thoroughfares. This pitiful parade enacted hourly throughout the college day presents a nerve racking, dangerous, and probably grotesque spectacle and unbecoming to an educational institution on any level. The District of Columbia stands among the bottom of the list in providing higher educational opportunities though it tops the list in its per capita income among the States. This inconsistency is further heightened by the fact that its sole effort is confined to the perpetuation of a 19th century model institution. The present single-purpose college is reminiscent of a bygone age when all the employed young women became schoolteachers and the young men went off to theological seminaries. Thus, straitjacketed, it stands proudly on the hill with one foot in the past and the other bravely struggling to gain a 20th century status. It is one of the few remaining survivors of a rapidly vanishing band of normal schools, most of which have long since converted their curriculums to become responsive to modern 20th century multipurpose requirements. We hope that the ancient philosophy, now nearly extinct throughout the Nation, will not be further perpetuated by this Congress and that the Nation's Capital, a community of high average income, will come alive in this important aspect of its educational program. Thank you very much, sir. Senator MORSE. Thank you very very much, Mr. Lloyd. That is a very helpful statement. I am going to have follow your statement a letter that Mr. John T. Collier, president of the American University Park Citizens Association, sent to Senator Bible dated March 1, 1966. (The letter referred to follows:) Hon. ALAN BIBLE, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY PARK CITIZENS ASSOCIATION, Washington, D.C., March 1, 1966. Chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia, DEAR SENATOR BIBLE: This association, representing an area of some 2,000 families within the section of the District of Columbia north of Massachusetts Avenue and west of Wisconsin Avenue, Northwest, has recently gone on record endorsing the pending bills on the junior college and liberal arts college for the District of Columbia. It is our sincere hope that these will be enacted into law at this session. The present old college plant consists of two widely separated buildings located over a half mile apart. As an emergency measure these old buildings were adapted to this makeshift use about 11 years ago. This bifurcated arrangement necessitates a shuttling back and forth between these two educational islands. Between the 50-minute classes which range from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. the students and faculty alike shift back and forth, the interval between classes being extended to 15 minutes to accommodate this pilgrimage. The more agile students perform the hike on foot, while a sizable colony forms automobile pools, and emerges through a honeycomb of narrow side streets to battle the traffic of three heavily traveled thoroughfares. This pitiful parade, reenacted hourly throughout the college day, presents a nerve racking, hazardous, and palpably grotesque spectacle, highly wasteful and unbecoming an educational institution on any level. The District of Columbia stands at the bottom of the list among the States in providing higher public education, although it tops the list in its per capita income. This inconsistency is further heightened by the fact that its sole effort is confined to the perpetuation of a 19th-century-model institution. The present single-purpose teachers college is reminiscent of a bygone age, when all the employed young women became schoolteachers, and the young men went off to 60-755-66— -22 theological seminaries. Thus straitjacketed, it stands proudly on the hill, with one foot in the past, and the other bravely struggling to gain a 20th-century status. It is one of the few remaining survivors of a rapidly vanishing band of normal schools, most of which have long since converted their curriculums to become responsibe to modern, 20th-century, multipurpose requirements. We hope that the ancient philosophy, now nearly extinct throughout the Nation, will not be further perpetuated by this Congress, and that the Nation's capital, a community of high average income, will "come alive" in this important aspect of its educational program. JOHN T. COLLIER, President. Senator MORSE. Our next witness will be Mr. Burke E. Dorworth, Director, Commission on Religion and Race, Washington City Presbytery, United Presbyterian Church. Mr. Dorworth, I am delighted that you are here. STATEMENT OF BURKE E. DORWORTH, DIRECTOR, COMMISSION ON RELIGION AND RACE, WASHINGTON CITY PRESBYTERY, UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH Mr. DORWORTH. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, as you stated I am appearing before your committee on behalf of the Commission on Religion and Race of the Washington City Presbytery, the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. We make this witness for public institutions of higher education to add our endorsement for the passage of legislation that will make this educational opportunity a reality in the District of Columbia. We know that the facts are in and commend the President's Committee on Public Higher Education in the District of Columbia for its conclusions based on these facts. We know other church organizations have brought their support and we stand with that support as it is reflected in the Milton C. Mapes' report presented by the Council of Churches of Greater Washington. And we also know that recommendations for such an institution from outstanding educators are before this committee. We cannot add to this wealth of information. The only justification for our witness is to be a part of the higher vision of this committee and add our voice to the collective support that we might help provide the will for Congress to pass legislation for public institutions of higher education at all deliberate speed. When one reviews just a few of the facts and conclusions, it almost seems like an exercise in gamemanship, that we are making and you are receiving statements to support this concept of education for the District of Columbia. It seems incredulous that in 1966 hearings such as this on this subject are necessary. That $2.26 per capita was spent for higher education in the District of Columbia in 1963-64 as compared to a national average of $28.27 seems indicative of the incredulity. To see where that $2.26 is spent and to therefore understand the declining enrollment rate at District of Columbia Teachers College does not bring restraint to one's mounting wonderment about the situation. Then to learn that this jurisdiction alone in the entire United States is without such opportunity adds to a sense of frustration. One is forced to consider how many more embarrassments will emerge to show once again how far back in time are the accomplishments for the District of Columbia. Still, "better late than never" must characterize part of the urgency for this legislation. If any new voice is needed to say that the five excellent universities now matriculating students in the area are not enough, we would refer to the Mapes report reiterating the "national mission of these schools" as over against an immediate need for a school oriented to the local community. And the obvious cost factor of these schools in relation to the obvious economic factor of so many District of Columbia citizens should help overcome any defensiveness in this area. In this respect it is not fair to put the burden of borrowing and being high in scholarship competition to gain an education in the highly competitive private institutions when high school graduates of every other jurisdiction have the advantage of public-supported schools where admission is gained on less competitive and economic standards. We cannot allow the same old trap to be snapped shut again that from whom much is denied more is expected. As churchmen, we have to apologize for the past record of our own institutions of higher learning, which were oriented to the church and providing only its own needs. Today this narrowness of parochial and limited education, tailored for self-preservation of one's own institution and not universal in its community concept is recogized as archaic and only to be tolerated until change toward a broader concept takes place. Once again, then, the Congress of the United States has the opportunity to raise our sights by looking toward this more universal community and showing the vision of what it means for young persons to enter the stream of higher education to discover the world in ever widening circles of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. We do not want our youth to believe that the whole world is what they see happening in their Washington, D.C., surroundings; and here we speak of slums, inadequate secondary schools, "huddled masses yearning to be free." There is a world out there and we want our less chance youth to have the chance to know it, to taste it, to live it; to realize that life may after all be worth living for them, too. To paraphrase a freedom song, "Let's ask the lady known as the Statue of Liberty to turn around now and again to shine her torch of freedom and enlightenment down our way." To bring that vision to fruition now means hope and usefulness for people now. To leave it for another Congress means one more delaying tactic to frustrate the healthy ambitions of young people too long faced with educational barriers that have mean jobs limited to janitors, dishwashers, table waiters, doormen, and streetsweepers. Honest jobs in themselves but few within them would ask you to stop thinking about higher educational opportunities to assure that their children would be forced to inherit their jobs. It is for the healthy ambitions of thousands of less chance parents and young people that we speak and would hope that this committee might go directly to these persons that they would have the opportunity to speak for themselves. We also feel it should be said that many of us who have observed the relationship of Congress and the citizens of Washington, D.C., as Congress assumes it role of final authority over District affairs, that like so much of the operation, the education situation has been limited in direct proportion to the Negro persons involved in the educational system. We are testifying here today in part because we feel that if bigotry and racism play a part in the mentality of those legislators responsible for affairs here, then that narrowness of decisionmaking should be recognized, brought to the surface and seen in the light of public opinion. If racial prejudice would be a factor in determining the outcome of this legislation for higher education, then we would hope that the Congress would know from this committee that such determining factors can no longer carry the day. We should do whatever we can here and now to let Negro citizens of Washington, D.C., know that the hope level for Negro citizens is rising and that such outlets as reenlistment in the Armed Forces at 22 times the reenlistment rate for white citizens is no longer necessary to escape from an uncaring civilian community. We realize the need and believe in the art of politics, this need to let some urgent matter lie dormant while another's program is fulfilled. We know something about the art of the possible and that all worthy programs cannot be legislated in one session of Congress but hold out the conviction that this Congress will appreciate your committee's attempts to make this a matter of highest priority. We can only add our verbal support and hopefully our future tax dollars for a public institution of higher education brought into being by your legislative efforts. We thank you for this opportunity to testify. Senator MORSE. Mr. Dorworth, I want to say to you that I think this is a very eloquent statement and it is a very fitting companion statement to the testimony and report that was submitted to us by Reverend Stuart McKenzie and by Mr. Mapes. I think these three statements set forth most effectively the position of the church groups in the District and I want to commend each of you for them. I find myself in agreement with the appeal that your statements make. Thank you very much. Mr. DORWORTH. Thank you. Senator MORSE. Mr. Merle D. Baumgart, Education Committee, Capitol Hill Community Council, Inc. Thank you very much for coming. STATEMENT OF MERLE D. BAUMGART, EDUCATION COMMITTEE, CAPITOL HILL COMMUNITY COUNCIL, INC. Mr. BAUMGART. Thank you. I am very happy to be here today, Senator Morse. I would like to summarize my statement and make a few extraneous remarks. Senator MORSE. Your full statement will go in the record and you may summarize. Mr. BAUMGART. Thank you. The Capitol Hill Community Council wholeheartedly supports all recommendations put forth by the President's Committee on Higher Education. That was the very clear mandate overwhelmingly supported by the Capitol Hill Community Council. We believe, however, that the method of selecting the Board of Higher Education by the Judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has failed in its application with the public school system in the District of Columbia and that it therefore represents an inferior method to that proposed by S. 1612; that is, appointment by way of a citizens nominating committee. Perhaps in the end an elected board would be the best method of all. Now the Teachers College, as has been repeated over and over again at these hearings, represents the last hope for any kind of higher education to approximately 1,500 District residents annually, and when we speak in terms of the actual human needs that are at stake we find it incongruous in the extreme to see Congress so horrified over the District's rising crime rate, and yet so uninclined, over the years, to offer the same higher education opportunities that the great majority of other Americans matter of factly enjoy. Now when I am not testifying for public higher education in the District I spend my time at the District of Columbia Teachers College as an instructor in history. Just about a week ago during the first 2 days of testimony I decided to take a poll of my students, and I asked them one very simple question: If you had the opportunity to graduate from the institution with any other degree besides the teachers degree, would you be so inclined? The response was some 46 percent said they would be so inclined and these are students who are freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors-in fact, all my seniors said they were so inclined. Now if we find approximately half of our present students at the Teachers College with that inclination, I think it is fairly obvious that in the District of Columbia as a whole we will find a major response and an immediate response to a public 4-year liberal arts college. Senator MORSE. I think that is very dramatic testimony to be put in this hearing record at this time. It bears out a hunch of mine. I have had no objective data on which to base my hunch but I just felt if we take a look at the situation here in the District of Columbia, we have no other choice than the one we are giving them. We have limited their opportunities. What you have said to them in effect is, "If we gave you a broader opportunity, how many of you would take the broader opportunity?" That means you thereby separated out those that really want to prepare for the teaching profession and those that said they would take another course or those that said they would take something else if they could select it. I think it is rather persuasive testimony as far as I am concerned. Mr. BAUMGART. Thank you, sir. I have long felt that the real issue involved is the denial of equal opportunity. We find this, of course, in such areas as the home rule area of citizenship, but it is not only citizenship, it extends to many other areas of life in the District of Columbia, and education, of course, is a prime example. May I say one other comment concerning the nature of the Teachers College. As you know, the Wilson and Minor Colleges, Negro and white, were amalgamated in 1955 and they became the District of Columbia Teachers College; it was new, in fact, only in name. There are separate buildings, and even though it has become desegregated |