REPORT. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C., November, 1875. SIR: I have the honor to submit my sixth annual report. The appropriation for the Bureau for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1875, was $35,570; the same amount was appropriated for the year ending June 30, 1876. This is entirely inadequate to the demands of the country upon the Office. No private business firm carries on the correspondence and accomplishes the tasks imposed upon this Office with so small an expenditure; yet, in spite of the lack of adequate means, the increased skill of my assistants, the improvement in methods of business, and, above all, the hearty and universal cooperation of the educators of the country, have enabled the Office to accomplish more during the year now drawing to a close than in any previous year of its history. WORK AND NEEDS OF THE OFFICE. Attention is invited to its special needs, and in order to render the statement more effective, I beg to recall and submit a few illustrative facts. This Office was established on the petition and at the request of the educators of the country, a few years since, "for the purpose," as detailed in the law, "of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several States and Territories, and of diffusing such information respecting the organization and management of schools and school systems, and methods of teaching, as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country." As a means of executing this purpose, the Commissioner is required— 1st. To collect statistics and information in regard to education; 2d. To prepare annual and special reports; 3d. To publish circulars of information. It was hardly possible at that time to anticipate in detail the work that would be required in the administration of the law. A Commissioner and three clerks were provided, and the experiment set on foot. Subsequently, by law, the clerks were reduced to two, and for the year ending June 30, 1870, only $6,000 were appropriated for salaries and other expenses of the Office. At first the fear was expressed that the officers of State and city educational systems, and those charged with the care of institutions of education, might naturally be suspicious of such an office, fearing that some governmental control or supervision was contemplated. Indeed, it is not an uncommon declaration that all Americans are educated, and know enough most certainly to direct anything in regard to education. "Why," the question is asked, "should a national office be created or sustained to consider a subject on which additional information is altogether superfluous?" The reply to this might have been found in the fact that the Office had been created at the request of those most familiar with educational needs. No opposition from State or other educational officers has been experienced; on the contrary, the Office has been largely indebted for its usefulness and efficiency to their cordial and constant cooperation. These officers, engaged in the various grades and phases of instruction, from that of the Kindergarten to that of the university, freely furnish the information in their possession, sometimes at the cost of considerable effort to themselves, and with no other return than the receipt of copies of the publications of the Office and the satisfaction of having in this manuer contributed to the general progress of education. Only that information is sought which is deemed important in the field of education, and which educational officers wish to give. When the work of collecting educational statistics was begun by the Office, it was found that there was no authentic list of the colleges in the United States, or of academies, or normal schools, or schools of science, law, or medicine, or of any other class of educational institutions. The lists of nearly all grades of schools are now nearly complete. Information on all other matters relating to educational systems was equally incomplete and difficult of access. Starting with a nomenclature that well-nigh precluded the possibility of any satisfactory comparison, either for use in our own country or elsewhere, now, year by year, purely on the voluntary principle, these institutions and systems of education, numbering in all more than 6,000, report the facts most indicative of their success or failure in terms susceptible of substantially correct inference and comparison. The work to be provided for, therefore, is no longer a matter of conjecture. It can be seen and described. Work of the Commissioner.—It is the work of the Commissioner to supervise and direct the business of the Office; to keep himself informed of all details in the progress of education at home and abroad; to receive the constantly increasing number of visitors seeking information on particular phases of education; to visit educational institutions and to attend educational associations, and to read and answer all communications needing his personal attention. The work of answering the large and increasing number of the class of communications just mentioned cannot be performed without the aid of one skilful and well-informed stenographic clerk, and at times two are required. Duties of the chief clerk.-Under the chief clerk comes the general work of the Office, such as the opening, recording, and answering of the mail matter; briefing and recording of the letters received; writing and recording of letters sent; distribution of the mail to the proper sections in the Office; keeping a record of all expenditures and duplicate vouchers of the same; folding, directing, and stamping parcels or documents sent, &c. During the year 1875 more than 4,000 letters were written; 3,500 acknowledgments were made, and a large number of printed letters on routine business sent out. The four copyists allowed by the law are engaged in this work when not detailed to copy statistics or manuscript for the several divisions preparatory to printing. So numerous have been the interruptions in this work, caused by the various details just mentioned, that it has been impossible to keep up the permanent record of letters sent or permanent record of briefs on letters received; and the regular work of the Office has been much delayed on this account. Only press copies of letters sent have been taken, and letters received have not been recorded in books, as is usual. The number of documents sent out during the year 1875 numbered over 7,000 bound volumes, and 95,000 pamphlets on educational subjects, published by the Office. For the discharge of these duties, though absolutely essential to the administration of the Office in answering the demands of the public, there is no force specifically provided. This Office occupies seventeen rooms: six in the basement, four on the first floor, six on the second floor, and one on the third floor. Four rooms in the basement are occupied by furnaces, which have to be attended to in winter. Twenty-six large windows must be washed, and the wood work of at least thirteen has to be kept clean. These rooms have also to be swept, dusted, &c. For this work the law makes no present provision, and the laborer to do it is requested in my estimates. Division of abstracts.-In the division in which the annual abstract of education in the States and Territories is made out, so great an amount of matter is received that the one clerk to whom that work is assigned is overtasked with the labor of properly condensing it. From fifty to sixty thousand pages of printed matter additional to thousands of written returns have here to be gone over in order to prepare 400 pages of annual abstract. In addition, 200 letters conveying information drawn from these sources, and answering inquiries not answerable directly by printed documents at the command of the Office, were written in this division during the past year. Of these letters a considerable number are quite extensive discussions of the subjects treated in them. Two additional clerks of class one are needed for this work. Statistical division.-The value of the reports of the Office largely depends on the falness, accuracy, and systematic arrangement of the statistical material embodied in them. Hence it is necessary that the force of the statistical branch should be sufficient to do its work well and thoroughly. While no adequate idea of the extent and variety of this work can be conveyed by a mere statement of the number of educational institutions which directly report their statistics to the Bureau, a glance at the following figures may indicate in some measure the annual increase therein since my first report was issued, in 1870: Statement of educational institutions in correspondence with the Bureau of Education in the years named. The above statement relates solely to the statistical labor on the annual report. There has been a like increase of work, not shown in the annual or special reports of the Office, in answer to special and individual demands for educational statistics. These requests come from all classes of educators and school officers and from all parts of the United States and from many foreign countries, and relate to every grade of instruction and to every class of institutions. The usefulness of the Office largely depends on its ability to meet these appeals, and is diminished by inability to do so as fully as their importance merits. In a word, while the work of the statistical branch has increased more than fourfold since 1870, there has been no corresponding increase in its clerical force under the law. While the quantity of statistical work has necessarily increased so largely, its quality has also improved, as a comparison of the earlier with the later reports shows. As the sphere of statistics enlarges in the discussion of educational questions, the demand for specific statements of results and experiences increases; and as the study of such knowledge becomes more thorough, all statistics are more closely and intelligently scrutinized and their conclusions challenged. To keep pace with the more rigorous requirements of the present, it is clearly necessary that the clerical force should be increased. The law recognizing this branch of the service provides only for a statistician. I have added, by detail, a clerk of class two authorized by law. This work on no fair estimate can be performed with less than the addition of another second class clerk and two copyists. Work of the translator.—The foreign correspondence and the documents received from foreign countries contain matters of very great interest, and this Office in the nature of the case is the only medium through which their contents become generally known among American educators. Over 32,000 pages of foreign periodicals, reports, and works on education have been examined by the translator, 500 printed pages were translated in full, as well as a large number of letters in German, French, Spanish, Italian, and other languages, in a single year. The law provides for only one translator for this work, with a salary of $1,600. Publications. It will appear from the above statement that the labor of editing and proof-reading demanded annually imposes no small task upon the Office. In this connection it should be remembered that the utmost exactness is required in the very nature of these publications. Each figure put down against the name of a place or institution or individual is liable to be questioned at once. A librarian needed.—Nothing is more essential to the efficiency of the Office than a well ordered collection of all publications upon education, whether in the form of periodicals, reports, catalogues, or treatises relating to its various phases. By purchase and exchange, during the past five years, the library has attained a growth of 4,500 volumes and thrice that number of pamphlets. It is hardly necessary to add that it needs the services of an expert, or that, without the aid of a competent librarian, two-thirds of the usefulness of the library is lost. There is in this country no other collection similar in character of equal extent. It therefore affords the only opportunity within the reach of American citizens for investigating many phases of this subject. But the law provides no librarian, and the volumes, so far, are only put on the shelves, entered in a list, and used in the current work. There is no catalogue. The character of the works and subjects treated requires a librarian of special qualifications, familiar with educational topics, and competent to classify, catalogue, and index the additions as they are received. This would save much time in all the departments of the work that require the use of the library, and greatly increase its usefulness to the country. The working value of such a technical library depends almost wholly on its classification and the efficiency of its librarian. The collection and publication fund.-Recurring now to the extracts from the law, it will be seen that the only relief from these embarrassments is the temporary employment, as assistants, of persons paid to collect information and statistics. I have found that, by using the information in my possession, (thus imposing additional demands on the increased skill of my trained assistants, but involving no expense,) I have been enabled, by employing clerks at moderate pay, to accomplish much more than would be possible with the same amount of money if only experts were employed, eminent for their qualifications in the special subjects investigated; both of which courses are understood to be authorized in the appropriation for collecting and publishing information. If we have not the best methods, in every particular, for doing the work required by law with the means provided, it is simply because we have not been able to devise them, and others have not suggested them. It should be noticed that while in this way only could the regular work of the Office proper be performed at all, much in addition has been accomplished in the way of special investigation and the treatment of particular subjects by persons specially qualified. "The relation of education to labor," "The value of common school education to common labor," "Ignorance and pauperism," "Ignorance and crime," and "The constitutional provisions for education made by the several States," and numerous other subjects which have been treated in this way, in the reports and circulars of the Office, may be mentioned as instances. I should state here that putting the $11,000 in a single item was not at my suggestion. But gentlemen in Congress overruled my specific requests, and preferred to include the whole amount of the estimates for the various details of the work in one sum. It will be seen from these facts that experience has shown theirs to be the wiser plan, and that the Bureau has been enabled to expend this money far more effectively than if it had been limited to specific items, to be expended without any discretion on the part of the Commissioner. This will be appreciated when the character of the work is regarded; and it is seen that intelligence, accuracy, and culture are specially required. The advisability of making the appropriation in one sum rather than in specific items, was inferred froin the experience of the Department of Agriculture, where the sum of $15,000 appropriated in this way had been found necessary. Never before has there been manifested such a spirit of inquiry and investigation in regard to every phase of education, or such a desire for specific and accurate knowledge of our educational condition. The Office is in almost daily receipt, from university and college professors, public school officials and teachers, and eminent private citizens, of suggestions for the preparation and dissemination of documents on important educational topics of present interest, which bear witness to this spirit, to the growing usefulness of the Office, and to the expediency of increasing its efficiency. Much material for such documents-which would be of the greatest value to educators were the means afforded to prepare and place it before them-has already been gathered; and there would seem to be no question of the expediency of so increasing the Office force that such material may be made available to the educators of the country. So deeply have I felt this, and so fully have I been confirmed in this view by all educators who have looked carefully into the work; so fully have I become aware that the Office could not accomplish what is reasonably expected of it without a larger sum for these special reports-subjects of earnest, widespread inquiry-that I have asked that this amount should not only be retained but increased, and the other items specified. added. RECORDS OF EDUCATION. No person can at any time study any phase of social science and not be impressed with the need of greater accuracy and fulness of records. The lessons of ancient and medieval history are, on this account, largely lost to mankind. This is especially true in the field of education. Only here and there do we get glimpses of school life in ancient times; as, for example, that allusion by Aristophanes in his "Clouds,” to the fixed attention and determination of youth under instruction in Athens, which Mitchell translates as follows: No babbling then was suffered in our schools: In orderly procession sallied forth Right onwards, without straggling, to attend Their teacher in harmonics. Though the snow Fell on them thick as meal, the hardy brood Breasted the storm uncloaked. Their harps were strung A loftier key. Or like the following direction to pupils on the road to school in Sparta : When they were on the public roads to walk along in silence, not to look around in any direction, but to keep their eyes on what was before their feet. You would hear no more the sound of a voice from them than from stone statues. You would have as much difficulty in turning their eyes as if they were made of brass. |