The Omaha guide., 1946-11-09

of public education reaching from
kindergarten to university and be-
yond, Is today as much q part Of
the American way of life as our
elections. Over the years there
has been a steady increase of
federal cooperation with the
States in the discharge of their
educational responsibilities. 1t
began with the Immigrant col
leges. In 1890 it was extended by
separate grants-in-aid for the i'm
provement of teacher-training. In
1914 training in agriculture and
home economics was added. In
1917 Congress made vocational
education a federal concern.
When the great depression came
PWA, WPA, NYA saved educa-
tional establishments in various
states from complete collapse by
building and repairing schools, by
employing disemployed teachers;
by making possible the part-time
employment of nearly half a mil
lion students of all ranks and con-
ditions. Yet despite this aid, Sc
lective Service found uring the
war that one million men had
never been to school and millions
more had never finished elemen-
tary school. The armed forces
found functional illiteracy and
physical defects that no young
American should have suffered
from.
Why did states and local COM
munities fail their youth? For the
most part they simply couldn't
help it. They were mostly COM
munities with the largest fami-
lies and the smallest incomes.
They were mostly in the agricul-
tural Southeast, with little indu-
stry and few cities. Now. the
wealth of the nation concentrates
in the cities, and the population
follows the wealth. Our manufac-
turing Northeast holds twenty-one
times the wealth of the Southeast
but only twice as many children
and is producing proportionally
fewer children each year. Our
Northeast spends three or four
times as much per child for their
schools and teachers as our South
yet proportionally the South
spends a higher share of its in
come and gets far less for its
money. 1t handicaps itself, of
course, by its racism, which gives
so much thought and energy to
keeping the Negro down and Sc
gregated that little is left for
lifting the whites up.
Other parts of the country also
suffer in health and education
because of the centralizing trend
in the national economy. This
trend is total. 1t is a condition of
u prosperity but has dangerous
consequences for democracy. It
creates differences in educational
opportunity which penalize health
and education in the very areas
where children are most numer-
GUS. Thus it turns free public ed
ucation into a force which makes
for caste and privilege.
In order to safeguard democra-
tic ideals and to keep the demo-
cratic process secure, the federal
Government must willy-nilly coop
crate more and more with States
and localities in providing equal
educational opportunities for all
the people. everywhere in the
land. Bills before Congress which
provide for federal cooperation in
education r joint offerings by
members of both major parties.
One, which proposes to create an
executive department to be known
as the Department of Health. Ed
ucation and Security, is offered
by Messrs. Fulbright and Taft
in the Senate. Another, which
proposes a national policy for
education and a ten-year program
of assistance to the States in
developing their education sy-
stems, is offered by Messrs. Muir
ray, Morse and Pepper. Both bills
call for careful public scrutiny in
the light of the needs of demo-
cracy.