Evening star., 1929-07-28

engineering analysis. President
Hoover has indicated personal interest
in the relation-present and potential
between education and Government,
education and law observance and .edu-
cation and citizenship.
The President recently frowned upon
the common habit of making the public
school system our national wiShbone.
But the abortive attempt to teach prohi-
bition is not altogether without promise
as a symptom of returning balance In
dealing with our problems of national
behavior. For the first time in quite
while the hardy notion that coercive
regulation is the way to public and pri-
vate morality has a real competitor
back in the field.
No recent President has manifested
so lively and practical an interest in our
educational institutions as Mr.. Hoover.
AS Secretary of Commerce, no matter
how heavily he happened to be loaded
at the moment with the pressing affairs
of an arduous Office, Mr.. Hoover found
it always difficult to decline invitations
extended by educational institutions.
He never was more deeply distressed
than when the board of trustees of a
university held a special meeting to vote
him a generous honorarium for deliver
ing the commencement address. And the
historical precedents which explained
this faux pas could not quite justify it
with him.
When our higher institutions Of
learning reported continued raids upon
their scientific and chronological staffs
by industrial corporations it was Presl-
dent Hoover who headed a campaign
committee which has devoted much ef-
fort to the preservation of pure science
research in our colleges by putting the
professor on something approXlmatlng
economic parity with his brother who
gains greater material rewards in the
laboratories and shops OF great indus
trial organizations.
For many years the President has
manifested deep personal interest in
child-health activities. More recently
he has lent his name and the prestige
of the White House to a National sur
vey Of child needs. Financed privately,
the products of this survey will become
the basis for an educational program
TO be formulated subsequently by an un-
official conference on child welfare.
The Secretaryship of the Interior has
always been an Office to which politicians
have aSpired. 1ntrigueS centerlng about
this office have been many, and some
Of the scandals that have scotched It's
incumbents have been notorious. Not
ytthstanding the removal of the Bureau
of Mines to the Department OF Com
n1erce, the Interior protfollo includes
supervision over governmental activities
in which an outstanding engineer might
we'll have been obvious choice. But
this department also includes the
Bureau of Education and other Federal
agencies having similar responsibilities.
It was in this cabinet portfolio that
President Hoover chose to make What
has been regarded as his only personal
appointment. He selected his classmate
and friend. DR.. Ray Lyman Wilbur
president of Stanford University and
man who stands high in national eou-
cational councils.
Although the new Secretary of the
Interior found a formidable array OF
administrative tasks awaiting him, ne
early took time to practice diagnostic
medicine on national education. He
has inagurated an inquiry into the re-
lation between the Government and the
educational institutions of the country.
This study, now taking shape under the
direction of region committee appoint
ed at a little e-advertised conference he'd
here recently, promises to contribute
much to the affirmative and construc-
tive aspect of our national civic prob
lens.
President Hoover, in one of his few
philosophic writings, extolled American
individualism. He found in it the
American urge to personal achievement
and national progress.
While altogether sympathetic with
teal economies realized through far
flung and lawfully conceived business
organizations: while unwilling to ind1ct
any American institution merely on the
ground of its size, the. President has
been somewhat concerned by the grow
ing impersonality of business. its multi
plying remote controls, and the conse-
uuent military methods of administra-
ton. These developments may keep
red ink out of ledgers, but they do not
promote American individualism.
With these presidential views in mind,
It is not difficult to understand why the
White House is reported to oppose any
move in the direction of Federal die
tatorship of public instruction. The
President holds that the American pub
lie school system should be decen-
traliZed organization. with full oppor-
tuni:y for unhampered community man
agement. The local community has the
greatest civic investment in the schools.
1t is closer to their real needs than the
most enlightened centralized control
could be. Some day the Federal Gov
ernment may provide better clearing
house facilities for the dissemination of
information regarding successful educa-
tional projects. 1t is even possible that
an educational laboratory, with model
schools, may be provided. But such
promotive facility would deal with
method more than with matter. In the
Department of Agriculture and in the
Department of Commerce promotive ac-
tivities of this general character have
paid real dividends.
While important questions of economy
and of adaptation to modern conditions
appear in any consideration of what
should be taught, the questions of how
to teach are constantly pressing to the
fore 1t is being recognized that the
chow" of teaching has much to do with
shaping habits of thought and of feel
ing affecting personal conduct. Differ
ent teachers and different schools exert
manifestly and sometimes strikingly
different influences over the personal
lives of their students. Sometimes the
incidentals of education seem more po-
tent than formal instruction:
Notwithstanding the persistence Of in
feriority complexes among successful
men who lack college degrees, it is
being gradually established that life In
all its modes and moods, from birth to
senility, is the real educator. The
school and its big brother, the college,
are only auxiliary devices to emphasize
certain helpful aspects of life, to ac-
celerate a review of what preceding
generations have accomplished in their
struggle to advance, the tools they
used advantageously, the things they
found wanting and rejected, the helpful,
affirmative experience of the race.
Contemporary education does fair
ly good job with the intellectual side
of life. When we emerge from school
portals we know much more than did
our grandfathers. But how about the
emotional accomplishments of this
knowledge? How do we feel about the
things we know? How strong Is the
.,rrra to live IL, terms of nllr kn0WledRe2