(3) by striking out "Sec. 1003. Exemption from conflict-of-interest laws of members of advisory committees or information council." and inserting in lieu thereof "Sec. 1003. Exemption from conflict-of-interest laws of members of advisory committees or councils."; (4) by adding at the end of such table "Sec. 1010. Research and demonstrations. EFFECTIVE DATE SEC. 11. The amendment made by section 9(g) (5) shall become effective July 1, 1962. The amendments made by paragraphs (1) and (2) of section 3 (e) shall become effective July 1, 1961, both with respect to loans made before such date but still outstanding and loans made after June 30, 1961. The other amendments made by this Act shall become effective July 1, 1961. Senator MORSE. As we open these hearings on the amendments to the National Defense Education Act, I think it appropriate that we review briefly the scope and purpose of the great piece of legislation we are now engaged in perfecting by amendment. Perfecting, that is to say, insofar as can be done on the detail of the statute. The purpose of the statute itself is one to which we are all dedicated, irrespective of party, geographical origin, or economic class. It is just as true today as it was on January 21, 1958, when the great chairman of this committee, Senator Hill, in opening the hearings on the bills which became the National Defense Education Act said, and I quote: The Soviet Union, which only 40 years ago was a nation of peasants, today is challenging our America, the world's greatest industrial power in the very field where we have claimed supremacy: the application of science to technology. We Americans are united in our determination to meet this challenge. We Americans know that we must give vastly greater support, emphasis, and dedication to basic scientific research, to quality in education, to instruction in the physical sciences, to training in foreign languages, and to developing to the full our intellectual, cultural, and scientific resources. We Americans know we must mobilize our Nation's brainpower in the struggle for survival. This is a task for all our people, for both great political parties, for both the executive and the legislative branches of our Government, for the States, the counties, the cities and towns and local communities, for the schools, the colleges and universities, and for all the other private and public resources that constitute the basis of our scientific and educational endeavors. The particular task of this committee is to consider how best to stimulate and strengthen science and education for the defense of our country and at the same time preserve the traditional principle, in which we all believe, that primary responsibility and control of education belongs and must remain with the States, local communities, and private institutions. I wish to call to your attention the words with which he closed his statement: The United States truly has reached a historic turning point, and the path we chose to pursue may well determine the future not only of Western civilization but freedom and peace for all peoples of the earth. I believe that those words are as true today in 1961 as they were when he uttered them. We live in a country which has been blessed by Providence with tremendous resources of mineral and forest wealth. We are continental in the scope of our geography and we are truly an international people since we are the blend of many races and our forebears have come from far spread strands. But of all the resources that we have of mineral wealth, of waterpower, and of good earth, our greatest resource is to be found in the minds of our people. What we seek to do through this bill, through the Federal aid-to-education bill, and the higher education bill, is to provide the tools and techniques whereby each individual boy and girl is given an opportunity to develop his individual potentialities. If we do this successfully, then we need fear no foreign enemy. I want to stress that, in my judgment, the challenge of the future is not so much the winning of a sterile competitive race for nuclear destruction, but rather the fruitful expansion of our own society to the end that we can demonstrate to all peoples everywhere the good which will flow from the adoption of democratic institutions nurtured by an educated citizenry. The problems ahead are problems of harnessing our own technology to the common good. Automation is removing the burden of toil from the great mass of our population, but in the process it faces us with problems which only an intellectually alert and well-educated people can solve. Therefore, in opening these hearings as chairman of the subcommittee, I open them on the premise that we all have a patriotic duty of taking those legislative steps necessary to stop the waste the waste of the greatest resource this Republic has its brainpower. We are wasting it. We are wasting it in denying to tens of thousands of boys and girls in this country an equality of opportunity to develop to the maximum extent their intellectual potential. In fact, we are cheating out of a college education tens of thousands of young men and women in this country because we are sending them today, in many parts of the country, to grade schools and to high schools so low in their standards that their graduates cannot possibly qualify for college. Yet, if these children were given the proper training in their elementary and secondary schools, we as a nation would not have that terrific loss. I have said it in the Senate and I think I will repeat it in opening these hearings, if you will forgive me: "What is your price tag on one nuclear physicist? How much for one surgeon? What is your price on a great theologian? Give me your price tag on any trained mind." You cannot escape the challenge I give you. These men and women are priceless. Yet you and I, as free men and women, are wasting them by the tens of thousands in this country today. We are not going to keep ahead of Russia in manpower. Unless we stop falling behind through the full development of our maximum brainpower, this Republic is through-and it is through in our time. I am not an alarmist, but it is with that attitude and approach to this problem that I am pleased and honored to open these hearings. I wish to say as far as procedure is concerned that there will be time limitations. Not because I will it, but because I must in the interest of time and the schedule which confronts us. The administration leaders have made very clear to me that they want to consider this bill at an early date in the Senate. I hoped we would consider the bill as soon after our consideration of the Federal aid-to-education bill as possible. I am going to hold strictly to the instruction which you have all received concerning the 10-minute time limit which will be imposed upon you for the presentation of your views. You may either summarize your statements or read as much of your statement as you wish in the 10 minutes, and then file the rest. Please do not think me discourteous or impolite, because I have no desire to be so. I can only carry out my orders. The decision of the committee is that I must enforce strictly the procedural rules of this hearing. I now instruct the staff to notify me immediately when a witness has finished 10 minutes of testimony, not including any colloquy or examination which may be participated in by a Senator. Subject only to that modification, I want the staff to instruct me when the witness has finished 10 minutes of testimony. With these words, to call to our minds the scope and nature of our work this morning, it gives me great pleasure to welcome, on behalf of the subcommittee, the Honorable Sterling M. McMurrin, Commissioner of Education, who will be our first witness. Commissioner, it is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to this hearing. We are very happy to have you bring forward any members of your staff and ask that you introduce them for the record, so that the reporter can show those who are with you. Mr. MCMURRIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator MORSE. You may proceed in your own way. STATEMENT OF STERLING M. McMURRIN, U.S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, ACCOMPANIED BY RALPH C. M. FLYNT, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER FOR LEGISLATIVE AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT Mr. MCMURRIN. It is a pleasure to introduce Mr. Ralph C. M. Flynt, of the Office of Education. Senator MORSE. What I would like to have you do, if you will, Mr. McMurrin, although you may proceed in your own way, is to summarize your statement in your own words, if you care to, and I will put your entire statement in the record at this point. Mr. MCMURRIN. Thank you, sir. (The prepared statement of Mr. McMurrin follows:) PREPARED STATEMENT BY STERLING M. MCMURRIN, U.S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you in support of the administration's recommendations to amend and expand the National Defense Education Act. This act-which embodies many fine contributions by members of this committee-represents a landmark in the history of Federal assistance to strengthen American education. As the committee knows, it was enacted in 1958 in a climate of growing awareness of the direct relationship between national security and educational excellence. The very first words of the act are these: "The Congress hereby finds and declares that the security of the Nation requires the fullest development of the mental resources and technical skills of its young men and women." In this same spirit, President Kennedy in his education message of February 20, 1961, affirmed the fundamental national interest in education. The President said: "The human mind is our fundamental resource. A balanced Federal program must go well beyond incentives for investment in plant and equipment. It must include equally determined measures to invest in human beings-both in their basic education and training and in their more advanced preparation for professional work. Without such measures, the Federal Government will not be carrying out its responsibilities for expanding the base of our economic and military strength." The National Defense Education Act represents above all else an investment in human beings. And it is an investment that has already paid rich dividends and which promises even greater returns in the immediate future. In keeping with its stated purposes, the act authorized a comprehensive set of programs to strengthen the study of mathematics, sciences, and foreign languages; to identify and encourage able students and to assist those in college to continue there; to expand graduate education so that our supply of qualified college teachers would more nearly approximate our needs; to explore and develop the educational potentials of modern communications media; to expand our facilities for technical education; and to provide assistance for certain other educational areas of critical importance. The Office of Education has prepared a record of progress to date in forwarding the objectives of this legislation. We are proud of this record, and we are confident that the committee will share our pride in the results of the several programs which this committee did so much to make possible. We have available advance copies of this report on the National Defense Education Act for fiscal 1960, which I submit to the committee for the information of the members. As this report will show, tremendous progress has been made under this act in the short period of its effective operation. Yet much remains to be done to achieve fully the objectives of the act, and certain additional educational needs of a basic character have become evident since 1958. Also, close and continuous study of the operation of the programs authorized by the act has shown that a number of technical amendments are needed to facilitate its administration. The proposals we have made for amendments represent our considered judgment as to educational needs today and in the foreseeable future. Two major considerations are reflected in these proposals. First, we have considered the act in relation to other major educational proposals of the administration with a view to promoting a sound, coordinated Federal effort to assist in strengthening and improving education at all levels. Therefore, as my testimony will explain, we have recommended a 3-year extension of certain titles of the act in order that they may be reconsidered in relation to more general Federal aid programs which we hope the Congress will authorize. Second, we have concluded, after the most careful study, that there is a long-term need for the kind of assistance afforded by certain other titles of the act. Accordingly, we recommend a continuing authorization for those programs. We are also recommending that, throughout the act, the ceilings on the amounts authorized to be appropriated be eliminated. This change would leave to the normal budgetary and appropriation process each year the determination of the Federal funds which would be made available for carrying out the various provisions of the act in relation to changing needs. My purpose today is to review for the committee the major proposals we are making for amendment and expansion of the act. Other important recommendations are outlined in Secretary Ribicoff's letter to the President of April 21, 1961, which has been transmitted to the Congress by President Kennedy. I shall proceed now, Mr. Chairman, to discuss our recommendations under each title. TITLE II: LOANS TO COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENTS Under title II more than 200,000 students in 1,400 participating institutions have received educational loans. Furthermore, through the influence of this program, loans have become one of the major forms of financial assistance to college and university students. Far from supplanting student loan programs previously existing, the title II program, by serving as a model, has apparently stimulated the use of other loan funds controlled by higher educational institutions. Student loans are now an established and integral part of institutional student financial aid programs, and with the expected twofold increase in enrollments by 1970 and with the rising costs of education there is a continuing need for such funds. Consequently, we urge that Federal participation in college loan funds be continued on a permanent basis. The contributions which the Federal Government and the institutions will be called upon to make to the funds, in order to maintain them as desired levels, will eventually diminish as the program matures and as loans are repaid with interest. It is further proposed that the provisions for forgiveness of up to one-half of the loan for borrowers who become teachers in public elementary and secondary schools be extended to include also borrowers who become teachers in our colleges and universities. We also recommend that the ceiling on annual Federal contributions to a single institutional student loan fund be raised from $250,000 to $500,000, so that students at larger institutions may have equal loan opportunities with students attending small institutions. TITLE III: STRENGTHENING SELECTED AREAS OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY INSTRUCTION Title III has greatly aided and stimulated improved statewide leadership in mathematics, science, and modern foreign language instruction and has increased the availability and quality of the laboratories and other special equipment and facilities needed in our elementary and secondary schools for these fields of study. Under this title there has been a sixfold increase in the number of professional supervisory personnel employed by State education agencies in the instructional areas designated for assistance-science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages. The number of electronic language laboratories installed in the Nation's high schools has increased from 64 to 2,500; and some 57,000 local projects for the improvement of instruction in these fields were approved by State education agencies during the first 21 months of the act. During this same period 129 loans were approved for private nonprofit schools. This shows, indeed, a healthy beginning of an effort to correct for the relative neglect of these subjects. However, we must be alert to other compelling needs which have been neglected. Physical fitness constitutes such a need. There is a positive relationship between a student's physical well-being and his ability to apply himself to his intellectual tasks. Yet there is a startling evidence that far too many American children and youth are not physically fit. History amply demonstrates the relation between the physical vigor of a people and the strength of its institutions and of its capacity for self-defense. We recommend, accordingly, the continuation for 3 additional years of the programs of financial assistance for strengthening science, mathematics, and modern foreign language instruction in our elementary and secondary schools and the addition of education in physical fitness. Another amendment would permit the Commissioner of Education to adjust the amounts reserved for loans to private schools (within the present limit of 12 percent of annual appropriations under the title) to the sums needed to meet anticipated demands for loans, and to reallot to schools in other States amounts found to be in excess of the loan needs of private schools in the States to which the amounts were originally allotted. We are also recommending that the interest rate on loans to nonprofit private schools be based on the yields of Government bonds of comparable maturities, rather than on yields of all outstanding bonds, in order to adjust more closely to the actual cost of the loans to the Government, and that the rate be calculated on an annual rather than a monthly basis; these changes will reduce somewhat the current interest rate on these loans, facilitate administration, and provide greater certainty of loan terms on the part of applicants for loans by reducing the fluctuation of interest rates. Authority would also be provided for the Commissioner to reallot funds which he determines any State is unable to use during any year in carrying out the State and local programs for strengthening instruction in science, mathematics, modern foreign language, and physical fitness. The proposed 3-year extension of this title will provide an opportunity, toward the end of the period, to appraise its effectiveness and its long-range relationship to measures for more general assistance to our public elementary and secondary schools, such as those which the President recently proposed to the Congress. TITLE IV: GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM The graduate fellowship program has carried out admirably the intent of the Congress both in helping to increase the number of college teachers and in increasing the number and geographical spread of our centers of acamedic strength in many important fields. We have just had the pleasure of learning of the first completion of graduate study by a National Defense Education Act fellowship recipient, James H. Simon, who has finished his doctoral studies in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2 academic years and has accepted a teaching appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology beginning |