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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 771 



parative study of school work, and a dis- 

 tributing point of scientific knowledge upon 

 every phase of education. It should be a con- 

 sulting bureau. Like the Department of 

 Labor, it would assist whenever needed. 

 Strict uniformity of educational practise is 

 certainly far from desirable, but greater uni- 

 formity than now obtains would just as cer- 

 tainly be for the best interest of all con- 

 cerned. The department would be a center 

 of inspiration and leadership for all who are 

 concerned in the educational development of 

 our nation. Besides, its expert help and its 

 expert advice should constantly be available 

 whenever and wherever needed. It should do 

 the work of educational investigation and re- 

 porting which the Country Life Commission 

 is now doing in regard to the sufiiciency of 

 the rural schools. It should plan for their 

 improvement, and should be largely directive 

 in shaping the educational features of such a 

 far-reaching measure as the Davis bill. 



As John Stuart Mill pointed out, experi- 

 mentation, generalization and the formulation 

 of laws for human guidance in the social realm 

 are much more difficult than in the sphere of 

 physical nature; for in social experimenting, 

 the conditions can not be reproduced at will, 

 and the laboratory, which furnishes the facts 

 upon which the inductions of the moral sci- 

 ences must be based, is the world. Corre- 

 spondingly urgent is the need for special pro- 

 vision for furnishing such assistance and 

 guidance as a thoroughly furnished central 

 agency of the national government could give 

 to its large and continuing educational activi- 

 ties. That there is here a specific field for 

 governmental activity, the organization of 

 other governments sufficiently proves. The 

 fear of over-centralization through such a de- 

 partment is but a nominal objection to its 

 existence. Agriculture is not centralized or 

 nationalized by being promoted and encour- 

 aged by a Secretary of Agriculture. Neither 

 is commerce. But agriculture has profited 

 enormously through the assistance of the de- 

 partment at Washington. Education should 

 profit in the same way. Political control 

 would not interrupt the work of such a de- 



partment more than it interrupts the work of 

 the other departments of the national govern- 

 ment. Indeed, the national government, 

 through its civil-service standards, and its 

 civil-service propaganda, should be able to 

 lend very material assistance in taking the 

 schools out of politics, and in substituting 

 civil-service methods of appointing teachers 

 for the political give and take which, but for 

 assistance from without, bids fair to dominate 

 public school work for some generations to 

 come. 



In reply, therefore, to the question. How 

 may the work of the Bureau of Education be 

 expanded so as to aid the city superintendent 

 in his work? I would answer, first, by greatly 

 increasing the power and authority of the 

 office, by promoting the Commissioner of Edu- 

 cation to the highest possible position of lead- 

 ership which the nation can create, and thus 

 giving to school officers of every grade the 

 fullest aid and encouragement which the na- 

 tional government by its example as well as 

 by the thoroughly expert assistance at its com- 

 mand, can render. Not only will the educa- 

 tional arm of the public service be dignified, 

 the esprit de corps of the teaching profession 

 itself will be improved by taking on some- 

 thing of the strength of organization which it 

 has under the governments of the old world. 

 A city superintendent of schools in any one 

 of the larger cities of America is frequently 

 forced to fight an unequal battle against the 

 conditions that war for the undoing of educa- 

 tion, simply because there is as yet no suffi- 

 cient professional support in the land for the 

 educational ideas which he is called upon to 

 defend. No voluntary organization of teach- 

 ers, no unofficial propaganda for education, 

 no official assistance which a state government 

 is able to render, can have the strength and 

 effectiveness which the national government 

 can command in promoting and intensifying 

 the educational sentiment of the country. The 

 city school systems are called upon to lead in 

 educational invention and readjustment and 

 reorganization of work. Of consulting agen- 

 cies whose aid they may invoke there are prac- 

 tically none save the officials of other school 



