170 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



several amendments to this paragraph. I will 

 begin with one to increase the number of clerks 

 of class four from one, as proposed in this para- 

 graph, to two. 



" I am prepared to say, on my responsibility 

 in my place here, that I believe the estimates 

 which were furnished by the Commissioner of 

 Education in regard to the clerical force which 

 he needed and the appropriations which he re- 

 quired were made just as low as they could be 

 made. It has been the habit of the commis- 

 sioner of that bureau, in accordance with the 

 suggestions made to him, to put his estimates 

 just as low as he can put them and efficiently 

 and properly discharge the duties of that bu- 

 reau. And it is my opinion, from personal ob- 

 servation, that the bill of the Committee on 

 Appropriations has cut down his estimates so 

 low that his force will be so reduced that he 

 cannot carry on the work of his office with 

 proper efficiency. 



" Now, I say this positively, and I beg leave 

 to call the attention of the committee for a 

 moment to the comparative force allowed and 

 the comparative appropriations made in this 

 bill : first, for the Department of Agriculture ; 

 second, for the Bureau of Statistics ; and, third, 

 for the Bureau of Education. 



"If the committee will compare for a mo- 

 ment the work which these several depart- 

 ments have to do and then compare the appro- 

 priations made by the Committee on Appro- 

 priations for them, I think they can but feel 

 the appropriations for the Bureau of Education 

 are fixed far too low. Why, sir, in the Treas- 

 ury Department the head of the Bureau of 

 Statistics corresponds, I suppose, with all the 

 boards of trade in all the principal cities and 

 towns of the United States. Well, the Com- 

 missioner of Education must correspond with 

 all the principal cities and towns. The head 

 of the Department of Agriculture must corre- 

 spond with all the county agricultural socie- 

 ties and other like associations. Well, sir, the 

 Commissioner of Education (and I may say it 

 is but a small part of his duty) has to corre- 

 spond with every county in the United States. 

 Indeed, the work of correspondence in that 

 office has become something wonderful; some- 

 thing which any member of this House would 

 scarcely believe if he had not personal knowl- 

 edge of it. I happen to know the fact that 

 the number of regular correspondents of the 

 Bureau of Education the number of regular 

 correspondents connected with schools, col- 

 leges, libraries, and educational institutions of 

 all sorts in all the cities and towns and States 

 and Territories of the Union is now more 

 than eight thousand. 



"I wish to call the attention of the commit- 

 tee to the fact that there are large portions of 

 this Union in which school systems of all sorts 

 are in a state of formation, are in their infancy. 

 You would have no conception, if you were 

 not daily in that office, of the enormous num- 

 ber of letters coming from every section asking 



for information on an immense variety of sub- 

 jects, information about building schoolhouses; 

 plans for building, heating, and ventilating; 

 systems of instruction ; and the thousand ques- 

 tions which you, who are familiar with this 

 matter, will at once understand ; so that the 

 regular correspondence of the office has be- 

 come something immense ; and my impression 

 is, although I am not so familiar with these 

 other Departments the Bureau of Statistics 

 and the Bureau of Agriculture as I am with 

 the labor of this bureau, it is much larger than 

 either of the others in this respect." 



Mr. Hale, of Maine, said : " The fundamental 

 error of all this argumentation, all this talk in 

 favor of increasing the appropriations to this 

 bureau, in my mind lies here : that it is not 

 the business of the Government of the United 

 States under our laws and the spirit of the 

 Constitution to build up a great directing edu- 

 cational establishment. That, I believe, we 

 have never heretofore tried to do ; and in lim- 

 iting this appropriation and in guarding it to 

 the extent that we have always guarded it, we 

 have borne in mind and maintained this prin- 

 ciple. 



" The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Monroe) 

 says that there are nunierous inquiries con- 

 stantly being received from all parts of the 

 country as to educational matters. Undoubt- 

 edly ; but it is not the province of Congress to 

 furnish a directing bureau of education to say 

 to a correspondent in Iowa, or in Maine, or in 

 Massachusetts, or in California, that such and 

 such a system should be established ; and when 

 you magnify this bureau and begin to extend 

 it, it is a sure step in the direction of a supreme 

 and directory bureau. All of these things be- 

 gin in this small way. 



" I, for one, assent that there shall be here, 

 under the direction of the department where it 

 is placed, a small bureau that shall from time 

 to time perform what may perhaps be called 

 statistical labor, in the gathering of reports 

 from different States and different countries, 

 and yearly, or oftener, if deemed advisable, 

 presenting a report, so that the public may see, 

 to this extent, what is going on. For that 

 purpose and in that purview, I believe, lies all 

 that should be given to this bureau." 



Mr. G. F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, said : " The 

 Commissioner of Education, confining the work 

 of that bureau to what the gentleman from 

 Maine accurately defines as its proper function 

 that is, supplying the different States and 

 Territories forming their school systems with 

 such information of what is going on in other 

 States and other Territories and other coun- 

 tries, by means of statistics as can only be 

 gained by a central office, doing for the educa- 

 tion of the country just what the Government 

 does for its agriculture, just what the Govern- 

 ment does for its commerce, just what the 

 Government does for its inventions requires 

 a little larger force than is reported in this bill ; 

 and that is the whole of it. 



