Radio Address Over KOMO By
William John Cooper
Seattle, Wash., July 19, 1929
There has been general agree
ment among both real philoso
phers and all serious thinkers in
any period of the world’s history
to the effect that education is
absolutely essential to civiliza
tion and to what we ordinarily
call progress. There has been
no such agreement, however, up
cn two important questions con
cerned with education. In fact,
there has been serious disagree
ment on these issues. First—
who shall be educated? Second
—under whose control and di
rection shall the educational
system be?
In Europe, especially in the
years prior to the Great War,
each nation had its own peculiar
educational policy. In some of
the southeastern countries fully
half of the people or more were
actually illiterate, and the gov
ernments appeared to be not
seriously concerned with this
condition. In other European
countries the percentage of il
literacy was almost nothing; in
fact, they put the United States
to shame in this respect. But,
in most of these nations where
all people were educated, virtu
ally two systems of shools were
provided: A small group of
people—in all, about ten per
cent— were trained to be lead
ers in one system. The great
majority of the people were
trained in another school sys
tem to be followers. The system
A schools in the Kingdom of
Prussia, which was based upon
this plan, turned out to be one of
the most efficient the world has
ever known. It was ideally
adapted to the form Of Govern
ment existing in the German
Empire prior to 1918. In this
country, we have been proceed
ing for many years on the the
ory that all persons are entitled
to an education. The founders
ot the Republic called attention
to the fact that general educa
tion was necessary to the suc
cess of a Democracy. Jefferson,
author of the Declaration of In
dependence, wrote that any na
tion which expected to be both
free and uneducated expected
what never had been and never
would be. Yet in the face of
ibis principle recognized by our
leaders, there are people in the
United States to-day who think
that too many persons are edu
cated. The answer to these peo
ple is the voting list. If all
people are to participate in the
management of the government,
it is obvious that all must be
sufficiently educated to under
stand the problems confronting
the government. Since we have
universal adult suffrage, we
must have educational oppor
tunity for everyone.
The second question as to who
should control the schools has
been debated. Some main
tain that education should be a
private enterprise; others be
lieve that the state alone should
control the educational system.
There never has been any seri
ous attempt in the United States
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