N.Y.

CONN

1

NEB.
21

PA.

OHIO
38

MD

4

MO.

ARIZ,

The analyses of population in the foregoing tables and diagrams afford important suggestions with reference to popular education in our country.

Our free schools are maintained under independent State systems. Each State makes its own school laws, cares for its own school fund, and develops its schools according to the intelligence, zeal, liberality, and forethought of its own citizens. The free schools have a national character in the sense that they have the sanction of law in every State and Territory of the Union, and that, by reason of the migration of the native population, the effort expended upon the children of one generation is likely to find its issues in some section remote from that which nurtured them. The similarity of the independent State systems is chiefly attributed to this shifting of the population, the standards and methods, good or bad, that are adopted in any one section being rapidly introduced into the others.

Viewing the country as a whole, one cannot fail to be impressed with the great diversity of races and nationalities of which it is composed. Four races are enumerated. Three of these maintain in our midst the relations of family life. Their children are to be formed by our institutions, and in turn the future of the institutions will be shaped by them. The fourth race, represented by the Chinese, live, as already pointed out, in an abnormal condition among us, but our school record shows that they are not entirely outside the operation of our educational provision. As the only agency by means of which these divers peoples can be moulded into a homogeneous population, having that unity of ideals, purposes, aspirations, and patriotic sentiment which make up national life, the schools are emphatically a national institution.

Those familiar with the history of free schools in America are aware that they have developed as circumstances allowed or compelled; some of their characteristics are accidental, some represent expedients which long ago served their purpose but remain through the natural persistence of precedents. On the whole the development has been upwards. This is true of the personnel of the service to such a degree that it may be saidwithout exaggeration that the systems themselves furnish the men competent to make the adjustments required by our present society, which is larger, more complex, more comprehensive than that to which the schools originally ministered.

The excess of female over male teachers has become almost a national characteristic. The excess would naturally be expected in States in which the women outnumber the men: a comparison of diagrams 1-8, inclusive, with Table I, Part 1, Summary B, shows that it is not so limited. The causes are suggested in the diagrams. The native-born women exceed the native-born men in 12 of the 13 original States, together with Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama. In the northern section of this group of States the excess of women constitutes a portion of the white population industrious and intelligent by virtue of inherited tendencies and personal advantages. From this excess the body of public school teachers is constantly recruited. In the southern section, as is shown by diagram

8, the excess of native female population is largely derived from the colored race, and is not yet available to any great extent for the school service. Louisiana, it will be seen by reference to Table I, is the only one of the Southern States in which more female teachers are employed than male. The vast territory west of the Alleghanies and north of the Ohio and Red Rivers has an excess of male population; nevertheless, with the exception of Arkansas and Missouri (States having a large proportion of colored people), each of the 15 States included in the region and nearly all the Territories report a majority of women teachers. This is explained by the conditions of pioneer life previously noted and by the fact that the moment a new State becomes fairly populous the stream of emigration sets from it westward, and the excess of male population is gradually drawn off. In short, the economic and industrial conditions of the developing country account for the excess of women teachers.

The influence of the foreign-born population of the United States upon its school systems is an interesting subject which can only be touched upon in this place. The States

in which the Irish element abounds have had greatest disturbance from sectarian efforts to get control of some portion of the school funds, the influence of the Germans has been exercised in behalf of better methods of primary instruction, thorough training, and high standards in the intermediate and higher grade, the introduction of the German language into the schools, and science training, especially as related to the development of our internal resources.

The sturdy industry and stalwart vigor of the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians is felt with immense effect along the northern border States and Territories. The race that produced the Vikings, the Normans, the Varangians, Rurik, Gustaf Adolf, Charles XII, Tycho Brahe, and Thorwaldsen has a great future before it in this new continent. Not the least of the advantages which attract these desirable settlers into our country are the schools. Accustomed by the policy of their own country to the responsibilities and privileges of popular education they give hearty support to the free schools of their adopted land. The record of local school history shows that the influence favorable or unfavorable of the other nationalities represented in our immigrant population has been fairly proportioned to their numbers. Through the action of all these various elements it has been made manifest that if proper watchfulness and activity are maintained by our people no foreign influence is likely to overcome that inherent quality of our school systems which is not easily characterized, but which marks them as essentially American. TABLE I.-PART 1.-Summary (A) of school age, population, enrolment, attendance, &c.

States and Territories.

TABLE I.-PART 1.-Summary (A) of school age, population, enrolment, &c.-Cont'd.