PUBLIC-SCHOOL TEACHERS' RETIREMENT FUND.

FEBRUARY 6, 1909.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed.

Mr. OLCOTT, from the Committee on the District of Columbia, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 19311.]

The Committee on the District of Columbia, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 19311) to provide for the formation and disbursement of a public-school teachers' retirement fund in the District of Columbia, report the same back to the House with the recommendation that it do pass when amended as follows:

Strike out of page 1 lines 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, being the first subdivi

sion of section 1.

Strike out of line 10, page 1, the word "Second" and insert in lieu thereof the word "First."

Strike out of page 1 lines 12, 13, and 14, and out of page 2 lines 1 and 2, being the third subdivision of section 1.

Strike out of line 3, page 2, the word "Fourth" and insert in lieu thereof the word "Second."

Strike out of line 15, page 2, the word "thirty" and insert in lieu thereof the word "thirty-six," and insert a period after the word "year" in said line.

Strike out of lines 15, 16, 17, and 18 the words "and the amount deducted from the salary of any supervising official or principal of a normal, high, or manual training school shall not exceed forty dollars in any one year.'

Add after the word "fund," in line 5, page 3, the following:

The Commissioners of the District of Columbia are hereby authorized and directed to deposit with the Treasurer of the United States on July first of each year out of the receipts from miscellaneous licenses an amount sufficient to meet any deficiency in the teachers' retirement fund.

Strike out of lines 14 and 15, page 3, the semicolon and the words "in each case one white and one colored representative."

Strike out of line 5, page 5, the words "not less than."

Strike out of line 6, page 5, the word "one-half" and insert in lieu thereof the word "one-third."

Strike out of line 14, page 5, the word "one-half" and insert in lieu thereof the word "one-third."

Strike out of lines 15 and 16, page 5, the words "in the case of a teacher or principal of a graded school."

Strike out of line 17, page 5, the words "one thousand two" and insert in lieu thereof the word "six."

Insert a period after the word "annum" in line 17, page 5, and strike out the rest of line 17, all of lines 18, 19, 20, 21, and all of line 22 to and including the period.

Strike out of line 18, page 7, the word "eight" and insert in lieu thereof the word "nine."

Strike out of line 19, page 7, the word "nine" and insert in lieu thereof the word "ten."

This bill was transmitted to the committee by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia with the following communication:

OFFICE COMMISSIONERS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

Washington, March 14, 1908.

SIR: The commissioners have the honor to transmit herewith a draft of a bill to provide for the formation and disbursement of a public-school teachers' retirement fund in the District of Columbia, and recommend its enactment,

The Columbia Heights Citizens' Association also sent in the following indorsement of the bill:

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS CITIZENS' ASSOCIATION,
Washington, D. C., February 3, 1909.

SIR: At its regular monthly meeting, held last night, the Columbia Heights Citizens Association adopted a resolution approving the teachers' retirement bill now before Congress, and directing its secretary so to advise the committee in charge of the

measure.

Yours, truly,

W. B. TODD, Secretary. The CHAIRMAN COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

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The policy of pensioning retired employees is one that has come to be regarded as good business" in the commercial world. In 1898 only one railroad company, the Baltimore and Ohio, granted retirement allowances to its employees, but since that year eighteen lines, representing one-third of the railway mileage of this country, have adopted automatic pension schemes. The Standard Oil Company, the International Harvester Company, and other great companies have formally adopted systematic plans for pensioning its retired employees. What is true for great railroads, great manufacturing industries, and great trusts, with their armies of workmen, must be true of the greater army of teachers whose energies are expended all too lavishly in laying the foundations for manhood and womanhood and good citizenship in the lives of our youth.

The establishment, as a matter of course, of pensions for soldiers, firemen, policemen, who risk and give their lives and their health for their country or for the safety of the community, had its beginning so long ago that the memory of man can not go back to the beginning.

Nor is the pensioning of teachers an untried business investment in this country, but many of the larger cities have adopted it and are now successfully practicing it. Among the cities that have made such provisions are New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Buffalo, Elmira, Troy, and Richmond.

Countries having teachers' pension laws are as follows: Russia, since 1819: Savony, since 1840; 26 of the German States; England, first in

1848; Italy for many years; Genoa and France, more than fifty years; Holland for 45 years; nearly all the Cantons of Switzerland have laws allowing teachers' pensions upon disability or advanced age, with partial or full salary for the rest of the annuitant's life; Ireland, Mexico, Chile, Spain, Servia, Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Japan, Ontario and Quebec, Australia, Finland, and Argentine Republic. Permissive laws exist in 15 of our own States.

It is said that Germany has the best schools in the world, and the German teachers have been pensioned for very many years. A German teacher who has rounded out fifty years of service can be retired on full salary. The argument advanced in Germany is that teachers, of all the state officers, are the ones who deserve the highest consideration, and they are the ones who are most likely to sacrifice their health in the discharge of their duties.

It has been objected that "it is all right to pension the soldier, fireman, and policeman, because their occupation is extra hazardous, but the teacher runs no such risks as do these others." But that idea is practically controverted by the statement of the secretary of the board of retirement of the department of education of New York City, who

says:

More than 1,200 teachers have been retired in New York City since the retirement law was passed fourteen years ago. Of these, comparatively few have applied for retirement on account of service only, although of these 1,207 there have been retired 279 who taught more than forty years. Fifty-eight of the 279 taught more than fifty years, and 2 taught more than sixty years-I for sixty-six years and four months, the other sixty-four years and seven months. At least three-fourths of the teachers apply for retirement on the plea of physical or mental incapacity. Nervous prostration claims the largest share, then follow length of service, heart disease, rheumatism, digestive troubles, defective hearing and sight, tuberculosis, insanity, Bright's disease, cancer, tumor, etc.

The causes of the deaths of the more than 200 pensioners who have died during the fourteen years since the enactment of the retirement law show the enormous strain on the nerves and vitality involved in the profession of teaching.

Now, what are the advantages of the adoption of this retirement system as a business investment? The answer to this question is well summed up in a recent address delivered in Washington, from which the committee submits this extract:

Anything that costs an expenditure of public money should be tested as to necessity and added efficiency. The matter of annuities to teachers must be investigated from the view point of improved efficiency. In what way will a pension system for the teachers add to the value of the educational plant in reference to improved product?

1. The community which has a retirement plan to provide for the old age of its teachers will attract teachers--live teachers-from other communities. The appointing power will then have a wider field and a stronger field, therefore, from which to make appointments, and many strong teachers from outside will be added to the teaching force, thus strengthening the system and raising its efficiency.

2. On the other hand, the community which maintains a teachers' retirement system will keep its own strong teachers who make exceptionally high records of efficiency. These exceptional teachers are always eagerly sought after by enterprising boards of education in other communities, who are ever alert to appreciate and reward good work. With a prospective annuity at the end of a reasonable period of service, these teachers will hesitate long before leaving their work, even with the lure of a larger salary held before them. In fact, most of them will not consider any proposition from outside, no matter how alluring. Such teachers will remain, and the efficiency of the service will be much increased by the continued good work of these high-class employees.

3. Many enter the profession of teaching with the idea of later leaving it for more remunerative employ inent in other fields. These will remain in the service and thus

add by their longer experience to the general efficiency of the system. A permanency of work will conduce to high efficiency. At present, in many communities, in most rural districts, especially, the teachers are changed every year-sometimes every term. Under such conditions interest on the part of the teacher must be at a low ebb. How much less must be the interest displayed by the pupils of these indifferent teachers. Proper tenure with annuity will do away with this and strengthen the efficiency of the schools of such districts.

4. Able men and women will be attracted to enter the profession of teaching, if there is an annuity provision, who would otherwise enter other employment. This is a very cogent reason for making suitable provision for the old age of the employees of any profession or trade. Every able man or woman attracted to our profession adds to its efficiency. We all know that among many young people there is an idea that teaching is a nice, genteel way of earning a living or of earning enough to furnish a wedding outfit. These people enter the profession with indifference as to their responsibilities, and alter one, two, or three years give up their work, leaving behind them hundreds and thousands of children who have not gotten their just due in instruction. This class will be entirely shut out of the profession of teaching if others are attracted to it who intend to make it their life work.

5. The retention of the worn-out teacher who has outlived her usefulness decreases the potential efficiency of the educational system. Many hundreds of children are to-day being taught by these worn-out teachers and these children are being deprived of their rights. Put it home to your own children. Is it right? Honorable retirement of such a teacher will prevent injustice to a once valuable teacher, and will compensate her for the poor salary paid her during her long and faithful service by allowing her to enjoy, free from care, the evening of her life. Her place in the teaching force will be taken by a younger, more alert, and better equipped teacher, and the children will come into their birthright. The efficiency of the system will be thereby greatly enhanced. By this retiring of the worn-out teachers in due season the efficiency of the system can continuously be kept at its highest point.

6. The fact that honorable retirement after one is worn-out is assured is the best kind of tonic. With no worry on account of helpless old age and dependency upon others as an everyday nightmare, we will secure more cheerful and happy and therefore more efficient service from the teacher. The cheerfulness of a happy teacher will add to the cheerfulness and happiness of the pupils. We all know how much more can be accomplished, especially with children, through cheerfulness than through fretfulness: The amount of work that we can secure from a happy child is many times greater than we can secure from one who is driven, nagged, and worried by a cross-grained teacher.

7. Without a pension in the future the teacher must practice much self-denial. She can not take that needed change in the summer. She can not travel. She must pinch and starve all her desires for betterment in order that she may lay by a pittance for her old age. With an annuity assured, the teacher can enter into much that will enlarge her sphere of life, add to her stock of knowledge, and thus increase her efficiency as a teacher. Travel and rest cost money. What a difference there is

in a class of the traveled and well-rested teacher as compared with the spirit in the class of the worried, tired teacher, ignorant even of her own country, not to mention other lands!

The following statement shows the number of teachers and officers eligible for retirement for the next ten years:

The foregoing are but a few of the reasons that have impelled the committee to report the accompanying bill and recommend that as amended it do pass.

EXTENSIONS OF CITY AND SUBURBAN RAILWAY OF WASHINGTON.

FEBRUARY 6, 1909.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. SMITH, of Michigan, from the Committee on the District of Columbia submitted the following

REPORT,

[To accompany H. R. 20837.]

The Committee on the District of Columbia, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 20837) to authorize certain extensions of the City and Suburban Railway of Washington, and for other purposes, report the same back to the House with the recommendation that it do pass when amended as follows:

Strike out section 3, page 3, and insert in lieu thereof the following, to stand as section 3:

SECTION 3. That the said City and Suburban Railway of Washington shall have over and respecting the routes herein provided for the same rights, powers, privileges, duties, and obligations as it has and hereafter may have by law over and respecting its present route, and shall be subject in respect thereto to all the other provisions of its charter and of law.

Add in line 13, page 3, after the word "company," the following proviso:

Provided, That such cars shall be operated only during the hours between twelve o'clock midnight and five o'clock ante meridian, and shall be subject to such regulations as may be made by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia.

Add to the end of the bill the following, to stand as sections 5 and 6: SEC. 5. All laws or parts of laws inconsistent with the provisions hereof are hereby repealed.

SEC. 6. That Congress reserves the right to alter, amend, or repeal this act.

The foregoing amendments were made by the committee in accordance with the recor.mendation of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia in their report on the bill, the passage of which as thus amended they favor. They say:

OFFICE COMMISSIONERS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
Washington, May 7, 1908.

SIR: The Commissioners of the District of Columbia have the honor to submit the following on House bill 20837, "To authorize certain extensions of the City and Suburban Railway of Washington, and for other purposes," which you referred to them for examination and report touching the merits of the bill and the propriety of its passage.