the whole teaching corps of the State, about 42,000. Some time ago the association in assembly passed a resolution favoring Federal aid to public schools. I would like to remind you and myself in particular that it is well not to lose sight of the main aspects of the bill. It is easy for us to be involved on side issues and forget the main issue. I think the bill ought to be passed because it is needed, and it seems to me, after all, that is the measure on almost anything that may come up, whether the need for the situation is sufficiently great or not, it is for us to find some way to meet it. I believe this bill will meet the needs and problems not only of my State but of the Nation at large. I am not here to say that the educational millenium will come when this bill is passed. I have been in school work too long to say that. It is a step in the right direction and will help the situation that prevails very largely in the country at the present time.

In the first place, I concur in the suggestion that the ultimate purpose of this bill, first, is in its effect upon the general economic, social, and moral conditions of the Nation at large. I think education is a major interest of the Nation. If you want to put it that way, it is one of the chief safeguards of the Nation. We do well to turn to it in times like the present. Today our institutions are being tested. Our national integrity, our national character is being tested and we know it. All our institutions are on trial. We do not need to go further than read the morning paper to realize that at the present time.

From the beginning of our Nation protecting the general welfare was necessary to the lawful operation of the Government. We still hold to that idea. We must also develop certain common convictions in our institutions and our Government if they are to stand and endure-common convictions of integrity and intelligence and justice and decency-and I am of the opinion that stability of government will not be very good unless it does have as a foundation those convictions of solidarity, industry, honesty, well being, and so forth. It is the business of educational institutions and their entire job, and the country is today charged with the responsibility of maintaining these institutions, but I do believe that one of the big functions of education today is to train the youth into that condition of character where they will have these rather definite convictions about industry, honesty, and things of that high type. We must realize that democracy does not mean individualism gone riot. It means the advance to the best in life in every direction and it is a matter of common judgment that where these convictions do not exist you have strife and confusion. It is still true that there is no better maxim than that a house divided against itself cannot stand. I am speaking then on the question of the importance of developing educational institutions by common convictions that will stand.

May I call attention to the fact that the major activity of 26,000,000 of our people today is educational. One-fifth of our people are directly concerned with this problem of education. In 1926 there were 24,741,000 pupils enrolled in the schools of the United States. Eight years later 26,351,000 were enrolled, and in that 8 years there was an average gain in enrollment of 200,000 boys and girls. That amounts to practically a quarter of a million. You will notice further the

comparative figures of the 26,000,000 boys and girls. In 1932, there were 897,000 teachers and 2 years later, in 1934, this number had diminished to 840,000, with an annual average increase of 200,000 pupils in the public schools enrollment for a period of 2 years, and as a result of the depression, it cut down the teaching corps by 50,000 teachers.

I recognize the fact that there has been a great increase in the cost of education and that there has been an increase in the enrollment of our pupils in the schools. I call your attention to the fact first with a normal increase of 200,000 pupils a year, most of the increase being in high schools, there has been an increase in the cost of education in recent years. In 1900 there were 519,000 boys and girls enrolled in public high schools of the United States. Today there are approximately 7,000,000. This number we have to multiply by 14 and we face the fact that the carrying on of the operation of the schools has during these years materially diminished. In my own State of Ohio in 1915, there were 98,000 boys and girls enrolled in the high school that year. The cost of operating the schools that year was approximately $27,000,000. Today there are about 350,000 boys and girls enrolled in the high schools of Ohio and the cost of operation is about $112,000,000. That is down now to $85,000,000. So that we have in this period of years increased the cost of education from $27,000,000 to $85,000,000 at the present time,

Now, when the depression came there was a demand for curtailment. It ought to be that the schools would be the last to feel the effects of depression. As a matter of fact, the burden and responsibility of the schools increase in times of depression, but the ordinary taxpayer knows that he is contributing directly to the cost of the schools. He knows the post office is an institution where he has to pay the cost of a stamp when he sends a letter. He does not think so directly of the cost of other institutions as he does of the cost of the schools. Everywhere there came a demand that the schools should retrench in that period of depression. They did. What happened? Many of the schools were cut out and dropped, and then the classes were enlarged and the teaching forces were reduced and schools in some instances were closed.

On one of the charts that has been made by the National Education Association I counted up the number of closed schools, estimating from the symbols they used in 14 States, most of the territory of which is south of the line that would be an extension of the Mason and Dixon line. In those 14 States something like 1,469 schools were closed, and in 11 of the Northern States 464 schools were closed as a result of the depression. That is a situation which developed which we have to face.

As I see it, education has become a national asset, and as has been said by a speaker this morning, a child born in one State may spend his life in another. We are migratory people, moving about from place to place. That is not to be wondered at. See what is done in the way of transportation. I was interested the other evening in the radio broadcast that came in, in which our attention was called to the fact that we were celebrating the seventy-seventh anniversary of the starting of the run of the pony express from St. Louis to San Francisco. It went on to say that the stage coach prior to that re

quired 21 days to go from St. Louis to San Francisco and the pony express cut it to 10 days. Now it is only 4 days by rail from New York to San Francisco, and by air it is only a few hours. In the matter of communications it is almost instantaneous. All parts of the country may be put in instantaneous communication with one another. That has a great deal of bearing on the kind of citizens we have to produce. We must produce an individual who is not State-minded, but one who can think in terms of the Nation at large, who will talk of the Nation at large. I am disposed to think that a bill of this kind will help us in the problem of developing in the hearts and minds of these boys and girls the fact that they are not only citizens of Ohio, Pennsylvania, or some other State but that they are citizens of the Nation.

Some of you have noticed in the last week that the hotels are running over with boys and girls who have been brought in vacation time to see the city of Washington, the Capital of their country. When the teachers go back to those boys and girls they will have to say that the Federal Government has said it is not going to contribute to the cause of education except in the field of vocational work. Of course, I think it will help these boys and girls and help the teachers of these boys and girls if the boys and girls know directly that the Federal Government is making some contribtuion to the cost of operating the schools in the cities from which they may come.

This thing is a matter of national concern. Education is a national asset.

There have appeared in recent studies of the trends in education four outstanding things. One of them is the fact that the responsibilities of the schools have materially increased in the last few years. Perhaps I did not make myself clear on that a moment ago, but the fact is that when the depression came on many boys and girls who had jobs lost those jobs and came back to the school, not only those under 21 but men and women past 21. Even a married woman came in and wanted to enroll in the high school and go to high-school

courses.

The other day a man 45 years old said to me in substance, "What can the high school do for me? I would like to have a high-school course." What answer can I make to that? With the limitations under which we have to operate, financially and otherwise, there is not very much we can do for that type of individual.

I think a bill of this sort would help materially in bringing about a situation where we might do something for men of that man's type.

There is another thing. Someone has spoken of this as an investment. Anything that raises the standard of living is an investment, generally speaking. If I were speaking to a group of teachers this morning, I would call attention to the fact that in recent years we have been emphasizing food-the right sort of diet, a balanced diet. Milk has been one of the elements in it but there never was a time in the history of this country when people drank too much milk. I do not attribute that entirely to schools, but the schools have done their part also in the orange industry in a similar way. Almost every high school today has a well-equipped orchestra or band with 40 or 50 boys in it. That was not true 25 years ago. It was the

exception then. Nowadays almost every high school of the country has a well-trained orchestra. That creates a demand for instruments; it creates a demand for things people need to use and it stimulates business and becomes a good investment. Your statisticians will tell you that since this question of education has been emphasized more bathtubs, electric refrigerators, and more of the things that the family needs have been used. Where they do not have the high standard of living you do not have such a demand. Of course, the Hottentot would need the bathtubs more than we do but their standard of living does uot call for it. This question of the standards of living is something that helps materially the business interests of the country.

There have been these four trends: First, larger responsibilty on the part of the schools; second, the disposition in the matter of retrenchment of financing; third, the restricted opportunities for education; and the fourth trend, existing before the depression but more marked than normally, is the great disparity in educational opportunities, the unequal educational opportunities in different States, which has been spoken of already. In many States the boys and girls of rural sections do not enjoy the same educational facilities as those in the cities.

I ought to say a word further concerning the Ohio situation, of which Mr. Dietrich spoke yesterday afternoon. Under our foundation program recently enacted in Ohio, the State distributes $32.60 for each elementary pupil, boys and girls, in the elementary schools, and $45.90 for every high-school pupil in average daily attendance. Mr. DONDERO. Is that an equalization of funds from the State? Mr. STANTON. That is granted by the State and the distribution is based on the average daily attendance.

What I want to say is this, we have that foundation program, and I think it is one of the best that could be devised and along with it there came this disposition to reduce the revenue-tax limitation. In Ohio we have had a high tax limitation of 15 mills up to about 3 years ago when under certain leadership the people voted an amendment to the constitution reducing that limitation to 10 mills. Your operating expenses have had carried along with them those 10 mills, and your bonded indebtedness which has not been voted has been carried in the 10 mills. When you take up the bonded indebtedness of the municipalities, it leaves very little for operating expenses. The result is that the cities' needs are taken care of and the schools left outside.

Last fall 47 places voted on a special levy and 27 carried. Take the situation at Youngstown where they voted levies, while in Cleveland, Toledo, and Cincinnati they turned this special levy down. Springfield turned it down and they closed the schools. That deals with the schools, and the State insisted that they submit to the people the issue of a special levy to keep the schools going. That does not satisfy them.

There was a tax duplicate in Cincinnati of $8,000,000,000. One mill on that would produce $8,000,000. There is no city with over 2 mills within this 10 mills which can be used for maintaining the operation of the schools with the result that they have to go outside

of that and pass special levies, and some municipalities fail to pass them.

I will call attention to a feature of the Ohio situation. I will sav in conclusion that I think the time has come when we have to think of this Nation as more than an aggregation of States. We are a nation. There is a noncoherence among many of the States of the United States. We are living in a time when a corporation may have its office in one State, and its productive interests are in a State outside. It is developed in one State and taxed in another. A railroad company, an oil company, may have its field of operations in one section of the country and its central offices in a State where it owns no physical property whatever. Therefore, I believe it is fair, in fact, that we should compel a redistribution of taxes levied on those corporations so that the State that otherwise would not derive anything from it may get a benefit under a plan of this sort. It is fair that the Federal tax imposed upon a corporation with its central offices in one State, but its productive property in another, would have that tax distributed widely throughout the country.

Moreover, it is true that where want is the greatest, ability to meet that want is least; therefore, those States which have the wealth are the ones to which the Nation must look for the means to relieve the want, educational, or otherwise, in other sections. No State is dependent upon itself alone for its prosperity. The prosperity of my State is promoted by the prosperity of Texas and California and practically every State in the Union. This is not a day of isolation. In view, therefore, of these considerations, I present to you from the standpoint of the schools the need for the enactment of the HarrisonBlack-Fletcher bill.

I thank you for the opportunity of presenting these facts now in the case of the bill which is before you. I believe the school people will be greatly pleased with the passage of this measure and the boards of education generally.

The CHAIRMAN. Did I understand you to say that the State of Ohio has placed a limitation on taxes for school purposes in the State for the year of 32 percent. Is that correct? That is, it was 15 mills, and now it is 10 mills. That was by popular vote?

Mr. STANTON. By popular vote; by amendment to the constitution. The CHAIRMAN. I will ask what it will cost the State of Ohio if this bill goes through by way of taxes.

Mr. STANTON. Ohio at present is paying 4.97 percent of the Federal taxes. Ohio would get back under this bill 4.95 percent, so that it is approximately getting everything it pays out.

Mr. COLE. Then where is the benefit to the State of Ohio?

Mr. STANTON. The benefit is that the first year we get $5,000,000 under our system of taxes. We have no means of getting hold of that $5,000,000 as yet.

Mr. COLE. The State of Ohio will be paying $15,000,000 out of the $300,000,000 and getting back $15,000,000, approximately. What is the benefit?

Mr. STANTON. If the State of Ohio pays taxes direct for the schools, there would not be any benefit, but they are not doing it. Mr. COLE. What is the justification of asking them to pay 65 or 75 million dollars for the support of children in their own com