when it was a source of much misconception and caused many of the apparent anomalies familiar to those who make a study of educational statistics.

The observations upon statistical methods made in connection with the tables are commended to the attention of those who have to do with such matters.

TABLE 1.-The total population, the school population, and the adult male population.

TABLE 2.-Relation of the school population to the total population and to the adult male population; proportion of the white school population of foreign birth or extraction; percentage of foreign born of total population.

POPULATION.

(Tables 1 and 2.)

Table 1 gives (1) the total population of each State, (2) the school population, or number of possible pupils, and (3) the adult male population, or number of taxpayers or school supporters. These are all estimated for 1892 upon the basis of the U. S. Census of 1890.

The slow diminution in the relative number of children in the popu lation since 1870, and the differences which characterize the different States as regards their relative number of children, are shown in Columns 2 to 4 of Table 2. This is an important matter in considering actual school attendance and one which has already been emphasized in previous reports of this office.

Column 5 of the same table exhibits the relation which the number of adult males bears to that of children. When it is considered that in Montana, for instance, there are five times as many male adults to the hundred children as in South Carolina, which is one of the surprising facts developed by the U. S. Census of 1890, an idea may be had of the adverse conditions the latter State, as well as the entire South in a greater or less degree, has to contend with in this regard alone in sustaining a public-school system. In Diagram 1 the inequalities in the ratios of adult to school population are rendered more striking to the eye. The proportion of white children of foreign birth or parentage is given in Column 6 of Table 2, while Columns 7 to 9 give the percentage of foreign-born population since 1870. The foreign born number 14.77 per cent, or about one-seventh, of the total population, which is a slight increase over the percentage of 1870. The foreign element is almost wanting in the South, while in the North and West persons of foreign birth form about one-fifth of the population.

DIAGRAM 1.—Showing for each State the number of adult males to every 100 children of school age in 1890. (Table 2, Column 5.)

TABLE 3.-Number of pupils enrolled at various periods, and relation of the enrollment to the school population.