mation, and to help in the various forms of education, and my estimates are based on that.

ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER.

First, I am asking, as I did a year ago, for an assistant commissioner. I find that in all the bureaus here in Washington, nearly, and in many much smaller bureaus even than the Bureau of Education, there is an assistant commissioner. I do not want to give all his time to that, but I want him to be a specialist in secondary education and serve also as chief of a division of high schools. There are now something like 12,000 high schools in the country, and every day letters come to the Bureau of Education, some days many, asking about courses of study in high schools, about buildings for high schools, the adjustment of high schools to elementary schools, the problem of the six-year high school as against the four-year high school, and there is no person in the bureau whose duty it is and who has time to look after the high-school interests. So I would want this assistant commissioner of education to be a specialist in secondary education and serve as the head of a division of high schools.

CHIEF CLERK, INCREASE IN SALARY.

Then, I am asking for an increase in the chief clerk's salary. The chief clerk's salary has stood at $2,000 for, I think, ever since the position was created in 1868, and the man I have is a very efficient man, and he has a good deal of work to do, and I believe that he is worthy of the salary which is ordinarily paid the chief clerk, and that ranges from $2,000 up to $3,000, the average being about $2,500, and if you can make his salary that I shall be very glad.

RURAL AND INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND SCHOOL HYGIENE.

[See alo p. 212.]

Now I will take up the groups that I have spoken of. The most important is the problem of rural education. Last year Congress gave us an addition of $9,000, making a lump-sum appropriation of $15,000 for the investigation of rural education, industrial education, and school hygiene. The Congress before had made an appropriation of $6,000, and this $9,000 made it $15,000. With that we have established a division of school hygiene and sanitation. That has been done out of the first appropriation and, of course, is continued. That division has done very effective service. I was looking the other day over the reports, and I find that the chief of that division has advised with building committees, from cities chiefly, some of them building committees of large institutions like the George Peabody College for Teachers at Nashville. He has advised with committees and helped them make plans for $10,000,000 worth of school buildings this year, and he estimates that he has saved to those committees $1,000,000 in being able, because of his expert knowledge of the problems of school architecture, to make suggestions to the architects, who are usually good architects, of course, but do not know about school arrangements and problems of heating, lighting,,

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and ventilation, and the other problems of sanitation. He also has the problem of the general health of children in schools, and he has published one or two bulletins, I believe, this year, and he has ready now five or six vital bulletins pertaining to the health of children in schools. He has about ready to send to press a report or a bulletin on schoolhouses for country and village schools-one, two, three, and four room schoolhouses.

Mr. GILLETT. Out of what fund are those bulletins paid for? Dr. CLAXTON. They are paid out of the general printing fund of the Department of the Interior.

But the work of this division is more than any one man can do with simply a clerk and stenographer, and I am asking that there shall be an addition to that division of school hygiene and sanitation, so that there may be in the division at least one man who knows this problem from the medical standpoint from the standpoint of the physician. We have many questions asked that require this kind of knowledge, and there is no one in the bureau for that purpose. I am also asking for an additional clerk, and there is great need for it.

I had started to say that the most important thing, however, is that of rural education. About 60 per cent of all the children of the country are in rural communities. They live in the open country, in towns and villages. These schools need help, and they need it more than any other. Therefore, I have used a larger part of this lump-sum appropriation for that purpose. You will remember that the appropriation was made late. I immediately applied to the Civil Service Commission for examinations, but they are just now about to report on those examinations, so that I have not been able to actually expend that fund, but I am about to begin.

Mr. JOHNSON. Are these specialists selected as a result of civil-service examinations?

Dr. CLAXTON. They are.

Mr. JOHNSON. Is the examination competitive, or just simply a special examination to ascertain the man's fitness for the position?

Dr. CLAXTON. It must be competitive. It is a special examination to ascertain his fitness, but it must be open to the entire country. I think about 60 sent in papers in response to the advertisements of this examination.

Mr. GILLETT. And the person with the best paper was selected?
Dr. CLAXTON. They have not been selected.

Mr. GILLETT. But they will be?

Dr. CLAXTON. With this exception: The first three names are submitted by the Civil Service Commission, and then we make inquiries to find out other things that are probably not contained in the examinations, to see if they will be fitted for the positions.

Mr. GILLETT. Then it is not like the ordinary civil-service examination?

Dr. CLAXTON. No; it is not a competitive examination merely in scholarship, but we find out what experience the applicants have had. Mr. JOHNSON. In other words, suppose there is a college professor or a man of large experience in educational matters in my country, and I brought the man to your attention. Would he stand a civilservice examination in the ordinary sense, or would he be examined as to his special fitness for that particular work?

1

Dr. CLAXTON. The examination we asked was for this particular work, that a man shall have been a student of education, that he should have had experience in rural school work and in supervising rural schools, and a man of special fitness under the rules of the Civil Service Commission.

Mr. JOHNSON. Is it contemplated that these people you are asking for here, if we should allow you to employ them, shall go out to the country, into Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee, and South Carolina, and visit the schools and confer with the school authorities, and so on, or would they work here in Washington?

Dr. CLAXTON. Three duties they would have; first, to collect all the information they can in regard to rural schools in this country and abroad. I am now making a detail of a man to send to Denmark. He is a special collaborator who comes without any cost to us except his expenses. The Danish schools are the best rural schools in the world, so far as I know; just as the other day I sent a man to Switzerland to study of the village and town schools. They, so far as I know, have met the problems of adapting their school work to their own people better than any country I know. This man happened to be a man from your own State, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. JOHNSON. For what proportion of their time would these specialists be in Washington, and what proportion of their time do you contemplate would be out amongst the school-teachers and the schools of the country?

Dr. CLAXTON. I should think for the first year that they would be out half their time and here about half the time; and after that they would be out probably two-thirds of the time. You can understand the first thing is to get their material. They would have to go to places and then come here and together work it over, and when that is done they would be in the field most of the time.

Mr. JOHNSON. Are these things that you are asking for here substantially the things that are embodied in Mr. Hoke Smith's bill, which is now pending in the Senate, and which he hopes to get through Congress this winter?

Dr. CLAXTON. I do not know what that is, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON. It is a bill pending in the Senate for the expenditure of considerable sums of money in educational matters.

Dr. CLAXTON. Is that similar to the Page-Wilson bill, appropriating money for vocational, industrial, and agricultural education?

Mr. JOHNSON. I am not familiar with any of the bills, and that is why I am asking you the question whether this scheme of yours is the same scheme these gentlemen are trying to get Congress to adopt

now.

Dr. CLAXTON. No; I think not. I am not familiar with Senator Smith's bill. I think, however, that it must be of the same nature as the Page bill, with which I am familiar, and which provides for an expenditure finally of about $15,000,000 for agricultural education, education in the trades, home economics, and domestic science, and for preparation of teachers for those subjects, and it puts the administration of that largely in the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Education, and it makes a special appropriation for the administration of that fund; but that does not cover these things mentioned here. This is for the work that is now done, and

does not contemplate the administration of any fund except the agricultural and mechanical college fund.

TRAVELING EXPENSES.

Mr. JOHNSON. On page 227 of the bill you have an item which is not in the present law, "For necessary traveling expenses of the commissioner and of employees acting under his direction, etc., $21,000." Out of what fund are they being paid now? This seems to be new.

Dr. CLAXTON. There is a fund of $4,000 for collecting statistics which has been appropriated from year to year for 10 or 15 years, and I found an interpretation of the law which permits the employees of the bureau to use it as a traveling-expense fund. That is the only fund we have. As an actual fact, we use about $1,000 of that a year for the employment of people to do specific work-to write a report on some particular thing or to make a certain study-and the other $3,000 we are using for the traveling expenses of the commissioner and of the various specialists who are sent out from place to place.

Mr. JOHNSON. What effect did the section in the District of Columbia bill in regard to visiting meetings have on your office?

Dr. CLAXTON. That provision was made inoperative for the present fiscal year by section 10 of the sundry civil bill except in so far as it relates to the payment of fees or dues in societies or associations. Mr. JOHNSON. It did not apply to you?

Dr. CLAXTON. It did not apply to us for this year. Of course, it would have prevented us from doing our best work, because our best work can be done, in so far as what the bureau can give out, by going to large meetings of teachers, like State teachers' associations.

Mr. JOHNSON. It is not contemplated in this paragraph that any of your people will pay their dues in any society or initiation fees, or anything of that kind, out of this appropriation? Dr. CLAXTON. No, sir.

RURAL AND INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND SCHOOL HYGIENE.

[See also p. 209.]

Mr. GILLETT. I would like to understand exactly about those examinations you spoke of, whether they are competitive or not.

Dr. CLAXTON. They are competitive. We applied to the Civil Service Commission and asked them to hold an examination for us, and they asked us to make out the plan, and if it be for experts of this kind we require some four or five qualities or characteristics that we want; for instance, in this particular one, we try to find men who know rural schools; men of maturity and scholarship, who have studied education, and who have had experience as county or State superintendents of public instruction, or something of that kind.

Mr. GILLETT. You say you try to find them. Do you not allow everybody to enter?

Dr. CLAXTON. We try to find them in that way. We make the examination questions to fit that kind of a man, and then everybody enters.

Mr. GILLETT. You advertise?

Dr. CLAXTON. Yes.

Mr. GILLETT. And where are the examinations held?

Dr. CLAXTON. All over the country. It is not necessary in an examination of that kind that applicants go to any specified place. They simply send to the Civil Service Commission for the necessary papers, which are sent to them, and then the applicants send to the commission statements regarding their training and experience.

Mr. GILLETT. Then the papers amount, really, simply to a statement of a person's history and qualifications?

Dr. CLAXTON. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILLETT. Then who makes the selections?

Dr. CLAXTON. The papers are graded by the Civil Service Commission. The bureau will send some person in the bureau to assist the commission, and after the papers are graded the names of the three persons who stand highest on the list are submitted to the bureau for the selection of a person.

Mr. GILLETT. And from that list
Dr. CLAXTON. Yes.

you make your selections?

Mr. GILLETT. Not necessarily taking the first?

Dr. CLAXTON. Not necessarily taking the first, because there may be reasons why the man who happens to stand highest would not be the most acceptable.

Gentlemen, I want to make a plea that you will deal liberally with the Bureau of Education this time, and enable it to begin to do in an effective way the work that it ought to do; and if you find that you can not make the full appropriations I want to ask you for the three things there with reference to industrial education, rural schools counting first in importance, and school sanitation and hygiene. Those are the three pressing, important things. I want to assure you once more, if you will give the Bureau of Education an opportunity to employ men of ability in groups this way, we can do an immense amount of good for the cause of education throughout the country.

STATEMENT OF MR. GEORGE H. ASHLEY, ACTING DIRECTOR GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

RENT OF BUILDINGS.

Mr. ASHLEY. Mr. Chairman, there is only one item we are interested in, on page 235, with reference to rent of buildings. There are five different subitems that enter into it. There is the main item of $29,200 and then an item of $1,200 and one of $2,500; and two other items, one of $3,000 and one of $1,500. I see down below is a summary of $37,400, which is the total. We would like to get all of this into one item, if we can.

Mr. JOHNSON. Why do you want so much more space?

Mr. ASHLEY. Simply because of the crowded condition. I do not suppose we are much more crowded than many of the other bureaus, but we are exceedingly crowded there. Just as an illustration, I am the acting director there now and when the director is there the administrative geologist, and the best I can do is to get half of a room 9 by 18. The space I have for my desk and files and everything