children of the workmen in his great shipyards. The city of Petersburg has been from the first one of the progressive school centers of Virginia. It moved in public school affairs as early as 1875, and in 1878 had 2,070 pupils enrolled and 1,428 in average attendance. In 1890 the attendance had risen to 3,055, in a school population-from 5 to 21 years of age of 7,400.

The Report of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1897-98 contains the names of 280 high schools, endowed academies, seminaries, and other private secondary schools in Virginia. Many of these have been established during the past thirty or even twenty years. They all profess to include the entire work of education up to admission to college, and most of them contain a secondary school with several pupils of this sort, while a few report a class in normal training. An extended visitation during the past thirty years among these institutions has revealed the fact that almost every one of them contains at least one, and several of the larger schools more than one, teacher of unquestionable professional reputation. The Randolph-Macon College for women at Lynchburg, the Hollins Institute in Botetourt County, the Mary Baldwin Female College at Staunton, and perhaps a dozen seminaries less known abroad have a well-earned reputation for good teaching and have sent forth graduates of note as teachers and leaders in society.

From the year 1898 to 1902 the office of superintendent of public instruction was held by Mr. Joseph W. Southall. The most notable contention of the superintendent during these years was in respect to the condition of the rural schools. Especially was attention called to the fact of what he rightly denominated the "ruinous policy of the multiplication of rural schools, caused by the pressure to plant a schoolhouse in every little country neighborhood." This policy harmed the schools and drove to the cities and large towns many of the most valuable and enterprising citizens who desired better advantages for their children. In connection with this the superintendent brings up again the great necessity of the establishment of efficient graded schools in the country and a public high school in every county. These high schools are needed to articulate the common schools with the university and other higher institutions of learning and to prepare teachers for the common schools." The superintendent also urges the necessity for a State board of school examiners. The subject of manual training is emphasized in both the biennial reports of Superintendent Southall. The two cities of Lynchburg and Staunton had introduced woodwork for boys and cooking and sewing for girls in their public schools. He especially urges its imperative necessity for the colored children of the State. The State Female Normal School of white girls at Farmville had an attendance in 1909 of 251, 100 girls and boys composing a training school of eight grades. More than 200 received free tuition on condition of teaching two years in the public school. In the sixteen years since its establishment this school had sent out with its diploma 304 young women, 57 of whom had taught in high schools and colleges. The gislature made an extra appropriation of $20,000 for improving the dormitory accommodations, the erection of a gymnasium, and a steam-heating plant. In 1990 the Polytechnic College, formerly the A. & M., had accommodations for an attendance of 400 students. President McBryde was still at the head, with 12 professors, 7 assistant professors, ō instructors, and 6 other officials. The expenditures amounted to $115.541.07. The College of William and Mary reported 159 students, all young men, of whom 112 received free tuition in the normal department. The college is under obligation to educate 132 students at the rate of $10 a month for board, fuel, light, and washing. The total cost to each student was $118. The State appropriates $15,000 annually. Along with the normal department the ordinary college course is continued. Mr. Lyon G. Tyler remains president.

Among the interesting documents published in the report of Superintendent

Southall for 1900-1901 is Thomas Jefferson's first plan for a system of free schools, introduced in the general assembly of Virginia in June, 1779. During the year 1901 Hon. John E. Massey, the immediate predecessor of Superintendent Southall, died, after many years of illness. During a long public life he had held almost every office in the State government, excepting governor, and at the time of his death was a member of the constitutional convention then in session. In 1901 Dr. William H. Ruffner, founder of the present public school system, was still living near Lexington, Va. From letters published in the reports of Superintendent Southall it appears that in 11 communities, indicated as cities in 1901, there were 38,125 children enrolled. According to the same authority there were 381,561 pupils enrolled through the State. The number of children educated in the 11 leading cities was only 1 to 10 of the entire State enrollment. Of these cities only one-Richmond, the capital-would rank as a city of the first class, according to the usual estimate of the national census, 85,000 population, while several of these places present a school enrollment as small as 1,000, and none, save Richmond, as large as 4,000. Taken in connection with the remarks of the superintendent concerning the rural schools, also considering the fact that the enrollment was only 55.2 per cent of the entire school population between 5 and 21-693,312-slightly more than one-third colored, we are not surprised to learn that according to the United States census of 1900 the percentage of illiteracy of persons 10 years of age and more is of native white 11.1 and of colored 44 per cent in Virginia. This means that of a total population of 868,295 whites and 479,464 negroes, 96,117 white and 213,960 colored persons above 10 years of age entered upon the new century unable to read and write. This large proportion of illiterates in the basement story, contrasted with the unusal appropriation afforded by the State for the higher education, points to the fact of the remarkable depletion of the rural South, especially in its older cities, of superior young men during the generation since the war. While the cities and larger towns of Virginia and other States are now in a fair degree enjoying opportunities for the elementary and secondary education of their people, furnished by local taxation in the more prosperous of them, the vast spaces of the open country even in Virginia are still in a comparatively neglected condition.

This condition of educational affairs, taken in connection with the history of Virginia for the past forty years, certainly places the Old Dominion at the beginning of the new century in a hopeful position. Especially does Superintendent Southall reckon as among the new educational forces the two organizations that within the past few years have been established for a new campaign of popular education through the entire South. The vast majority of the foremost people of those States of all classes and both races heartily indorse the policy of these two organizations-that the education of the children of any State or community is the most intimate concern of the people thereof.

The great perils of American society can only be dealt with effectively by the whole American people. Of all these perils, the fact that eight Southern States to-day are weighted with an illiteracy ranging from 11 per cent to 19 per cent of their white and from 38 per cent to 61 per cent of their colored population of 10 years old and upward is the most appalling, not only from its relation to the sixteen Commonwealths formerly known as the South, but also to the twentyseven in the North. But the one body of people that from the close of the great civil war has needed no "reconstruction"-the body of more than half a million educators leading the common school public of every community which has already achieved such wonders during the past generation of marvelous growth-is now more than ever coming to a good understanding with the increasing wealth of the land. By the good Providence that Washington invoked we may trust that another thirty years of work among the children and youth will lift

Virginia to the destiny so evidently outlined in her manifest natural resources, her situation, and, above all, her foremost people, who never for a long time can be held back from their fidelity to this great interest.

In 1901-2 the convention which formed a revised constitution for the State of Virginia placed in this document the following provisions: (1) The State shall maintain and establish an efficient system of public free schools. (2) The State board of education shall consist of the governor, attorney-general, and superintendent of public instruction. In addition to this, its original form, the board shall be increased by experienced educators elected quadrennially by the senate from a list consisting of one from each of the faculties, nominated by their members or trustees, of the University of Virgina, Virginia Military Institute, State Polytechnic Institute, State Female Normal School, School of Deaf and Dumb, and College of William and Mary as long as it is subsidized by the State. Also by the addition of two division superintendents of schools and three from county and city superintendents of schools, chosen for two years, though not to act in the appointment of any public school official. (3) The State superintendent of instruction shall be elected by the people, at the same time as the governor, for four years and be ex officio president of the State board of education. (4) The State board of education, increased as above noted, is authorized (a) to divide the State into school divisions, each not less than one county or city, and appoint a superintendent for each division, subject to the approval of the senate, for four years. () To have charge of the investment, care, and distribution of the State school funds as regulated by law. () To make all needful rules for the management and conduct of the schools, subject to the right of the legislature to revise, amend, or repeal. (4) To impose a tax for the support of schools and educational appliances. (^) To elect boards of directors of the State library, who must serve without compensation, and appoint a salaried librarian. (5) Each magisterial district is constituted a separate school district, with three trustees, selected according to law. (6) The permanent literary fund of the State is to consist of (a) the present literary fund: (1) all public lands donated by the General Government for public free schools; () all escheated property; (d) waste and unappropriated lands; ( ́) all property forfeited to the State and fines for offenses against the State and what the State government annually may appropriate. (7) The State board shall appropriate the annual interest of the literary fund and the capitation tax paid into the State treasury and not returnable to towns and cities. The annual property tax of not less than 1 nor more than 5 mills on the dollar for schools of primary and grammar grade for the equal benefit of all people is appropriated by the board on the basis of school population, including all persons between 7 and 20. The general assembly under changed circumstances may provide for different methods of appropriation, though not less than noted in this section. (8) Each county, city, town, and school district may lay a tax, not over 5 mills on the dollar, to be appropriated by local authorities; but primary schools must be kept open four months in the year before any of this money raised by a local tax be appropriated to schools of like grade. (9) The general assembly may establish agricultural, normal, military, and technical schools and such other grades as shall be for the public good. (10) The general assembly may establish compulsory education for children between the ages of 8 and 12, unless they can read and write, or are weak in body or mind, or attend private schools, or are excused from school attendance. (11) Children of poor parents are supplied with text-books. (12) White and colored children can not be educated in the same school at public expense. (13) No public school funds can be applied to any school not under or exclusively controlled by the State or some political subdivision, excepting (a) the college of William and Mary; (2) bonds held by certain schools and colleges according to act of 1892; () counties, cities, towns, and districts may appropriate to schools

of normal, industrial, and technical training, also to any school or institution of learning under the exclusive control of the county, city, town, or district. (14) School boards and trustees of educational institutions shall be appointed for four years.

With this broad outfit of constitutional provision, its increasing material development, and the new interest awakened by the present revival in the education of the masses in the rural district, the Commonwealth of Virginia enters on the new century with a well-founded expectation of realizing the prophecy of the fathers a century ago.

DELAWARE.

The State of Delaware was the first to adopt the Constitution of the United States and one of the first to place in its constitution a provision under which every white child might legally receive a good common school education and the arts and sciences be promoted. The provision was as follows: "The legislature shall, as soon as conveniently may be, provide for establishing schools and promoting arts and sciences."

It is an interesting study in sociology to explain the fact that the two smallest Commonwealths of the Union, Delaware and Rhode Island, should for more than fifty years have been the most derelict in providing for the general education of their children. The State of Rhode Island waited, practically, until the period of the great revival of the public school system in New England under Horace Mann and Henry Barnard for the establishment of an effective system of public instruction. The State of Delaware, until about the same period, had not succeeded in getting upon the ground any effective method of dealing with even the small white population of the State.

In both these States one principal city led the movement for several years in the establishment of a proper city system of graded schools. But in both these Commonwealths the idea of personal independence and local jealousy even of State control seemed to have "had their perfect work" in preventing any concentration of action, and, of course, leaving every little district of the Commonwealth to go on according to its own way. In Delaware, as appears in the record referred to, the public school system established by the law of 1829 left it virtually under the control of each school district in the State to decide whether it should have "a good school, a poor school, or no school at all." In this habit the people were encouraged by the most distinguished leader in educational affairs in the State, Judge Willard Hall, a native of Massachusetts, who had left his native State at a period when the common schools of New England were supported almost entirely by the local authorities. Although this excellent and able man, during a period of nearly half a century, labored in season and out of season" to persuade the people of his adopted State of the great advantages of popular education, yet his theory that the whole matter should be left to the disposition of the local authorities in every school district was a hindrance at the time and seems to have left upon the people an impression that, until a very late period, was an undisputed hindrance to the proper development of universal education.

The first important movement for the reorganization of the common school system of the State after the close of the civil war was an educational convention held at Dover, the capital, in December, 1867, “for a mutual interchange of opinions, to receive and discuss suggestions of improvements in the then existing law." The convention consisted of a large number of prominent men, remained in session two days, and was the beginning of a new and more vigorous movement for popular education. A committee appointed to draft a general school code

reported additions to the free school law of 1829, under which with some changes the State had been living for the past thirty-five years. In 1869 the legislature was moved to take up the subject, but with no results. Similar efforts in 1871 and 1873 met the same fate. But early in the session of the general assembly in 1875 a bill was reported, entitled "An act in relation to free schools in Delaware." As a result, on March 25, 1875, an act was passed entitled The new school law of 1875." In this statute the legislature, for the first and only time in its history, seems to have been impressed with the absolute necessity of a central authority for the general supervision of the common school system. This was made doubly necessary from the fact that the three counties of Delaware-Newcastle, including the city of Wilmington; Kent, where the capital, Dover, was located, and Sussex, in the more southerly portion of the State-represented perhaps the three extremes of Southern American life at the time of the passage of this law. The city of Wilmington, which had already established the usual city graded school system, was a good specimen of a growing manufacturing city of the type of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey community of that sort. On the other hand, the county of Sussex was a fair representative of the Atlantic coast county in the neighboring States of Maryland and Virginia.

By the new school law a State superintendent was to be appointed annually by the Governor, to hold his office one year. His duties were to visit every school in the State once a year; to examine all candidates for the office of teacher; to hold a teachers' institute in each county once a year with a three days' session; to report to the governor annually the condition of schools, with recommendations and suggestions for the improvement of the system. A State board of education was appointed, consisting of the president of Delaware College, the secretary of state, State auditor, and State superintendent of instruction, the president of Delaware College being president of the board. With the exception of the auditor no member of the State board received a salary. This board was to determine what text-books should be used, receive returns from the schools, hear appeals, and determine all matters of controversy between superintendent, teachers, and commissioners. All teachers were required to have a certificate from the State superintendent, setting forth proficiency in the common English branches. The revenue was raised in the same manner as in the old law, which provided that each school district should raise by taxation a certain sum, indicated in the new law as $100 in Newcastle and Kent and $60 in Sussex County, with a privilege of extending its expenditure within certain limits. This law was not intended to essentially change the system which had prevailed for thirty-five years, but to make certain improvements. The permanent school fund of the State amounted to nearly $150,000 and with the revenue accruing from other sources the sum of $26.606.95 was to be distributed among the schools of the State.

The most important part of this movement was the appointment by the governor, in 1875, of Mr. J. H. Groves as superintendent of free schools, a position which he held until the year 1880. A notable defect in the law was the omission of a county superintendency. The State board of elucation of course could do nothing in a practical way for the supervision of the schools. The result was that the new superintendent was expected at once to visit 370 district schools, keep an account in a book of his observations, examine candidates for teachers' places, furnish certificates, and generally supervise the public education of a State in which every district regarded itself as its own creator and supervisor. In his first report the superintendent gives the whole number of schools outside of Wilmington as 370, taught 6.8 months in the year, containing 21,587 pupils, averaging 58 to each school, instructed at an average cost of tuition of $4.89. There were 430 teachers, whose average monthly salary was $30.35. By the utmost effort the superintendent had visited 276 schoolhouses. Of these 259 had black