THE PUBLIC, YES

Beneath the placid security of America's little-red-school-houses, a disease is festering which threatens to undermine public education. Americans boast of their youth, their open minds, their opportunities to learn and think for themselves. But the facts behind these boasts ring false. The sickness has spread until there is a shortage of schools, a lack of funds to maintain them, until their teachers are underpaid and often have never gone beyond high school themselves. The highest standards of a few rich cities and states cannot compensate for the slough of rural America.

The nation-wide figures are disheartening. In 1938 two and a half million youths failed to attend school. Even more serious is the fact that of seventy million adults, no less than sixty-four million had never finished high school. Enlightened America is found to be lacking schools and money and well-trained teachers. In 1935 forty-two thousand schools had not the funds to complete their year.

Upon this growing disease Congress has long been meditating, and the result of years of rehashing is the Harrison Bill. Called by President Roosevelt one of the most important of his tenure, its purpose is to equalize educational opportunities among the states by grants from a federal fund and still refrain from interference with local policy. To tax one part of the country in order to support the schools of another may be a breach of state autonomy, but it is the only means of preserving to rural America a vestige of public education. The Southeast cannot support schools of the standard set elsewhere. In 1930 its farm population included 13 per cent of the nation's children, but its farmers produced only two per cent of the nation's income. If the youth of rural America are to have equality in education, the Harrison Bill is their only hope.

Its passage is of deep concern to Harvard. College standards are inseparably locked to those of the schools, and complementing. President Conant's desire to increase the geographical distribution of undergraduates is the need to improve possible college material in rural areas. It is unfortunate that because of their paucity applicants from Arkansas have a better chance of admission than those from Pennsylvania. To make its scope more national, Harvard depends on higher standards among Southeastern and Southwestern states. Equality of education throughout America is a boon to the colleges as well as the local communities, and equality depends upon the passage of the Harrison Bill.