of educational statistics; for making accessible and available the latest information, in regard to schools and their management, school systems and laws; as a disseminator of the best thoughts and most approved views of the educational world, this Bureau is supplying a want long felt, and is doing a work without which most of our educational effort would lack wise direction, and the benefit of past experience. This agency has just completed its first decade. Sometimes fairly, but never generously, supported by Congress, it has at other times been compelled to run the gauntlet of political schemers and demagogues, until the means for carrying it on has been reduced to a sum well-nigh contemptible. But let us hope for better things to come. What Garfield, and Hoar, and others, have done in the past, they and other new friends will, we trust, do in larger measure in the future. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," and schoolmasters sometimes condescend to go to Congress.

In the present efficient head of this Bureau, every friend of education may well be proud; and fortunate are they whose libraries contain the six annual volumes already sent forth from his office.

I do not include in these national measures the Smithsonian Institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, which is in no sense a national establishment; but the gift of a single individual, and he a foreigner, and for which the Government acts merely as a trustee to carry out the will of the testator. And even this trust has not been at all times wisely managed.

"E Pluribus Unum," is the motto upon our national escutcheon; and although Unum can not be found in a national system of education, whoever examines the systems of the thirty-eight States, will have little doubt

of the existence of the Pluribus. Nominally, provision. is made in every State for public education; but in some States it is little more than nominal, owing to the indifference of the people; their poverty, not only in the means for supporting schools, but in ideas of education as well; and owing, also, to the parsimony and peculation of ignorant and unscrupulous officials and politicians.

In some States a school system means little that contributes to the enlightenment of the rising generation; -indifferent schools, meagre support, short terms, teachers with poor qualifications, and no supervision worthy of the name. In others, where the schools have been cherished, and even petted, the system is a part of the State and of individual interest, from both of which it derives its vitality and support, and in turn, contributes largely to the intelligence and enterprise of the people, and to their general prosperity and welfare.

In a few instances, the State school system has assumed a good degree of completeness. Of this class Michigan may be taken as an example, where to every child in the State free instruction is offered, from the primary school up through all the grades, including the normal and the technical schools, to the crowning feature of the system, the university, with its wellequipped academic and professional departments.

In the large array of institutions, not supported at public expense, such as most of our colleges, academies, and private schools, there are many whose names and noble work have become historic; many which have become the molders of our people and institutions, and which, perhaps under a modified and reconstructed form, doubtless have an honorable career before them.

But to enumerate all the kinds and varieties of

schools that have grown up in our country, public and private, high and low, religious and secular, academic, professional, technical, reformatory, etc., etc., would consume an amount of time, that would seriously interfere with some of the many excursions arranged for by the officers of this Association. Indeed, our educational affairs are all highly suggestive of mosaic work, especially in its variety of composition, color, and general effect.

In the important department of supervision of educational affairs, our public system is greatly deficient. While we have that which is wise, efficient, economical, and productive of good results; we have, also, that which is formal only, and a farce; and too often it is not attempted at all.

In our teaching corps, an army many thousand strong, we have some noble workers, patient, self-sacrificing, progressive, and enthusiastic, often toiling for small pay and poor recognition, yet loving their work for its own sake. And, alas! there are, also, those who, from vacation to vacation, are superlatively innocent of teaching in its proper sense; whose works do not honor them nor their cause, but whose works, more's the pity, will follow them too far and too long.

The usual variety which characterizes the management of all American affairs, has given us, in the support of our educational institutions, whatever of merit can be found in the plan of funds by individual gift, or by public grant; by taxes, State or municipal; or by rate-bills and private subscription.

In school accommodations, what can be mentioned that can not be found between the log school-house of the Western frontier, the martin-box at the New-England cross-roads, and the truly palatial structures of many of

our thriving cities and towns, in which all the conveniences and appliances of school-work are furnished to a most luxurious extent; but whose external architecture, however, be it Grecian, Gothic, or Norman, might awaken in the mind of one from those ancient lands, something very like a nightmare?

We

Geologically speaking, the system of text-books used in American schools is conglomerate in character. have large books and small books; full courses and shorter courses; primary, intermediate, high, and supplementary series; books analytic and books synthetic ; all to be had at two-thirds price for introduction, with ten per cent. discount for handling. And yet European teachers, whose judgment is worth something, are using some of our text-books, or adopting some of their features, and they pronounce them, in many respects, superior to their own.

In pedagogical literature I do not think we have occasion to be ashamed. It is true that much of it is crude, and shows the want of broad educational experience and educational reading; yet when we consider the comparative newness of all our educational institutions, and the fact that many of our school-workers are selfeducated; that until within a few years there has been, by practical teachers, very little observation of foreign schools and their work ; we may justly claim that we have made more than a good beginning in this respect. Whoever is fully conversant with the extent and character of educational journalism in this country; with recent works in the various departments of pedagogy; and with the educational features of our newspaper and periodical press, has not occasion to be disheartened, but rather may find therein a source of some pride, and of much encouragement.

There is one aspect of our educational outlook that is far from cheering. While it was true, a generation since, that nearly all who could go to school were anxious to go, and did attend, it is now painfully true that non-attendance and truancy are fearfully prevalent. A map of our country showing these facts, and the amount of illiteracy and its concomitant, crime, not only in the foreign, but in the native-born, element of our population, would be a startling revelation to those not accustomed to investigations in that direction. Our compulsory, like our prohibitory, laws, have many supporters in favor of their enactment, but opposed to their enforcement.

Educational legislation in the United States ever has been, and is now, characteristic of our people and life. It contains the germ of national and individual freedom, and would give every person an opportunity to do his best. But, often originating in the impulses of the hour, it is sometimes better adapted to present needs and local exigences, than for successive generations of a people of large territory, and of great diversity of occupation and interest. In this way, the enactments of the older States have become encumbered with inconsistencies and incongruities which render them a bar to progress, and which, held together by long-seated prejudice, are difficult of removal. On the other hand, some of the new States, selecting the good features only of the older systems, and availing themselves of the best light of their time, have built up a code eminently wise and promising. Justice, however, will compel us to say, that in some of the newest of those States the statute book is far in advance of the school-room. And yet there are those who think no progress has True to their instincts that it is the chief

been made.