by the last Congress. Horace M. Towner, Iowa Representative who formerly collaborated with Senator Sterling, is not on hand for the battle, being at present Governor of Porto Rico (TIME, June 25). But the new measure has the support of many educational societies behind it, representing between two and three million members.

The Capital News Service, speaking for the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite in the South, declared that the present Congress cannot afford to sidetrack the bill. "The pressure ... is overwhelming. Every patriotic and almost every fraternal order is behind it. Churches indorse it. Teachers, schools and colleges, alumni associations and undergraduates are for it. Chambers of Commerce and civic organizations demand it. Parents want it. School organizations want it. Almost every-one who knows anything about it wants it. ... The time has come when the United States should do as much for education as it does for wheat and corn and pigs and cattle!

"The country of tomorrow will be the land of the children of today. The citizens of tomorrow are the product of the schools of today. Can anything ever be more important to this nation than seeing to it, through Government help, that its schools are making the best possible citizens of its children?"

The chief fear of the educational forces now gathered at the Capital seems to be not so much that the bill will fail to gain attention as that it will be met by a proposal to combine the Department of Education with the Public Health Service. It is considered that each Department will operate more efficiently if independent, and in particular that the energies of the Department of Education will be wasted if they have to be subordinated to the purposes of the Health Service.

President Coolidge's message to the new Congress contained an allusion to the proposed Department which is not altogether explicit as to the point just raised. It is interesting, however, as indicating how important the main issue has become, and it is specific enough in regard to the availability of Federal funds--funds being always the first and last question in education. Said the President: "Having in mind that education is peculiarly a local problem and that it should always be pursued with the largest freedom of choice by students and parents, nevertheless the Federal Government might well give the benefit of its counsel and encouragement more freely in this direction. If anyone doubts the need of concerted action by the States of the Nation for this purpose, it is only necessary to consider the appalling figures of illiteracy, representing a condition which does not vary much in all parts of the Union. I do not favor the mak-ing of appropriations from the National Treasury to be expended directly on local education, but I do consider it a fundamental requirement of national activity which, accompanied by allied subjects of welfare, is worthy of a separate Department and a place in the Cabinet. The humanitarian side of government should not be repressed, but should be cultivated."

The words "humanitarian" and "welfare" may be 'disquieting to those who do not favor cooperation with the Health Service, but the President's willingness for a Department will encourage many who now watch the new Congress closely and anxiously.