associations, begun in 1836. The first State convention was called in 1843; the first teachers' institute held in 1845; the office of State commissioner of common schools was instituted by the Legislature in June, 1846; and the duty of the State in respect to the supervision of schools, which it makes obligatory on the towns, has since been recognized in some form, and at present by a State Board constituting the Governor and council, and the Superintendent of public instruction acting through county commissioners, or rather through a commissioner for each of the eight counties into which the State is divided. A private Normal school was instituted in 1845 at Reed's Ferry, by Prof. Wm. Russell, and a State Normal school was established in 1870 at Plymouth.

To supply the want of the old town grammar school, an act was passed in 1837 giving to the town of Portsmouth, and any other town which chose to adopt the provisions of the act, authority to provide for a graded course of studies in connection with the district schools. The same authority was given to central districts in 1848.

In 1872, there were 2,452 common schools taught in 2,284 districts, located in 232 towns, with a registered attendance of 72,672 pupils, under 3,826 teachers (3,241 females). The whole amount raised for school purposes was $468,527, of which $11,565 was paid the superintendents of town committees for their services. The buildings and sites of school-houses were valued at $1,870,000. According to the census of 1870 there were 7,618 persons over ten years of age who could not read, and 9,926 who could not write.

Various attempts have been made since 1846 to protect children under fifteen years of age employed in factories and other manufacturing establishments from excessive labor, and secure to all children elementary instruction, which culminated in 1871 in An Act to compel children to attend school,' which ordains that all parents, guardians, or masters of any child between the ages of eight and fourteen, residing within two miles of a public school, shall send such child at least twelve weeks in each year, six of which must be consecutive, unless such child shall be excluded from such attendance on the ground of physical or mental inability, to profit by such attendance; or is instructed in the same period in a private school or at home, under penalties for violation, $10 for the first and $20 for each subsequent offense, to be recovered as in an action for debt. A penalty attaches to school officers for not executing the law.

NEW JERSEY.

New Jersey was first settled in 1627, and adopted its first constitution as a State in 1776, with an area at that time of 8,320 square miles, and a population in 1790 of 184,139, which in 1870 had increased to 906,096, with a valuation of taxable property of $624,868,971.

The constitution of 1776 contains no allusion to schools or education; nor prior to the colonial period was there any legislation respecting common schools. In 1816 an act to create a fund for the support of free schools was adopted, and the first distribution of its income took place under the act of 1829, passed to establish common schools.' By this act towns were authorized to raise money to support schools by tax, and must raise in this way a sum sufficient to entitle it to any portion of the income of the school fund; but it was not till ten years later that towns were compelled to raise a specified sum every year, nor till 1871 that the schools were made free by a State school tax of 2 mills on the valuation.

The first educational convention in the State was held in 1828, at Trenton, and from that time the subject of school improvement was agitated in county and state meetings until 1838, when a large meeting of delegates from every part of the State was held at Trenton, presided over by Chief Justice Hornblower, and the address of which to the people of the State was drawn up by Rt. Rev. Bishop Doane. From this rousing address we make a brief extract: We address you as the sovereign people, and we say that it is your duty and your highest interest to provide and maintain, within the reach of every child, the means of such an education as will qualify him to discharge the duties of a citizen of the Republic; and will enable him, by subsequent exertion, in the free exercise of the unconquerable will, to attain the highest eminence in knowledge and power which God may place within his reach. We utterly repudiate as unworthy, not of freemen only, but of men, the narrow notion that there is to be an education for the poor as such. Has God provided for the poor a coarser earth, a thinner sky, a paler air? Does not the glorious sun pour down his golden flood as cheerily upon the poor man's hovel as upon the rich man's palace? Have not the cotter's children as keen a sense of all the freshness, verdure, fragrance, melody, and beauty, of luxuriant Nature as the pale sons of kings? Or is it on the mind that God has stamped the imprint of a baser birth, so that the poor man's child knows with an inborn certainty that his lot is to crawl and not to climb? It is not so. God has not done it. Man can not do it. Mind is immortal. Mind is imperial. It bears no mark of high or low, of rich or poor. It heeds no bound of time or place, of rank or circumstance. It asks but freedom; it requires but light. It is heaven-born, and aspires to heaven, Weakness does not enfeeble it. Poverty can not repress it. Difficulties do but stimulate its vigor. And the poor tallow-chandler's son that sits up all the night to read the book which an apprentice lends him, lest the master's eye should miss it in the morning, shall stand and treat with kings, shall add new provinces to the domain of science, shall bind the lightning with a hempen cord, and bring it harmless from the skies. The common school is common, not as inferior, not as the school for the poor men's children, but as the light and air and water are common.

The office of State Superintendent was created in 1846. The first County Teachers' Association was formed for Essex County in 1847, and the State Teachers' Association was formed in 1853. The first Teachers' Institute was held at Sommerville in 1851, and provision was made for their being held by the State for the first time, in 1854. The State Normal School, after years of agitation was established in 1858. Special authority to the large cities to establish graded schools was given to the city of Patterson, in 1836, and subsequently extended to most of the large cities.

The school authorities are: (1,) The State Board of Education, composed of the Governor, Attorney-General, Comptroller, Secretary of State, President of the Senate, Speaker of the Assembly, and the Trustees of the State Normal School; (2,) the Superintendent of Public Instruction, who is appointed by the Board, of which he is secretary, and who, with the Principal of the Normal School, constitutes a Board of Examination; (3,) County Superintendents, appointed by the Board, who, with the City Superintendents, elected by the City Boards of Education, constitute the State Association of School Superintendents, which must meet annually, at the time and place designated by the State Board; (4,) Township Boards of School Trustees, which must meet semi-annually, as the County Superintendent may appoint.

The means to support common schools in 1871 were: (1) the income ($35,000) of the school fund (capital $792,190) and State appropriation ($65,000 to make), $100,000; (2,) township school tax, $44,467; district school tax, $18,144; surplus revenue, $31,654; two mill State school tax, $1,168,803; appropriation for the State Normal and Farnum Schools, $11,200 ;-total, for all purposes, $2,263,070. Total valuation of school buildings and grounds, $4,966,788. In addition to the sums for common schools, the State expended $36,596 in support of State beneficiaries (mutes, blind, and feebled minded children); $28,000 for the State Reform school; $37,000 for the soldiers' children's home; $5,000 for school libraries; $2,500 for industrial school..

Out of 258,227 children between the ages of 5 and 18 years, 161,683 were enrolled in public schools; of the number enrolled, 15,594 attended ten months, 21,801 eight months, 26,570 six months, 33,158 four, and 63,429 less than four months. The census of 1871 returned 37,057 persons over 10 years who could not read, and 54,687 who could not write.

NEW YORK.

New York, settled as early as 1609, had by the first national census of 1792, on an area of 46,000 square miles a population of 340,120, which had increased in 1870 to 4,382,759, with taxable property to the value of $1,967,001,185.

In the first constitution of 1777 there is no reference to schools; in that of 1822, the proceeds of all State lands are appropriated to a common school fund; and in the third of 1846, the capital of several educational funds at that time existing, are declared inviolate, and their revenues must be applied to the objects to which they are donated.

In 1784, the first session after the termination of the war, an act was passed to alter the name of Kings College, in the city of New York, to Columbia College, and to erect a university. This act was superseded in 1787 by another, which instituted the Regents of the University, and provides for the incorporation by them of colleges and academies. To this board has been given from time to time, duties which cover the common schools.

The first act for the encouragement of common schools was drafted by Adam Comstock, a native of Connecticut, in 1795, by which $50,000 were annually appropriated for five years to the several cities and towns, 'in which the children of the inhabitants residing in the State shall be instructed in the English language (taught English grammar), arithmetic, mathematics, and such other branches of knowledge as are most useful and necessary to complete a good English education.' The boards of supervisors were required to raise by tax a sum equal to one half of that appropriated by the State, to be applied in like manner. At the end of four years the appropriation was not renewed, and notwithstanding the efforts of Jedediah Peck, a native of Connecticut, and others, no efficient legislation took place till 1812.

In 1811, on the recommendation of Gov. Tompkins, a commission, with Mr. Peck chairman, was appointed to report a plan for establishing a system of common schools, which was done in 1812, after the commissioners had conferred with friends of education in different parts of the State, and studied the rise and progress of similar systems in neighboring States. The following are the outlines of their plan: "That the several towns in the State be divided into school districts, by three commissioners, elected by the citizens qualified to vote for town officers; that three trustees be elected in each district, to whom shall be confided the care and

superintendence of the school to be established therein; that the interest of the school fund be divided among the different counties and towns, according to their respective population, as ascertained by the successive census of the United States; that the proportions received by the respective towns be sub-divided among the districts into which such towns shall be divided, according to the number of children in each, between the ages of 5 and 15 years; that each town raise by tax, annually, as much money as it shall have received from the school fund; that the gross amount of moneys received from the State and raised by the towns be appropriated exclusively to the payment of the wages of the teachers; and that the whole system be placed under the superintendence of an officer appointed by the Council of Appointment.'

These features were embodied in the act of 1812, and under the careful administration of Gideon Hawley, a native of Connecticut, as superintendent, the system went into operation, to gather strength and expansion from year to year, and contribute by its beneficent results to the establishment and improvement of common schools in other States. The most valuable of these features was that of State and County supervision. In 1839, the superintendent was authorized to appoint a County Board of School Visitors to serve gratuitously in their several counties, and so favorably received were the reports of these school visitors, that in 1841 the legislature, by a nearly unanimous vote, provided for the appointment by the Board of Supervisors for each county, biennially, of a County Superintendent, charged with the general supervision of the interests of the several schools under his jurisdiction. No previous act had imparted such general activity to school affairs as this; but in 1847 the office was abolished, and the supervision of the schools, examination of teachers, the appointment and disbursement of the school fund, were intrusted to a single officer in each town. In 1857, the operation of town supervision proving unsatisfactory, provision was made for the appointment of School Commissioners in districts. There were 135 city and district commissioners in 1871.

The law of 1812 provided for the support of schools out of the income of the school fund and a tax upon the towns equal to its distributive share of the school money, at first optional, but afterwards obligatory, through the county tax. In 1814, the trustees of the district were authorized to supply any deficiency in the means to pay the wages of teachers, by collecting it from the parents or patrons of the school in proportion to the attendance of their children. In 1849, the rate bills were abolished, leaving the deficiency,