Commissioner Cooper

Last week there strode into the flat white Department of Interior building in Washington a tall muscular man with a thick black mop of hair. His "good morning" to attendants who were just beginning to recognize him was quick, incisive. He was Dr. William John Cooper, Commissioner of Education in the U. S. Department of the Interior, succeeding tireless Dr. John James Tigert, now president of the University of Florida.

In Russia, Minister of Education Anatole Lunacharsky and in Italy Minister of Education Giuseppe Belluzzo are well-known personages. In France, the Minister of Public Instruction was once famed, grizzled Edouard Herriot; is now M. Pierre Marnaud. In the U. S. the lot of the Commissioner of Education is subordinate, obscure. Reason: the U. S. Education Commissioner is essentially only an adviser. His official duties are to "collect statistics and general information showing the conditions and progress of education in the U. S. and all foreign countries; to advise State, county and local school officers as to the administra tion and improvement of schools." He must also publish "a number of bulletins and miscellaneous publications." He also supervises the reindeer industry in Alaska.

Many times has Congress dallied with the idea of taking the Bureau of Education out of the Interior and granting it departmental independence. Roman Catholics, however, have feared Federal interference with parochial schools and it has been their influence largely that has kept Education in a bureau under legislative lock and key.

Dr. William John Cooper is a onetime superintendent of public instruction in California, his native State. He is a 32DEG Mason, a Rotarian. One of his favorite phrases is "the democracy of education," by which he means giving to each student the kind of work he prefers and can do best.

Many a famed U. S. educator has sat in the office which Dr. Cooper now occupies. The first was Henry Barnard whose fame in his native Connecticut equals that of Horace Mann in Massachusetts. Other onetime Education Commissioners are Dr. Elmer Brown, Chancellor of New York University; Dr. Philander Priestly Claxton, now Superintendent of Schools in Tulsa, Okla.

Last week Dr. Cooper made his first official appearance and speech, at the opening of the meeting in Cleveland of the National Education Association's Department of Superintendence. Vigorously he proposed for State universities the Johns Hopkins idea of eliminating freshmen and sophomore courses from the curriculum.

Said he: "This new plan would enable the bright pupil to save two years in his preparatory training. Going directly from the two-year junior college into the professional colleges he would have a two-year start on the average professional man of today."