The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-28
FURTHER AID Of
STATE SCHOOLS
Congressman Davis of Mime
sofa Will Reintroduce Bill for
Federal Appropriation.
BENEFITS TO BE DERIVED
TRAINING ALONG TECHNICAL
AND ECONOMIC LINES.
Special to The Herald.)


Washington, Aug. 27.-Representative
Charles r. Davis of Minnesota announces
that he intends when the Sixtieth con-
gress assemblies to reintroduce his bill
providing for federal appropriations for
the support of public schools of high
school and secondary grades.
rms bill proposes that a sum of money
equaI TO 10 cents per capita Of the pOpu-
lauon of each state and territory re-
spectiVely, shall be appropriated for the
support of public schools of high school
or secondary grades in such states and
territories. IN reference to his bill, Mr..
Davis says:
In this bill I have undertaken to give
direction to the manifest determination of
the American people to turn the further
oeYeiopment or our public education in
part toward technical and economic lines.
Technical knowledge Needed.
During the last twenty years public
schools of secondary or high school grade
have made very rapid growth, showing
that as our people increase in wealth larg-
er numbers want education OF a grade
higher than that provided in the pri-
mary schools. Since only part of those
attending high schools are needed in the
professions. 1t is clear that a large num-
Der Of young men attending these schools
must enter agriculture and the mechanic
Industries, arts and trades, and no fact
is more apparent than that portion of
our high school work for girls should
be directed toward home-making
This bill cOntemplates building up
large class of people trained in high
school courses, combining industrial and
general education. With patrons and
teachers from such schools, our primary
schools will be able to carry agriculture,
manual training and home economics sub
jects into the primary. rural and city
schools.
Would Aid All Glasses.
classes of primary schools to higher stan
dards of scholarship, as well as to give
their courses more of a practical bearing.
The secondary education will also en-
courage self-selection on the part of pu-
pills, enabling them to better chose for
themselves these lines of endeavor in
which their ability and interest will en-
able them best to succeed. In this way
this industrial education will provide for
our colleges and universities students
better fitted for the several lines of high
er education and for the more or less
technical vocations to which these col
legiate and university courses lead.
Not many of our states have succeeded
in properly financing and developing our
primary schools, especially those in the
rural communities. 1t would seem that
at this tuncture the state treasures of
most states have more than they can do
to meet the coming demands for better
primary schools. AS the federal apprO-
priation for state agricultural and me-
colleges and experiment stations
has induced the states to invest money
along the lines of industrial education and
research, so an additional appropriation
as contemplated in this bill would do
much to encourage the states TO make
larger appropriations for the practical and
general phase of our public system.
Mere Extension of the Law.
1.-THE federal appropriations. turning
over to the states funds for agricultural
and mechanical colleges and for state eX-
pertinent stations, have been a means of
decentralizing and of building up local
institutions of which the states are proud
Because it will carry a relatively large
sum of money to be administered by the
states. this bill will do even more to mag
Nifty local self-government than has the
system of state colleges and experiment
stations. The peculiar reason for raising
money for the purposes Of this bill is that
the federal government can initiate in
every district in each state popular edu-
cation relating TO the industries and home
making, encouraging the states to do far
more for themselves than they will do
this fund. It is no interference with
states. it is not merely aid to the states;
il is cooperation with the states, they TO
manage the new enterprises. It is merely
another supplement to the land grant act
of 1862 which established state education
and research in agriculture and in the
mechanic arts, as already supplemented
by the Hatch act of 1887, the Morrill, act
of 1889, the Adams act of 1905 and the
RI n