Extension in the bureau is made, this work of community organization should be included under it. 22. The immediate establishment of a division of educational extension to continue and expand the work begun in the last half of the last fiscal year by the bureau, with an allotment of $75,000 from the President's fund for the national security and defense. Interest in educational extension work has grown rapidly within the last few years and results already obtained show conclusively its value. The special need for such work now and for the next few years is indicated by the following facts: (1) That of the 4,000,000 recently discharged soldiers, nearly all of whom are eager for opportunities to extend their education for vocational efficiency, for citizenship, and for general culture, few can go to college, and fewer still will enter ordinary high schools, and practically all must depend on such opportunities as the educational extension agencies may offer; (2) that millions of laboring men and women now having shorter hours and receiving larger pay than ever before are eager for opportunities for instruction, especially in things pertaining to economics, civic rights and duties, and better living; (3) that millions of women recently enfranchised, or now about to be endowed with the right of suffrage by the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, are eager for opportunities for instruction in regard to forms of government and civic and political problems; (4) that millions of foreign-born men and women among us, both of those who have taken out citizenship papers and those who have not, although able to speak, read, and write the English language, need to be instructed in regard to the geography, history, ideals, manners, and customs and industrial and economic opportunities in this country; (5) that two and a quarter million boys and girls are every year attaining their majority and entering the ranks of active citizens with the right of suffrage at a time when the problems of active citizenship are more numerous, complex, and difficult than ever before in our history, and that few of these have had any adequate instruction in the principles of democracy and in regard to the vital problems with which they must deal. Less than one-third of them have had any high-school education and less than one-eighth have graduated from a high school. To respond effectively to the opportunities and needs for extension education thus indicated will mean much for all the economic, civic, and cultural interests of the country. Not only should Congress make an appropriation for the maintenance of a division of educational extension as herein suggested, it should also, I believe, make liberal appropriations for cooperation with the States in promoting extension education in health, trades and industries, civic duties, and general culture, com patible to the appropriations now made for cooperation with the States in extension education in agriculture and home economics. 23. An annual appropriation of $25,000 to enable the Bureau of Education to continue and enlarge its work of studying the problems of the education of Negroes in the United States and the education of backward peoples in the Territories and possessions of the United States. The adaptation of the means of education to these people involve many difficult problems to the solution of which comparatively little attention has been given, but without whose solution much of the money expended from both public and private sources for schools and other means of their education will be lost and their development and progress greatly retarded. When an appropriation is made for the reestablishment of the Division for the Education of Negroes and Backward Peoples the man recommended in section 10 of these recommendations to give his entire time and attention to the colleges of agriculture for Negroes in the Southern States might well be attached to this division instead of to the Division of Higher Education. 24. An appropriation of $40,000 a year to enable the Bureau of Education to continue the School Board Service Division, established and maintained through the last half of the fiscal year with the help of an allotment from the President's fund for the national security and defense, for the purpose of assisting boards of education of city and country schools and boards of trustees of universities, colleges, normal schools, and technical schools in finding teachers of the grade and kind that are sought from the country at large rather than from local communities. The emergency for the relief of which this division was established is now and will remain for several years almost as great as it was before the signing of the armistice and the beginning of the return of men from the Army and of men and women from the industries connected with the war. The great industrial development which must follow the establishment of peace and the unusually high wages paid in the industries will continue to attract many teachers from the schools, and even when conditions have become more normal there will still be great need for the service which only such an agency as this can render. 25. Means to enable the bureau to cooperate with schools of education in colleges and universities, with normal schools, and with city and county school systems in making important investigations and definite experiments in elementary and secondary school education under scientific control. There is as much need for scientific experiments in education as there is for such experiments in agriculture or engineering. Although we are spending annually many hundreds of millions of dollars on public education, we have little accurate and definite knowledge about the value of various forms of education and methods of teaching, and we can have little more until provision is made for such scientific experiments as are here indicated. With a comparatively small amount of money the bureau might obtain the cooperation of individuals, institutions, and boards of education in making important investigations and experiments in education not otherwise possible without much larger expenditures. 26. Means to enable the Bureau of Education to cooperate with State and county school officers in establishing and maintaining model rural schools for the purpose of demonstrating the value of such forms of rural school organization, management, courses of study, and methods of teaching as may appear to be most desirable to be incorporated in the rural schools of the several States and communities of the United States. A bill appropriating $275,000 a year for this purpose is now pending in the Senate. Its passage would, within a few years, add much to the effectiveness of the rural schools of the several States. 27. A larger appropriation to enable the Secretary of the Interior, in his discretion and under his direction, and with the advice and cooperation of the Public Health Service, to provide for the medical and sanitary relief of the Eskimos, Aleuts, Indians, and other natives of Alaska. Careful investigations made with the cooperation of the Public Health Service some years ago showed the necessity of immediate provision for the care of the health of the natives of this Territory and for the eradication of communicable diseases now prevalent in different sections of the Territory which, if not put under immediate control, will soon destroy the lives of many of these people and spread among the white settlers. To do what is needed will require an annual appropriation of not less than $125,000. The appropriation for the education of natives in Alaska should be increased to not less than $300,000 to enable the bureau. to more fully equip some of the schools and to establish schools in several villages in which none have yet been established, and where there are no agencies for the civilization and the care of the natives, and to enable the bureau to care for and properly educate the large number of orphans whose parents died during the epidemic of influenza last fall and winter. 28. The time has come when the natives in all parts of Alaska should be assisted and directed in the establishment and development of industries of their own which will give them remunerative employment through much of the time in which they are now more or less idle, and by which they may make for themselves a better support and gradually take over the larger part of the cost of their own schools and medical attendance. The success of the reindeer industry in the northwestern part of Alaska and of cooperative stores, fish canneries, sawmills, and other industries in southeast ern Alaska show clearly the importance of such assistance. Ten thousand dollars a year judiciously expended for this purpose through the next 10 or 15 years would finally save hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Government by making these people more competent to care for their own needs. 29. For the work which the bureau now does more room is needed, and still more will be needed as its staff of experts and clerks is increased. There is now need for more and better arranged space for the bureau's library, which is increasing from year to year. The Nation needs an educational museum, a kind of perpetual educational exhibit, in which there may be found at any time, properly arranged and catalogued, typical courses of study, samples of school furniture, and equipment of all kinds, specimens of school work, plans and photographs of buildings and grounds, and whatever else may be helpful in enabling students of education and school officers and teachers to gain an accurate and comprehensive knowledge of purposes, methods, and results of education in this and other countries, and assist them in forming ideas for the improvement of their own schools and school work. This museum should, of course, be under the direction of the Bureau of Education and should constitute an essential part of its equipment. The work of the Federal Board for Vocational Education, of which the Commissioner of Education is a member, is so closely related to that of this bureau that it would add to the efficiency both of the board and of the bureau if they were housed in the same building, so that they might have easy access to the same library and communicate easily with each other; and there are other important activities of the Government which could be carried on more effectively under the same conditions. I, therefore, renew the recommendations contained in previous statements that plans be considered at once for the erection of a building that will afford ample room for the work of the bureau and allied activities of the Government, house the bureau's library, and furnish ample room for such collections of materials as those mentioned above. It would, I believe, be entirely proper that such a building be erected in memorial of the patriotic services rendered by the schools and their teachers and pupils during the great war, and these teachers and children might well be permitted to contribute to the cost of the building. Respectfully submitted. The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. P. P. CLAXTON, Commissioner. REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION. PART I. SOME ASPECTS OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED I. HIGHER EDUCATION. The academic year which has just closed represents an unprecedented period in the history of American higher education. Educational institutions were wholly absorbed in the task of training for military service and in readjusting themselves to meet the problems of peace after the signing of the armistice. It was therefore not a year of progress, except as certain of the experiments in training officers in civilian institutions may react later upon the normal academic procedure. The report of the Commissioner of Education for 1918 contained an outline of the efforts which were made by agencies both inside and outside of the Government to bring the vast training facilities of the colleges and universities directly into the service of the military establishments. Early in the year 1918 the War Department, through the creation of its committee on education and special training, definitely undertook to make use of these facilities. The organization by this committee of the National Army Training Detachments for the education of technicians was described and the proposed organization of the Students' Army Training Corps was summarized. Since the preparation of that report the Students' Army Training Corps has come and gone. It was unquestionably the outstanding educational event of the year. Briefly, therefore, it should be discussed in this review of the progress of education. A letter was addressed by the Secretary of War to presidents of colleges, on May 6, 1918, as follows: In order to provide military instruction for the college students of the country during the present emergency, a comprehensive plan will be put in effect by the War Department, beginning with the next college year, in Sep 142539°-19-2 5 |