COORDINATING AGENCIES AND RESIDENT SCHOOLS

 

have our schools ready to receive them, they should be sincerely welcomed
into our public schools.”

If special instruction for workers is recognized more generally as a tool of
democracy, a continuous, non-relief government-financed program may be
demanded. Public support on other than relief terms is not inconceivable
when one sees how government has advanced in the field of education. Quot-
ing from Prof. H. F. Clark, writing on educational finance in 1934:

Expenditures for education show evidence of a tendency toward rapid
expansion. This expansion has proceeded until about 3 percent of the total
income in the United States in 1928 was spent on education in contrast with
the 1.5 percent in 1913, and about the same percentage of the gainfully em-
ployed population was working in formal schools. In the future much more
attention is likely to be given to education by means of other institutions
with a corresponding expansion of expenditures for education through these
organizations.”

The recent recommendations of the President's Advisory Committee on Edu-
cation that teacher-training and civic, general, and vocational part-time educa-
tion for adults be encouraged have indicated that some of this expansion
may be for and by workers.”

RESIDENT SCHOOLS AS COORDINATING AGENCIES

Although most adults study in their own communities, during their leisure
time, many have taken advantage of intensive, short-term courses, away from
home. Resident centers therefore may help equalize workers’ education
throughout the country. In the process of experimenting with curricula,
methods of teaching and materials, ideas are exchanged among students repre-
senting many geographical sections and diverse organizations. Alumni of the
resident centers carry end-products of experiments into their own localities,
adjusting them to their particular instructional pattern with the help of field
agents from the schools.

Brookwood Labor College and Commonwealth College in the past and
Highlander Folk School in the present have been forces for integration. First
of all, their Boards of Directors and Advisory Committees have been comprised
of representatives of organized labor, faculty, alumni, and “undergraduates.”

* Report of the F.E.R.A., June, 1934.

“H. F. Clark, “Educational Finance,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 5,
(1931), p. 431.

“ New York Times, February 24, 1938.

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