Mrs. GREEN. In your statement you confined most of your remarks to that part of the bill concerned with research and demonstration projects. Do you endorse the part that has to do with the training of personnel?

Mr. HANSEN. I do, indeed, and for the reasons that I have given. It is already demonstrated that the Federal Government's leadership in this type of training is fruitful, that we have even more necessity for conserving human resources in terms of people and personal development than we do in developing scientists and mathematicians. If we do not do them both together, there is not much use in doing either one.

So I would strongly endorse a training program, which will not answer the problem, but at least it will spearhead an emphasis.

Mrs. GREEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Hansen, for taking time out of your busy day to come here.

Mr. HANSEN. Thank you, Mrs. Green.

Mrs. GREEN. I would ask unanimous consent that a statement by Mrs. Agnes E. Meyer before the annual convention of the District of Columbia Congress of Parents and Teachers be inserted in the record at this point; that a statement by Dr. James B. Conant follow the statement by Mrs. Meyer, and then a statement by the General Federation of Women's Clubs be inserted into the record.

(The exhibits referred to follow :)

A SERVICE CORPS FOR THE NATION'S CAPITAL

(Speech before the Annual Convention of the District of Columbia Congress of Parents and Teachers, Departmental Auditorium, Washington, D.C., May 15, 1961)

(By Agnes E. Meyer)

I am grateful for the invitation of the District of Columbia Congress of Parents and Teachers to address you tonight. For I come before you with a plea of greatest urgency-a plea for help to extend the functions of our public school system in order to make life more hopeful, more livable for the children and teenagers of the Nation's Capital. We must develop genuinely community centered schools-schools that meet the new needs of a new era and this can only be done, given the limitations of the school budget, by enlisting the services of educated volunteers.

The purpose of the program is prevention and control of delinquency and crime in the District of Columbia. Concerning the seriousness of our youth problems I need not speak. You are all familiar with the fact that crime has increased not only in our city but throughout the Nation. As President Kennedy's message to Congress on the subject of juvenile delinquency points out, for the past 11 years cases before the juvenile court have increased every year.

What is deeply disturbing is the purely punitive attitude toward young transgressors which has many advocates and is growing in vehemence. We actually have a bill before the Congress which would abolish the juvenile court and treat all youthful offenders over the age of 16 as ordinary criminals.

To be sure serious offenses must be met with serious punishment. But placing young people in prisons with adult criminals means that they will be more dangerous to society when they have completed their sentences. We need new institutions of detention for young criminals which emphasize an attitude of rehabilitation rather than mere incarceration. Senator Bible's request to Attorney General Kennedy for a pilot project to experiment with a "half-way house” where juveniles could readjust before returning to society also deserves consideration.

This growing attitude of vengeance is the result of hysteria and of ignorance— ignorance of the reasons why our disorderly society is producing not only in our city but in all other cities and in rural areas as well, so many problem children who then go more and more astray as they grow older.

How many older people who grew up in a stable, sensible, and meaningful society are capable of realizing the revolutionary changes that have taken place in our social structure, and of looking at the situation today from the point of view of the young? Anyone who is in touch with the conditions of life our young people face can only conclude that we are making it as difficult as possible for them to grow up as happy and useful members of society. Many of them, especially those who are poor and those who are members of a minority group, are in a constant state of bewilderment. For we have not created the new institutions, the new kinds of schools, recreation programs, and guidance centers that can meet the new needs of a new era.

The old props of life, the church, the school, and the family have been undermined. The young have been isolated in a society without cohesion and robbed of the practical and spiritual goals which could fire their ambitions. Quite apart from wars and depressions, the present industrial revolution caused by rapid scientific progress, has created an urbanized, technical society which seems to have no place for youth and no special consideration for the agonies of childhood and adolescence. We all feel isolated in our heartless modern society but the young are naturally gregarious and suffer even more from isolation than mature people. They also resent injustice more bitterly than grown-ups. Is it any wonder that they form gangs and resort to violence? Gang life, delinquency, and crime are the natural response of youngsters to a society which has too long remained indifferent to their tragic plight. Do you remember the response of the young hoodlum in "West Side Story" when the kindly drugstore keeper asks him why he and his pals make life so hideous? The boy replies, "Because we found it that way."

Therefore, instead of meeting the misbehavior of the young with ever more severe penalties, it is high time that we face the situation with understanding, sympathy, and constructive measures. We know very well what should be done to cure the diseases of our affluent society; but we lack the will to do itpartly because we have become too indifferent and partly because we are too selfish to pay the price. And yet I have enough confidence in the American people to believe that they would help overcome this social paralysis, if they knew where to enlist.

We cannot arrest the pace of change which has caused our social upheaval. In fact, it is being accelerated every day by the advance of science and technology which creates more automation and more unemployment. Therefore, we must cushion the impact of change, especially upon the young. We must educate them for a changing society. Otherwise, mental instability, delinquency, and crime will increase as well as evils scarcely less destructive such as hopelessness, cynicism, and desperation.

We are confronted with the task of building a new civilization and a new morality. I see no other vehicle by which this can be done throughout city and Nation than the public school. For schools exist in every community, large or small, and their potential for remaking society has never been sufficiently explored. Some people maintain that the school should concern itself only with the child's mental development. This was a perhaps tenable theory in former days when only the elite went through high school and college. But today we have to educate all of our children up to the age of 16 from every walk of life. Therefore, we must take into consideration the child's background and ask ourselves whether education is good unless the child is educable. If, as many of our children in Washington do, the child comes to school from a difficult home, with emotional problems and, in some cases even hungry, the child is then scarcely in a frame of mind to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. Today our public school has to become a community centered school in close touch with the neighborhood with family life and the home. Whether the educational Ph. D.'s like it or not, our schools henceforth must keep in close touch with, and influence as much as possible, the whole social structure.

What, then, can we do? The practical suggestions I shall make to expand the influence of our school systems are not new. All have been tried in various public school systems with notable success and some of them already exist in our District schools in various degrees. All I propose to do, after careful discussion with Dr. Hansen, our School Superintendent, is to combine the best existing methods of adjusting the public school system to its new responsibilities. Our point is that the piecemeal approach now conducted in many cities has experimental value; but only a coordinated program reaching all age groups and their families can change the mental and moral climate of our city. As these proposals call for increased funds not now available to our financially starved

public school system, let me say at once before you dismiss my program as mere wishful thinking, that I am sure we can raise enough money from various foundations to pay for the additional administrative staff which will be needed and for overhead expenses.

I propose that we extend the program by calling for volunteers from our five universities and their graduate schools in the field of education, sociology, social work, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, arts, natural sciences, as well as older volunteers. Without an army of voluntary workers the cost of the program would be prohibitive. In other words, I am borrowing President Kennedy's idea, supplementary to that of his Peace Corps, by suggesting that we organize through our colleges and universities, and other agencies what I first called a youth corps to save the Nation's Capital from further social deterioration.

Since my first appeal for volunteers we have had so many inquiries from older people with excellent qualifications that it seemed better to accept all ages and call the volunteers a service corps. I am happy to announce that the idea met with an enthusiastic reception when I first suggested it to the professional audience at Laurel. Since then Dr. Hansen, Superintendent of schools, has had offers of cooperation from the Red Cross, the Washington School of Psychiatry, the Junior Police Corps, from churches, settlement houses, and other organizations concerned with civic activities and youth problems. It is highly appropriate that I should now outline the plan before the Parent-Teacher Association. For you can rightly be called the original volunteer service corps of the public school system.

What gave me the greatest encouragement was a letter from Secretary Ribicoff's assistant and another from President Kennedy. The President said that he was "much impressed by the plan" for Washington and added that he had previously asked Secretary of Labor Goldberg to develop a domestic youth corps to carry out proposals for youth employment opportunities. I think we are, indeed, fortunate to have a President and a Secretary of Labor who realize the seriousness of the recent industrial developments for the millions of young people who have no special skills. With automation expanding rapidly, there is an ever greater need for highly trained personnel; but the workers who have no training will be a drug on the market. This could develop into an explosive situation unless we act at once to adapt our educational system to the requirements of modern society. Secretary Goldberg pointed out to me that at the present rate we shall have about 9 million dropouts in the next 10 years— youngsters who leave school before completing elementary or high school. Of these we already have a dangerously large number in the District of Columbia and one of the first steps that could be taken with volunteer assistants is the increase of programs such as the one at the McFarland Junior High School which has special guidance services for young people who are not book learners. If we increase this type of training we could keep many boys and girls in school and even lure back many of the dropouts. Once these youngsters learn the connection between training and the securing of better jobs, they can be persuaded to continue their education while holding a part-time job.

This is probably the most important program which Dr. Hansen envisages for the older boys and girls. In New York City such a program is operating in 40 academic and vocational high schools; 4,000 students alternate classroom instruction with salaried on-the-job experience; 200 business firms cooperate with the school system in making this educational venture possible. Last year these New York students earned $3 million for their part-time work. Many students who would normally drop out of school because they are not suited to an academic school program, have been encouraged to remain in school, or to return to school and obtain their diplomas. To develop this study and work program in more of our schools we must continue the helpful cooperation of the local U.S. Employment Service and the junior chamber of commerce. Surely we could appeal to our business leaders to form a committee such as exists in New York City to help with job placements. The problem in the District is more difficult than in New York City as we have so little industry. However, there is much repair work right in the school system which youngsters could do. If the Department of Buildings and Grounds would assign one skilled supervisor, the boys could do many simple maintenance jobs, and become wage earners and at the same time better citizens. Much outdoor work could also be carried on under supervision of service corps volunteers in our parks, keeping our streets and empty lots clear, etc. A CCC program in our local parks is more practical and less expensive than sending youthful delinquents away from home.

These study and work schools are just as important for girls as for boys. The girls should be trained for domestic work of all kinds, simple cooking, infant care, babysitting, care of the aged, homemaker services, practical nursing, and nurses aids. At present our difficult girls reject such training but their attitude would change if this training is given status through paid employment. Home economics classrooms should also be used to train girls and young women in household skills in the evening and during the summer. Such study and work scohols in our urban and rural areas could become one of our major vehicles for preventing delinquency and crime.

President Kennedy has realized that we need Federal leadership to develop not only these study and work schools but a comprehensive program for the prevention and control of delinquency. How the $10 million annually he has requested from Congress for the implementation of his three-pronged program will be spent, I do not know. The sum of money allotted to carry out the projects is small in comparison with three ambitious programs Secretary Ribicoff has outlined. When it comes to the training of personnel, the whole appropriation is not big enough for the prolonged training of professional probation officers, social workers, police, youth gang workers, etc. It might better be used for a short training course for the domestic youth corps which President Kennedy has suggested. As for the grants to demonstration projects, I fear it might be wasted on spotty experiments unless Secretary Ribicoff concentrates on increasing the great number of successful experiments that already exist in the public school systems of Detroit, New York, Washington, and other cities. After all, we already have much good work done here and there in the Nation's Capital by churches, settlements, the Junior Police Corps, and other organizations. Yet they have not been able to stem the tide of juvenile delinquency and crime in our city. Let me emphasize once more, therefore, that juvenile delinquency is a profound social and economic problem which can be solved only by a reorganization of the social structure. Anything less drastic than that is like putting court plasters on a gangrenous wound. We need and should welcome Federal leadership to alert the country to the seriousness of the social diseases which cause juvenile delinquency and crime for we have no time to lose. But it can only be cured by State and local action. And instead of confusing the local situation by many agencies working at cross-purposes, I believe we shall get better and quicker results if we use our public schools as the focus of all constructive programs. Private and foundation funds will be needed in every community as well as an army of volunteers. Above all we shall need the cooperation of businessmen, labor leaders, sociologists, and industrialists. Mr. Nixon has criticized President Kennedy for wasting tax moneys on domestic problems instead of spending all our financial resources on missiles and other armaments. Fortunately, President Kennedy understands that the development of human talent is our greatest source of strength and that we must fortify our society here at home if we are to fulfill our responsibilities abroad. Therefore, I think the President's idea for a domestic youth corps, as outlined in his letter to me, is even more important than the Peace Corps for foreign service. The domestic program might even become a source of recruiting for the foreign service. For any volunteer who knows through experience the difficulties of improving social life in his own community will be far better equipped to be useful in a foreign setting.

Aside from the study and work schools advocated by Secretary Goldberg, for the older boys and girls, we need a preventive program beginning in the kindergarten and the first and second grades of the elementary school.

At this point I should like to introduce the subsequent parts of the program by stating that we should all be grateful to our superintendent of schools, Dr. Hansen, for having made such a success of the four-track system in our public schools. For it already contains the rudiments of his enlarged program for the prevention and control of delinquency.

This method of giving special attention to the needs both of the gifted children, the slow learners, as well as poorly prepared students, has raised morale among our District public school students to such an extent that Dr. Hansen's educational methods have received nationwide acclaim. It has already improved the achievement of our public school graduates. More 1960 graduates are in college full time than in the class of 1959. Therefore, we have something positive to build on, a great many germinal ideas and programs that need only amplification which Dr. Hansen's budget does not permit, to become more effective in educating our children and remedying the shameful social conditions now prevalent in the Nation's Capital.

Obviously, the greatest need of our school system is more buildings and classes small enough so that the teacher can know each one of the students. But this can come about only if the responsible committees of Congress vote the necessary funds. It is problem No. 1. When children go from overcrowded schools to overcrowded homes, they have very little chance for normal growth and happiFirst they become truants and truancy is a sure road to more serious trouble. All efforts to counteract the District's high rate of delinquency and crime are made more difficult but also more necessary, as long as we have such large classes and so many double sessions. But even if we succeed in remedying this situation, the program I am about to outline would still be imperative.

ness.

1. Expansion of the program of assistance to first graders who are not making satisfactory progress.-The early years of school are the crucial ones when the child's attitude toward learning is formed. Proper attention to the child's emotional and mental problems at this stage can make or break the course of life. I agree with R. J. Havighurst, professor of education at Chicago University: "The most enduring and the most essential qualities of mind and personality are founded in the early years of life." Thus we should have the most expert teachers in kindergarten and the early eelmentary classes and pay them accordingly. A specialist in guidance on the new administrative staff would need the assistance of service corps students in psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and other skills to make the existing program for first graders more effective.

2. The talent search now carried on at the McFarland School should be expanded. A great number of children in our schools come from poor families and backgrounds that are not conducive to good working habits. Yet many of these children have native ability. Only last week I saw an art exhibition-the work of difficult children-which revealed the close connection between creative work and creative living. If encouraged to develop their talents, these boys and girls can go far. If not, their sense of frustration turns either to violence or apathy. Proper attention can turn these pupils into an asset to the Nation; neglect is sure to make them enemies of society. Here again the service corps volunteers would work under expert supervision.

3. Followup program to remedy health defects reported by the school health services. This we know from long and sad experience must be done by the schools as many parents are too indifferent, too ignorant, and often too poor to do anything about these reports. Defects of sight, hearing, teeth, and innumerable other physical defects can readily be cured at this age. This would require more medical and nursing services at the elementary level. Not every school can have such teams as trained personnel is scarce. But the services of doctors and nurses could be shared by several schools if their supervision is supplemented by nurses' aids, and other social services. A successful followup of the school health services would save the individual untold misery and the community a vast expenditure of funds in later life. This has not been done in most of the public schools because of the cost to the school ssytem. With proper organization and the use of volunteers it can be done.

4. Social service program for potential delinquents and educational aids for backward children.-This is a vast field that requires expert supervision by the administrative staff of the volunteers and close cooperation with the teaching staff to spot the children who need help. Remedial reading and language difficulties are central to it. I have been in institutions for mentally disturbed children, onethird of whom were there because of reading difficulties. Promoted year after year, constantly more incapable of keeping up with their classmates, they retreated into a world of their own which is just another way of describing mental aberration, including insanity. For children who can cope with reading, mathematics is the next most serious stumbling block. Emotional problems, difficult home situations, inability to run with the crowd, mere lack of pocket money which their classmates have, any and all of these things contribute to truancy and the next step, delinquency. Here is an exciting opportunity for volunteers of the service corps. It entails not only work with the child but close contact with

the home.

5. My next category calls for job training and placement of boys and girls who leave the national training school or some other place of detention.—Here is urgent need for expansion of the small existing programs. It requires sheltered work opportunity to prepare the youngsters for a steady job. It will probably be necessary to pay their salaries to any employer willing to give them work opportunities at least until they have proved themselves to be reliable. On the whole this program could follow the curriculum of the vocational and