DEPARTMENT OF SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 27, 1875.

FIRST DAY.

The department of superintendence of the National Educational Association, agreeably to the call of the president of the department and the Commissioner of Education, as previously arranged, assembled at the office of the Commissioner of Education, at 9 o'clock on the morning of the 27th of January, and proceeded thence to Willard Hall, where the meeting was called to order at 11 o'clock by Mr. J. Ormond Wilson, president, the following members being present, viz:

Alonzo Abernethy, State-superintendent, Iowa; George P. Brown, superintendent, Indianapolis, Ind.; O. A. Burgess, president Christian University, Indianapolis, Ind.; William R. Creery, superintendent, Baltimore, Md.; Richard L. Carne, superintendent, Alexandria, Va.; George F. T. Cook, superintendent colored-schools, Washington and Georgetown, D. C.; R. L. Cooper, superintendent, Stafford County, Va.; William L. Dickinson, superintendent, Jersey City, N. J.; General John Eaton, Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C.; Alex. C. Hopkins, State-superintendent, Indiana; M. N. Horton, superintendent, Williamsport, Pa.; J. K. Jillson, State-superintendent, South Carolina; George J. Luckey, superintendent, Pittsburg, Pa.; R. McMillan, superintendent, Youngstown, Ohio; A. P. Marble, superintendent, Worcester, Mass.; M. A. Newell, State-superintendent, Maryland; B. G. Northrop, secretary State-board of education, New Haven, Conn.; B. F. Patterson, superintendent, Pottsville, Pa.; John D. Philbrick, ex-superintendent, Boston, Mass.; H. S. Tarbell, superintendent, East Saginaw, Mich.; John P. Wickersham, State-superintendent, Harrisburg, Pa.; and J. Ormond Wilson, superintendent, Washington, D. C.

Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Rankin, of Washington City.
President Wilson then delivered the following

ADDRESS OF WELCOME.

GENTLEMEN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SUPERINTENDENCE: We have assembled pursuant to adjournment of this department made at the meeting held in August last at Detroit, and it is my privilege, in behalf of this city, to bid you a hearty welcome. The United States Commissioner of Education and the officers of this department, who were authorized to make the arrangements for this meeting, found it impracticable to prepare in advance a full and exact programme for your procedure, and in the circular-letter recently addressed to you they have only invited your attention to some of the important topics that will be presented for your consideration.

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At no time since the foundation of the National Government has the subject of education, especially when regarded as a part of our public policy, demanded more earnest thought, careful discussion, and resolute action than it now does.

It is a time of sharp, bold, sometimes reckless inquiry, that has little respect for venerable precedent and the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. It is claimed here and there, by those who are casting about to find a scapegoat on which to load all the evils of the day, that the public schools are failing to accomplish their professed mission; that they are alienating youth from the honest toil and thrift of the fathers, sending them from the rural districts, where

As she fled mankind,

There justice left her last lone trace behind,

and gathering them into the cities and larger towns, often to become the prey of recklessness, extravagance, and dissipation; that they fail in properly interweaving spiritual with secular instruction, or that the moral instruction that is imparted infringes upon the prerogatives of the family or church; that they are undermining the physical constitutions of the children committed to their care and are sowing the seeds of weakness, disease, and deformity; that they are undertaking too much when they pass beyond the boundaries of the rudiments of knowledge and enter upon the work of the high school, the college, and the university. Occasionally it is even asserted that our National Bureau of Education is not needed by the State and local educational organizations, or, on the other hand, that it is, with its limited functions and scanty appropriations, a dangerous centralizing power, and therefore it should be "cut up by the roots."

This apparently unfriendly agitation and discussion should not in the least dishearten the friends of the common schools, for it is evident to the most superficial observer that the country is in need of more and better education, and these assaults may prove to be like the storms that send the roots of the oak deeper into the earth that supports it. The work in which we are engaged will neither go backward nor halt, and we meet to-day to assist in pointing the way to a future that shall more fully meet the demands of an advancing civilization.

The president then announced that motions were now in order. General Eaton, United States Commissioner of Education, moved, in the absence of the secretary, Mr. Stevenson, of Ohio, the appointment of a secretary pro tempore, and nominated Mr. George P. Brown, who was accordingly elected; and Mr. Goodwin Y. AtLee, of Washington, D. C., was appointed assistant secretary.

The PRESIDENT. I would suggest that the members of the department hand their names to the secretary, so that he can make a complete record of the members present.

On motion of General Eaton, it was ordered that the president appoint a committee of three on order of business.

General Eaton, Hon. J. P. Wickersham of Pennsylvania, and Hon. A. Abernethy of Iowa were accordingly appointed.

After a brief consultation the committee reported that the papers by Dr. A. N. Bell and Professor Walter Smith should be reserved for the evening-exercises, and suggested that the paper of Hon. B. G. Northrop should be now read, and stated that the committee would report again on the further order of business.

The president then announced that "the first paper to be presented this morning is by Hon. B. G. Northrop, secretary of the State-board of

education of Connecticut. His subject is 'Legal prevention of illiteracy.'"

REMARKS OF MR. NORTHROP.

Mr. Northrop prefaced his paper by the following remarks:

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN: In the brief time which I am allowed it will be impossible to discuss in a broad way the general subject announced, and I am undoubtedly expected to speak of the way the plan of compulsory education works in Connecticut, the State where I am secretary of the educational board.

Mr. J. P. WICKERSHAM, (interrupting.) If Mr. Northrop will be kind enough to suspend his remarks one moment, I will make a motion. I move that at a suitable time the members of this department call in a body on the President of the United States and pay their respects to him.

The motion was adopted.

Mr. ALEXANDER C. HOPKINS, of Indiana. There are some gentlemen here, presidents of universities, presidents of colleges, &c., who, perhaps, feel a little timidity in participating in our proceedings. They may think that this is a meeting expressly for the department of superintendence. I merely wish to suggest the propriety of giving an invitation to all such persons present to participate in our proceedings. I would suggest that they be called upon to give their names to the secretary, and thus become enrolled in our list. Thus we may receive the benefit of their counsels, while they will receive whatever advantage can be gained in a free consultation with the superintendents.

The PRESIDENT. If I am not mistaken it has always been considered that all such persons who are members of the National Educational Association are entitled to participate in our proceedings. It has always been considered, as I understand it, that members of the National Educational Association were members of this department. Members of the National Educational Association are cordially invited to participate in our proceedings.

General EATON. May I suggest, Mr. President, that you probably intend now to say that any of the presidents of colleges or friends of education may consider themselves invited to become members of the National Educational Association and participate with us on this occasion?

The PRESIDENT. Yes, sir.

General EATON. My recollection fully confirms what the president has said, that gentlemen interested in the cause of education have always been invited to participate in our deliberations at their will.

Mr. NORTHROP resumed:

I was about to say that my aim would be especially to speak of the working of these laws in the State of Connecticut. With this explanation I will proceed with the reading of the paper upon

THE LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY.

Public sentiment is a growing power the world over. In our country its influence is most marked. Here it creates law and repeals it. A law in violation of public sentiment is a dead letter, and therefore demoralizing, for laws habitually violated tend to lawlessness. Reverence for law is a wholesome sentiment, which should be early implanted in the juvenile mind. Laws in reference alike to the support of schools or attendance upon them must depend largely upon public sentiment. Laws, which may be just and right in themselves, adapted, if sustained, to promote the greatest good of the greatest number, may yet fail utterly from the want of popular sympathy and support. The question of the expediency of compulsory attendance at school in any given State depends on the enlightened public sentiment of that community.

Wherever good schools have been so long maintained that the people generally regard them as essential to their individual thrift and happiness and to public security, morality, and prosperity, there laws for the prevention of illiteracy may be wisely enacted. In those States where free public schools are still a novelty or where illiteracy most abounds, where multitudes appreciate neither the advantages of education nor the evils of ignorance, compulsory attendance would be premature and impracticable.

But in those States where the traditions of the people from their earliest history have fostered the general appreciation of the common-school-education as their most precious heritage, as the source of their success and prosperity, as indispensable to their future growth, as the cheapest police-agency, education comes at length to be recognized as the universal right, duty, and interest of man. If the State has a right to hang a criminal, it has a better right to prevent his crime by proper culture. The right to imprison and to execute implies the right to use the best means to prevent the need of either.

In Connecticut public sentiment is steadily growing in favor of the legal prevention of illiteracy. Stringent as are our laws on this subject, they have awakened no public opposition. A few individual malcontents among recent immigrants, mostly those from Canada, have complained because their children could not be continuously employed in our factories. A few parents—I have not heard of over half a dozen in all-openly defied the law, but, as soon as they found that legal complaints were made out against them, they were glad to stay proceedings by compliance with its provisions. Under this law we have had as yet no prosecutions and no penalties. We hope there will be

none.

To intensify popular interest in education I have visited every township in Connecticut, and most of them repeatedly. It has been our aim to make the public school the center of attraction and interest, so that attendance shall be regarded as a privilege rather than a legal necessity.

LAWS ADOPTED IN CONNECTICUT.

You ask me to describe the methods and results of our proceedings in Connecticut under the new laws of obligatory education. These laws relate both to employers and parents. The law in regard to employers was adopted in 1869. That form of compulsory education has been in force for five years. An earlier law, copied verbatim from a Massachusetts statute, pronounced its penalty against all manufacturers who should "knowingly employ children who had not attended school," &c. That one word “knowingly" utterly vitiated the law. It was inserted as an amendment to the original bill on its second reading in the Massachusetts senate, at the suggestion of a manufacturer who knew well "how not to do it." The Massachusetts law still retains that unfortunate word. Practically, it is found impossible to prove the employer's knowledge of the child's non-attendance. "Not to know" is always easy for any employer.

Our law originally applied to manufacturers only; as revised, it relates equally to all employers. According to its provisions, no child under 14 years of age can be

lawfully employed to labor in any business whatsoever, unless such child shall have attended some school at least three months in each year of such service. The penalty for the violation of this law is one hundred dollars for each offense.

Realizing that the efficiency of the law would depend largely on the department of education, I determined it should not be a dead letter; but, instead of threatening prosecutions at the outset, I sought to conciliate our manufacturers, conferring with them courteously as friends of education and assuming that they would heartily co-operate in the enforcement of the law. To this end, I drew up the following pledge: "We hereby agree that we will employ no children under 14 years of age, except those who are provided with a certificate from the local school-officers of actual attendance at school the full term required by law." I first presented it to ex-Governor James E. English; then to Governor Marshall Jewell; next to ex-Governor William A. Buckingham, who each extensive manufacturers-cheerfully signed it. I then started to get the signatures of manufacturers generally; but the work proved so great and important that a gentleman was appointed as agent of the board of education to canvass the State. He visited the leading manufacturers throughout the State, and, with one exception, they all cheerfully signed the above pledge. This law has proved beneficent in its results. During the five years of its operation it has met general and cordial approval and brought large numbers into our schools. Instances of remissness sometimes occur. Vigilance is needful.

The agent of the State-board of education is now chiefly occupied in visiting schoolofficers and manufacturers in all parts of the State for the purpose of securing the attendance of children at school.

In a circular sent to every township, I have requested the local school-officers to communicate to me any facts they may learn as to neglect in the schooling of children. It is not believed that any one of the signers intends to repudiate the agreement above cited. They have shown a degree of liberality and interest in education worthy of commendation. A courteous reminder from the agent or secretary of the board has been sufficient to remedy an occasional remissness attributed to inadvertency.

Nearly four years ago a law of compulsory attendance at school was passed in Connecticut applying to all parents of children who were employed to labor at any business in this State and who were discharged for the purpose of attending school. This class of children was supposed to comprise nearly all "non-attendants." The next year this limitation was removed. Our law now requires that "every parent, guardian, or other person having control and charge of any child between the ages of 8 and 14 years, shall cause such child to attend some public or private day-school at least three months in each year, six weeks at least of which attendance shall be consecutive, or to be instructed at home at least three months in each year in the branches of education required to be taught in the public schools, unless the physical or mental condition of the child is such as to render such attendance inexpedient or impracticable." The penalty for the violation of the above provisions is a fine of five dollars "for every week, not exceeding thirteen weeks in any one year, during which any parent or guardian shall have failed to comply therewith." As French Canadians are very numerous in many of our manufacturing-villages, printed posters in both French and English, giving the substance of the law both in its application to parents and employers, were widely circulated and posted.

The following notice, neatly printed, was also sent to the manufacturers of the State, to be posted in some conspicuous place :

"In accordance with the statute of the legislature of 1869, no children under 14 years of age can hereafter be employed in this factory except those who present a certificate from the local school-officers of actual attendance at school the full time required by law, which is at least three months of the twelve next preceding any and every year in which such children shall be so employed."

Printed blank forms of complaint against negligent parents were prepared. In a few instances a legal process was begun against delinquent parents; but, when it was seen