Putting the greatest stress upon the historical aspects of the occasion, the Office sought to aid, first, in securing the fullest representation possible of education, with the hope, second, that all officers and agencies would aid in bringing out the fullest results in the way of (a) study, (b) reports, and (c) of permanent collections of educational appliances.

In all of the results of the Exhibition it was believed that the education of the United States would receive great advantages from comparison with that of other countries and from suggestions from foreign educators. The presentation of students' work was beset with many difficulties. It was important some plan should be devised in which all could coöperate. The whole subject of the educational exhibition for the country was taken up at the meeting of the National Educational Association, at Minneapolis, Minn., August 5, 1875.

The following resolutions, containing important suggestions, were offered by Hon. J. and their plans of presentation. This Office has been in constant correspondence and communication with the officers of the Centennial Commission, and it is only due to say that they have from the first and always manifested a most earnest desire that everything possible should be done to render this de partment of the Exhibition thoroughly successful.

"With respect to the educators of the country, every means has been taken to gather full public and private expressions of interest, and to act solely and fully in coöperation with them. And while gath ering these, whether from personal or organized sources, it has seemed appropriate to consult, as the special representative of them all, the National Educational Association. This association, at a meeting of its department of superintendence, in January, 1874, passed resolutions upon the subject, and, again, in January, 1875, appointed an executive committee to advise with and act through this Office. This committee has since had two meetings, at the request of the Director-General of the Exhibition, in Philadel phia, at which the plans of the Centennial Commission were carefully studied, and all indications of what could be done by the different institutions and systems of education, so far as known, were brought into consideration, and an earnest effort was made to answer the two great questions What to do? and How to do it! One thing has been manifest from the first, that, while certain outlines for a scheme could be laid down, the details must, in the necessity of the case, be announced only as the circumstances upon which they depended were more clearly unfolded in the action of the different sections interested. With a view to giving each institution and system information with regard to the purposes of other institutions and systems proposing to participate, and of putting before the eye a unified scheme to which fuller anggestions could be made, this Office prepared, in January, a 'Synopsis of the proposed centennial bistory of American education.' At the first meeting of the committee above mentioned with the Director-General of the Centennial in Philadelphia, it became manifest that a change in the classifica tion there presented was essential for the unity of an educational exhibit. At the second meeting of the committee their views were given in a statement, at the request of the Director-General, and presented to the commission. The committee also agreed upon certain amplifications and specifications, which should be published as a further aid and guide to those wishing to participate in the educational exhibit, when the commission had given a final revision to its classification. The Centennial Commission have now issued their revised classification, and that part of it relating to education is herewith presented. The committee have added their embodiment of suggestions, and hereby submit it as a further step in the development of the work in hand. While in general the scheme must be executed as it is now established, it is desired that there may be the utmost freedom of suggestion with reference to the details. In the prosecution of this work it should be added that it will be impossible for this Office to perform the part assigned to it, save in and by the provision made by Congress at its last session for an exhibit by the Executive Departments. The law and executive orders connected with it are therefore pablished. The amount of money provided for this expenditure is a small share of the $115,000 assigned to the Interior Department. It will be obvious, on a moment's thought, how little of the vast work to be accomplished can be performed by this Office. It will be seen from what has been previously published, and, indeed, in all that has been done by this Office, how much more highly we prize the historical than the competitive elements of the Exhibition. We are thoroughly convinced that no institution, that no State or city system, can do better for itself, or can more efficiently work for the improvement of its instruction or its discipline, for the enlargement of its resources or for the increase of its attendance, than by seizing this occasion, when everybody.is talking about the past of our country, to turn the attention of its constituents to the incidents of its establishment, growth, present condition, and the considerations which should determine its future plans. Moreover, we cannot fail to feel the obligation imposed upon the actors in this memorial year to leave all the facts in regard to their institutions and systems in the best possible shape for the benefit of education in the centuries of our Government which are to follow.

"Dr. Franklin B. Hough, of Lowville, N. Y., well known for his historical and statistical labors, who has already accumulated numerous and valuable data with regard to the origin and history of collegiate

H. Smart of Indiana, chairman of a special committee to draft resolutions in regard to the exhibition of educational development at the approaching Centennial at Philadelphia. They were discussed and adopted seriatim :

Whereas a communication has been received from the Hon. John Eaton, United States Commissioner of Education, in which the National Educational Association, now assembled, is requested to take into consideration the interests of the educational department of the coming Centennial Exposition and to make suggestions in relation thereto: Therefore,

Resolved, That we heartily second the efforts of the Commissioner to secure an adequate representation of our educational products at the Centennial, and that we will Cooperate with him in every practicable way to make the enterprise a success.

Resolved, That, in accordance with the Commissioner's request, we make the following suggestions, viz:

(1) In our opinion, wall space of not less than 2,000 feet in length, with accompanying counter and floor space, will be needed for the proper display of our educational products.

(2) The amount of wall space occupied by each State should be limited to 100 feet in length.

(3) All products of the schools, executed by pupils, except such as may be classed as "special products," should be made during the month of January, 1876.

(4) We respectfully recommend that there be formed an Exposition committee, consisting of one agent appointed from each of the States and Territories represented at the Centennial, by the chief educational officer in conference with the national Commissioner of Education, whose duty it should be to coöperate with the Commissioner in the superintendence of the educational department at Philadelphia.

education, has been invited to coöperate with this Bureau in the preparation of the exhibit of collegiste and university instruction. The following special suggestions are hereby submitted; others will be added after consultation and agreement with the officers in charge of these institutions:

"The several officers in charge of the institution for deaf-mute instruction in the country have already appointed a committee to take charge of the preparation of the representation of this department of education. The chairman of the committee is Hon. E. M. Gallaudet, president of the National DeafMute College, at Washington, D. C., who should be addressed on the subject.

"The necessity of extended personal intercourse between those familiar with exhibitions and the several officers of institutions and systems has rendered it necessary for the Bureau of Education to invite Hon. John D. Philbrick to confer specially with these gentlemen in New England, and Dr. J. W. Hoyt to perform a similar work, in connection especially with colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts, in the Mississippi Valley. Dr. L. P. Brockett, of New York, whose historical writings on the subject of education are well known, has undertaken to aid in the preparation of a historical representation of text books.

"Two hundred and forty-eight institutions for the benefit of the young, such as reformatories, asylums, industrial schools, &c., have already been visited by an agent of this Bureau, and a large collec tion of facts gathered with reference to their history and administration, which is now ready for the printer, and which will be made to constitute a portion of the Centennial publications upon education by this Office.

"The progress of the me dical art and medical education prior to the Revolution was the subject of a recent publication by this Bureau, the material having been collected by Dr. J. M. Toner, of this city. N. S. Davis, M. D., of Chicago, Ill., is now preparing an account of medical education in the United States during the century for this Office.

"This Office has also in course of preparation a work on libraries in the United States, past and present, which will shortly appear.

"The subject of art education in the United States during the past century is also receiving attention, with a view to early publication. The attention of all the officers of systems, institutions, and associations of an educational character is specially called (1) to the desirableness of making the graduating exercises of academies, normal schools, commencements of colleges, and the several annual gatherings of alumni, of teachers, and other promoters of education, in some form commemorative of the centennial anniversary of the foundation of the Republic; (2) that the donors of funds for educational purposes be invited to mark this year by the increase of their endowments and benefactions; (3) that a special effort be made to collect at institutions, offices, and other appropriate places, busts, portraits, and other fitting memorials of eminent educators and promoters of education, and that these also, as far as expedient, be made part of the educational exhibit at Philadelphia. Other outlines of the great forces of education in the country are under advisement, and all interested are generally invited to offer suggestions.

"A considerable number of inquiries having come to the Office with regard to the form of State organizations, the Commissioner of Education takes this opportunity to suggest that, where appropriations have been made by States, and commissioners appointed to prepare the State representation for the Centennial, committee be designated by this commission, consisting of the State school officers and

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to prepare and submit to General Eaton rules and regulations by which pupils and students shall be governed in the preparation of such products as may be executed by them.

Resolred, That we recommend that an international educational congress be held at some time during the Centennial Exposition, and that we also recommend that arrangements therefor be made by the United States Commissioner of Education.

Resolved, That we respectfully recommend to the Commissioner of Education that the appointment of delegates to the international congress be made through the chief educational officers of the several States and Territories.

Under the resolution to appoint a committee to prepare plans for students' work, the following able school officers were named: Hon. A. J. Rickoff, superintendent of city schools, Cleveland, Ohio; Hon. J. L. Pickard, superintendent of city schools, Chicago, Ill.; Hon. J. H. Smart, State superintendent of public instruction, Indiana. These gentlemen, after due consideration, reported a plan which was promulgated in Circular of Information No. 8.

The following is the prefatory letter to this circular of information :

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION,

Washington, D. C., November 27, 1875.

SIR: The desire that specimens of the actual school work of students should be shown at Philadelphia has been expressed by many educators, and this work is included in the classification furnished by the Centennial Commission.

The difficulty has been to devise a uniform plan for the preparation of students' work.

The Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association, in session at Minneapolis in August, 1875, considered the subject, and, after full discussion, referred to a committee the preparation of a suitable schedule, in accordance with the provisions of which all such specimens of scholars' work should be prepared. It was understood that the recommendations of this committee would be accepted as the standard. Many inquiries in reference to the methods of preparing school work have been addressed to this Office. As furnishing a satisfactory answer to these inquiries, and in accordance with the requests of members of the National Educational Association, I recommend the publication, by this Bureau, of the report of this committee, with the schedule as adopted by them.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Hon. Z. CHANDLER,

Secretary of the Interior.

Approved and publication ordered.

JOHN EATON,
Commissioner.

Z. CHANDLER, Secretary.

It is confidently believed that these rules, wisely observed, will solve difficulties in regard to students' work, and secure that degree of uniformity in results necessary for just comparison.

others of well-known fitness, to take special charge of the State educational exhibit. This plan has already been adopted in several States with the happiest results.

"It is difficult to express in a classification or programme of arrangements all the details of the methods by which education will be illustrated; (1) as increasing the productiveness of industry; (2) as diminishing pauperism; (3) as diminishing vice and crime; (4) as increasing the public wealth; and (5) as specially qualifying man for the pursuits of life and the duties and privileges of citizenship. It is hoped that no one who has worked out any valuable material which would contribute to this end will hestitate to make it known.

"It is suggested that the several annual educational reports in the country may be made to have some special reference to the Centennial Exhibition, and so relieve other documentary statements, and that sarpins copies should be furnished at the Centennial with a view to distribution.

"The duty of the educator in this matter is twofold: (1) to aid in the exhibit of educational facilities and (2) to use the material thus collected at the Centennial-nay, the Exhibition itself-for the purpose of fature instruction.

“Among the further details already under special consideration are: (1) the manner of investigating and comparing the work of students so as to bring out the best results; (2) what attempts shall be made to provide special arrangements for formal visitation to the Exhibition by students of institutions of learning, under the guidance of experts, for special investigation and study of the Exhibition; (3) the arrangement of an educational congress.

"It is hoped that further special consideration will be given to these subjects at the meeting of the National Educational Association in August, at Minneapolis.

"JOHN EATON,

"Commissioner."

A great obstacle was thrown in the way of the successful presentation of education by the effort of persons to control the methods of the educational exhibition who had no special acquaintance with educational affairs.

States that have become active in preparing to exhibit their products have created commissions to supervise their representations.

These commissions, though constituted of able men, skilled and competent to devise and arrange exhibitions of any or all the other products of the State, in no instance contained any one specially skilled in educational affairs. In some States the result will be no exhibition of education. In others the mistake has been discovered in season to apply the remedy, and the State commissions are inviting the coöperation of the proper school officers. In very few instances are the preparations of the exhibits of education receiving any aid from State appropriations.

Whatever is done, therefore, in most of the States will be the result of the skill and labor of the educators and the pecuniary aid of friends of education.

It is to be hoped that the next century will see some progress in dissipating the notion that persons without special training or experience in educational affairs can properly care for these important interests. No subject requires more special skill, and if the public would have the best education for its youth, public sentiment, while it encourages the participation of all concerned, according to their qualifications, must finally come to reject the idea that any one can play on the many stringed harp of the human mind, or organize or conduct institutions and systems in which it is attuned for harmony or discord for an immortal existence. Some hesitation has also been created in the preparation, by the fear which has arisen in some quarters that the Centennial Commission will not reserve sufficient space for the educational exhibit, or that they may put it in some out of the way place, (e. g., a gallery,) or may break it into fragments, and thus destroy the logical effect of the exhibition. So fatal a step would seem impossible. The interest of foreign educators in what is to be accomplished is already manifested in many ways. Some foreign countries have their educational exhibits well prepared.

Dr. Lyon Playfair, M. P., late postmaster-general under Mr. Gladstone, having received from this Office the circular containing suggestions, writes commending the plan, and remarking that if it can be carried out the educational results will be greater than from any previous world's fair. M. Hippeau, a well-known French writer on education, on receipt of the circular of suggestions, published an extended communication in La République Française upon education at the Exhibition. He quotes the programme, and makes many observations worthy of special note by Americans. In reference to the Exhibition, he observes:

There will be many objects to attract the attention of foreign visitors, but we may boldly affirm that none will produce a deeper impression than the educational exhibit, and this from the following reasons: The United States have the right to feel proud of their public schools and institutions to produce enlightened and educated men for the honor and prosperity of their Republic. In direct opposition to the course pursued by countries which consider the progress of public instruction a peril to society, the Americans see in it the essential condition of their prosperity and the foundation of their country's grandeur.

And again he adds:

The idea has been suggested, and not without reason, that our workingmen should be furnished the means to go to Philadelphia, and study there the results of manufacturing industry. Have people also thought of letting our teachers derive some profit from this unique occasion to study everything the United States have done for education in the way of school organization, methods of instruction, educational apparatus, hygienic regulations, &c.? Would not the directors of our normal schools, the heads of our great institutions, find it greatly to their interest to make such studies? The government ought to understand this necessity, and the minister of public instruction at least ought to conceive this idea.

He gives his reason for expecting the success of our educational exhibit, and, explaining the agency of the Bureau of Education in promoting that success, remarks that those educators who have asked for its establishment based their request on Montesquieu's remark that "in a republic the influence of education is all powerful."

Commending the limitations of the Office, he says:

Limited though it be in its functions, the Bureau of Education nevertheless renders immense services, and in its capacity as a popularizer of the methods followed by the different States for furthering the cause of education it exercises a most beneficial influence.

Again, referring to its 8,000 special correspondents, he says:

The number of its special correspondents is not less than 8,000. When one thinks that in the United States there are more than 600,000 persons who, in the capacity of teachers, directors, inspectors, contributors to and superintendents of benevolent institations, take a direct interest in the success of education, one will understand the difference between countries in which the citizens take care of their own affairs and those in which the government has this exclusive care. It would, no doubt, be difficult to transplant to France institutious so much opposed to our habits, and which would but little suit our national character. But nothing could be more desirable than to have established in connection with our ministry of public instruction a "bureau of education" similar to the one which renders such valuable services in the United States.

His excellency the acting minister of public instruction for Japan informs me that his government will undertake an educational exhibit. We have similar information from Ontario and other countries. The preliminary catalogue of the Belgian exhibit is received, and gives promise of great interest. Prof. Hermann Kinkelin, of Basel, who received such deserved commendation for his presentation of Swiss education at Vienna, has prepared a presentation of Swiss educational statistics for Philadelphia. The Swiss Teachers' Journal thus describes it:

These new Swiss educational statistics are given in the shape of a number of Dufour's maps of Switzerland, in which the position which each canton occupies with regard to education is illustrated by different colors in a very simple and at the same time clear and ingenious manner.

Part I of the work consists of 24 copies of a reduced Dufour map of Switzerland on the scale of 1: 250,000.

The first seven maps, Nos. 1-7, show all the public secondary and superior schools at intervals of ten years, the last for the year 1875; and it is interesting to see how in most parts of Switzerland the colored dots increase in number from one decennial period to the next, while in other respects everything remains pretty much the same. No. 8 shows the private schools and benevolent institutions.

No. 9 shows in different colors the time annually given to instruction in the primary schools in the various cantons, those having the shortest time being colored black and gradually getting lighter till those having the longest time are colored quite light. The lightest canton is Basel Town, which has 45 weeks' instruction per annum. Next follow Glarus, Geneva, Zurich, and Schaffhausen, while Valais, Appenzell Interior, Grisons, and Uri are quite dark-27.5 and 24.2 weeks per annum.

No. 10 shows the total amount of time devoted to instruction during the period of school age. In this map Vaud is colored brightest, having a total of 385 weeks; while Uri is darkest, 152 weeks; (Basel Town 329 weeks, and Basel Country 300.)

No. 11 shows the arrangements regarding the separation of the sexes in the different

cantons.

No. 12 shows the number of primary scholars to 1,000 inhabitants, Basel Country taking the lead with 195; (Basel Town, 66.)

No. 13 shows the average number of primary scholars to one teacher; first, Grisons, 32; Tessin, 36; Valais, 37; Basel Town, 55; Basel Country, 95; and, finally, Appenzell Exterior, 107.

No. 14 shows the number of scholars in the higher and lower secondary schools to every 10,000 inhabitants, Basel Town taking the lead with 457, the last being Appenzell Interior with 11.

No. 15 shows the number of primary teachers to every 10,000 inhabitants; first, Grisons with 48, and last Basel Town with 12.

No. 16 shows the sex of the primary teachers, giving the percentage of male teachers on the whole number of teachers; Glarus, Basel Town, and Appenzell Interior, 100 per cent.; Upper Unterwald, 25 per cent.

No. 17 shows the average annual salary of male primary teachers in francs. The lightest-colored canton is Basel Town with 2,480 francs, and the blackest Valais with 243 francs.

No. 18 shows the average annual salary of female primary teachers. Geneva, 998 francs; Valais, 220 francs.

No. 19 shows the average annual salary of all teachers, (male and female.) Basel Town, 2,199 francs; Valais, 234 francs.

No. 20 shows the average amount of school property to 1 scholar.