year. In addition to that, the city and State have provided 14% million dollars for the modernization of old school buildings. In other words, what we want to do is if we have a building that could take in more children or be more usable by modernizing it, we are going to spend some money doing that, which is cheaper than building a new building.

In addition to that, we are spending $25,000,000 for the repair of existing buildings, or a total of $90,000,000 for new construction, modernization, and repairs.

It must be recalled that when this program is finished by 1954, if it is finished, the tide of school population will have come to the junior high schools and 3 years later it will be in the senior high schools, and the building program will have to meet the needs of those schools in time to take care of the children as they grow up to enter those schools.

And, of course, when you come to building high schools, the cost is ever so many times greater than it is to build elementary schools. At this point I would like to say that we are not beginning with a perfect plant. We have, for example, in the city of New York, 229 elementary schools and junior high schools which are 50 years old or older. Some of them go back to Civil War days, and some of them we have empty now, and we would hate to have to open up some of those schools to meet this population, because to put the sanitation in, to fix the floors, to do all the other work which you would want to do to make them habitable, would really be as costly as building a new building, and you would meet, quite naturally, terrific resentment from parents if you tried to send children to these miserable, old, nonfireproof buildings that date to that age.

As I say, some of these buildings are in need of modernizing, but a lot of them we cannot modernize.

We begin also with an overload; 178 schools now have to carry considerably more than the capacity for which they were constructed. There is one school, and others almost as bad, that has 236 percent of its capacity in child load today.

There are 847 classrooms that are used twice a day. Which means that these little elementary school children have to carry their coats around the school building with them, because somebody else is using their classroom and they cannot leave their coats there. It is a situation which is serious.

I do not for a moment question the seriousness of the situation in other school districts, but I want to impress upon the Senate, sir, through you, that merely because we are a big city with a lot of funds available does not mean that we can meet our own problem unaided. Lest it be argued that Federal funds will relieve the city and State of educational burdens they have already assumed, it should be pointed out that the estimate is that we shall require some 7,000 additional teachers. The cost of employing these teachers as well as additional custodial costs, supervisory costs, supplies and health services will equal by the year 1954-55, over $24,000,000 a year in addition to what we are providing now.

I want to emphasize that this condition is typical of what is confronted by cities and States all over the country. New York City may be distinctive in many ways but it is not distinctive as regards the birth rate. The birth rate has gone up all over the country, as we know. Only in sheer numbers is New York City unique.

So long as local government could maintain educational needs, it has done so. Rising local governmental costs, coupled with limited sources of income, have created the crisis in educational financing which exists today. As a function of government, therefore, education deserves the consideration of the Federal Government in the allocation of Federal funds for governmental purposes.

I want to thank you very much for having permitted me to present these facts, and this viewpoint, and the case of the city of New York with reference to the need for Federal funds.

Senator HUMPHREY. We are very grateful to have your presentation, particularly with reference to the city of New York, because I think your point is well taken, that many people do feel that the big city does not have as many problems. Of course, I came from a smaller city, but I know something about the problems that existed there.

Mr. MARSHALL. You see, sir, one of the interesting thing is this, that when you begin to increase your overcrowding by numbers, you do something terrible to people, you do something terrible to the educational system. The mere force of numbers in these tremendous schools. And when you have a school that was built, we will say, the horrendous figure of 1,500 children and you begin to put 2,500 in them, it is a very bad thing for the children and for the community.

for

Senator HUMPHREY. If we could get about a billion dollars for the first year, we could start to make a dent, couldn't we? Of course, you don't think we would get a billion dollars, nor do I.

Mr. MARSHALL. Frankly, I do not think we could spend that if we had it. While I believe in Federal aid, I don't believe in considering yourself

Senator HUMPHREY. What you need to do is to project this over about a 10-year period of time. That is what we are talking about. The great question is whether or not we can afford to do it, and what the Federal budget will bear.

Some time I hope the educators will get down to the business of pointing out the direct relation. We will do anything for national defense, there is no argument about that. If we need another $750,000,000 for an atomic-energy plant on top of a volcano in Idaho, we are going to build it. We are going to do it. They cannot have it around where any people can live, or where there is any water or vegetation, so they have to put this plant on top of a mountain which is a dead volcano crater, and where the lava flow has solidified so there will be no seepage of this radioactive material.

And yet when we talk about as I have seen since these hearingsa couple of hundred million dollars, or $150,000,000, or $100,000,000, or $500,000,000 for Federal aid to education, immediately the hue and cry goes up that we are just going hog-wild here with the public

revenue.

Yet we have in our budget right now $15,000,000,000 for national defense, and we are talking about another $1,000,000,000 for arms implementation, or aid to Europe, which will be about $16,000,000,000, and I have yet to hear anybody say they thought that was too much.

Mr. MARSHALL. I wonder if you are familiar, Senator, with a report that the United States Chamber of Commerce committee on education made a few years ago under the chairmanship of Mr. Bushnell, of Richmond.

Senator HUMPHREY. I think I have quoted from that, with reference to the economic aspects of education, to income and to business; where you have the best education, you have the better housing, you have the better retail sales.

Mr. MARSHALL. More telephones, and so on.

Senator HUMPHREY. It made a nice report, but I don't believe they always believe it. I am not saying that everyone does not, but I think some of the key leaders fail to recognize that the report was really true. But we are going to have a job of selling.

I am interested in education. I am vitally interested in it. I think in America the finest building in every community ought to be the school, equaled, possibly, only by the church and then next the houses, and then after a while we will take care of the bank and the telephone company and the rest of them.

The best building in the community ought to be the school. It ought to be the kind of a building that is not only for the children but also for the parents, a real community center.

You know, "Suffer the little children to come unto me," the great Christian phrase. More kids have led their parents to church, you know, than the other way around. Your kids start going to Sunday school, and pretty soon you get decent, too, and you go.

And children bring parents to schools; they bring them into the community centers. We ought to be projecting our school plant not only in terms of elementary and secondary education but also in terms of adult education, in terms of community facilities.

You cannot think just in a sectarian sense about education. You have to be thinking of a school plant as a part of a total community facility, and to get the public to understand its full aspects, its health qualities, what it does for health, what it does to the dollar sign. I mean how it increases the economic productivity. That is always important. What it does to the general standard of living in the community, and basically, what is it going to do for the real defense of this country.

Today people will do almost anything for the defense of the Nation. We spend millions and millions of dollars without batting an eyelash, for national defense. I personally believe that the educational establishment is a part of the national defense picture.

Mr. MARSHALL. I think it could be proven pretty easily.

Senator HUMPHREY. I think it can be, I think we proved it in World War II. I think we proved it, for example, in the Air Force of this country. Before you could build an air force, you had to educate the men. I had hundreds of them. You had to teach and train young men. You could build the best airplanes in the world, but you did not have the pilots. Why? Because you did not have the kind of educated citizenry. We had to take them into the colleges and train them. We had to have Air Corps training establishments all over the United States.

We did the same thing with doctors and dentists, people who were going to work in supply depots. We had to train them.

I think that since the war the educators have failed to emphasize that picture adequately. It is like politics. You know, you have to shift your sales talk at times in terms of what is the general attitude of the people at the time. There is no use of talking about the 5-cent cigar when people want 10-cent ones.

Mr. MARSHALL. Senator, if we have to bring up this new generation in these terribly overcrowded schools, what we are going to do for national defense is to create a generation of neurotic teachers and two generations of neurotic boys and girls.

May I add just two things that I did not mean to say. One was the question of building standards, writing those into your statute. I think we want to be very careful that we do not insist that all monies be spent on these school buildings that will last nominally 40 years and really close to 100 years. We have found, for example, in the city of New York, particularly in connection with big housing developments, or large one and two-family housing blocks, that there is a big birth rate in the first few years after construction, that what happens then is that the family stops growing. Then the children grow up and move away and they move into some other place to have their family, and you are left with great big schoolhouses destined to last for a couple of generations, and nobody to fill them up.

Any standards that are provided ought to permit us to be much more flexible than we have been in the past and to build, perhaps, schools that are good schools, but have a shorter life. I think that should be borne in mind. And they are much more economical. Senator HUMPHREY. That is a good point.

Mr. MARSHALL. Secondly, I would like this. I do not know if you would be interested in this. These reports are the statistical basis of the figures that I have given you on this chart, and my talk. I wonder whether you would want to have them just on file.

Senator HUMPHREY. Do you have an extra copy?

Mr. MARSHALL. Yes, I have these two copies.

Senator HUMPHREY. I do not think we would want to put them in the committee reports, it is too much expense.

Mr. MARSHALL. I would not suggest that. But in case anybody wanted to go into the matter in detail, or find the background for the facts, they are there.

Senator HUMPHREY. I think we are through now, are we not?

Mr. WALTER E. STEBBINS (Superintendent, Mad River Township Schools, Dayton, Ohio). May I request that two statements might be filed. They have no verbal statements to make, but these two superintendents from Dayton, Ohio, have these statements to make. Senator HUMPHREY. I would be delighted to have their statements filed, and we will incorporate them in the record.

Mr. STEBBINS. And a further request: Might Congressman Breen of the Third Ohio District still file a statement?

Senator HUMPHREY. We will keep the record open for another week for statements.

(The statements referred to are as follows:)

STATEMENT BY M. B. MORTON, SUPERINTENDENT BUTLER TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS, MONTGOMERY COUNTY, VANDALIA, OHIO

I urge you to take immediate and favorable action on legislation which will provide financial assistance to schools located in war and defense areas. We are classified as such and are thus affected:

The Butler Township school district is located directly north of the city of Dayton, and adjacent thereto. Included within the district boundaries is the Dayton Municipal Airport. During the war this airport was operated under the name of Dayton Army Air Field. At that time the field was expanded in size. Many buildings, hangars, and housing units were constructed within its boundaries.

Approximately $1,000,000 worth of taxable property was taken off the local tax duplicate. Immediately following the war the field was returned to the city of Dayton in its expanded size for operation, and the barracks were converted to 128 housing units and turned over to the Metropolitan Housing Authority for operation.

Included in the district also is the Dayton Metropolitan Housing Authority's Vandalia Homes project. This comprises 200 housing units.

In 1940 the population of the local schools was 605 pupils in average daily attendance. In the school year just closed this number was 1,214, an increase of slightly more than 100 percent.

For this coming year, by assigning from 40 to 50 pupils per teacher and by placing four elementary grades on the floor of the gymnasium, it will be possible to house the 1,300 pupils expected in September. In years past, pupils have been placed in churches, basements and on the gymnasium floors, as the building expansion fell behind the increased enrollment.

It should also be mentioned that the Butler Township school district is located just 10 miles from the Wright-Patterson Air Base, which undoubtedly accounts, in large part too, for our increased school enrollment.

Since our present plight is largely due to the fact that we are located in a war and defense area, we feel that financial assistance from the Federal Government should be forthcoming.

For the reasons herein enumerated, we urge you to take immediate and favorable action on legislation which will provide financial assistance for schools located in war and defense areas.

STATEMENT BY CHARLES R. TARZINSKI, PRINCIPAL NORTHRIDGE SCHOOL, MONTGOMERY COUNTY, OHIO

We urge you to take immediate and favorable action on legislation which will provide financial assistance to schools located in war and defense areas. We are classified as such and are thus affected:

The Northridge school district is located north of the city of Dayton corporation limits, approximately 3 miles west of the Wright-Patterson Air Fields. The influx of workers to this area created a marked effect on our school district. A lack of building restrictions surrounded the area with trailer and defense cabin dwellers.

The school enrollment increased from 1,114 pupils in 1940 to 1,850 in 1948. The amount of taxable property behind each student was reduced from $3,354 to $2,872 during the same period.

The facilities of the present school building normally accommodate approximately 1,400 pupils. Presently, 1,850 pupils are enrolled. To alleviate the overcrowded conditions, we moved four classes to an adjacent building designed expressly for a school-bus garage. Our auditorium and cafeteria are used for study halls and classrooms, and the library and art rooms were converted into classrooms. To accommodate the large number of students, we expanded the present facilities to include 38 students in the smaller rooms, and the larger rooms accommodate 54 students. The average enrollment for all classes is 45. The tax valuation of the Northridge school district is $5,313,380. A 6-percent limitation permits approximately $300,000 for bonded indebtedness. However, one-half of the amount is already outstanding, and no possible means of financial assistance is forthcoming from real-estate taxes.

This summary

The picture of inadequate school facilities will be further complicated according to a survey made by the school enumerators in August 1948. indicates the following probable enrollment:

Since our present plight is largely due to the fact that we are located in a war and defense area, we feel that financial assistance from the Federal Government should be forthcoming.

For the reasons herein enumerated, we urge you to take immediate and favorable action on legislation which will provide financial assistance for schools located in war and defense areas.