tenths as great as France, and considerably greater than the combined areas of Great Britain, including the Channel islands, and the kingdom of Holland. The aggregate value of lands and money given for education by the national government, as Commissioner Harris shows in detail,' is nearly $300,000,000.

Education a

The uniform tendency of recent developstate function ment, as marked by judicial decisions and by legislative enactments, is to treat all publiclycontrolled education as part of a slowly-forming system which has its basis in the authority of the state government, as distinguished from that of the nation on the one hand and from that of the locality on the other. This system may be highly centralized, as in New York, or the contrary, as in Massachusetts, but the theory underlying it is the same. The two fundamental principles which are emerging as the result of a century's growth are, first, that education is a matter of state concern, and not merely one of local preference; and, second, that state inspection and supervision shall be applied so as to stimulate and encourage local interest in education and to avoid the deadening routine of a mechanical uniformity. The state acts to provide adequate opportunity for elementary education for all children, and abundant opportunity for secondary and higher education. But the state claims no monopoly in education. It protects private initiative, whether stimulated by religious zeal, philanthropy or desire for gain, in doing the same thing. It is not customary, in the United States, for state officials to inspect or to interfere with the educational work of privately-established institutions. When these are chartered bodies, they are subject simply to the general provisions of law governing corporations of their class. When they are not chartered bodies, the state treats them as it does any private business undertaking: it lets them alone. Standards of efficiency and of professional attainment are regulated in these institutions by those in neighboring public institu

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tions, by local public opinion and by competition. Sometimes these forces operate to raise standards, sometimes to lower them. New York has gone farther than any other state in attempting to define and to classify all educational institutions, private as well as public. Pennsylvania has recently entered upon a similar policy; and it is being urged in other states as well. The public elementary schools are more or less carefully regulated by law, both as to length of school term, as to subjects taught, and as to the necessary qualifications of the teachers. The public secondary schools, familiarly known as high schools, and the state universities are usually without any such regulation.

Statistics of public education

The term "common schools" is often used in the United States of the public elementary schools alone; but the more correct use is to include under it all public elementary schools, -the first eight years of the course of study, — and all public secondary schools, maintaining a four years' course, as a rule, in advance of the elementary school. In 1897-8 the total estimated population of the United States was 72,737,100. Of this number 21,458,294 - a number nearly equal to the population of Austria - were of school age, as it is called; that is, they were from 5 to 18 years of age. This is not the age covered by the compulsory education laws, but the school age as the term is used by the United States census. By school age is meant the period during which a pupil may attend a public school and during which a share of the public money may be used for his education. It is obvious, then, that persons who have satisfactorily completed both an elementary and a secondary course of study may still be returned as of "school age" and as "not attending any school." This fact has always to be taken into account in the interpretation of American educational statistics.

In 1897-8 the number of pupils entered upon the registers of the common schools - that is, the public elementary and the public secondary schools—was 15,038,636, or 20.68 per cent of the total population and 70.08 per cent of the

persons of "school age." The total population of Scotland and Ireland is only about half so many as this. For these pupils 409,193 teachers were employed, of which number 131,750, or 32.2 per cent were men. The women teachers in the common schools numbered 277,443. The teachers, if brought together, would outnumber the population of Munich. The women alone far more than equal the population of Bordeaux. No fewer than 242,390 buildings were in use for common school purposes. Their aggregate value was nearly $500,000,000 ($492,703,781).

The average length of the annual school session was 143.1 days, an increase since 1870 of 11 days. In some states the length of the annual school session is very much above this average. It rises, for example, to 191 days in Rhode Island, 186 in Massachusetts, 185 in New Jersey, 176 in New York, 172 in California, 162 in Iowa, and 160 in Michigan and Wisconsin. The shortest average annual session is in North Carolina (68.8 days) and in Arkansas (69 days). Taking the entire educational resources of the United States into consideration, each individual of the population would receive school instruction for 5 years of 200 days each. Since 1870 this has increased from 3.36 years, and since 1880 from 3.96 years, of 200 days each.

The average monthly salary of men teachers in the common schools was $45.16 in 1897-8; that of the women teachers was $38.74. In the last forty years the average salary of common school teachers has increased 86.3 per cent in cities and 74.9 per cent in the rural districts. The total receipts for common school purposes in 1897-8 were almost $200,000,000 ($199,317,597), of which vast sum 4.6 per cent was income from permanent funds, 17.9 per cent was raised by state school tax, 67.3 per cent by local (county, municipal or school district) tax, and 10.2 came from other sources. The common school expenditure per capita of population was $2.67; for each pupil, it averaged $18.86. Teachers' salaries absorb 63.8 per cent ($123,809,412) of the expenditure for common schools.

The commissioner of education believes the normal standard of enrollment in private educational institutions to be about 15 per cent of the total enrollment. At the present time it is only a little more than 9 per cent, having been reduced apparently by the long period of commercial and financial depression which has but lately ended.

Illiteracy in the United States can hardly

Illiteracy be compared fairly with that in European countries because of the fact that an overwhelming proportion of the illiterates are found among the negroes and among the immigrants who continue to pour into the country in large numbers. The eleventh census of the United States, taken in 1890, showed that the percentage of illiterates to the whole population was 13.3, a decrease of 3.7 per cent since the census of 1880. But the percentage of illiterates among the native white population (being 73.2 per cent of the whole) was only 6.2 of those ten years of age or older. Among the foreign born white population (14.6 per cent of the whole), the percentage of illiteracy was 13.1, and among the colored population (12.2 of the whole), it was 56.8. That is, nearly one-half of the whole number of illiterates in the United States were colored. Only in Florida, Mississippi, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, and New Mexico, was the percentage of illiteracy among the native white population greater than 10. This percentage fell below 2 in New Hampshire (1.5), Massachusetts (0.8), Connecticut (1.), New York (1.8), District of Columbia (1.7), Minnesota (1.4), Iowa (1.8), North Dakota (1.8), South Dakota (1.2), Nebraska (1.3), Montana (1.6), Wyoming (1.3), Nevada (0.8), Idaho (1.9), Washington (1.3), Oregon (1.8) and California (1.7). In Kansas it was exactly 2. Education

and crime

It is not infrequently charged by those who have but a superficial knowledge of the facts, or who are disposed to weaken the force of the argument for state education, that one effect of the

system of public education in the United States has been to increase the proportion of criminals, particularly those whose crime is against property. The facts in refutation of this charge are so simple and so indisputable that they should always be kept in mind.

In the first place, it must be remembered that communities which maintain schools have higher standards as to what is lawful than communities which are without the civilization which the presence of a school system indicates, and that, therefore, more acts are held to be criminal and more crimes are detected and punished in a community of the former sort than in one of the latter. A greater number of arrests may signify better police administration rather than an increase.

in crime.

Again, where records have been carefully kept, it appears that the illiterate portion of the population furnishes from six to eight times its proper proportion of criminals. This was established for a large area by an extensive investigation carried on by the bureau of education in 1870.

The history of the past fifty years in the state of Massachusetts is alone a conclusive answer to the contention that education begets crime. In 1850 the jails and prisons of that state held 8,761 persons, while in 1855 the number had increased to three times as many (26,651). On the surface, therefore, crime had greatly increased. But analysis of the crimes shows that serious offences had fallen off 40 per cent during this period, while the vigilance with which minor misdemeanors were followed up had produced the great apparent increase in crime. While drunkenness had greatly fallen off in proportion to the population, yet commitments for drunkenness alone multiplied from 3,341 in 1850 to 18,701 in 1885. The commitments for crimes other than drunkenness were 1 to every 183 of the population in 1850 and to every 244 of the population in 1885. In other words, as has been pointed out, persons and property had become safer, while drunkenness had become more dangerous to the drunkard.