1940: Education

Education and the Current Crisis.

While the effects of the depression on education are gradually being overcome and some of the ground lost is being recovered slowly, the current crisis produced by the war in Europe has aroused new concern for the future of education. The central theme is the preservation of democracy through education. This does not necessarily mean an admission of failure up to the present nor the slightest willingness to concede that there is any truth in the charge made in some quarters that teachers have been guilty of subversive practices in the schools. At this writing an inquiry is being undertaken to discover subversive influences in the New York City Schools.

Far more important than such attacks on the school systems of the country, including even one case of the burning of textbooks on social studies by Professor Harold Rugg, is the concerted effort of the teaching profession as a whole to rally to the cause of democracy, to develop a positive faith in its ideals as a method of contributing directly to the defense of the country, and to prevent the debacle which overwhelmed some European countries.

The Educational Policies Commission of the National Education Association, which already has to its credit a number of important contributions which should chart the future course of American education, this year published another report, Education and Economic Well-Being in American Democracy. Written by Dr. John K. Norton of Teachers College, Columbia University, the report presents a three-point program believed to be basically necessary for economic recovery and welfare: '(1) Expansion of the American school system to provide compulsory school attendance for at least ten years for every American child. Increasing the average number of years of free schooling for American youth to fourteen. (2) Expansion of well-planned vocational education to the point where boys and girls leave school to enter productive jobs. (3) Provision of free college or university training for every child of superior ability who wants to go on with his education, even though he and his family are unable to finance the advanced education.' This expansion of the school system would involve six years of elementary school, followed by a four-year junior secondary course, followed by a senior secondary schooling with courses varying in length from two to four years.

Education as a Force for Economic Security.

The Commission believes that the time has come to reinvest in education as a tool for establishing national economic security. Appropriations for education should be stepped up gradually, and the program should be financed concurrently with recovery. Education will be worth the additional expenditure because educating children in accordance with the new program will give them and their future families an amazing increase in productive power, buying power, consuming power. In states where public education has received generous support, subsequent per capita wealth is always increased. The best insurance of continuous employment now and in the future is definite preparation for a semi-skilled or highly skilled occupation. It is difficult to envision what our total national income might be if every worker were educated to the extent of his ability and trained for the job or jobs in which he could be most productive. With present plant capacity it would easily go to one hundred billion and even more. 'Education of the right kind is self-liquidating in a far more fundamental sense than material improvements can be. In contributing to increased productivity it helps to create the economic basis in national wealth and income upon which taxation for education and other governmental agencies as well as our whole standard of living depends.'

The Report recommends a more far-reaching provision of education than has ever been made available in the United States. 'We now provide free tuition in the elementary and secondary levels of education. This is a wise policy but it does not go far enough. Effectively free schooling requires more than free tuition — it is schooling provided under such conditions that persons who should have the schooling are not debarred from it for financial reasons. This means that the cost of books, educational supplies and maintenance will be provided in part or in whole if the lack of such provision keeps qualified youths from attending school solely due to financial limitations.'

The costs of effecting the proposals made in the Report might in the long run amount to $4,000,000,000 a year, or $1,000,000,000 more than the cost of all education in 1938. This total includes most of the present educational costs; some would go for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation to make education really free to worthy students. In 1936 public education received only 14 per cent of the nation's expense budget as compared with 22 per cent in 1930, and this despite the increased enrollment due largely to unemployment of youth.

That the concern for education, unemployed youth, and the economic welfare of the country is not confined to this report of the Educational Policies Commission is shown by the reports of the American Youth Commission which has devoted five years to the study of the problem and whose investigation has been continued for another year; by the work of the National Youth Administration; and by proposals to Congress to deal with the problem. The number of unemployed youth has been placed at between 4,000,000 and 6,000,000, including all young people of both sexes between the ages of 16 and 24. The Federal Government through its youth-relief program provides whole or partial support to about 1,000,000 young people at a cost of about $400,000,000 a year, of which $300,000,000 is spent on the Civilian Conservation Corps and $100,000,000 through the National Youth Administration. A bill to raise the annual appropriation for the NYA to $500,000,000 was introduced in both houses of Congress. The bill was not enacted.

Under its present regulations the NYA will make it possible for more than 430,000 secondary school students to receive part-time work for wages which will enable them to continue their education. More than 28,000 tax-exempt, non-profit-making public, parochial, and private secondary schools certified by the State Superintendents of Schools will participate in the program. Students are selected on the basis of their need and scholastic ability and are paid between $3 and $6 a month. The records show that such students, although required to work a given number of hours a month, have maintained better than average grades. For 1940-41 the sum of $12,509,161 has been allocated to aid high school students; the amounts available range from $17,188 for Delaware to $1,221,455 for New York State, of which $694,368 will go to New York City. For the aid of college students during 1940-41 the sum of $13,731,130 was allocated; an additional sum of $100,000 was assigned for a special program to aid Negro college and university students to attend institutions of higher learning in other states if their home states offered them no opportunity for graduate study. The allocations to the forty-eight states, District of Columbia, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico range from $44,415 each to Vermont and Puerto Rico, to $1,296,675 in New York State, of which New York City will receive $788,400 for the college and graduate student program. The total amount allocated for NYA to high school, college, and graduate students, excluding the sum for the Negro aid program, is thus $26,240,281 for the 1940-41 school year.

The problem of unemployed youth has also received the attention of the American Youth Commission. Its director, Dr. Floyd W. Reeves, in one of his statements, referred to 'the unreasonable American prejudice against wearing overalls' with the result that four times as many students train as bookkeepers as there are possible jobs. A further consequence 'is that a large portion of the 1,750,000 youth who annually enter the labor market lack specific training for jobs open to them, and, in too many instances, are without any definite idea of what they want or are fitted to do.' The task is to determine the individual's aptitudes and to give him realistic training to make the most of his ability.

Education and National Defense.

The whole problem of vocational and technical education assumed new importance as the country began to take thought of preparations for national defense. It was immediately recognized that unemployment and insufficient provision for vocational preparation had left the country with an inadequate supply of skilled workers to meet the emergency of national defense. Before many weeks passed the scarcity of skilled workers created 'bottlenecks' which militated against the full development of essential industries. Leaders in education individually and in their organizations immediately recognized the challenge. Wherever the question of education and national defense was discussed the need of increased provisions for vocational preparation was stressed. On June 22 Congress, to meet the emergency situation, appropriated $15,200,000 to be distributed until November 1940, by the U.S. Office of Education under the Federal-State Vocational Education program in order that vocational schools might speed up their training for industries essential to national defense. Although the appropriation was made at the time when the summer vacations were beginning, many school systems immediately launched a program of vocational preparation. Additional appropriations amounting to $53,000,000 were recommended to Congress by President Roosevelt late in August, to be used for vocational courses of less than college grade, short engineering courses of college grade, and equipment. In School and Society, October 26, 1940, it was announced that grants amounting to $60,500,000 have been made for these purposes.

While vocational preparation was undertaken immediately, it began to be universally realized that the situation called for more than emergency measures, and that it demanded more thought than had before been given to the dissemination of a clear and widespread understanding of what this country was preparing to defend. The call for national defense began to be heard as soon as France collapsed and when many feared that Britain would soon fall a victim to the German mechanized forces. It was a call to which many speakers at academic commencement exercises responded. President Conant of Harvard stated that 'We have been too receptive to cultural and social traditions from foreign lands. We have suffered from undernourishment — from a lack of our own vitamins, the products of our own unique heritage. . . . The only basis for a strong loyalty, it seems to me, is, first, a realization of the vigor and uniqueness of our own traditions, and, second, a determination to make our future a living embodiment of our past ideals.' President Seymour of Yale stressed the point that 'Loyalty, if it is to remain steadfast in the face of adversity, must be capable of infinite self-sacrifice and constantly courageous to meet attack. . . . For myself I hold that the highest American ideal is that embodied in the tradition inherited from our colonial forefathers — a rich heritage and worthy of defense.' President Hutchins of the University of Chicago declared that 'If you are going to prepare for war, you must know what you are going to fight for. If you are going to defend territory, you must know what territory you are going to defend. If you are going to defend principles, you must know what your principles are and why you hold them.' The questions which must be asked, he said, are 'Is democracy a good form of government? Is it worth dying for? Is the United States a democracy?'

The National Education Association at its annual meeting in Milwaukee passed a 'Resolution on the Present Emergency' in support of preparedness and urging 'all teachers to redouble their efforts to develop in every youth an active, intelligent and profound loyalty to American ideals.' At Harvard University more than 100 members of the faculty formed a group to support measures for national defense and to coordinate the work of agencies already engaged in activities directed against the spread of totalitarian influence in the world.

These expressions of opinion have been coordinated for the profession of education as a whole by two representative national bodies — the American Council on Education and the Educational Policies Commission. The Council presented to the President of the United States a statement, Education and National Defense, 'which seeks to define the fundamental principles of cooperation between education and the Federal Government in relation to national defense and which recommends the setting up of appropriate arrangements to carry out these principles.' The statement proposed a plan of cooperation between a committee from the several governmental agencies concerned with education and a committee, named by the Council, to represent national education organizations. Such committees have been set up and have held joint meetings. In the statement on Education and National Defense the following principles were recommended: '(1) Emergency programs should not interfere unduly with the regular work of the schools and higher institutions. (2) States of mind leading to war hysteria should be discouraged; freedom of learning and teaching should be safeguarded; the language and literature of no country should be eliminated from the curriculum; so-called 'hundred per cent' campaigns should be kept out of the classroom; personal or social discrimination because of racial or national origins should not be tolerated. (3) An undue insistence upon regimentation of thought and action, including distortions of textbooks and other materials of instruction, and the uncritical use of materials of propaganda should be assiduously avoided.' The statement stressed the importance of research facilities for national defense and of education for the conservation of democratic ideals.

A month later the Educational Policies Commission of the National Education Association issued a statement, Education and the Defense of American Democracy. After discussing the swift gains of totalitarian power in Europe and the challenge to the American people to stand firm as guardians of freedom, the statement declared that 'the imperatives of national defense are military, economic, and moral.' 'In the defense of American democracy our system of education must play a central role.' Of the three imperatives the 'most difficult of all is moral and spiritual.' This aspect of the issue is then fully discussed. Moral defense requires understanding of the nature and goals of democracy, deep loyalties, and devotion to the building of a better America, the maintenance of conditions conducive to national unity, and adherence to democracy in shaping national policies. There should be developed in all citizens, from the earliest years, 'deep and abiding loyalties to the central values of democracy — to the conception of the dignity and worth of the individual; to the principle of human equality and brotherhood; to the process of free inquiry, discussion, criticism, and group decision; to the canons of personal integrity, honesty, and fairness; to the idea of the obligation and nobility of labor; to a concern for the good of the community. The young should be taught to love these values, to struggle to make them prevail in the world, to live and, if need be, to die for them.'

Trends in City and Rural Schools.

Educational statistics for the whole nation, although two or more years late, are important as showing certain trends. Figures on city-school systems for 1937-38 released by the U. S. Office of Education corroborate the well-known fact that enrollments in public schools have been decreasing. Despite increases in high schools from 6.7 per cent in the ninth grade to 16.6 per cent in the twelfth grade the total enrollment has been negatively affected by the constant decreases in grade enrollments of 2,902 cities. Between 1934 and 1938 every elementary grade had decreases ranging from 13.5 per cent in grade one to 7.5 per cent in grade eight. Although more than 19,000 teaching positions were added between 1934 and 1938, they were almost exclusively in high schools. The ratio of pupils to teachers fell from 30 pupils to each teacher in 1934 to 28 in 1938 in the larger cities. During 1937-38 there were 33,747 schools occupying 25,370 buildings. Expenditures had been restored to the more nearly normal level of 1930. The salaries of kindergarten and elementary school teachers showed an increase over 1930, but high school teachers received an average of $134 less in 1938 than in 1930. In 1938 the average expenditure per pupil had reached $11.37 as compared with $2.79 per pupil in 1934 and $32.72 per pupil in 1926. From 1930 to 1938 there was a marked increase in appropriations by the Federal Government and the states. The states almost doubled their support, but local sources still supplied 71.8 per cent of the school revenue in 1938.

According to another report issued by the U. S. Office of Education there are still 130,000 one-teacher schools in the country, although there has been a steady decrease in the number since 1918. After an appreciable drop from 1920 to 1924 there was an average decrease of 3,218 schools a year from 1924 to 1936. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New York, and North Carolina account for 21,000 of the 65,000 schools which disappeared from 1918 to 1936. North Carolina and Indiana made the greatest progress in eliminating such schools, while by consolidation, Utah reduced its one-teacher schools by three-fifths or more. During 1934-35 nearly 3,000,000 children, or 10.9 per cent of all the children in public schools, attended one-teacher schools and 1,300,000, or 5.1 per cent of the total, attended two-teacher schools. The number of teachers employed in one-teacher schools fell from 31 per cent in 1918 to 15.2 in 1936. The depression interrupted or slowed up the usual trend in the elimination of small schools, so that the percentage of teachers in them is larger than it would have been had the financial status remained constant.

Junior Colleges.

The junior colleges, which in the short history of their development have increased so rapidly that they now total 550 and have an enrollment of 175,000 students, are being surveyed. This increase in numbers has paralleled the increasing unemployment of youth and has been so rapid that their definite educational function has been haphazard and ill-defined. The survey is being conducted for the American Association of Junior Colleges by Dr. Walter C. Eells and will inquire not merely into their material conditions but into the qualifications of their faculties and their aims. The most important question at issue is whether the junior colleges are meeting the specific needs of their students, most of whom do not continue their formal education beyond the two years offered by these colleges. Another question is the extent to which the work of the junior colleges differs from the first two years of the four-year college. The trend appears to be in the direction of offering terminal courses in semi-professional and technical fields, in business, and in public service.

Enrollments in Colleges and Universities.

Reports from a representative list of 106 colleges and universities throughout the country indicate a slight decrease of .4 per cent in 1940 as compared with 1939 (488,560 as against 490,578). The Eastern and Central institutions show a decrease of 1.3 per cent; the Western a gain of .1 per cent; and the Southern a gain of 1.7 per cent. Later in the year Dr. Raymond Walters reported a total full-time enrollment in 652 institutions of higher education of 883,594 (as compared with 880,733 in 1939), and a total of 1,347,146 full-time and part-time students (as compared with 1,334,599 in 1939). Where there has been a decline, it is attributed to the national and international situation with more jobs available and expectation of military service; where there has been an increase the explanation is found in continued faith in college education.

Education and Taxation.

Although some of the ground lost during the worst years of the depression has been regained, the tradition of whole-hearted financial support for education has not yet been restored. With the increase in taxation in other directions there is, if anything, increased pressure to reduce school budgets. The burden on the citizen is undoubtedly mounting and taxes take a larger share of income than in the past. The attack on taxation for education has been well met in a report of the Educational Policies Commission on Education and Economic Well-Being in American Democracy. Nevertheless the action of a body like the New York State Chamber of Commerce in advocating an education up to the liquidation of illiteracy for the majority of pupils and fuller opportunities for the abler students cannot be ignored; nor is such action an isolated instance. The effect of such action in regard to educational needs was a serious reduction in state aid to education in New York State a year ago. This reduction stimulated the United Parents' Association, the Teachers' Union, the Public Education Association and other organizations in New York to undertake a counter-campaign to have the cut restored, since its immediate effect in a school system like that of New York was the closing of community and recreation centers, discontinuance of adult classes in English and citizenship, and overcrowded classes in high schools.

Academic Freedom.

Normally cases of violations of academic opinion are of interest only to the academic world. This year, however, such a case became an issue which engaged public interest throughout the country. The College of the City of New York recommended the appointment of Mr. Bertrand Russell as visiting professor of philosophy at that institution. Before the appointment was confirmed by the New York City Board of Higher Education an attack was made by Bishop Manning on the appointment on the ground that because of his views on moral questions Mr. Russell would be a harmful influence on the students of the College. The Board of Higher Education upheld the appointment by a majority vote. A tax-payer's suit resulted in a decision by Justice McGeehan voiding the appointment. Plans of the Board of Higher Education, of the American Association of University Professors, and of Mr. Russell himself to carry the case to higher courts appeared to have been stopped by the action of Mayor La Guardia, who abolished the position by striking from the budget of the College the salary assigned to it, but late in September the Board of Higher Education voted to continue with the case but was not permitted by the Court to do so. In October when Dr. Russell received an appointment from the Barnes Foundation, the Board decided to drop the case.

The case which had many ramifications was admirably summed up by President Harry Woodburn Chase of New York University in the following passages of a letter to The New York Times: 'However much one may disagree with the Russell appointment, however repugnant one may find his opinions, the basic fact remains that, if the jurisdiction of the court is upheld, a blow has been struck at the security and intellectual independence of every faculty member in every public college and university in the United States. Its potential consequences are incalculable. . . . Should such jurisdiction be maintained it will be the most serious blow struck at the dignity and independence of the teaching profession at any time.'

Endowed Institutions.

The future of endowed institutions has been the subject of discussion on a number of occasions during the year. Such institutions are faced with two difficulties — a reduction in the number and size of gifts, and a shrinkage in the return on investments. The total income from gifts more than doubled between 1920 and 1930, according to Mr. S. Harold Goldthorpe of the American Council on Education, but went to 646 institutions in 1930 as compared with 346 in 1920. Another increase for 1937-38 was shared by 768 institutions. Yields from endowment funds dropped from 25 to 50 per cent during the last decade. At the same time there is an increase in the number of students applying for admission and a demand for reorganization of existing courses and for the development of new courses to fit graduates into a new economic world. Such institutions cannot gain by increasing their enrollments, even if they were disposed to do so, since student fees fall far short of covering the costs of instruction. Furthermore they are beset by recurrent legislative proposals which may affect their traditional freedom from taxation and other proposals which may affect their academic freedom. The alternative which is sometimes proposed of accepting state aid is one for which most private institutions would be unwilling to sacrifice their freedom and individuality. What Dr. Claude M. Fuess of Andover said with reference to the contribution of private schools applies equally to private institutions of higher education: 'We have, as a rule, been free to formulate our own programs and to carry them out without interference from publicity-seeking legislators.' While tax-supported institutions have grown President Marts of Bucknell University pointed out that the private colleges still have more than twice the financial resources of the tax-supported universities. 'The private colleges,' he said, 'will continue to have more than they can do, no matter how fast or how far the tax-supported universities continue their growth. Higher education is far from its saturation point in the United States.' This situation is possibly responsible for the opinion expressed at a meeting of the American College Publicity Association, that the colleges and the public need to understand each other even better than in the past.

Education in Germany.

See GERMANY.