[On the evening of June 26, 1876, a number of persons interested in education met by invitation in the judges' pavilion, to consider the proj ect of holding a series of more or less formal conferences upon education during the progress of the Exhibition. Several subsequent meetings were held in the parlors of the Pennsylvania Educational Hall, and many interesting statements were made by both foreign and American educators. Among those who spoke were Dr. Philip da Motta, of Brazil; Professor Meyerberg, of Sweden; Hon. J. H. Smart, superintendent of public instruction for the State of Indiana; Rev. Dr. Jacokes, of Michigan; Hon. J. P. Wickersham, superintendent of public instruction of Pennsylvania; Dr. S. P. May, of the educational department of Ontario, Canada, and others. At these preliminary meetings Dr. J. P. Wickersham, of Pennsylvania, or Dr. J. W. Hoyt, of Wisconsin, usually presided.]

THE INFORMAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
EDUCATION.

It will be observed that the following pages, which contain the reports of the daily transactions of the educational conference held in Philadelphia during the progress of the International Exhibition, do not purport to be anything but the verbatim reports of an informal assembly. Owing to a variety of causes, the formal international conference which had been suggested by the United States Commissioner of Edu cation early in January, 1874, as a desirable feature of the exhibition in 1876, and which had met the approval of many distinguished American and foreign educators, had proved impracticable; consequently no official notice that such a congress was to be held had been sent to foreign governments. It follows that no authorized delegates were ap pointed by these governments, and that the gentlemen-among them distinguished educators and friends of education from foreign countrieswho participated in the proceedings of these conferences were present in their private capacity, attending only as especially invited or as attracted by their interest in the subject of education. This explanatory statement is due to those gentlemen who took part in the proceedings

and debates.

Their position was fully understood by their fellow-members of the conference, and also the fact that their statements about the condition of education in their respective countries were in no respect official. Their presence, however, was warmly welcomed, and added greatly to the interest of the sessions; and while the conference at Philadelphia was not itself, as it had been hoped that it would be, the first world's educational congress, it is believed that it will prove, in accordance with the formal resolution by it adopted, which is printed on the preced. ing page, the origin of the first international educational congress, to be held during the progress of the world's exposition in Paris in 1878.

All endeavors for advancing man's welfare by increasing his intelligence are directed toward the diffusion of a knowledge of the best methods which have been devised, and a consequent enhancement of the benefits which those methods may secure. In this purpose education is not behind. Central as a cause in its relation to other agencies, like them it encounters limitations of language and intercommunication. Educators, though speaking of the one subject, man, and his divers phases of development, do not use terms by which they can understand each other. Commercial enterprise, in the prosecution of its plans

among all nations, encounters similar difficulties, and seeks to overcome them by much going to and fro and by many conferences, hoping that terms on essential points, or descriptive of the great commodities of trade, may be adopted, with a meaning sufficiently common or universal to render the comparison of prices and quotations trustworthy. Christian statesmanship, inspired by the same motives, seeks in a similar way, by enlarging the scope of international law, to avoid bloodshed. The philosophical student of education feels the force of this lesson. He would draw his arguments from the experience of all people, and accord to all the benefit of their conclusions. This is especially true in our country, where neither precedents nor decrees give direction to affairs, but where their course must follow the average sentiment of the whole people. This feeling, wide spread among our teachers and school officers, has exacted of this Office an acquaintance with educational facts wherever education or the lack of it has taught a lesson that may be to their advantage. Speculation upon the topics of human development, though as ever use ful in its suggestiveness, is more than in any previous age, perhaps, com pelled to come to the test of facts. The demand is not, what is conject ured, but what is the fact.

In the discharge of this duty this Office has come into delightful in tercourse with the great centres of organic educational action. The conditions that may improve this intercourse and the great benefits that may result from it have deeply impressed me. With a view to its further promotion, I took the liberty to suggest, in January, 1874, among other objects to be aimed at in connection with our Centennial, that an international educational congress be held. The project was uniformly received with favor.

A statement of the steps which led finally to the conference at Philadelphia will be found in the following pages:

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS.*

Preliminary to the reports of the proceedings of the daily sessions of the conference, it has been thought important, as bearing directly upon the subject of international educational statistics, to insert here the following free translation of a paper written by Dr. Ficker, imperial counsellor at Vienna, Austria, which is taken from the introduction of an article in Schmid's Pedagogical Encyclopedia. The distinguished author is acknowledged to be one of the most eminent statisticians of Europe.

School statistics include an exhibit of the actual state of education, and its results at a certain given moment, with a view of ascertaining the laws which regulate them. The very name, which perhaps had better be "educational statistics," shows the importance as well as the difficulty of the subject, which during the last decade has more than ever before occupied the attention of statisticians.

It may well be asked whether there can be any educational statistics, and it has seemed doubtful whether statisticians, with the means at their command, could successfully enter a field where the exhibit of mere facts would least of all seem sufficient. * Circular of Information of the Bureau of Education for August, 1870.

Education, however, is not altogether beyond the statistician's reach. Tables are certainly the most important, but not the only, element of his exhibit. He may also give existing facts and results obtained in the form of a brief summary, only it should be borne in mind that he has to deal with a summary of facts and the development of aws. On no other field of inquiry, perhaps, will he have to weigh each expression so carefully, in order to avoid even the appearance of mixing individual opinions with his exhibit of facts, or of merely coloring them according to his own point of view. The fact that there are limits beyond which statistics cannot go must not deter the statistician. Even in that part of statistics which occupies itself most with mere figures financial statistics - there are points which the statistician cannot reach. The mere income and expenditure, the debit and credit of a state, do not fully show its financial capacity; they do not show in how far the property and the income of a nation are placed at the disposal of the government through the patriotism of the people and their sympathy for the government, or by the administrative machinery, and what confidence these two powers enjoy in the great market of the world— which elements are yet required for a just estimate of a country's financial power. Military statistics become unavailing at the point where the spirit animating an army, that most important source of great and glorious deeds, comes into question. Should no attempt be made to give educational statistics, because they also have their limits? because it will be difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to give all the individual methods of instruction, or the free form of scientific activity at a university? Most assuredly not; for even if only attempts are made, the way may be cleared, and the limits of inquiry more clearly defined.

The development of Statistics as a science has convinced statisticians that there is only one admissible method of giving facts, viz: the comparative method, the results of which gain all the more trustworthiness the wider the range from which facts have been gathered. The question as to whether there can be any educational statistics naturally leads to the question of the possibility of international educational statistics. It cannot be denied that the best and noblest blossom on the tree of human culturethe development of the intellect and of morals-blooms in every country, on its own ground, and under peculiar conditions. The educational system of a nation bears, therefore, in every country its own distinctive impress, to understand which thoroughly would require a retrospective view as well as a study of the present condition. The same difference observable in the financial, military, or commercial state of nations may also be seen in their different educational systems.

It does not, however, seem impossible to compare the school statistics of different nations. For no other object did the statistical congress meet but to compare the statistics from different states and find a common system of statistics applicable to all. Comparative statistics also devote attention to the peculiar institutions of each nation, and their aim is to fix those expressions of national life which are common to all nations as a lasting result, as something independent of external differences, as the true expression of the eternal laws that govern the life of all nations. If it should prove impossible to find and apply common statistical forms to different nations in those respects where more uniformity exists, international statistics would have to remain an unexplored field for centuries to come. The possibility of international educational statistics, however, is guaranteed, if by nothing else, by the solidarity of nations and states with regard to all the powers of maintaining or destroying a solidarity which no philosopher has as yet been able to argue away.

The way in which education develops itself in a country will be the only sure standard of measuring the intellectual development of its inhabitants. The gathering and exhibiting of the facts which express this development are therefore synonymous with the statistics of a nation's most cherished treasure-its intellectual development. And as there is only one true intellectual development, though showing itself in different forms, thus there can also be only one way of statistically representing it. Educational statistics must, therefore, besides schools, in the proper sense of the word, also include all other institutions for the promotion of science and art.

International educational statistics must, therefore, have regard to institutions which may exist in one and not in another state, where, it may be, education has not yet reached a sufficiently high degree of development, or where peculiar circumstances prevent the establishment of certain institutions of learning; provided only that such facts form really essential points in the educational system of a nation, for educational statistics are not to be a mere curiosity shop.

Since there is no doubt, then, as to the feasibility of exhibiting the educational statistics of a country, it will much less be doubted that such an exhibit will exercise a beneficial influence on education itself, Here, also, as in so many other respects, it proves true that good statistics are the common property of the whole nation. Napoleon said: "Statistics mean the keeping of an exact account of a nation's affairs, and without such an account there is no safety." And Goethe said, "I do not know whether figures govern the world, but this I do know, they show how it is governed."

Good educational statistics will show the present generation occupied with caring for a future one; they will faithfully depict a nation's hopes and fears connected with this care, and will thereby enable states and individuals to preserve the intellectual heritage of centuries long gone by, and transmit it to the coming generations. Educational statistics alone can show the way out of the bewildering maze of different educational systems. They will be of more than ordinary importance in a state occupied with a reform of its educational system; all such reforms would build on a very unsafe foundation if they had not been preceded and were not constantly accompanied by most exhaustive educational statistics.

INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL CONGRESSES.

As pertinent to the article of Dr. Ficker, from which the preceding citations were made, there is subjoined a brief account of the consideration which the various international statistical congresses have bestowed on the subject of educational statistics.

The first congress met at Brussels, in 1853. The subject of school statistics came up too late to be seriously discussed. The second congress met at Paris, in 1855; the programme for educational statistics was referred to the next meeting, and only a schedule for school statistics in larger cities recommended for general adoption. The third congress met at Vienna, in 1857. Very full schedules for educational statistics, embracing primary, secondary, superior, special, and professional instruction, prepared by Dr. Ficker, were laid before the congress and almost unanimously recommended. Most of the Europeau states adopted these schedules to a greater or less degree. The fourth congress, which met in London, in 1860, and the fifth, which met at Berlin, in 1863, did not discuss school statistics, considering that the subject had been exhausted by the results of the congress at Vienna. The sixth, congress met at Florence, in 1867; the subject of statistics of schools of the fine arts and music was discussed, and schedules adopted for such schools, as well as for statistics of libraries, archives, museums, &c. The seventh congress met at the Hague, in 1869; the subject of a common system of educational statistics for all the European states was discussed, and Dr. Ficker was charged to prepare comprehensive schedules for international educational statistics to be laid before the next meeting of the congress. The eighth statistical congress met at St. Petersburg, in 1872; a paper was presented on American educational statistics.

The informal nature of these conferences, precluding for the most part any possibility of elaborate preparation by those who participated in the proceedings or took part in the extempore debates, should be borne in mind by the reader, as well as the fact that it has been no part of the purpose of this report to test the statements so made by comparison with official educational reports of the various governments.