Great Depression

In January 1933, the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, in remarks to the Conference on the Crisis in Education, made the following statement: “There is no safety for your Republic without the education of our youth. That is the first charge upon all citizens and local governments.” One year later, addressing a similarly themed Citizens Conference on the Crisis in Education, the new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, offered an equally grave warning: “Although the effects of the present lack of adequate educational opportunities on our national life may not be noticeable today, the time may soon come when dire effects will be apparent.” Assessing both the changes and continued problems since he assumed office, Roosevelt repeated this statement in late 1935 when he stated, The biggest stride we have made in the past two and half years has been in interesting the American people in their own Government … their social problems and their educational problems…. The depression hit education in the United States more than anything else…. It is hard to bring back the facilities in education as quickly or as easily as it is to raise farm prices or open banks.

These warnings were echoed by the National Education Association, whose 1931 report urged American citizens “to choose carefully the public enterprises which they support during the crisis with a view to averting the sacrifice of children.” The Committee on the Emergency in Education formed by the Progressive Education Association warned that schools in many states “would continue in their downward plunge to educational disaster.” Amplifying the pressure educators felt to curtail their services, Ward G. Reeder declared, “The battle lines are drawn; in fact, the conflict has already begun and daily becomes more tense.”