whether the audit referred to by the General Accounting Office is before the money has been expended by the States or afterward. We submit that there should be inserted in the bill a clear statement relating to the audit by the General Accounting Office.

Page 6, line 15: After the word "public" insert the word "free" so that line 15 will read:

for disbursement by that State to local public free school jurisdictions.

Page 6, line 16: Strike out, "or other State public education agencies." Page 6, line 18: After the word "for", insert the word "free" before "public" at two places on this line.

Page 6, line 23, insert the word "State" between the words "by" and "public" and strike out the word "agencies" and insert the word "authority." Line 23 will then read:

this act shall be expended only by State public authority.

Delete lines 24 and 25 on page 6.

Page 7, section 6; Strike out lines 1 to 17 inclusive. We make this request due to the fact that nonpublic educational schools and institutions should have no place or part or participate in the funds, regardless of what a State may have done heretofore in the way of making a division of State tax public funds for sectarian, private, or nonpublic schools. We reiterate that neither private, sectarian, nor nonpublic schools should have any part or share in the appropriations made by Congress for the support of free public schools. We take the position that States have established free public schools for the education, training, and benefit of all children within the State, who are of eligible school age, and that this being the case, and the schools being open to all children, they should be attended by all children. If any given church, institution, or organization wishes to maintain and support schools or institutions of learning, their right to do so is not questioned, but they should be supported from private funds. By far the largest segment of nonpublic schools are those maintained by religious organizations and denominations. We are strictly opposed to the Government appropriating funds and then directing its allotment and disbursement to nonpublic schools on the ground that some few States may have authorized sectarian and private schools to have State public support.

Page 8, line 6: Insert the words "and expenditures" after the word "administration."

Page 8, lines 9 and 10: Strike out the words "or other State public educational agencies."

Page 8, lines 11 and 12: Strike out the words "and other public educational agencies of the State to such authority."

Page 9, line 1: Strike out the word "purposes" and insert "public, elementary, and public secondary schools."

Page 9, line 18: After the word "local", insert the word "public." Page 9, line 22: Insert "public" before the words "elementary" and "secondary."

Page 9, line 23: After the word "local", insert the word "public." Page 10, line 1: After the word "the", insert the word "public." Page 10, line 22: After the word "local", insert the word "public." Page 11, line 2: After the word "when", insert the word "public." Page 11, section 8, line 5: Strike out the word "agency" and insert the word "authority."

Line 8: Strike out the word "agency" and insert the word "authority."

Line 13: Strike out the word "agency" and insert the word "authority."

We suggest that section 9, on page 11, be changed to section 10, and that a new section be inserted, to be known as section 9, as follows:

All accounts of expenditures or appropriations hereunder by the various States shall be audited by the General Accounting Office.

Under Definitions, page 11, section 9-to be changed to 10-amend by adding as:

(a) The words "public-elementary and public-secondary schools" shall mean tax-supported free schools.

Change definitions (a), (b), (c). (d), (e), (f); section 9, pages 11 and 12, to (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), (g).

Finally, we submit that the reason for the failure to be enacted into law of the many bills which have been introduced in the Congress, and particularly in the Senate, in the last two or three Congresses, has been that the proposed measures made available, by their terms, aid and support of nonpublic schools, consisting of private, parochial, and other religious schools. The American people are dedicated and devoted to the preservation and support of the American public free school system, and the majority of them are opposed to extending help to any private schools. In our judgment, the fate of this bill will largely depend upon the direct and positive statements it carries, acquainting the American people with the fact that the Government support extended by the measure will be used only for the support and benefit of the public free school systems of the various States, and the complete elimination of other kind of school support from public funds.

Mr. McCOWEN. You may question, Mr. Gwinn.

Mr. GWINN. I notice, Mr. Babcock, that you refer to your National Council of Junior Order of United American Mechanics of the United States of North America having as its third principle:

To uphold the American public-school system and to prevent the interference therewith, and to encourage the reading of the holy Bible in the schools thereof. What progress have you been making getting the holy Bible read in the schools?

Mr. BABCOCK. Not a great deal, and yet not discouraging. Some teachers will read it, some won't. We don't ask them to expound it. We don't want them explaining the Bible or trying to explain it. There are too many people in our public schools who are not Christians. Too much of our population are not, to thrust upon them the Christian Bible. They read the Old Testament when they read anything, as a rule. But we do not expound it. It is merely an introduction to the day's work in school. Some teachers, I say, will do it and some won't. Some States compel it by law, and some are silent on it.

Mr. GWINN. Do you not think there is a good deal of confusion about the idea that our public-school system is a State system of education rather than a free system of education? In Virginia your States does not fix your tax rates for schools in these school districts, or manage your curriculum in the school districts.

Generally, would you not say that our school system is a free system entirely managed by the local school board, for which taxes are paid within the machineries set up by the legislature, of course?

Mr. BABCOCK. Oh, no, sir. We have a State superintendent of education in the city of Richmond, appointed by the State assembly and the Governor, and he has a supervisory position over all of the education of the State. The county-State supervisor is under him. I mean, he follows the curriculum and instructions, and the State contributes very largely to the local schools.

We have a State local board, then a county board. In fact we have, a district board. We even go closer than that. But it all stems from the State Capitol.

Mr. GWINN. Does the State Capitol fix the curriculum that you have in your public-school systems?

Mr. BABCOCK. The State superintendent of education.

Mr. GWINN. Does it fix the tax rate in each of the townships, or towns?

Mr. BABCOCK. No; the tax rate is fixed by the local taxing authorities. It varies.

Mr. GWINN. Does your school board not really manage your schools, hiring your teachers and determining the curriculum that is to be taught by those teachers?

Mr. BABCOCK. They hire the teachers and they handle the smaller details of operating the schools. But they are not the authority, final authority, in school matters.

Mr. GWINN. As the State takes over more of your responsibility, that of the local community grows less and less, does it not?

Mr. BABCOCK. Not in our State, sir. If we had more money at the headquarters, in Richmond, they could do just as they do now; make allotments where it is necessary.

Mr. GWINN. As the Federal Government moves with appropriations, the State idea of direction comes a little closer to domination, does it not?

Mr. BABCOCK. This bill doesn't provide for any change in curcriculum or any management by the State authorities. It leaves that entirely to them.

Mr. GWINN. You read certain inconsistencies referring to the fact that the United States Office of Education will have to make sure that certain things are done before it allocates this money.

Mr. BABCOCK. The Department of Education at Washington, as I read this bill, will have charge of receiving a report as to what was done with it. But what is done with it is the business of the State. That was one reason we liked this particular bill. This bill seemed to us a very good bill. There are just a very few minor changesminor from our point of view- and it would be entirely acceptable. We could go to bat before our voters with it.

Mr. GWINN. It is true, as has been testified here, that the function. of the State is to be very neutral, and by being neutral it is interpreted to exclude any religious instruction. Then probably, before any certification from your State could come from the United States Office of Education, it would have to determine that you did not read the Bible in the Virginia schools. Do you not think so?

Mr. BABCOCK. No, sir.

Mr. GWINN. Suppose some taxpayer objected to Federal funds being sent to Virginia because some of your school teachers, your best ones, were reading the Bible with the approval of the local district. Then what would happen?

Mr. BABCOCK. Merely reading the Bible is not teaching religion. Mr. GWINN. That is what you say.

Mr. BABCOCK. That is what I say; yes, sir; because as a matter of fact it goes in one ear and out the other. I don't think the children pay the slightest attention to it. I don't think the reading makes the slightest difference to the kids. But we put it there and we hope that somebody will get some of that Old Testament and let it in. It doesn't necessarily be a religion because it is the Old Testament.

Mr. GWINN. My point is if some taxpayer did object to Federal funds going into Virginia, if they continued to read the Bible, what do you think would happen to the Bible?

Mr. BABCOCK. That is a hyphothetical question. I wouldn't be prepared to answer that at this time.

Mr. GWINN. Do you think they would keep on reading the Bible or take the Federal funds?

Mr. BABCOCK. There have been some sects that have objected to reading the Bible under any condition in the schools, and have carried it into the courts. But you will find somebody is going to object to something you do anyhow, no difference what you do. There is always an objector in the neighborhood. Even the teachers won't always read the Bible.

Mr. GWINN. I take it your answer in effect

Mr. BABCOCK. That is voluntary, the reading of the Bible, not compulsory.

Mr. GWINN. I take it your answer would be that in order to get these funds from the Federal Government you would throw out the Bible if that were the objection to this distribution of funds?

Mr. BABCOCK. I see no reason why we should confuse religion and public education. We have got two things in this country. We have the church and the school. The church minds its own business and should do so, and the public school minds its own business and it should do so. If a person wants to send their child to get religious education, let them send them to a Sunday school established by the religious sect of which they are a member. Schools are set up for educational purposes by the churches, Sunday school, and children can go to them. They are perfectly free and cost them nothing. And they do good work.

Mr. GWINN. I understood now that you are departing from the Bible. You are getting to the point where you are not going to encourage the reading of the Holy Bible in the schools.

Mr. BABCOCK. We are still going to give them a Bible. We give them Bibles and flags. We give pretty nearly all the schools we ever heard of Bibles and flags and we are going to keep on giving them Bibles and flags; if they don't read the Bible, that is their misfortne. Mr. GWINN. All right, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McCowEN. You cannot conceive of any condition largely to arise, can you, where anyone would have to choose between receiving cash and reading the Bible in the public schools?

Mr. BABCOCK. No, sir; I don't think that would happen.
Mr. GWINN. Will the gentleman yield; you would take the cash?
Mr. BABCOCK. I think they would too, sir.

Mr. McCOWEN. I question that. People have been burned at the stake for religious principles and I do not think they would take cash in return for doing away with their religion. I do not think they would have to. I do not think that is the question at issue. I do not think that ever will be a question in our country.

Mr. BABCOCK. The people who get these Bibles, the schools that get them are entirely a different category from the schools we assume this money is going to. This money is going to poor schools, I assume, in isolated places where they have not sufficient funds for any purpose at all, teachers or otherwise. And they are schools that we don't reach, any more than they are reached now by the State appropriations.

The schools we reach have ample, as a general rule, funds to buy their own Bibles and flags if they wanted to, but they just don't, and they are not the type of schools that this bill will assist. That is my own opinion. The schools you are going to assist probably never did have a Bible and would certainly welcome one. I know we have put them in colored schools, given them the first Bibles and flags they ever had in colored schools in Fairfax County. Give them flagpoles to put up in front of the building to hang it on, and those little children will stand around and give pledge of allegiance to the flag as regularly as they come to the schools.

Mr. McCowEN. Those were very impressive ceremonies, as a rule; were they not?

Mr. BABCOCK. They were very nice.

Mr. McCowEN. And doubtless have done a lot of good. Your order has uniformly supported the free public school system for many years; has it not?

Mr. BABCOCK. Yes, sir; always, and always will.

Mr. McCOWEN. Dr. Brehm.

Mr. BREHM. No; thank you.

Mr. McCOWEN. On behalf of the committee, I thank you for your very excellent statement.

Mr. BABCOCK. Thank you, Congressman, and thank you gentlemen of the committee.

(The witness was excused.)

Mr. McCOWEN. I think our last witness is Mr. Howe.

For the purpose of the record, Mr. Howe, you may state your name, and connection, and then proceed at your leisure with your statement. You have 15 minutes.

STATEMENT OF WALTER 0. HOWE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CITIZENS PUBLIC EXPENDITURES SURVEY, ALBANY, N. Y.

Mr. HowE. My name is Walter Howe; I am executive vice president. of the Citizens Public Expenditure Survey at Albany, N. Y.

The changes which New York State has just made in providing for support for education and in its requirements for minimum teachers' salaries may be of interest to this committee.