The Joint Education Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature has approved a controversial bill providing for the establishment of a program of indirect state subsidies to private medical and dental schools in New England.

Despite widespread objections, the measure, embodying the recent proposals of the special State Medical and Dental School Commission, was passed by the Education Committee with only a single dissenting vote. The bill now goes to the State Senate Ways and Means Committee, which is expected to act favorably on it in the light of the near-unanimous Education Committee vote. Ways and Means approval is required before floor debate on a bill can begin.

State Senator George J. Evans, chairman of the Education Committee, defended the plan against charges that it violates the spirit of the so-called anti-aid provision of the State constitution, forbidding state aid to private educational institutions. One of the Medical and Dental School Commission's original members, Dr. David Hurwitz '25, clinical associate at the Medical School, had denounced as a "circumvention of the Constitution" the portion of the bill which provides for the creation of a New England Board to act as financial intermediary between the state and the schools.

"I don't think the bil is unconstitutional at all," Evans said, "and if it's a sound proposition, we ought to do it."