7. Requiring history of the United States, and physiology and hygiene, to be studied in all the schools above the grade of primary.

This bill passed the Assembly without opposition, but in the Senate a determined fight was made to defeat it. The following is the Senate vote on this bill, which was one of the greatest advances ever made in school legislation in the State:

AYES-Benton, Burnell, Crane, Cunningham, Foulke, Hall, Haswell, Kutz, Maddox, McMurtry, Moyle, Porter, Roberts, Shepard, Tuttle, and Wright-18.

NOES-Buckley, Dodge, Evans, Freeman, Gaskill, Hamilton, Hawes, Montgomery, Pearce, Redington, Rush, and Shafter -12.

30. FIRST BIENNIAL REPORT, 1864-65.

The change of the sessions of the Legislature from annual to biennial required biennial school reports instead of annual.

The First Biennial Report was the most elaborate of Mr. Swett's reports. It opened as follows:

At the opening of this report, I take pleasure in stating that the criticisms of 1863 no longer apply to our school system, and that the hope expressed in 1864 has been more than realized.

Notwithstanding the school year closed before the bountiful harvests of the autumn were gathered, and while the State was still suffering from its previous financial prostration, the statistical returns exhibit an educational progress of which all Californians may well be proud.

While the increase of taxable property in the State from 1863 to 1864 was only three and seven-tenths per cent., the increase of school money raised by taxation alone, of 1865 over 1864, on the assessment-roll of 1864, was ninety-one and seven-tenths per cent.

The average length of schools has been increased, since 1863, nearly one month. While the number of teachers has increased only fifteen per cent. during the last year, the amount paid for teachers' salaries has increased sixty per cent.

The amount of school revenue from all sources has been increased, since 1863, $2.58 per census child.

The amount expended for schoolhouses shows an increase over 1863 of $164,000.

While the number of children between 4 and 18 years of age has increased 26 per cent. since 1863, the average number belonging to public schools has increased in the same time 46 per cent. During the last year the increase of census children was 9 per cent., and of public school attendance 16 per cent.

The number of free schools has been increased seventy-eight in two years, and more than half the public school children are now

relieved from rate bills, while the remainder pay an average tuition fee of twenty-five cents a month.

A careful examination of the full statistical tables submitted in this report, will show a great advance in all that relates to the material progress of the schools.

But there is a vital and intangible aspect which no statistics can exhibit.

The stronger hold which the schools have taken on public opinion; the greater skill, earnestness, and ability of teachers; the improvement in methods of instruction and classification; the greater interest and enthusiasm of pupils, consequent upon the introduction of better books; the greater interest of parents; the civilizing agency of well-conducted schools in all the little communities of the Statethese cannot be expressed in figures nor conveyed in words.

California has taken her place in the front rank with those States whose material prosperity has been the result of public schools; and it is the duty of every legislator and every statesman to strengthen and perfect a system of schools which shall educate a race of men and women for the next generation that shall inherit, with the boundless resources of the Golden State, something of the energy, enterprise, talent, character and intelligence which have settled and civilized it.

The following are some of the main topics treated of in this report:

I am reluctant to close this long and complicated report of details and statistics, necessary to be made, and yet from their character, tiresome to most except school officers and teachers, without a final appeal to the legislators who will be called upon to act on its suggestions and recommendations.

Previous to the lessons taught us by the great war just closedin suffering, and doubt, and blood, and tears-the great fundamental truths of our school system had grown to be glittering generalities for gracing political speeches or governors' messages. These truths are now felt as a solid reality by the States on the other side of the continent; and under all the burdens of their debts, incurred in

saving the nation, they are striving to make their public schools more effective by more liberal provisions for their support. I am painfully conscious that our schools, while accomplishing something, fall far short of the great work which is pressing upon them. They need both judicious legislation for their government and liberal taxation for their support. It is a matter of deep regret to all thinking men, that some of our citizens who represent the greatest wealth of the community are engaged in a crusade against taxation for the support of schools, and are waging their warfare under the hue and cry of extravagance, for the purpose of exciting the prejudices of the people.

LIBERALITY IS ECONOMY.

Liberality in educating the people is the true economy of States. What would be extravagance in one individual, whose life is limited to a few years, is economy in the life of a State or nation; what would be economy in a single man, is meanness in a State. This generation is not living for itself alone, but for future generations and for the future greatness of the nation. We have those among us who, to save from each dollar they call their own, a tax of one one-hundredth of one per cent., would make serfs of the next generation by leaving the children to grow up in ignorance; who think intelligence, cultivation, refinement, honor, integrity, morality, religion and patriotism among common people-the working classes are myths; that the only thing tangible is real estate, and the great object of life is to escape taxation. Public schools are synonymous with taxation; they represent taxation, and the sooner the " common people" understand this democratic-republican doctrine the better for the State, the better for property, the better for mankind, the better for the nation. There is altogether too much of this whining about taxation for the support of schools. Where would the nation have been to-day but for public schools? Who fought our battles in the last war, but the men who were drilled into patriots in public schools supported by taxation? Last year the nation paid $22,000,000 for the support of schools; what true statesman wishes it had been less? The public schools are the educators of the working men and women of the nation, and they are the producers of all the wealth which is protected by law. The schools mold the characters of the men whose will, expressed through the ballot-box, makes and unmakes constitutions, and breathes life into all laws.

I appeal to legislators, when the school bill comes before them, to bear in mind that in providing for schools, a liberal expenditure is, in the end, the truest economy; and when the cry of taxation is urged against any reasonable and necessary appropriations, to remember this great truth, so well expressed by Horace Mann: “In our country and in our times no man is worthy the honored name of statesman who does not include the highest practicable education of the people in all his plans of administration. He may have eloquence, he may have a knowledge of all history, diplomacy, jurisprudence and by these he might claim in other countries the elevated rank of statesman; but, unless he speaks, plans and labors,

at all times and in all places, for the culture and edification of the whole people, he is not, he cannot be, an American statesman.

31. SECOND BIENNIAL REPORT, 1866-67.

This report opens with the following statement of progress: The school year ending June 30, 1867, marks the transition period of California from rate-bill common schools to an American free school system.

For the first time in the history of the State, every public school was made entirely free for every child to enter.

In the smaller districts, having less than 100 children and less than $200,000 taxable property, free schools were maintained three months; in the larger districts, having more than 100 children and $200,000 taxable property, free schools were kept open five months. More than 21,000 pupils attended free schools during the entire school year of ten months.

FREE SCHOOLS AT LAST.

I am glad that in this, my last official report, I can say that a system of free schools, supported by taxation, is an accomplished fact.

When I assumed the duties of this office, five years ago, I saw clearly that it was useless to expect to improve the character of the public schools to any considerable extent without a largely increased school revenue, derived from direct taxation on property.

At the session of the Legislature in 1863, I secured a revision of the School Law, and a State school tax of five cents on the hundred dollars, which gave an additional revenue to the State Fund of $75,000 a year. A bill was also passed providing for the gradual funding of the indebtedness of the State to the School Department, then amounting to $600,000. At the next session, in 1864, an additional school revenue was secured by providing that the minimum county school tax should be equal to $2 per census child. This little clause gave an additional county school revenue of $75,000.

In 1866, by the passage of the "Revised School Law," the State school tax was raised to eight cents on the hundred dollars, and the minimum county tax was raised equal to $3 per census child, both provisions together increasing the school revenue by at least $125,000 a year. I need not say that to secure an additional school revenue of $300,000 per annum, in the face of the high county, State, and National taxation, during a period of civil war, was no holiday task.

During each successive session of the Legislature I became a persistent member of the "Third House," arguing, soliciting, meeting committees, and patiently waiting, with a determination to secure for every child in California a right guaranteed by law to an education in a system of free schools based upon the proposition that the property of the State ought to be taxed to educate the children of the State.

I saw clearly at the outset that even after the revenue was provided, the schools would be to some extent a failure, unless protected from incompetent teachers by a thorough system of State examinations and certificates, for the schools cannot rise higher than the teachers.

PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS.

The second leading object of my administration has been to secure a corps of professional teachers, and to elevate the occupation of teaching. How far this has been accomplished, the list of professional teachers, and the graduates of the Normal School, found in this report, will show.

One third of the teachers in the State hold State diplomas and certificates, and one twelfth of the teachers are graduates of the California State Normal School.

A State Board of Education, of Examination, of Normal School Trustees; a uniform series of text-books, a course of study, rules and regulations, an educational journal-all constitute a system of education, in place of the irregular and unsystematized half public and half rate-bill schools of five years ago.

THE REVISED SCHOOL LAW.

Early in the session of 1865-66, the State Superintendent submitted a series of amendments to the Senate Committee on Education.

The amendments were so extensive that the committee referred the entire law to the Superintendent for revision. The law, as drafted by me, was submitted to the committee and adopted, with a few slight changes.

The more important improvements effected in the School Law by the first revision in 1863, and the second revision in 1865, may be briefly summed up as follows:

1. Organizing a State Board of Education of nine members.

2. Organizing a Board of State Normal School Trustees of eight members.

3. Authorizing the State Board of Education to adopt rules and regulations and a course of study for public schools.

4. Authorizing the State Board to adopt a uniform State series of text-books.

5. Providing each school with a State School Register.

6. Providing for the binding and preservation of school documents in the State and county departments of instruction.

7. Providing that the Legislature shall furnish the State Superintendent with at least two thousand copies of each biennial report for distribution among school officers, and libraries.

8. Requiring the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to visit schools and lecture at least three months each year, and providing for the payment of actual traveling expenses.

9. Establishing County Teachers' Institutes, and providing for the payment of necessary expenses out of the County School Fund. 10. Funding the debt of the State to the School Fund.