Those who insist that the schools should so teach and train their pupils as that they may be able to earn an honest living and become useful citizens, and members of society should not complain at this.

That we are educating a nation of proud idlers is not supported by the facts. Comparatively few of those who have passed through our high schools are out of employment. The great majority of them become speedily engaged in business and are always found among the best and most successful classes of our people.

Indeed, they are in much too great a hurry to enter business. It would be infinitely wiser and better if education were still further prosecuted in connection with some one of our many excellent higher institutions of learning.

Just what should be done as a public measure to increase the number of skilled workmen and to incline all people to industry, is a problem that must sooner or later be solved. The agitation of this question will grow until we shall be drawn into experiments, designed to improve on our present system of common school education.

I am well satisfied that in a system charged with the general education of the people, very little can ever be done in this direction. Special schools may do much, and indeed are doing much to satisfy any reasonable demand for industrial education. Our agricultural colleges, of which we have so fine an example in our own State, are already occupying a large place in the broad field of inquiry and experiment. These schools are well attended, well equipped for technical teaching, and are exerting vast influence and accomplishing great good. In addition to these schools, aided by the generosity of the nation, we have many eminent schools for scientific instruction, some of them munificiently endowed, whose aim it is to impart instruction in special branches by means of evening classes and courses of lectures.

The great Cooper Institute, of New York, and the Wagner Institute, of Philadelphia, are fine examples of such schools. We need more of them, and no class of men will more heartily rejoice in a large increase in their number, than those most deeply interested in the welfare of common school education. Should there be an organized effort, the result of public or private enterprise, in behalf of such schools and such training, they will most heartily co-operate. These industrial schools, and, as they are sometimes called, "apprenticeship schools," are becoming very numerous in some of the older countries, and they may be said to have grappled in earnest with the great prob

lem. In order to modify their entire system, reaching their district schools as well as those of the cities, it has been determined to open a series of schools for the training of masters, teachers, and foremen. This means that one and the same set of teachers are to be required to impart text-book instruction during a portion of each day, and for the remainder thereof to give technical instruction in the shop or workroom to be connected with the school. When it was determined to do this, a difficulty presented itself. Where could teachers be found who could successfully teach a school of this character? The result was the establishment of the schools to which I have referred.

The outcome will undoubtedly be that technical instruction will, in time, encroach upon the academical work, and education come to mean learning a trade. It would be folly to attempt such a system in this country.

In monarchical governments, and possibly in a republic, where everything is indoctrinated with their influence, it may do to aim chiefly at making a skilled workman of a subject. We must educate in view of the relation which every one sustains to the whole.

Every man who is a citizen under our form of government exercises some of the prerogatives of a ruler. It is impossible to forecast the future of those for whose education and training we provide. The poor and obscure boy of whom we would make a hewer of wood or a carrier of water, may come to be the chief executive of the nation. He should be educated, then, in view of his possibilities. Not in the narrow sense of personal advantage, but in the highest interests of the nation at large.

At the same time his education should be such as to enable him, in the shortest possible time, and in the most efficient manner, to master any particular branch of industry, to which he may desire to turn his attention. To this end, our present system of education can be, no doubt, improved.

We should give more attention to drawing. There is scarcely an occupation in which a thorough knowledge of the subject would not be of great practical value.

We should give more attention to exhibits of work done and articles made by school children. This work may be done, and, indeed, should be done, out of the school room, except where it relates to studies taught, as, for instance, map drawing, diagraming, or abstracting, which may, and probably should, be done under direction of the teacher.

In short, we should do anything and everything in the interests of industry and technical training, which can be done without interfering with the regular work of our schools. Whatever does conflict with that work, however valuable and necessary it may appear to be, as a preparation for any special industry, should be promptly discontinued.

DISTRICT ORGANIZATION.

My predecessors have called attention to the numerous and serious objections to our present system of district organization. It is in the hope that you will call the attention of the general assembly to this important subject that I re-state at some length, the many arguments that have been advanced against our independent and subdistrict plan, and in favor of the district township system.

Hon. Horace Mann, in referring to the same subject in connection with the report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, said: “I consider the law of 1789, authorizing towns (townships) to divide themselves into districts, the most unfortunate law on the subject of common schools ever enacted in the State. During the last few years several townships have abolished their districts, and assumed the administration of the schools in their corporate capacity; I learn from the reports of school committees, and from other sources, that many other townships are contemplating the same thing." Hon. Thomas H. Benton, in his excellent report, dated December 2, 1850, in reviewing this subject said: "For myself, I think our congressional townships (six miles square) none too large for school districts."

The general assembly, by an act dated July 14, 1856, appointed a commission, consisting of Horace Mann, Amos Dean, and Mr. Bissell, to revise the school laws of the State.

The small district system had already obtained a firm hold upon our people, and the commissioners labored hard to displace it, but were at last compelled to compromise by dividing the district township into subdistricts. But in submitting their report they enter a powerful and unanswerable protest against subdivision, and in favor of making the township the unit.

I desire here to review their arguments in the light of our experience covering a period of twenty-five years. The following is quoted from their report:

"Your commissioners, however, feel bound to say that they have presented this organization simply in reference to the existing state of things. Their own settled convictions are, that the whole district system as stated in the bill should be promptly discontinued, and that of making each civil township a district, substituted in its place. The following are some of the reasons which have led to this conviction:"

It facilitates and greatly simplifies the organization of districts. The correspondence of the department concerning the organization of districts is very heavy, and constantly on the increase. The law is so complex and contradictory that explanations and official opinions are necessary in almost every case, to inform the people what they may do and how it should be done. At best many mistakes are made. Districts are illegally organized, resulting in litigation, to the injury of the cause of education.

2. It gives fewer occasions for controversies relative to boundaries. The law now requires that boundaries of district townships shall coincide with civil township lines, but in many counties this law is frequently disregarded, and there is constant disputing as to just where the line is. In many cases the old school district boundaries remain unchanged and where the old records are lost, and there is no map as the law requires, it is impossible to settle disputes, except as these cases come up on appeal or are taken into the courts. Since the independent town district may extend in disregard of township lines, the notion obtains that it is not required that district township lines be so limited.

If it were understood that a civil township is the only rural school district known to the law, that simple declaration would avoid all trouble of this character.

6. It equalizes among a large community the burdens imposed in the erection, repairs, and outfit of school houses, offers much greater facilities and inducements to establish district libraries and to sustain and increase them.

It frequently occurs that portions of the township are thinly settled, and the character of the land is such that a reasonable tax will not sustain a good school. While the law now provides that a tax to build in any particular subdistrict, may be levied upon the township at large, it also provides that the township electors may refuse to allow the tax asked for, and in that case it must be levied on the sub

district asking for aid. The effect of this is to make subdistricts cautious and guarded in asking for levies, lest the whole burden may be thrown back upon themselves. They therefore ask for just as small a sum as will possibly serve to build a small house, and provide equipments, that will barely answer to their necessities. Subdistricts are too often jealous of each other, lest one should receive more than its share of public funds.

In the case of rural independent districts, the situation is even worse. Many weak subdistricts have been forced into independent organizations against their will, and however poor they may be, or however unable to provide a good school, they must accept the inevitable and do the best they can.

The opposite is true of those districts which have been favored by nature, and are competent to provide excellent schools.

The theory of our school system is that all children are entitled to, and shall receive, equal school privileges; but this unfortunate system of district organization defeats it in practice.

8. It annihilates and forever, the possibility of cutting up a population into small districts, to which the district system so frequently leads.

Our experience has verified the correctness of this statement. Four sections of land, without regard to value, now generally constitutes a school district, and districts of but two sections are quite numerous. If this unwise policy of creating small districts continues, it is not difficult to see what the result will be. Small and inadequate houses, poorly paid teachers, and therefore inferior schools. The different and successive steps of progress in this mistaken and unwise policy of making small and numerous districts are as follows:

In 1858 the general assembly enacted a law providing that cities or incorporated towns with contiguous territory might become independent districts by vote of the electors. Two years later this privilege was further extended to unincorporated towns of three hundred inhabitants.

In 1866 it was again extended to subdistricts containing not less than two hundred inhabitants. The bad consequences of this last provision was so readily seen, that it was promptly repealed two years later. It was then hoped that a step had been taken toward a return to the larger district system, but unwise counsels prevailed against an unbroken array of testimony from the ablest educators of the