"Nothing succeeds like a successor," jokes U.S. Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel, 48. What he means is that he succeeded to his job two years ago, just as his agency was evolving from a onetime statistics-keeping bureau to a major arm of government, now bigger in budget than the departments of Commerce, Interior, Justice or Labor.
The Office of Education, which spent only $26 million in 1945 and $230 million in 1955, this year will disburse $1.5 billion. It still controls less than one-third of federal spending on education, which costs $4.9 billion, in forms as various...