of two weeks. On the annual tax-levying day, the first Monday in October, any citizen may appear and support or protest a proposed appropriation and levy. These budget exhibits must show the amount of money to be collected and expended, in dollars and cents without regard to the millage of the levy. The law has not been the success that its proponents hoped that it would be, because the citizens refuse to interest themselves in the budget exhibits and express their views. The usual course of the taxpayer is to pay no attention to the budget exhibit, to take no part in fixing the amount of the levy for any purpose, but at the time he pays his taxes he is usually found protesting loudly and vigorously against the exorbitant rate.

If some means could be devised whereby budget exhibits could be more carefully studied by the taxpayers, as a result of which interest taxpayers would appear before the levying boards and make their vigorous protest against proposed appropriations, much might be accomplished in the reduction of taxes. In order to make budget exhibits more helpful and to bring home to the farmer taxpayers more forcibly the meaning of the budget, examples should be published showing exactly how much taxes each individual owning property of the value of $100 will be required to pay on account of the proposed levies. It is useless to speak to the average taxpayer in terms of mills, because his thinking is in concrete and definite quantities, such as pounds, bushels, cords, hundredweight, and tons. The proposal to levy, one, two, three, or four mills does not impress him as a matter about which he should be greatly concerned. Farmers, more especially than any other class of taxpayers possessing the same degree of intelligence, are less apt to be alarmed by a proposed levy stated in mills because their thinking is along the line of large quantities and sizable objects that may be easily comprehended by the senses. The matter of a few mills seems so small in comparison to the large physical things with which they deal that they do not grasp the significance of the statement until the tax bill is presented to them.

A survey of the subject, "Taxation and the Farmer,' points out very clearly the necessity for a systematic cam

paign of discussion and education on the tax question among the farmers of the United States. No such campaign has been carried on in any of the states, so far as I have been able to determine. The work that has been done heretofore has been desultory and fragmentary, and usually confined to political questions and purely local issues, without regard to the fundamental and underlying principles of taxation. The agencies that have been active in such campaigns as have been carried on may all be utilized to a splendid purpose in a campaign of education on the subject of taxation. There is necessity for unification of action, co-operation by these agencies, and a more definite program, with an elimination of political considerations and local bias in order to make these agencies most effective. Most of the states of the Union now have a permanent tax commission, created primarily for the study of the subject of taxation in its relation to the state in which each serves, for the purpose of securing a more uniform administration of such laws as the states now have, and for recommending such changes as would be helpful in the taxation system of each state. These commissions are, in the very nature of things, unable to carry on the educational work in each community, but they could very well undertake the outlining and direction of such work, and in most instances are well qualified to do so. The difficulty in the way of this is that the tax commissioners are usually elective or appointive officers for a term of years and depend for their positions on the votes of the people, which allies them in a sense with a political party. Finally, the first and most important thing is to divorce the administration of tax laws from partisan politics, regard taxation in its proper light as a purely economic question, and place the administration of tax laws on a professional and not a political basis; follow this with a coalition of all the forces that may be utilized for the dissemination of information and for the direct study of the subject of taxation in each state under some central authority, preferably the tax commission, or the educational institutions of each state, and secure the co-operation of the newspapers, magazines, and periodicals for the publicity end of the campaign. The details of such a plan must be worked

out according to the available agencies, with particular reference to the conditions in each state. Such an organized study of taxation should not deal primarily with purely local issues, but should be directed toward the fundamental principles of taxation, for a better understanding of the fundamentals will lead to a solution of the local problems more quickly than any other plan. From my personal knowledge of the farmers of my own state and from the information that I have obtained through correspondence with men of other states, I am convinced that the farmers of every state will furnish a large membership for such organizations and that, once interested in the economic theory of taxation, they will be found ready and apt pupils in the study of the subject and will co-operate splendidly in the solution of the problems that confront the citizens of each state.

THE STUDY OF TAXATION IN COLLEGES AND

UNIVERSITIES

HARLEY L. LUTZ

Professor of Economies, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

I have been asked to discuss the question of the study of taxation in American colleges and universities. The subject presents several attractive phases, from which I have selected, as being of most interest to this body, the question of what the average student should know about taxation. And since he ought not to be less well informed upon this important subject than the average citizen, my task becomes substantially that of outlining the minimum knowledge of taxation which the average citizen should possess. In what follows, then, I have had the average citizen as well as the average student in mind, and the two terms have been used, in a sense, interchangeably. Modest as my program is, I am laboring under no illusions concerning it. I fully realize that most students, and the great mass of the voters, will require long and patient training before they attain to even this slight acquaintance with the theory and practice of taxation.

There is no intention of limiting the scope of a university course in taxation to the topics that I have selected for discussion. In any well-organized course the required and optional readings will cover a much wider field than that which is here suggested. I have endeavored merely to outline some of the fundamentals which should be a part of the permanent intellectual equipment of every college student, and of every citizen who possesses and exercises the right of franchise on public questions. To one side have been left also all matters of educational method. In this connection the one point that I would insist upon is that our students be trained as fully and as carefully as possible in the technique of economic analysis. The principal advantage to be gained from a more widespread popular knowledge of taxation is a greater ability to analyze

the economic effects of tax measures, and this will be lost unless there is the capacity to marshal facts and apply established principles thereto in the advance to sound conclusions Careful thinking must, therefore, be a part of our program, whatever else be included.

As an introduction to the subject proper and by way of an adequate orientation with regard to the true significance of taxation, there are certain preliminary principles with which the student should be familiar. The rapid growth of interest in the study of government and economics in colleges and universities means that most college students will acquire familiarity with these fundamental principles and will approach the subject of taxation measurably equipped for its study. The problem of educating the great mass of the people who are destined not to have the opportunity of college training is a very different one. It can only be met by extending an adequate instruction in these important social sciences down into the secondary schools, and through the development of systematic educational programs by such organizations as the National Tax Association. In this connection the report of the committee on educational work will be awaited with much interest.

The first of these introductory or foundation principles which the student of taxation should learn is that the burden of taxation is a real burden, that every dollar paid in taxes is a real deduction from the available income of the community, and that unless every dollar so paid is properly expended, all classes in the community, taxpayers and others, are distinctly the losers. One need not advocate a quid pro quo theory of taxation in order to hold that the taxpayers' most vital concern is in seeing that no unnecessary tax levies are made and that no public money is spent uselessly or wastefully. The economical expenditure of the public funds involves, first, a careful determination of the purposes for which it is proper to levy taxes, and, second, the manner in which the affairs of the state are managed. Let us take these up in turn.

First, then, what are the purposes for which it is proper to levy taxes? I do not propose here to give a detailed an