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Proportion of expenditures for sites, buildings, etc., for superintendents' and teachers' salaries, and for incidental purposes, on account of the public schools.

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Amount expended for public schools per capita of the population in 1870-71 and

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Amount expended for public education per capita of total population in certain

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Increase in value of public school property, 1870–1902.

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Value of school property per capita of the population, 1872-1902.

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The increase in the value of school property will be seen by this table to have been 277 per cent in the last thirty years. It will be interesting to note that the largest relative increase has been in the Western division, and the latter is closely followed by the South Central.

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The cities of this chart include those of 8,000 or more people. The Annual Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1902 named 580 of this class. The figures given are taken from that Report. The item of population is estimated. It shows very nearly one out of every three persons to be living in a city. Value of school property in urban communities exceeds by one-half the same item outside of cities, while the number of school buildings is only 3.7 per cent of the whole. This serves to show indirectly the great difference in the character of buildings used in rural and in urban localities. The number of teachers in cities will be seen to be relatively small, owing to the superior organization to do the work.

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Amount expended for public schools for each $1,000 of true valuation of taxable property in the 20 largest cities in the United States in 1902.

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This table was computed from information given in the bulletin of the Department of Labor, September, 1902. The total expenditures for schools for the year 1901-2 in the 133 cities of highest rank, according to the same sourse, was $71,455,059, a figure which represents very nearly one-sixth of the total expenditures for maintenance of all departments of the Federal Government for the same year. The reduction of the absolute amount expended to the amount per thousand expended exhibits interestingly what each city is spending for its schools and forms a basis for comparison. It does not necessarily follow, however, that the city of least expenditure has the worst schools, nor the converse, as cities vary a great deal in the matter of economical administration. Another feature worthy

of consideration is the fact that the cost of living varies widely in the various cities, and for that reason a different wage scale is established for the payment of teachers.

KINDERGARTENS PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

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Kindergartens in the United States-Number of schools, of teachers, and of pupils for certain years.

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Statistics of kindergartens were first collected by the Bureau of Education in 1873, and the work has been continued at intervals since that time. The Annual Report of the Commissioner for 1902 shows that 289 cities of a minimum population of 4,000 maintain kindergartens as a part of the regular public school system, there being 2,202 kindergartens in these cities. The table given here shows a total of 3,244 public and private kindergartens. The tendency is toward public fostering of this important branch of education, the number of cities maintaining kindergartens having been increased by 100 in the last four years.

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The comparison of the attendance in the public schools with the corresponding item in the private schools indicates that as between the three grades of education the elementary branch is almost entirely under public control, secondary education is three-fourths public and one-fourth private, and in the higher institutions the attendance in institutions under private control is nearly 50 per cent greater than in similar institutions under public control. These observations apply with a fair degree of uniformity throughout the entire country in elementary education and in higher institutions with the exception of the North Central and the Western States. The figures relating to secondary schools show that the North Atlantic and Western States vary very little from the average of the whole country. The greatest variation from the average is in the Southern States, where possibly secondary education as a measure of public polity has not received as full sanction as in some other sections.

ED 1903-74

EDUCATION OF THE COLORED RACE.

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Proportion of the white and of the colored race in the population 5 to 18 years, and proportion enrolled in public schools, 1902.

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Improvement in the education of negroes in the former slave States-Proportion of colored males of voting age who could read and write in 1870 and in 1900.

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The figures of 1870 are those of the first census taken after emancipation. It will be noted that the States bordering on the free States of the North showed by that census the largest proportion of males able to read and write, and with few exceptions the same may be remarked of the later statistics. Georgia shows the largest percentage of increase.

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