If these proportions are considered, the average length of school life of the population will be increased for the Western Division, which shows a disproportionally small number of children in its population owing to the fact that, being newly settled, there are fewer families than in older settled parts of the country. According to the estimate based simply on the average number of days' schooling each child of the ages 5 to 18 years gets in the several States (see discussion of Table VIII, p. 51), omitting the private schools from calculations, each inhabitant receives 3.66 years of 200 days for the United States, 4.71 for the North Atlantic, 2.28 for the South Atlantic, 2.22 for the South Central, 4.38 for the North Central, 4.08 for the Western. This estimate takes into account the variations in the proportions of children of school age in the entire population. CLASSIFICATION BY SEX. While the elementary schools show a somewhat larger number of boys in attendance, the secondary schools show 53.9 per cent of girls, or 216,658 girls to 185,431 boys. Of these the public high schools report 147,162 girls to 100,498 boys and the private academies and seminaries 69,496 girls to 84,933 boys. The institutions of higher education report 23,360 female students and 49,100 male students in colleges and universities, 26,725 female and 12,412 male students in the normal schools. The ratio of women to men in higher education is changing from year to year in favor of the former. The coeducational colleges and universities enroll 10,846 female students, while the colleges for women enroll 12,514. TEACHERS. The number of teachers in the public schools is reported at 374,460, of whom 252,822, or 67.5 per cent, are women. In 1870-71 the percentage of male teachers was 41; nine years later (1879-80) it was 42.8; ten years later (1889-99) it had fallen to 34.5. SCHOOL EXPENDITURES. The total expenditure for public schools is reported at $155,991,273, the same being an increase of $9,191,110 over the year preceding. Of this sum $100,333,071 went for the payment of salaries of teachers and superintendents. The average expenditure per pupil was $14.80, not counting the expenditures for new buildings. HOW THE BUREAU OBTAINS ITS STATISTICS. The statistics published in this and preceding annual reports are obtained partly from direct returns made to the Bureau from the superintendents of States and cities and the heads of institutions, and partly by compilation from printed reports. The schedules sent out annually to superintendents of school systems and the heads of institutions number 24 in all. These call in the aggregate for 566 items. The total number of returns made the past year was 7,483, but in order to obtain this number an average of three schedules were mailed to each party who reported. The following exhibit shows the titles of these schedules and indicates the pages where the information is tabulated in this report: The statistical division of the Bureau, besides tabulating the returns from the schedules, examines and compares the published reports of State and city school systems, the catalogues, yearbooks, and manuals of the several kinds of educational institutions. The division of foreign exchange studies the official reports on foreign systems and all the books published by investigators on those systems, whether in English or in other languages. Besides the twenty-four regular annual schedules mentioned above, the Bureau undertakes each year some one or more extra inquiries, publishing the results either in the annual report or in a separate circular of information. Examples of this are the chapter on "kindergartens," published in the report of last year (1890-91); also the report on legal education in the different countries of the world, and the report showing all public libraries of over one thousand volumes, prepared by the statistical division and published as a separate circular of information. To some extent special inquiries by clerks detailed from the office are made, as, for example, those into art and industrial instruction by Mr. I. Edwards Clarke, and into laboratory work in educational pathology by Dr. Arthur MacDonald. It has been the practice of the Bureau since the begining to obtain from experts special treatises on various topics of interest as they awaken public inquiry. EDUCATION IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. France. In Chapter III (pp. 73-96) a brief survey is given of the educational system of France, abridged from the more extended study made in a previous report. To this is appended an account of the important operations of the year 1892. France, since it began the work of educating the whole people, has been a profitable object lesson for the study of methods of organization, instruction, and course of study. There is no field on which a more interesting experiment is in progress. Will the universal education of the people develop local centers of self-government, or are the course of study and the methods employed such as to make it a second nature for the inhabitants of the provinces to look to Paris for each and every initiative? It is interesting to note in this connection (p. 91) that the provincial centers now show 13,287 university students, while Paris has only 10,110, whereas Paris had the larger number five years before. The history of education in China shows that a nation may have a universal system of school education and yet develop little or no local self-government. If the memory is the chief faculty cultivated, and the course of study includes little else besides the sacred codes of morals and religion, the result is to fill the mind with the traditional forms of thinking and acting. Whence it results that the child learns to think and act and to take precisely the view of the world that his fathers took before him. The more education in Confucius and Mencius the more safely conservative will be the life of each new inhabitant in China. But on the other hand, let the child start in a kinder. garten and develop self-activity along all the lines of his character; let him continue his studies in the primary and grammar schools, cultivating the habits of observation and scientific investigation; let him keep abreast with scientific research; let him have access to the literature of the world, and he will find a constant stimulus toward freedom and local self-government; toward emancipation from authority. The fact that France lays great stress on scientific methods in its schools, therefore, goes to show that the universal education there in progress is an education that moves toward decentralization. The influence of Paris will now help emancipate the provinces, and each other city in France will develop within itself its own Paris. Meanwhile Paris will grow all the more in its influence on the world as one of the three great modern civilizing powers. Great Britain and Ireland.-In Chapter IV is given a brief survey of education in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, supplementary to statements printed in the report of 1888-89, in which the system of England, and the report of 1889-90, in which that of Scotland, were presented historically. In 1891 school fees were remitted in the Gov. ernment elementary schools. The statistics of the past year show an increase of attendance due to this fact, and the elementary schools of England now enroll 17.13 per cent of the population. The number of schools under municipal school boards has increased, and they now enroll 40 per cent of all pupils. The private and parochial schools still enroll 60 per cent, while the private and parochial schools in the United States enroll only 10 per cent of the pupils. The struggle of the friends of the parochial schools will doubtless have a purifying and beneficial effect on the management of schools under public-school boards. The fire of opposition saves much wasteful experiment by exposing the weak features of a system in advance of the actual trial by experiment. In England the old challenges the new and pours upon it a storm of ridicule; points out its inconsistencies and want of logic; praises the good old way; foresees the dreadful consequences to church and state of the new plans if carried out. Such a winnowing of a new scheme lets through only the best and wisest features, and the progress is continuous if slow. There is much less of the pendulum movement in English reform, less swinging from one extreme to another, which "marks time," but does not march. Meanwhile, an equal amount of interest exists for us in the course of study and methods of instruction pursued in English schools but not the same kind of interest that we found in those of France. Englishspeaking peoples have for centuries insisted on local self-government. We do not feel so anxious to see the modes by which English schools secure independence and freedom of local centers as to see how they correct tendencies to extreme individualism and provincialism. What place does English literature hold in the education of English and Irish and Scotch youth? There are more first-class poets in England at the present time than in all the rest of Europe, and the total roll of its poets and dramatists of high order of merit is also greater than that of the rest of Europe. The social and political atmosphere of this people, with its national idiosyncrasy tending to personal adventure and local self-government, seems to favor the evolution of poets. The poet makes public opinior by uttering his view of the world in beautiful forms of speech and canvassing the grounds and motives that tell in its favor. An education in the national poetry of England therefore furnishes the needed unifying influence for its adventure-seeking people. They form, whether in Great Britain or in English-speaking colonies, a nation whose rule is chiefly that of public opinion, fed by the national poets and novelists, and expressed in its organ, the daily newspaper. It is of interest to note that the enrollment of children in the schools of Ireland slightly exceeds that of England, being 17.34 per cent of the population. Here the same investigation, as to the course of study and ED 92-II CHAPTER XXVI.-COEDUCATION OF THE SEXES IN THE UNITED STATES. Introduction Status of public schools with respect to coeducation: State systems City systems Coeducation in colleges and universities The literature of coeducation... Physiological and hygienic bearings of higher education for women with special reference to coeducation ..... Views of college and university presidents and professors Bibliography...... Page. 783 784 786 794 798 838 846 860 Killing of Charles H. Edwards and the outrage upon J. E. Connett 878 880 Supervision 884 CHAPTER XXIX.-HISTORY OF SUMMER SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. Contents. 893 Introduction 894 Schools for original research and for the training of specialists. 898 Summer schools giving instruction in single subjects: Schools of philosophy, literature, and ethics... 909 Schools of languages, music, oratory, expression, and of physical training. Summer schools giving instruction in several branches: Summer schools of Harvard University, of the University of Virginia, and of other schools.. 952 PART III. STATISTICAL TABLES. Population, private schools, and public school enrollment, attendance, length of session, supervising officers, teachers, accommodations, and length of course of study in cities of over 8,000 inhabitants...... 962 Evening schools in cities of over 8,000 inhabitants 980 Property, receipts, and expenditures of public schools of cities of over 8,000 inhabitants. Summary of statistics of schools of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and for nurses and veterinarians.... |