ciations where it can be used profitably. The drawing exhibit mentioned in the commissioner's statement for 1913 has been sent to a number of cities and towns and is in constant use.

As mentioned elsewhere, one member of the bureau spent some time in England, Germany, and France, making a personal investigation of the means and methods of preparing teachers for secondary schools and the standards of preparation required of such teachers. Another spent two months in England, Scotland, and Ireland investigating the rural and village schools of these countries. A third spent most of the year in the city of Munich and other German cities studying their industrial education and continuation schools. A representative of the bureau spent a year in Great Britain and Ireland studying the newer developments of their universities. The director of medical inspection in the schools of Nashville, Tenn., went to England and Scotland last summer with a commission from the Bureau of Education to investigate and report on their provisions for caring for the health of school children. Miss H. E. Hosford spent most of the year on the continent of Europe investigating the methods of teaching literature in the secondary schools of several continental countries. In June the supervisor of primary work of the city of Nashville went to England and to several central European countries with a commission from this bureau to study and report on the methods of teaching the principal subjects in the elementary schools in those countries. All of these reports will be published later as bulletins of the bureau.

In the fall of 1913, at the request of this office, the city council of the city of Munich granted special permission to such teachers of industrial subjects as the commissioner might send for that purpose to inspect and study in the industrial and trade schools of that city from Easter to July 15, 1914, provided the number should not exceed 25 or 30. In the winter this fact was advertised among industrial teachers in the United States, and on March 31 a select party of 27 teachers sailed from New York. The party was made up of teachers from all sections of the country, and reports received indicate that this visit will have very valuable results for the cause of industrial education in the United States.

Milton Fairchild, of the Moral Education Board, who has worked persistently for 10 years or more on a series of illustrated lectures for a course in visual instruction in morals, has held an appointment through the year as special collaborator in the bureau, and has given these illustrated lectures at many schools, colleges, and universities in the East, North, and Northwest. At many of the places where he lectured one or more competent persons were asked to write frankly their opinion of the value of this form of instruction in morals and of these particular lectures. Some of these opinions

were written after the writers had had opportunity to test the immediate results of the lectures on the minds and conduct of boys and girls. All together these replies constitute a valuable body of criticism on one method of teaching this most important subject.

The campaign for a minimum school term of 160 days, mentioned in the commissioner's statement for 1913, was continued through the year. For a list of suggestions made by the commissioner for the improvement of elementary and secondary schools and colleges, reference is made to the introduction of the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1913. These suggestions were made after long and careful study. It is gratifying to know that they are meeting with the hearty approval of thoughtful educators in all parts of the country. Each of them had already been adopted in one or more places. It is believed that their general adoption would add much to the efficiency of the systems of education in this country.

The efforts of the commissioner to bring the Bureau of Education into closer touch with the many interests and agencies of education in all parts of the country, and to obtain a fuller coöperation of school officers and teachers, were continued through the year with gratifying success. The National Education Association, the department of superintendence of the National Education Association, the International Kindergarten Union, and several other important associations have appointed committees to coöperate with the bureau in its work. One of the most important coöperating committees is the committee on standards, appointed by the Department of Superintendence of the National Education Association and consisting of 16 members of the association, who are undertaking to investigate, in coöperation with the Bureau of Education, standards of teaching and attainment in all the more important subjects taught in our public schools. It is expected that this policy of coöperation may be continued and extended in the future. The National Committee on Standards is coöperating with the bureau in defining new and uncertain terms used in writings on education.

In the commissioner's statement for 1913 attention was called to the fact that within the three years from July 1, 1910, to June 30, 1913, the work of the bureau, as represented by correspondence, publications, investigations made, and attendance at meetings of educational associations had increased 300 per cent. The increase for the year 1914 was about 25 per cent over the work of the year 1913.

The estimates submitted for the expenses of the bureau for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1915, called for increased appropriations amounting to $180,000, to be used for purposes given under the heading "Recommendations" in the commissioner's statement for 1913. The legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill,

which was passed and received the signature of the President after the close of the fiscal year, increased the appropriations to the bureau by $30,600. Fifteen thousand dollars of this is an addition to the lump-sum appropriation of $15,000 for rural education and industrial education, making this item of the appropriation $30,000; $5,700 is for school and home gardening; $1,800 for an additional translator; $6,600 for 2 clerks of the fourth class, 1 of the third class, and 1 of the second class; and $1,500 additional to the appropriation for traveling expenses for the commissioner and his assistants, making this items of the appropriation $3,000. The additional appropriation for rural education and industrial education will be expended for specialists in agriculturol education, education in trades and industries, education in home economics, and an assistant in rural education, and for their traveling expenses. The appropriation for school and home gardening will be used for the salary and traveling expenses of a specialist and an assistant to investigate means and methods and promote the cause of home gardening directed by the school in cities, towns, suburban communities, and manufacturing villages.

All the needs of the bureau for which estimates were submitted last year still exist, and estimates are again submitted for all these items and for the same amounts less the increase in appropriations made at the present session of Congress.

I recommend:

RECOMMENDATIONS.

(1) An increase in the salaries of chief clerk, editor, statistician, specialist in land-grant college statistics, specialist in higher education and other specialties, and the removal of the limit on amount of salaries which may be paid from the lump-sum appropriation for rural school education and industrial education. The duties of these positions require the services of men and women of such kind and degree of ability as demand salaries considerably higher than are now paid in this bureau. I can only repeat what I said in my statement for 1913, that work of this kind had better not be attempted than not done well.

(2) An assistant commissioner, who should also be a specialist in secondary education and should serve as chief of a high-school division of the bureau. The duties of the office make it necessary for the commissioner to visit distant parts of the country and to be absent from the office frequently many days at a time. There should be an assistant commissioner to carry on the work in the office. The increased work in the office demands much more of the commissioner than was demanded formerly. Probably the most important phase in public education in the United States at present is that of the

secondary schools. The high school is, or should be, the heart and center of our school system. The problems of the high school are more difficult and their solution more urgent than those of any other part of the school system. The head of the high-school division of the bureau should therefore be a man of great ability. By combining the offices of assistant commissioner and of specialist in secondary education it should be possible to pay a salary sufficiently large to attract a man of such ability.

(3) Additional specialists in higher education, including education in universities, colleges, schools of technology, schools of professional education, and normal schools. There is special need of an able man, familiar with agricultural education and the problems of negro education in the South, to devote his entire time and attention to the colleges of agriculture for negroes in the Southern States.

(4) An increase in the number of specialists and assistants in rural education and industrial education. The appropriation for salaries and expenses in these subjects for the current year is $30,000. With this it is impossible to obtain the services of more than eight specialists and assistants and have a sufficient amount left to pay the necessary traveling expenses. There is urgent need for not less than three times this number of men and women for this work.

(5) More adequate provision for the investigation and promotion of school sanitation and hygiene. Nearly 20,000,000 children spend a good part of their time each year in public and private schools in the United States. They come to these schools that they may gain preparation and strength for life. In many of the schools the heating, lighting, ventilation, and other means of sanitation are so poor that instead of gaining strength for life they have the seeds of disease and death sown in their systems. In many other schools the daily regimen is such as to cause the children to lose a very large per cent of that which they might gain with a better regimen. From State, county, and city school officers, in all parts of the country, thousands of requests come to the bureau for information and advice in regard to these matters. The bureau should be able to give accurate information and sound advice regarding various phases of this subject. The establishment of health and right health habits must be considered a most important and vital principle in any education that is to fit for life.

(6) The formation of a division, with a group of able specialists and assistants, for the investigation of problems of education and school administration in cities and towns. The drift of population to the cities and towns continues, and the proportion of urban population to rural population is increasing rapidly. Almost one-half of the children in the United States now live in cities, towns, and densely populated suburban communities. In some sections of the

country a very large proportion of these children are the children of foreign-born parents. All this adds to the complexity and difficulty of the problems of city school administration, especially in the larger cities. Many hundreds of requests for advice and information in regard to these problems come to the bureau every year. At present there is no one in the bureau whose special duty it is to respond to them.

(7) The establishment of a division, with specialists and assistants, for the investigation of exceptional children. There are in the United States more than a million children whose education requires means varying widely from those in common use for the education of normal children. These children are to be found in cities, towns, and rural communities alike, and all school officers and teachers have to deal with them. The Bureau of Education can not be considered as performing its duties to all the population with impartiality until it has in its service men and women who can give accurate information and helpful advice in regard to the education of these children.

(8) Provision for the investigation of the education of adult illiterates and the dissemination of information as to the best methods of teaching illiterate men and women to read and write, and of extending the meager education of those who were denied the advantages of the schools in their childhood and youth. According to the census of 1910 there were in the United States more than 5,500,000 illiterate men and women and children over the age when they may be expected to make a beginning in the public schools, and there were many millions more barely able to read and write. This illiteracy is a burden to society and to State and Nation. Within the last few years considerable interest in the removal of this burden has developed. It is believed that States, local communities, individuals, and benevolent societies would heartily cooperate in any rational plans which might be devised and presented by this bureau for this purpose.

(9) A careful and thorough investigation as to the means of better education of children in the homes, and the dissemination of information as to the best methods for the early physical, mental, and moral education of children in the home, and for the better cooperation of home and school in the education of children of school age. Children of the United States are in school less than 4 per cent of their time from birth to 21. The home is the primary and fundamental educational institution. Schools and other agencies are only secondary. If education in the home fails, no other agency can make good the failure. With our changing civilization and social and industrial life, there is need of more careful study of education in the home. The bureau has already made a beginning in this work, but

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