The Committee on Membership reported vacancies in the Council and nominated persons to fill such vacancies as follows: W. M. Davidson, Topeka, Kan., to succeed himself. E. W. Coy, Cincinnati, O., to succeed himself. All of the above for the full term of six years. J. L. Spaulding, Peoria, Ill., to succeed George P. Brown, Bloomington, Ill., term to expire in 1907. Anna Tolman Smith, Washington, D. C., to succeed the late Francis W. Parker, of Chicago, Ill., term to expire in 1904. Alexander Graham Bell, Washington, D. C., to succeed the late Charles C. Rounds, New York, term to expire in 1903. (Signed) E. E. WHITE, W. T. HARRIS, J. M. GREENWOOD. The Committee on Nominations, thru its chairman, Dr. W. T. Harris, reported as follows: To fill vacancies in the Committee on Membership: Augustus S. Downing, New York, to fill vacancy caused by non-election last year. Term expires 1904. J. M. Greenwood, Kansas City, and J. H. Van Sickle, Baltimore, Md., to succeed themselves. Terms expire 1905. To serve as officers of the Council for 1902-1903: President-William R. Harper, Chicago, Ill. Vice-President-W. H. Bartholomew, Louisville, Ky. Secretary-J. F. Millspaugh, Winona, Minn. Executive Committee - To succeed himself, Nicholas Murray Butler, New York, term expires 1905. It was moved and carried that Joseph Swain submit a tentative list of nine members to constitute the committee to investigate the question of taxation for school purposes and submit a report of its conclusions at some future meeting of the Council, as provided for in the resolutions on this subject already adopted. Following are the names of persons appointed members of said committee of nine: Nicholas Murray Butler, of New York. Aaron Gove, of Colorado. J. W. Carr, of Indiana. W. T. Harris, of Washington, D. C. J. M. Greenwood, of Missouri. C. G. Pearse, of Nebraska. BUSINESS SESSION.-FRIDAY, JULY 11, 3 P. M. The meeting was called to order by the Vice-President, Miss Nicholson. After roll call of members, the minutes of the various sessions of the Council held in connection with the forty-first annual convention of the National Educational Association were read and approved. Nicholas Murray Butler explained his inability to serve as a member of the Committee on Taxation to which he had been appointed as chairman. He asked the Council to accept his resignation from the committee, to appoint J. M. Greenwood chairman in his place, and to increase the membership of the committee from nine to ten by the election of two additional members. In accordance with Mr. Butler's request it was moved and carried that his resignation from the committee be accepted, that J. M. Greenwood be made chairman, and that Charles D. McIver, of North Carolina, and Frank A. Fitzpatrick, of Massachusetts, be added to the committee. Moved and carried that the committee now be made permanent instead of tentative. As finally constituted the Committee on Taxation for School Purposes is as follows: J. M. Greenwood, of Missouri, Chairman. Aaron Gove, of Colorado. W. T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education. J. W. Carr, of Indiana. N. C. Dougherty, of Illinois. N. C. Schaeffer, of Pennsylvania. C. G. Pearse, of Nebraska. Charles D. McIver, of North Carolina. In view of the serious illness of his wife, which has resulted in the absence from this meeting of J. H. Phillips, president of the Council, the secretary was, on motion, instructed to communicate to President Phillips the sympathy of the Council in his anxiety and grief, and to express its sense of loss on account of his detention and inability to direct the deliberations of the Council. The following resolutions were proposed by Nicholas Murray Butler, of New York, and unanimously adopted: Resolved, That the Constitution, Art. VII, Sec. 1, be amended so as to read as follows: 1. There shall be four standing committees: An Executive Committee, a Committee on Membership, a Committee on Educational Progress, and a Committee on Investigations and Appropriations. Resolved, That the Constitution, Art. VII, be amended by adding a new section, to be numbered 6, and to read as follows: 6. The Committee on Investigations and Appropriations shall be composed of nine members, whose terms of office shall be so arranged that three vacancies may be filled each year, beginning with 1903. No proposal to appoint a committee to undertake an educational investigation of any kind, and no proposal to ask the Board of Directors for an appropriation for any purpose, shall be acted upon until such proposal has been referred to the Committee on Investigations and Appropriations for a report. The motion was made by Dr. Butler that the Council instruct the present Committee on Investigations and Appropriations to divide themselves by lot into three classes, so that the term of office of the first class shall expire in 1903, that of the second in 1904, and that of the third in 1905. After brief discussion the motion was carried unanimously. Roll call of the Council showed that thirty-nine members had been present at the sessions of the Council. On motion of Dr. Lyte the thanks of the Council were tendered the Vice-President for her efficient services as presiding officer during the sessions of the twenty-first annual meeting. The chair announced adjournment sine die. J. F. MILLSPAUGH, Secretary. PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS TAXATION FOR SCHOOL PURPOSES NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, HARRISBURG, PA. In December, 1850, Herbert Spencer published a volume on Social Statics, containing a chapter on "National Education," in which he announced the doctrine that the taxation of one man's property for the purpose of educating another man's children is robbery, and that the state has no more right to administer education than it has to administer religion. He states the doctrine in syllogistic form. The following is his own language: Inasmuch as the taking away, by government, of more of a man's property than is needful for maintaining his rights is an infringement of his rights, and, therefore, a reversal of the government's function toward him; and inasmuch as the taking away of his property to educate his own or other people's children is not needful for the maintaining of his rights, the taking away of his property for such a purpose is wrong. The philanthropist Samuel Morley reprinted the chapter for general distribution. When a second edition of the pamphlet was called for, Mr. Spencer added some further arguments, which are appended to the original chapter in the edition of Social Statics revised by his own hand, and dated in the preface, London, January, 1892. This fact shows how hard it is for a philosopher working in his cell to adapt himself to the events of history, when these run counter to his original conclusions. As a matter of curiosity and as a specimen of felicity of style his line of argument may be worthy of consideration in the lecture-room of the university, but it no longer receives attention from school men who must get things done and whose interests lie beyond the formulas of the printed page. The absurdities in which, according to Spencer, the alleged right to education at the hands of the state would entangle its advocates have been found to have an existence only in the imagination of the philosopher. The theory of the state upon which Spencer founded his doctrine has been cast to the winds by the statesmen of England. He assumes that government has no functions beyond the police power of the state; that there is no cause for interference on the part of the state until the children's rights have been violated and that these rights are not violated by a neglect of their education. In contrast with this narrow and heartless theory a larger view of the functions of government has gradually forced itself upon the public mind. When the state took away from the father the power of life and death over the new born child it was considered an infringement upon his rights. When the Arkwrights and the Peels were amassing fortunes by the employment of little children in mines and factories, giving rise to conditions that called forth Cobden's scathing book on White Slavery in England, the government enacted mining and factory laws designed to secure to the child not merely the right to live but also the right to grow, altho such legislation was branded as an interference with the natural rights of parents and employers. The statesmen of today regard the child's mental growth as of equal importance with his physical growth, and the several states are just beginning in earnest to enact and enforce legislation designed to secure to the child its right to know as well as to grow. The civilized world has accepted the dictum of Macaulay that "Whoever has the right to hang has the right to educate." The new theory of the state assumes that the government can justly impose taxes to secure to the child its right to know; that the state can levy taxes for the establishment and maintenance of schools and the enforcement of compulsory attendance, just as it can levy taxes to maintain almshouses, factory inspectors, and orphan asylums. A powerful shock in the form of loss, or threatened loss, of military and commercial prestige was needed to awaken Prussia, Austria, France, and England to a sense of the importance of educating the children of the masses as distinguished from the classes. In this connection I may be permitted to quote somewhat at length from my own article in the Philadelphia Record of February 22, 1902: classes. No sooner had the issue of the wars of 1866 and 1870 shown the superiority of Prussia over Austria and France than statesmen began to inquire into the cause. They found in the school system of Prussia an essential element of her military greatness. Casting the arguments and objections of Spencer and others to the winds, the British Parliament set to work to banish illiteracy from England and to make ignorance impossible among the masses. When it became apparent that the educated labor of Germany was winning from Great Britain not merely a portion of the home market, but also some of the best markets in other lands, the movement in favor of popular education became irresistible. The proceeds of a special excise tax, amounting to three and a half millions in our currency, were set apart to disseminate scientific knowledge among the industrial In a speech at Colchester, as reported in the Times, Lord Roseberry said: "Germany has long been-twenty, thirty, or forty years - ahead of us in technical education. I am afraid of Germany. Why am I afraid of the Germans? Because I admire and esteem them so much. They are an industrious nation; they are, above all, a systematic nation; they are a scientific nation; and whatever they take up, whether it be the arts of peace or the arts of war, they push them forward to the utmost possible perfection with that industry, that system, that science which is a part of their character. Are we gaining on the Germans? I believe, on the contrary, we are losing ground. The other day one of the greatest authorities on this subject went to Germany, being stirred up by what he had seen of alarm in the newspapers on the subject. He came back and told a friend of mine that he was absolutely appalled by the progress made in the last twenty years by the Germans in technical and commercial education, as compared with what was going on in England." To the peasantry of Europe, America is a word synonymous with opportunity. In making secondary education free to the common people, we have gone a step beyond the Old World. In Germany, the sons of the peasantry cannnot afford to pay the extra tuition fees required of those who attend the high schools (Gymnasien and Realschulen). Only in rare instances does a bright boy of the peasant class find his way to the university. In England, the upper classes attend private schools. The clergyman who supervises the parish school would not think, it is said, of sending his children to the same school. They get advantages which are beyond the reach of the common people. In the United States, the high school is free to all. By free text-books Pennsylvania has gone far to make education beyond the common branches possible for the average youth in the average home. The sublimest sights are witnessed in humble homes where father and mother, and sometimes the older children, toil from early dawn till dewy eve in order that some talented member of the family may be enabled to take advantage of the high school maintained by municipal taxation. The advent of the high school brought to view new phases of taxation for school purposes. Shall the common people be taxed in order that the sons of well-to-do people may have an opportunity to study Latin and Greek and geometry? It was not at first perceived that the high school taxed the rich man for the purpose of giving every boy and girl the opportunity which the rich can easily secure for their children. Again, we were gravely told that the fathers, in establishing the common-school system, did not contemplate instruction beyond the common branches; that a common-school education was all that was necessary for good citizenship, and as good citizenship is the chief concern of the state, the government should not be expected to provide education beyond the common branches. But the good sense of the teachers and patrons prevailed. It was perceived that the state exists for the sake of the individual, and not the individual for the sake of the state; that schools sustained by taxation should fit their pupils for life, and that as civilization advances more education is required for complete living than was required when the system was founded. Governor Horatio Seymour of New York rendered the nation a great service by the stand he took in favor of secondary and higher education. His reply to an able address which charged that colleges and high schools supported by the state are fungi upon the common-school system was so masterful that it was circulated as Bulletin No. 26 by the regents of the University of the State of New York. The same bulletin contains an address by Superintendent Kennedy, which shows conclusively how the arguments against the high school are in essence the arguments by which Herbert Spencer sought to rule out the primary school. The day has almost passed when the utility of taxation for high-school purposes is seriously questioned. Never was it more clearly shown than in this controversy that "the aggregate wisdom of an enlightened people has a more sure foundation in eternal truth than the most ingeniously constructed philosophy of an individual." From taxation in aid of high schools there is but one step to taxation for college and university purposes. The state needs well-educated physicians, lawyers, chemists, and engineers. If the welfare of the people demands governmental assistance in the establishment of institutions for the teaching of medicine, law, science, technology, the right of the federal and state governments to levy the necessary taxes should no more be questioned than the right to raise money for the Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The arguments that would rule out taxation for university purposes would also be valid against taxation for the maintenance of free schools, including the high school and the kindergarten. Granted that taxation for school purposes is right, the question arises: How shall the taxes be levied? Here is a point wherein we are all like George Washington, and yet far ahead of him. He never rode on a trolley car, never traveled in a Pullman, never sent a telegram, never spoke thru a telephone, never listened to a phonograph, never studied by electric light, and never paid a school tax. In these particulars we are far ahead of the father of our country. But in another respect we are just like him. The clerk of a county in which he held property made the following entry: "It appeareth that Geo. Washington doth not like to pay taxes." Is not the highest evidence of patriotism found in a willingness to pay a just share of tax for the support. of the government and the education of the people? It must be admitted that whilst we all believe in taxation for school purposes, we prefer to let the other fellow pay the taxes, especially if the other fellow happens to be some rich corporation in which we own no stock. One of the most practical things which the educators of the National Educational Association can do for the schools is to teach, by example as well as precept, the true doctrine of taxation for school purposes. The land grants by which the federal government sought to make education possible in the newer states and territories no longer suffice for the educational needs of their growing populations. The boasted school fund of Kansas, for instance, is barely sufficient to keep up the fires in the school stoves. The amount per scholar of school age received from this |