ENROLLMENT.

Whole number of pupils (enrollment).-As will be seen by the foregoing table (column 5), there were in 1890-91 (or according to the latest information obtainable) 12,966,061 different pupils enrolled in the common schools of the United States; a gain in one year of 342,994, or 2.72 per cent.1

This enrollment was 20.41 per cent of the population, as against 17.82 per cent in 1870, 19.67 per cent in 1880, and 20.27 per cent in 1890. The public school enrollment, therefore, has continued without intermission since 1870 to gain upon the population.

The proper test of school attendance.-It has been shown in previous reports, however, that the public school enrollment in certain of the Northern States has not increased as rapidly as the population, but attention was called to the circumstance that the enrollment might nevertheless have increased as fast as the school population, which is obviously the proper quantity to make comparison with, since the ratio of the school population to the total population is continually shifting, and it is from the school population alone that the public school pupils are drawn. What proportion of the children of school age attend school is manifestly the proper test of the extent of school attendance, not what proportion of children, infants, and adults; the two latter classes not supplying any school attendants at all. This becomes more apparent when it is borne in mind that the proportion of adults to children of school age is five times as great in some States as in others (see Table 9, column S), thus vitiating all inter-State comparisons of enrollment based upon total population by introducing an irrelevant factor of uncertain effect.

This may be illustrated by a somewhat analogous example from another field of statistical inquiry: If it is desired to ascertain the number of bushels of wheat raised per acre in a given State, the total product of wheat in bushels is divided by the number of acres planted to wheat, not by the total acreage of the State. The proportion of land not planted to wheat is very different in different States.

Proportion of school population enrolled.-The proportion of the school population, then, enrolled in the public schools at various epochs is given in columns 8, 9, 10, and 11 of the preceding table. The age basis (5-18) is uniform for all the States.

From this it will be seen that in most of the Northern States east of the Mississippi River the proportion of the children of school age enrolled in the schools has decreased since 1870. This decrease is especially notable in New Hampshire, and is large in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois. There has also been a considerable decrease in Michigan and Illinois, and a slight decrease in Maine, New Jersey, and Minnesota.

The smallness of the gain in the North Central division (0.79 per cent) is due principally to imperfect reports from Ohio and Indiana.

The only States in the group in question that show an increase since 1870 are Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Indiana, and in these the increase is slight.

In the Southern States the proportion of the school population who are enrolled in school is considerably less than in the Northern (columus 8-11). The division which shows best in this respect is the North Central, which has more than 76 per cent of its population 5 to 18 years of age enrolled in school.

Kansas has the largest percentage of its school population enrolled in school (87.66), then comes Maine (87.12), Iowa (86.33), and South Dakota (81.04).

The two States, viz, Massachusetts and Connecticut, which have perhaps made the most persistent and systematic efforts to enforce compulsory attendance, and in which the conditions regarding density of population seem especially to favor such efforts, report only about 72 per cent of their population 5 to 18 enrolled. This rises only slightly above the average for the United States (about 69), and is less than that of Tennessee (78.29), or West Virginia (75.71).

At the other end of the line come Louisiana, with only about onethird (33.73 per cent), and South Carolina, with less than one-half (48.31 per cent), of their population 5 to 18 years enrolled in school.

Why the enrollment has fallen off in New York.-State Superintendent Draper, of New York, in attempting to account for the falling off in the proportion of the school population enrolled in school in that State said in his last report:

The most ready suggestion which will be offered in explanation is the organization of church or parochial schools. This explanation seems inadequate. It will undoubtedly explain somewhat, but not fully. I am, of course, familiar with the extent to which the great Roman Catholic Church and some other denominations of Christians have felt impelled to organize schools under their own auspices. But it can hardly be said that the growth of these church schools has been sufficiently regular and uniform for forty years to account for the uniform falling off in the attendance upon the public schools during that time. Moreover, it must be said that nondenominational private schools were much more common and much more generally attended in former years than now. While, therefore, it is undoubtedly true that the organization of church schools will account in some degree for the comparative falling off in the attendance upon the public schools, still it is but a partial explanation of the fact.

Another partial explanation may be found in the fact that records are more completely and correctly kept and statistics are more accurate than formerly. It is within the knowledge of all connected with the schools that very special attention has been given this subject in recent years, with a view to more extended and reliable information upon which to base educational action. Figures are the result of investigation rather than of estimates much more generally than in former years, and the fact may place the later years in an apparent disadvantage when compared with the earlier ones. This, however, is no adequate explanation of the unfortunate fact to which the attention of the State is called.

The proportion of the total population enrolled in the schools is generally greater in the Southern States than in the Northern; but this proportion has been shown to be, and is, misleading.

There is no full explanation. The fact can not be explained away. The statement that the attendance upon the public schools does not keep pace with the growth in population is true. It may be said with equal truth that the attendance upon public and private schools combined is not as great relatively as it was in former years. The reasons why this is so will appear to all who will inquire.

As cities increase in population, the indifferent, unfortunate, dissolute, vicious, and criminal classes increase, not normally and naturally, but out of proportion to the increase in population. One thousand persons living in the country will not have in their number as many persons who must be cared for, directed, and regulated in the interest of the common safety as 1,000 persons living in a crowded city. This fact has vital relations to attendance upon the schools. Yet we have done little or nothing in the way of providing against it.

Again, there has been much legislation in recent years for the purpose of preventing the employment of children in factories and elsewhere. What is of more consequence, the State has provided the machinery for vigorously enforcing this legislation. Public officers, in the pay of the State, have traversed its territory through all its length and breadth, driving children out of employment. The employers of labor have been required to report the names and ages of their employés, and have been threatened with severe penalties for employing children below 13 years of age. I agree with the wisdom of this policy, providing measures equally vigorous are taken for making these children go to school. If children are not to go to school they had better be at work. But while we have been driving children out of the shops, we have done nothing to compel them to go to school.

TABLE 3.-Average attendance and its relation to enrollment.

a Estimated.

b In 1889-90.

d Average attendance of pupils above and below the scholastic age estimated.

c In 1890.