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mitted the establishment of the positions of Acting Chief of the Alaska Division, accountant, and stenographer in the Washington office of this division.

Agents of the Law. Another pertinent bit of legislation was approved March 3, 1909 (35 Stat. L., 837), which extended the already wide services the teachers of Alaska were rendering. It was:

An act authorizing the Attorney-General to appoint as special officers such employees of the Alaska school service as may be named by the Secretary of the Interior.

Reindeer Service. Although no initial legislation authorizing the establishment of a reindeer service was enacted, such work, after having been started by private contributions, was approved by Congress in an appropriation of $6000 granted in 1893. The work was that of purchasing and breeding reindeer and training natives in the care and propagation of these animals. This work went on under the original plan until 1907, when an act was approved (act of March 4, 1907; 34 Stat. L., 1298, 1338) which instructed the Bureau of Education to turn over to local missions or to natives, as soon as feasible, all government-owned deer.

Medical Relief. In the sundry civil act of March 3, 1915 (38 Stat. L., 822, 862) the first separate appropriation for medical relief for natives of Alaska was made. The amount was later increased and resulted in the establishment of hospitals for the indigent, sick, and disabled.

The sundry civil act of June 12, 1917 (40 Stát. L., 105, 151) permitted the admission of non-indigent patients and the acceptance of pay in amounts prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior. Use of Government Literary and Scientific Collections. April 12, 1892, a "Joint resolution to encourage the establishment and endowment of institutions of learning at the national capital by defining the policy of the government with reference to the use of its literary and scientific collections by students "" was approved

'The act of May 20, 1886 (24 Stat. L., 69), provided for the study of the nature of alcoholic drinks and narcotics and of their effect upon the human system in connection with the subject of physiology and hygiene in (among others) public (white) and Indian schools in territories of the United States. This, of course, affected the schools of Alaska under supervision of the bureau. The same act required teachers in territorial (and other) schools to pass examinations in hygiene (beginning in 1888).

(27 Stat. L., 395). It provided for scientific investigators and students, free access, under certain conditions to government collections and libraries, and specified the Bureau of Education among other organizations as open to such students.

In a similar vein the act of March 3, 1901 (31 Stat. L., 1010, 1039) provided that facilities for study and research in government departments (including, of course, the Bureau of Education) be afforded to those qualified for such work.

Information. One of the few acts affecting directly the prime functions of the bureau (collection and dissemination of information) was approved May 28, 1896 (29 Stat. L., 140, 171). This. was worded as follows:

The Commissioner of Education is hereby authorized to prepare and publish a bulletin of the Bureau of Education as to the condition of higher education, technical and industrial education, facts as to compulsory attendance in the schools, and such other educational topics in the several states of the Union and in foreign countries as may be deemed of value to the educational interests of the states, and there shall be printed one edition of not exceeding 12,500 copies of each issue of said bulletin for distribution by the Bureau of Education, the expense of printing and binding such bulletin to be charged to the allotment for printing and binding for the Department of the Interior.

The citation is sufficiently explanatory. Advantage of this act, however, was not taken until some ten years later.

Vocational Education. An act to provide for the promotion of vocational education (39 Stat. L., 929, 932), was approved on February 23, 1917. To administer this work a board was set up: The Federal Board for Vocational Education, consisting of the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Commerce, the Commissioner of Education, and three citizens.

The act provided that studies and investigations looking toward aid to states in the establishment of vocational schools might be made in coöperation with or through the Bureau of Education.

Volunteer Services. Quickly following this act came one which seriously hampered the work of the bureau in a number of lines. This was the appropriation act of March 3, 1917 (39 Stat. L., 1070, 1106), which provided that no government officer or employee might receive any salary in connection with his services

other than from the national government except for states, counties, or cities.

The act took effect July 1, 1919, and necessitated the divorce from the bureau of the Division of Negro Education, which had been working on a coöperative basis. It also seriously restricted the work of at least two other divisions and lost to the bureau a large number of able consultants and advisors.

Maternity Act. The most recent piece of legislation affecting the bureau came on November 23, 1921, with the signing of "An act for the promotion of the welfare and hygiene of maternity and infancy and for other purposes." (42 Stat. L., 224).

Section 3 of this act created a Board of Maternity and Infant Hygiene for the administration of the act. The board consisted of the Chief of the Children's Bureau, the Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service, and the United States Commissioner of Education.

Summary. Over fifty years of legislation added but little to the original power or jurisdiction of the bureau. The laws which have affected it most are those increasing the administrative duties which, strictly speaking, are incidental and extraneous.

Leadership. To a degree equalled, perhaps, by few other government organizations the work of the Bureau of Education has been a reflection of the personality of the commissioners.

On March 11, 1867, within a week after the passage of the original act, President Johnson appointed Henry Barnard of Connecticut, first Commissioner of Education. The nomination was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, and the new commissioner took office on March 14.

He faced a difficult task. The elementary schools of the North had suffered severely during the war, while those of the South were demoralized. The new West, then in the making, also needed aid in shaping its school policies.

To meet those reorganization problems, perform the functions required by law of the department, and get the organization under way administratively, the commissioner was given a force of four employees and funds amounting to a little over $12,000 to cover salaries and expenses for two years.

The work laid out under his administration was, therefore, to a great degree general in nature. The official reports dealt with such subjects as the history of educational experiments, dismissal of educational reformers, statistics of national school systems, and biographies of great teachers.

This type of thing naturally was not of a nature which would appeal to members of Congress, most of whom seemed to be unaware of the existence of the department or when cognizant of it, hostile.

Many school men, too, were reluctant to coöperate, and the commissioner, seemingly was not able to gain sufficiently the confidence and coöperation of Congress.

Dr. Barnard hence was obliged to watch his department reduced to a bureau and the salary of the Commissioner cut from $4000 to $3000. Congress, rumor had it, was disappointed with what seemed a lack of progress during the early years of the bureau, and the Secretary of the Interior under whom the bureau had been placed was distinctly hostile. The Congressional Globe of November, 30, 1868 quoted this Secretary as desiring all legislation concerning a department of education wiped off the statute books on the ground that there was no necessity of knowing anything whatsoever about education.

Under such auspices progress in the Commissioner's program was hardly to be expected, nor was it realized. The bureau lacked the support of Congress, the department of which it was a part, and a considerable group of school men; formidable obstacles.

Recognizing this fact various associations came to the support of the bureau in 1869 and urged upon Congress the necessity for more liberal support. It was not forthcoming, however, and on March 15, 1870, Dr. Barnard resigned.

He had, probably more than any other one man, been responsible for the establishment of the bureau. He had carried on the work where Horace Mann had left off. He was an unquestioned leader and authority in the field of education, but lacking certain less admirable, though extremely practical characteristics, he was obliged to retire, frustrated.

President Grant appointed General John Eaton of Tennessee Commissioner on March 16, 1870.

General Eaton seems to have possessed certain characteristics lacking in the previous administration. He evidently had the ability to enlist support for his organization, as Congress on July 12 granted him three additional clerks, a messenger, and $3000 for work in computing statistics and preparing reports. With additional funds and a Commissioner who was possessed of the requisite personal magnetism the bureau took on a new lease on life.

The Commissioner immediately laid down his conception of what the national government might do with regard to education:

1. It may do all things required for education in the territories. 2. It may do all things required for education in the District of Columbia.

3. It may also do all things required by its treaties with and its obligations to the Indians.

4. It may do all that its international relations require in regard to education.

5. It may call all persons or states to account for whatever has been entrusted to them for educational purposes.

6. It may use either the public domain or the money received from its sale for the benefit of education.

7. It may know all about education in the country and may communicate what it knows at the discretion of Congress and the executive.

8. It may make laws for these several purposes and the federal courts may adjudicate questions under them.

9. In accordance with these laws, plainly the government should provide a national educational office and officer and furnish him clerks, and all means for the fulfilment of the national educational obligations.

On the negative side he also said:

The national government should take no action calculated to decrease local or individual effort for education. It is of the individual and by the individual, but it is for all men.

The national government in its relation to public education may not suffer either the local or general prevalence of ignorance, that shall result in the destruction of the principles of liberty by the centralization of power."

National Education Association, Proceedings, 1870, p. 122.

8

9

Ibid.

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