390 



EDUCATION". 



secondary and higher instruction has not been 

 neglected, and the facilities for it are rapidly 

 increasing. Some statistics of the present ex- 

 tent and magnitude of the educational interest 

 will exhibit more forcibly than can otherwise 

 be done, what has already been accomplished 

 for education in the United States. 



1st, Primary Education. An estimate of the 

 facilities for common school education in the 

 United States at the close of 1861, carefully 

 prepared by Anson Smyth, late superintendent 

 of schools in Ohio, gives the number of chil- 

 dren in attendance upon those schools at that 

 date as 5,211,000, or one in 5J of the free 

 white population. Of these 4,560,000 were in 

 what are now designated loyal States, with a 

 population of about 18,000,000 whites, or one 

 in four of the population ; while in the other 

 States, as a consequence of the extent of the 

 plantations, the scattered and sparse settle- 

 ments, &c., the number of children attending 

 public schools was only 651,000 in a white 

 population of about nine millions, or nearly 

 one in. 14 of the inhabitants. The expenditure 

 for the support of public schools the same year 

 was $23,461,000, or about 87 cents for each 

 white inhabitant. This too was divided very 

 unequally between the two portions, $20,385,- 

 000, or $1.13 to each free inhabitant of the 

 former States, and $3,076,000, or 34 cents for 

 each white inhabitant of the latter States. 

 The amount of school funds belonging to 

 the several States is not less than $50,000,000, 

 of which the newer States hold the larger 

 part, and when their school lands are sold, 

 they will have many millions of dollars more. 

 The largest expenditure for school purposes 

 relatively to the population is in Illinois and 

 Massachusetts, in the former State amounting 

 to about $1.58 per head for the entire popu- 

 lation, and in the latter to $1.34 per head. In 

 Massachusetts, however, $1.21 per head is 

 raised by taxation, while in Illinois only 76 

 cts. per head is raised in that way. In most 

 of the Northern States the annual expendi- 

 ture averages nearly $1 per head for the inhab- 

 itants. The wages of teachers average in the 

 Northern States $30 per month for male 

 teachers, and $17.25 for female teachers, in- 

 clusive of board in both cases. In the Northern 

 States, schools are taught an average period of 

 6.5 months in the year. In most of the South- 

 ern States the average wages of teachers cannot 

 be ascertained. 



Secondary Instruction. The number of pri- 

 vate schools, high schools, academies, and board- 

 ing schools, in which a more advanced course of 

 instruction is given (in some instances in con- 

 nection with the elementary studies) is not to 

 be ascertained exactly, some of the school re- 

 ports giving no account of them, and the census 

 returns of 1860, on this point, being as yet in- 

 accessible ; but from the most careful estimates, 

 and comparisons of States where they are enu- 

 merated they cannot be less than 20,000, and are 

 attended by more than 600,000 children. These 



schools were numerous in the Southern States 

 before the war, and supplemented to some ex- 

 tent the lack of common schools; about 1,200 

 of them were boarding schools. The expen- 

 diture for board and tuition in these 20,000 

 schools has not been less than $20,000,000 

 per annum, and probably exceeds that sum, 

 the boarding schools alone receiving over 

 $10,000,000. The number of colleges (aside 

 from agricultural and polytechnic colleges, 

 which belong rather to the rank of professional 

 schools) is about 240, and the number of un- 

 dergraduates in attendance in any one year is 

 somewhat more than 20,000. The average an- 

 nual expenditure for board, tuition, room rent, 

 and incidentals, deducted from the comparison 

 of these expenses in about 100 colleges in dif- 

 ferent States, is $161 per annum, the entire ex- 

 penditure for collegiate education would there- 

 fore be about $3,220,000, though the annual 

 expenditure of these colleges, many of which 

 are largely endowed, is not less that $5,000,- 

 000. The college in this country, considered 

 as an institution for undergraduate instruction, 

 is analogous to the gymnasium in Germany, 

 and the lyceum in France. 



Higher Education. The term university, 

 used in so many senses in Europe, is hardly ap- 

 plicable to any of the educational institutions in 

 this country. There are no universities like 

 those of Oxford and Cambridge composed of 

 numerous independent colleges, yet under a 

 common government, and having a corps of 

 university professors without connection with 

 any one of the colleges more than another ; nor 

 like the University of London, an examining 

 board, giving no instruction, but holding ex- 

 aminations and conferring degrees on members 

 of thirty or forty colleges, scattered through 

 the country, nor is there anything analogous 

 to the German universities, which have no un- 

 dergraduate course, but only impart instruction 

 in theology, medicine, law, or philosophy ; nor 

 yet to the University of France, the great cen- 

 tral controlling power over all education in the 

 country, from the highest range of scientific 

 study to the lowest primary or commercial 

 school of the empire. 



The term university is often grossly misap- 

 plied in this country ; an institution never in- 

 tended to bestow anything beyond the ordinary 

 classical and mathematical instruction of the 

 undergraduate course in the colleges, and 

 which, in fact, has only an academical or sub- 

 collegiate course, assumes very often the high 

 title of university, while, in some cases, institu- 

 tions like Yale College, which have, in addition 

 to their college faculty, corps of instructors in 

 theology, medicine, law, and physical science, 

 are known only by the humbler title of college. 



Of institutions possessing four faculties of 

 higher instruction, there are but two in this 

 country, viz., Harvard University and Yale 

 College. Of those having three there are five, 

 viz., Dartmouth College, the University of the 

 City of New York, the University of Pennsyl- 



