NUMBER OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS; SEATING CAPACITY. The number of school buildings in the different States is given in Column 2. Where the number of buildings has not been reported the number of schools is substituted, and in one case the number of districts, as affording the best approximation that could be obtained. The aggregate for the United States is 219,063. The total number of sittings is reported from thirteen States. The average number in these States to each one hundred pupils enrolled is 118, to each one hundred in average attendance 187, and to each school building 66. The District of Columbia shows the greatest deficiency in school accommodations, though a considerable increase over last year. TABLE 6.—Number of School Buildings and of Sittings, mainly for 1887-88, compared with the same for preceding year; and the number of Sittings compared with the enrolment, average attendance, and number of school buildings. State or Territory. TABLE 6.--Number of School Buildings and of Sittings, mainly for 1887-88, etc.-Cont'd. Each School Building. HIGH SCHOOLS. It will be seen from the accompanying table that the statistics of public secondary education are very incomplete, and, moreover, lack uniformity. This is perhaps an unavoidable defect. What a high school" pupil is admits of no precise definition. Hence the incongruity of such returns as are given from Mississippi and Louisiana. The abnormal increase in the high school enrolment of Minnesota is probably due to in correct returns. In seventeen States the high school enrolment forms 3.5 per cent. of the total public school enrolment; or, in other words, thirty-five pupils out of every thousand are high school pupils. The greatest development of public secondary education has apparently taken place in the North Atlantic group of States, since five of these States show an average of sixty-four pupils, out of every thousand, receiving a public high school education. TABLE 7.-Number of Pupils in Public High Schools, mainly for 1887-88, compared with the same for preceding year and with the total public school enrolment. TABLE 7.—Number of Pupils in Public High Schools, mainly for 1887–88, etc-Cont'd. These summaries embrace only the States tabulated in the same columns above. PRIVATE SCHOOLS. The reports of private schools are considerably fuller this year than the preceding one. In one division, the North Atlantic, all the States but two are represented. The increase of the private school enrolment, compared with that of the public schools, has already been referred to (p. 88). Column 5 gives the proportion of pupils who attend private schools. In 20 States and Territories 9.38 per cent. of all pupils, on an average, or nearly one-tenth, are private school pupils. It will be observed that, so far as known, private schools have received a greater development in the Northern States than in the Southern, and in the older States than in the newer. The necessity of securing statistics of private schools continues to receive attention. State Superintendent Thayer of Wisconsin says upon this point: "Until all institutions of every grade that engage in the instruction of persons of school age in the State are required by stringent legislation to report annually at least the number thus instracted, it will be impossible to ascertain with accuracy the proportion of our school popalation which is failing to secure an elementary education. Every person or assotion of persons receiving pupils between the ages of four and twenty years for inruction should be required to register the name, age, days of attendance, and studies parsed by each pupil, if a resident of the State, and annually furnish an abstract of the record thus taken." |