The Superintendent's Introduction. An examination of the foregoing summaries of statistics will reveal a healthy and steady growth of the public school system, which should be a source of pride and gratification to all patriotic citizens of the Commonwealth. The school census taken in 1900 showed the total number of persons of school age in this State to be 691,312, of whom 426,054 were white, and 265,258 were colered. This was an increase in the white school population of 28,890, and a decrease in the colored school population of 3,445, as compared with the census taken in 1895. It may not be devoid of interest to compare the present condition of the school system with its condition two years ago, when the last school report was issued. In 1901 there. were enrolled in the public schools 258,222 white and 123,339 colored pupils, as against 241,669 white and 117,129 colored pupils in 1899, showing a total increase of 20,732. During the same period the average daily attendance increased from 141,382 to 156,472 among the white, and from 61,754 to 69,440 among the colored pupils. There was an increase of 145 in the number of white schools, and a decrease of three in the colored schools. The increase in the number of teachers employed was 172, and the length of the average school term was increased from 5.97 to 6.10 months. While there was a slight increase in the average monthly salary of the teachers, both male and female, the whole cost. of public education for each pupil enrolled was reduced from $1.41 to $1.32 per month. The value of school property owned by districts has grown from $3,336,165.82 to $3,603,634.03, and the total expenditures for all public school purposes from $1,971,264.49 to $2,084,747.74, showing a total increase in property values of $267,468.21, and in school expenditures of $115,483.25. From carefully compiled statistics, it is estimated that the cost of the colored schools for the year just ended was $434,699.21, or something less than onefourth the entire cost of the system. Starting at a time when Virginia was just beginning to recover from the devastating effects of one of the most gigantic and destructive wars in the history of the world, our public school system has gradually overcome the strong opposition that confronted it in its inception, and has steadily grown in favor, strength and efficiency until it now begins to take rank with far older and more favored systems. The public schools of many of our cities and of not a few of our towns and counties are fully abreast of the times, whether we consider the length of the term, the character and equipment of the buildings, the scope and thoroughness of the course of study, or the ability and efficiency of the teachers. All this is good cause for felicitation; but in spite of it all we must not blind our eyes to the manifest defects of the system; we must not be content to let well enough alone; we must not be "at ease in Zion." THE RURAL SCHOOLS. The improvement of the rural schools continues to be the most important as well as the most perplexing problem with which educational administrators have to deal. The evils that infest the rural schools are not confined to one section of the country, but are to be found in every State of the Union. President Harper, of the University of Chicago, whose interest in educational matters is as wide as the country, and whose opportunities for studying educational conditions are unsurpassed, said in a recent address before the National Educational Association that the two great problems before the American people are the problem of the small college and the problem of the small country school. For more than a decade the former problem has been engaging the attention of those whose activities are employed in the fields of higher education; the latter is the problem with which those who are interested in the education of the masses of people are mainly concerned. The country district school is the arena in which the overwhelming majority of the children of the land must receive their preparation for complete living. How important then is it that these schools should be made as excellent as possible? It is a lamentable fact that in some counties of the State the public schools are not meeting the reasonable expectations and demands of our people for educational opportunities for their children. Some of the schoolhouses are unfit for human habitation, the school term is so short that the children forget almost as much during the long vacation as they learn during the short school term, and the teachers are in many instances inadequately prepared and still more inadequately paid. This deplorable state of affairs is due mainly to the wild and insane tendency to multiply small district schools, "to put a schoolhouse on every hilltop and in every valley," as the popular phrase used to run in the early days of the public school system. We have thus been dissipating our educational energies and resources instead of consolidating and concentrating them for the great struggle against illiteracy and crime. The tendency to multiply small schools has gone on until nearly one half of the rural schools for white and one fourth of the rural schools for colored children are illegal by reason of the fact that they fail to make the required average of twenty pupils for each school during the term. This unfortunate condition of affairs exists in other States to a greater or less extent; but this is no reason why we should not bend all our energies towards remedial measures that will in the end reduce the evil to the minimum. In order to ascertain the extent to which the evil had gone in Virginia, a special circular was addressed last August to every county and city superintendent asking (1) for the number of schools in his jurisdiction having an average attendance of less than twenty and not less than fifteen pupils; (2) for the number of schools having an average of less than fifteen and not less than ten; and (3) for the number of schools having an average of less than ten. |