have not been the first to organize a regular and permanent system of school statistics. The United States, which seems to have achieved this end the first, is precisely the one which it would seem would be delayed the longest by difficulties apparently insurmountable, viz, an immense territory, incessant fluctuations of population, differences of organization (which are fundamental) between the more than thirty sovereign States, a perfect township autonomy, an incessant change in the personnel of the school authorities, and the absence of all centralized power which might bring harmony if not uniformity into this investigation of school affairs intrusted to thousands of persons independent of each other. These obstacles, however, have not prevented the organization, development, and continuous and general improvement of a system of comparativé school statistics which may now be considered in many respects a model. This shows what an imperative necessity it is, in the eyes of a free people, to watch as closely as possible the development of its institutions. This success in organizing school statistics is due, it seems, above all. to two principal features which have distinguished it from the beginning: first, the way in which it was conceived, and, second, the way in which it has been accomplished. So far from considering this a work of mere administration, designed to interest only a few specialists, the Americans had a clear idea of the result to be obtained, of the motives which made them pursue it, and of the interest which was attached to it. There is but one essential question that interests them, the question "how many children ought to receive, and how many are receiving, the education necessary to an American citizen ?”

Here follows a schedule of school statistics, as given in American school reports.

It has not been without the energetic efforts of superintendents that a system of reporting school statistics has been organized. The success is evidently due to the custom of presenting annual reports to the school boards, and by the latter to the public. The school laws make this publication almost everywhere obligatory. Every year, and in every city and State, appear these volumes of pedagogical, statistical, and financial accounts, which are not only distributed to a few assemblies, but gratuitously offered to all who apply for them. They are reviewed in all the journals, discussed in different public meetings, placed in all the libraries, and consulted, long after their publication, by all those who desire to compare the present with the past.

However excellent this long established custom of publishing local school statistics may be, it is not difficult to understand that a great deal remained to be done to organize in the United States comparative school statistics. This want was supplied by the creation of the United States Bureau of Education, the organization of which is described elsewhere. This Bureau, too, was created at the right time; a few years earlier it would doubtless have proved a failure. It was necessary to wait until every State and city had organized special statistics, until the public

was familiarized with the necessity of these periodical accounts. Even after having given public opinion time to reflect, and after the great majority understood by experience the usefulness of this permanent and national investigation of the condition of public education, the American Union has still been the first to create a central bureau of comparative school statistics. Among the federal governments not one has succeeded before the United States in grouping and comparing the results of education in the different parts of the union. Even Switzerland, justly celebrated for its excellent institutions of learning, which ought to have had, it seems, all the means of summarizing quite early the educational affairs of its twenty-two cantons, secured such statistics much later, and less completely, although the United States consists of nearly double the number of States.

It will doubtless be of interest to call the attention of the reader to a fact which seems to be little known to our educators.

It is in France that the idea originated which gave birth to the present National Bureau of Education at Washington. One of our most prominent educators at the beginning of the present century, M. Jullien, of Paris, published in 1817 a book' which seems to describe, in detail, the American Bureau of Education. M. Jullien says:

"The question is how to organize, under the auspices and special protection of one or several sovereigns and with the concurrence of existing educational societies, a special educational commission consisting of but few members, whose duty it shall be to collect, with the aid of correspondents, the material for a general report on scholastic establishments and on the methods of instruction and education in the different European states.

"Series of questions on every phase of instruction, to be answered on uniform blanks at the same time and after the same method, would gradually, and in less than three years, give us comparative tables of the real condition of education in the European states. It could be easily ascertained what nations are advancing and what are retrograding and what ones remain stationary; what in each country is the weak point, and what are the causes of it; what improvements could be transplanted from one country to another, with such changes as circumstances might render appropriate.

"The science of education, like every other science, is composed of facts and observations. It seems, therefore, necessary to make for this science, just as has been done for every other branch of knowledge, collections of facts and observations, arranged in analytical tables, which can be compared, and from which definite principles and rules may be derived, so that education may almost take rank as a positive science. As

Esquisse et vues préliminaires d'un ouvrage sur l'éducation comparée et séries de questions destinées à fournir les matériaux de tables comparatives d'observations à l'usage des hommes qui veulent se rendre compte de la situation de l'instruction publique, par M. A. Jullien. Paris, 1817.

comparative anatomy has improved anatomy, so will the study of comparative education furnish new means of perfecting education."

The best proof that this project was no visionary scheme is that M. Jullien went to the trouble to publish, at the end of his work, some series of questions on the actual condition of education and of public schools in different countries compared with each other. These inquiries, which might in many respects be confounded with those sent out by the United States Bureau of Education, cover primary, secondary, superior, and special schools. Under each of these four divisions the inquiry embraced nine series of questions. That relating to the first grade, primary, embraced 120 items.

Such was the plan of M.. Jullien, of Paris, in 1817. Seeing that he could not execute his plan in France he tried it in Switzerland, where he was, however, only partly successful. The author would have been much astonished had it been predicted to him that his project would be realized for the first time and on a grand scale in a country the half of which, at the time he wrote, had savage Indians for inhabitants and trappers' cabins for cities.

Here follows a résumé of school statistics as given in the report of the Commissioner of Education.

RÉSUMÉ-CONCLUSIONS.

In concluding this report on the scholastic institutions of the United States, the question arises, "What conclusions shall we draw from these investigations? What lessons do they teach us, and what examples do we propose to our country for imitation? What is, finally, the practical result of our mission?”

The answer would perhaps be easy, if scholastic institutions could be compared like industrial inventions, which, recognized as good in one country, are equally good in all other countries. A commission of experts charged with the examination of an apparatus or an establishment must be able to adopt or reject it, as soon as they have seen it work. To draw similar conclusions from scholastic organizations would be very hazardous. The school is not, indeed, an institution which can be studied separately, like a system of railroads or telegraphs. The school is nothing in itself; it is established by the people and for the people, after its own image and imbued with its spirit. It lives through the people, and it has the virtues and imperfections of the people. It is a social institution, inseparable from society itself, and cannot be transported as a whole from one country to another. Had we found the American school system perfect, it would nevertheless be utopian on our part to advise its importation into our country, where it would have to be reconciled with our customs and traditions and with our different social conditions. Under such circumstances the system would soon be found detestable, for it would be, in our country, the corpse only; the son would have departed.

We have tried to imbue ourselves with the American idea in its application to school life, to understand the organization of the free school system, to catch its spirit, to follow its development, and to note its results. We have tried to judge the American school from an American standpoint, because it is made for Americans, and not from the standpoint of Europe and France, for whom it was not intended.

We offer here a résumé of our personal observations, and not a proj ect of reform based on those observations. The latter task belongs to others. We give the following account as simple reporters.

The American school has, as far as we have been able to ascertain, the following characteristics:

1. The primary school is essentially a national school; it is dear to the people, respected by all, established, supported, and enriched by a unan imous spirit of patriotism, which has not varied for a century; it is considered the source of public prosperity, the chief safeguard and protector of democratic institutions and of republican manners.

2. The school organization is strictly municipal.

3. The supreme control and supervision of primary instruction are intrusted to school boards which are elected and to officers sometimes elected and sometimes appointed by the board; hence result a variety of consequences: the frequent renewal of boards and superintendents: the often deplorable influence of political and local interests; the possi bility of sudden changes in scholastic organization;, and, finally, the necessity for the people of being informed as to the school questions which they are continually called to vote upon.

4. All degrees of primary schools are gratuitous.

5. The primary school is absolutely unsectarian.

6. Compulsory education, legalized in several States and advocated in several others, had undoubtedly aided in the development of primary instruction, but to what extent it would be difficult to say. The results thus far are not very striking. Moreover, it is impossible to establish compulsory instruction precisely where it is most needed, in the Southern States. Everywhere the most practical form in which it has appeared is the adoption of regulations for compelling truant children to attend school, and, if necessary, sending them to reform or other special schools.

7. Primary instruction, so called, in the United States, is not always limited to elementary studies, but often includes elementary, grammar. and high schools.

8. The scholastic organization (rules, courses of study, division of time, and discipline) is never left to the teacher in cities or localities of any importance, but to the educational boards and superintendents. Teachers are made to conform rigorously to the directions they receive and to use the text books approved by the same authority. All the efforts of educational authorities are directed toward the introduction of this system in the rural schools, which, up to this time, have been left too much to themselves.

9. The training of teachers is everywhere considered as very important. State normal schools are rapidly increasing, and several large cities also have special normal schools or departments for the training of their own teachers.

10. The frequent change of the corps of teachers is unquestionably an evil, at the same time that in some respects it is compensated by the entrance of large numbers of young teachers who are energetic, instructed beyond what is necessary for teaching primary branches, and free from

rou tine.

11: The proportion of female teachers is very large. Classes of boys of all ages are often under female teachers.

12. Coeducation is the rule in American schools. The results of this System are generally reported as excellent, both from a moral and intellectual standpoint; the only or the principal objections expressed apply to the overworking of the young girls which it involves.

13. The American schools offer a multitude of systems of organization, a large diversity of programmes, books, and methods of instruc

tion.

14. The school-houses are comfortably and often extravagantly built and furnished.

15. Great publicity is given to the annual reports of educational officers. The interest which public opinion takes in the development of school statistics and the beautiful and simple organization of the National Bureau of Education do more for the progress and improvement of scholastic institutions than the decrees of an administrative authority with the most extensive powers could produce.

16. Private instruction is free from all inspection or control by the

State.

17. Infant schools and Kindergärten generally do not yet make part of the American public school system, though the want of them is felt and is being supplied.

18. The large number of illiterates consist of foreign immigrants and of uneducated negroes in the Southern States.

Here follows a synopsis of rules and regulations on school management, translated from various superintendents' reports.

In concluding, M. Buisson says:

of this report are read with profit by those for whom they are intended. Our mission is fulfilled. Our work will not be vain if only a few pages That has been our whole ambition, and it will be our dearest recompense to furnish our share of useful information to those whose desire it

is to see that primary education in France, without imitating that of

other countries, should derive enough from the best of what other Countries have produced to shrink from no comparison with them.