THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



377 



THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL 

 ASSOCIATION. 



The National Educational Associa- 

 tion held one of its great assemblages 

 on the New Jersey coast during the 

 first week of July. No official report 

 •of the registration was given out, but 

 the attendance was estimated at 15,000, 

 some newspapers placing it as high as 

 20,000. The association has been called 

 an institute for the promotion of sum- 

 mer travel, and this is certainly one 

 •of its functions. Favorable arrange- 

 ments are made with the railways, and 

 teachers with their relations and 

 friends are thus enabled to enjoy a trip 

 of which the meeting is only an inci- 

 dent. Under these conditions the at- 

 tendance has increased in an extra- 

 ordinary manner. The registration 

 was only 625 at the Saratoga meeting 

 •of 1885. At the previous Asbury Park 

 meeting of 1894 it was 5,915. At the 

 subsequent meetings it has been as fol- 

 lows. Denver, 11,297; Buffalo, 9,072 

 Milwaukee, 7,111; Washington, 10,533 

 Los Angeles, 13,056; Charleston, 4,641 

 Detroit, 10,182; Minneapolis, 10,350 

 Boston, 34,9S4; St. Louis, 8,109. 



Asbury Park and Ocean Grove offered 

 •an attractive place of meeting to those 

 who wished to visit the cities, the sea- 

 side or the mountains of the Atlantic 

 seaboard, and in addition to the usual 

 features of the program, addresses were 

 made by the mayor of New York City 

 and the president of the United States. 

 Dr. W. 11. Maxwell delivered on the 

 ffrst day the presidential address, which 

 we are able to print in advance of its 

 publication in the proceedings. Dr. 

 Maxwell, who came to this country 

 from Ireland at the age of twenty-two, 

 was assistant superintendent and then 

 superintendent of the Brooklyn schools, 



and has since 1898 been head of the 

 public school system of Greater New 

 York. This is the most responsible 

 educational position in the country. 

 There are in New York City nearly one 

 million children of school age, and the 

 annual budget for the public schools is 

 about $30,000,000. Compared with the 

 vast responsibility of administering 

 this system, the presidency of Harvard 

 University or the commissionership of 

 education is comparatively unimpor- 

 tant. The responsibility is obviously 

 increased by the political conditions 

 and by the fact that in New York 

 City are enormously emphasized the 

 two increasing difficulties of education, 

 to which Dr. Maxwell referred in his 

 address — the crowding into cities and 

 the quantity and quality of immigra- 

 tion. 



In addition to addresses by the presi- 

 dent of the association, by President 

 Roosevelt and by Mayor McClellan, 

 there were a number of papers pre- 

 sented before the general sessions. Dr. 

 W. T. Harris, U. S. Commissioner of 

 Education, without whom a meeting of 

 the association would be incomplete, 

 read a paper on ' The Future of Teach- 

 ers' Salaries ' ; Dr. Andrew S. Draper, 

 state commissioner of education, spoke 

 of 'The Nation's Educational Purpose'; 

 Mr. William Barclay Parsons, the 

 eminent New York engineer, discussed 

 ' The Practical Utility of Manual and 

 Technical Training'; the question of 

 child labor and compulsory education 

 was treated by Mr. George H. Martin, 

 secretary of the Massachusetts State 

 Board of Education, and by Dr. Frank- 

 lin P. Giddings, professor of sociology 

 at Columbia University, who considered 

 the perplexing topic of the relation of 

 compulsory education and the prohibi- 



