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[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 920 



their federal government which they can 

 not do through their state government or 

 through their local government alone. The 

 expense of an adequate educational sys- 

 tem is enormous, and grows continually 

 with the rising standard of the people as 

 to what satisfactory education is. An 

 adequate revenue system will draw upon 

 national sources of revenue through the 

 federal government, upon state sources of 

 revenue through the state, upon local 

 sources of revenue through local govern- 

 ment. Some sources of wealth may be 

 more easily and efficiently tapped through 

 the federal government than through the 

 state or local government, and vice versa. 



In our scheme of federal government in 

 this country, we handed over to the central 

 authority a revenue power — I will not say 

 more than adequate for the federal pur- 

 poses which we incorporated in our con- 

 stitution, but I will say more adequate to 

 accomplish the national ends contemplated 

 in the law than were given either to the 

 state or the locality. The federal govern- 

 ment can raise funds in many respects 

 more easily than either the state or the lo- 

 cality. And a sound financial system de- 

 mands that that element in our system 

 shall raise the revenue which it can raise 

 most easily, and then that a reasonable dis- 

 tribution of the revenue so raised among 

 the various federal functions and among 

 the state and local functions shall be made. 



I think our history has demonstrated 

 clearly enough already that education can 

 never be properly eared for in this coun- 

 try unless we draw upon ijational sources 

 of revenue as a means of assisting in its 

 support. 



Owing to history which I need not re- 

 count, the southern states, for example, 

 find themselves in the position of having 

 two independent and complete systems of 

 education, for the white and colored races. 



respectively. It is quite unreasonable to 

 hope that in our day and generation the 

 southern communities will be wealthy 

 enough, or, what amounts to the same 

 thing for our purpose, will think they are 

 wealthy enough, to care adequately for 

 these great interests, and if the people will 

 not utilize their other sources of revenue 

 and their other organs of government to 

 assist in providing a part of the means 

 for the solution of this problem, we shall 

 still continue to suffer as we have suffered 

 for generations by this situation. 



My next proposition is that this country 

 can not solve its educational problems i% 

 the large until it recognizes that educa- 

 tion is the business of the nation and that 

 pecuniary assistance for its support in a 

 large way shall come through the organs 

 of the nation as a unit. 



"We can not get the money in any other 

 way. We refer, of course, by preference 

 in our educational discussions to the un- 

 happy educational conditions of certain 

 portions of the South. But the conditions 

 are just as really and just as truly inade- 

 quate over whole sections of the northern 

 states as they are in the south. We need 

 not go out of the state of Illinois itself to 

 find schools which do not deserve that 

 name. We need not go outside of Illinois 

 to find local communities which, after tax- 

 ing themselves to the limit which the law 

 allows, still have not sufficient money to 

 maintain, during the months in which a 

 child ought to be in school, the kind of 

 school which it is worth the child's while 

 to attend. 



There is another important matter 

 which we ought not to lose sight of. Great 

 national issues are pushed forward only 

 when it is possible to secure national at- 

 tention for them; only when they have 

 become national in a formal as well as an 

 informal way; only when the nation is 



