ANOTHER COMPLEX

The move for a national education department has experienced opposition from an unexpected source. Professor Otis of City College criticises the project as a disguised attempt to militarize schools and colleges. And in a talk to foreign students at Columbia University the New York educator sounds the historic cry of states rights.

Yet how a Department of Education subsidiary to the executive can foist compulsory military training on the colleges of the country is difficult to see. Without legislative action, college men cannot be required to match to the command of a top sergeant. Indeed since his courageous defence of the non-militaristic City College students, Dr. Otis seems to be obsessed with what the learned Viennese might call a military complex.

The proposed educational department, hailed by Dr. Otis as another step in bureaucratic dictatorship, is scarcely harmful. One can not imagine its engaging in activities more noxious than the cultivated equivalent of free seed distribution. The legislative branch of the government which several times has made abortive attempts to weaken the Supreme court is not likely to confer unseemly authority on a newly created department. With only the powers granted by a jealous Congress, the bureau could have little autocratic influence on the schools of the nation.

Surely a definite field of service exists for national educational work. As a storehouse for statistics, a dispenser of information, and a coordinator of effort, a Bureau of Education could not but serve a useful purpose.