$10,670.91 had been expended, while there was in the Public Printer's hands considerable unfinished work ordered previous to that date. For 1888-89 the allotment of the Bureau is $18,107.98, and I am informed that the Public Printer has charged against this sum, up to the 1st of March, the amount of $16,551.19 on work most of which was ordered by this Office during the year ended June 30, 1888, while no work ordered by this Office since that date has been completed, and but one eircular, which is estimated to cost only $830, has been begun. Less than one-half of the above amount ($16,551.19) charged against the allotment for the present year is made up of estimates for work ordered within this year, the remainder being charged for work ordered and contracted for in the preceding year, and intended to be paid for out of the allotment for that year, which was amply sufficient for the purpose. This results, I am informed, by cancelling at the close of each fiscal year the balance standing in favor of the Bureau, without regard to the fact that much work already ordered or contracted for remains unfinished, or not begun, and then afterwards charging the completion of such work against the fund for the next year. These proceedings work great injustice to this Office, and I beg leave to protest against them through you most earnestly and emphatically. From these causes circulars of information which have been prepared and sent to the Printing Office during the fiscal year, have remained untouched while there were abundant funds due to the Bureau to complete the same, and were afterwards charged to the fund of the succeeding year, thus causing a total loss of the balance to the credit of the Bureau at the end of the fiscal year.

During the three years enumerated the aggregate amount allotted to this Bureau, as shown above, was $58,194.94, and the amount expended was $42,229.38, leaving a balance unexpended of $15,965.56. The consequence has been exceedingly unfair and injurious to the work of this Office, and has resulted in the total loss of nearly one-third of the amount allowed it for printing its publications. Work that has been in the Printing Office for months has been allowed to go unfinished while the funds were abundant, and when completed during the succeeding year, has been charged against the fund for that year.

I would respectfully bring this matter to your attention, and urgently recommend that some legislative remedy be devised by which the amount allowed this Office for printing shall not be used for other offices in the Department at the expense of the work and usefulness of the Bureau of Education,

2 ED

CHAPTER II.

THE COMMISSIONER'S EDUCATIONAL STATEMENT.

The American Public School System-Condition of Public Education in the South-Facts Revealed by the Census of 1880: Adults and Minors in 1880, North and South; Wealth and Minor Population in 1880, North and South; Density of School Population in 1880, North and South; Condition of Industry in the South-Sources of School Revenue-The Record for the Year-Manual Training-The History of American Education: History of Education in Virginia; in North Carolina; in South Carolina; in Georgia; in Florida; in Indiana; in Wisconsin; Object of this Series of Monographs ; History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education.

THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.

I desire to record my unqualified adherence to the educational policy rightly known as the American common school system. No other system of education for the masses has been so fruitful of good to the people of any country. It is a system wisely provided by the people, and if the liberties of the country are to be preserved in their purity, it will be due in a great measure to the intelligence resulting from its adoption and influence. Nowhere else in the world is there so much. general information and as much knowledge in regard to public affairs as in the United States.

The youth is early inspired by the examples of patriotism which are taught him in the school-room, and upon his entrance upon life is thus prepared for the high duties of citizenship.

This system of free public education is the palladium of our liberties, and its maintenance is the highest duty of the State. The public safety rests upon the intelligence of the citizen, and all the power of the State should be directed in extending the facilities of education. No public man at this day will deny the duty of the State to provide a system of free public schools for its children. Our institutions rest upon the basis of universal suffrage, and the intelligence of the citizen based on universal education is as necessary to preserve them as personal liberty is essential to their enjoyment. Universal education and universal suffrage are new developments in political economy, and are twin sisters travelling upon the same lines, depending the one upon the other for the

success and enjoyment of their blessings. Education should be afforded without price, and should be as free as the water we drink or the air we breathe. It should be confined within no narrow limits, and should be bestowed upon all the children of the country without distinction of race or condition. When each State in this Union shall have provided a system under which a school is found in every hamlet this grave public duty will be partly discharged; but not until all of the blessings flowing from such a system are brought within the easy reach of the entire youth of the country will it be fully discharged. The maintenance of such a system by taxation is as much the duty of the State as the support of the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of its government. All are equally essential to the well-being of the commonwealth. The care of the State is extended to the dependent classes, and is equally due to all of its children. Money expended in the support of these schools is bread cast upon the waters that will bear fruit tenfold in the happiness it will bestow upon the citizen and in the strength it will give the State. Private agencies may supplement but can never supercede the necessity for their support from the public

revenues.

This system has taken root in all the States of the Union, and has become an essential feature in their autonomy. It has engrafted itself upon their policy and is provided for in their constitutions. Happily the system is growing with their growth, and receiving increased encouragement and support. Their action accords with the utterances of that great revolutionary patriot, Francis Marion, who, when speaking of the necessity of public education, said, "It is plainly the first duty of the government to bestow it freely upon its citizens."

I repeat what I have said heretofore, that a wise administration of the laws and the maintenance of order and happiness rest upon the virtue and intelligence of the citizen; that therefore the education of the people is one of the highest duties of the State, and that no subject is more worthy the consideration of the enlightened statesman. The public school system is also the common fountain from which the higher institutions of education draw their maintenance, and no step backward should be taken either in perfecting its excellence or in extending its usefulness.

In the language of another: "When the common school system shall have unfolded all its vast powers; when a corps of trained and edueated teachers to supply all its demands shall have taken the field; when the text-books used in the schools shall be wisely selected, and the school house built upon the most approved model; when its protection and progress shall be the first object of the government-then will all its mighty agencies to do good be felt; the public mind refined and enlightened; labor elevated, patriotism purified; our republican form of government fixed on an immutable basis; and the people crowned with its benefits and blessings."-[Gov. Andrew G. Curtin.]

CONDITION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH.

In considering the condition of public education in the Southern States great allowance should be made for the difficulties, both political and social, through which they have passed during the last twenty years; the trials of war, loss of property, and pride and prejudice of race, have all had to be surmounted.

Time alone can change such conditions, and time only can remove sentiments which are their natural outgrowth. Many and notable have been the experiences of these years in the political life of these States.

This is but a short period in the life of a people, and is too brief a span in national life for the successful solution of great social and political problems.

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It would be idle, therefore, to expect in the Southern States the same growth and results that have been accomplished where the system has been in uninterrupted operation for two centuries and the social fabric and civilization have not been disturbed by the rude hands of war, or political or social revolution. There perfection should be expected and should create no surprise. Few people who have passed through the same trials have recuperated as rapidly as the Southern people, or have adapted themselves more readily to their new conditions and addressed themselves with more fidelity and energy to the renovation of their social life and material industries.

This is eminently true of their school systems. They have directed their efforts to bestow the advantages of education equally upon the children of the two races, upon the principle that it is a duty, and that universal education alone will avert the ills of universal suffrage. They fully believe that true liberty is measured by intelligence, and that the civilization of the white man can be made valuable to the black man only through the agency of public education, and that without education good citizenship is hardly attainable. While they admit the defects in their systems of public education, and make no effort to disguise them, they know that Southern education has always had, and still has, some excellent features peculiar to itself.

With all the difficulties surrounding this subject a most gratifying improvement has taken place in their educational affairs during the last decade. Some of these States now expend one-third of their revenues in the support of their free public schools.

The reorganization of their system of public education grew out of the complete enfranchisement of the colored race, and became necessary in order to adjust their new political relations to this race under the amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

The difficulties which beset the race problem may best be understood when it is remembered that no light broke upon Thomas Jefferson through the gloom in which his mind was involved when considering the subject.

While an advocate of universal emancipation, he could not reconcile himself to the idea of the two races living side by side upon terms of equality "in political rights, duties, and powers." The result of his reflections was summed up in the words, "nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, can not live in the same government." He was incompetent to grapple with the last proposition, and dismissed it from his thoughts as a practical question, with the hope, "under the auspices of heaven," for the emancipation of the black man.

Within less than one hundred years the dream of Thomas Jefferson has been more than realized in the complete emancipation of the black man, and in his admission to all the rights of citizenship under the constitutions of the States and the United States. It was a step attended with danger and difficulty, and many of the strongest advocates of emancipation doubted the wisdom and policy of conferring upon him the right of suffrage in his unprepared and ignorant condition.

The South accepted it in good faith as the verdict of adverse fate, and as the unavoidable result of the moral sentiment that swept away the institution of slavery, and with the determination to give it an honest support.

The spectacle is presented of two distinct races dwelling together in the same country, under the same government, in the full participation of the same political rights. While grave economic difficulties attended the solution of this problem, and grave political dangers still embarrass its realization, the question deserves to be treated with wisdom. and forbearance, and it is hoped that both races will triumph over the difficulties and dangers that environ its full attainment. That the two races may permanently dwell together in peace and amity, under the protection of the same constitutional laws, is a consummation devoutly to be wished, to which the earnest support of the American people should be given.

FACTS REVEALED BY THE CENSUS OF 1880.

We must not, however, give ourselves up to a contemplation of what has been accomplished, but turn rather with renewed interest and zeal to the actual conditions affecting the further progress of education in the South. The Federal census of 1880 entered into the analysis and discussion of social conditions to an unprecedented degree. The comparative study of institutions North and South must be made in the light of the facts there disclosed, until another census shall have given us further information. Investigations of the data of the census bearing upon educational problems were begun by my predecessor, and have been continued under my direction. The results of this work have appeared from time to time in various publications of this Office, notably in Circular of Information No. 3, 1884, published by General