NEW YORK. 



621 



Auburn, excess of expenditures $34,179 24 



Clinton, excess of expenditures 77,027 64 



$111.206 88 

 Sing Sing, excess of earnings 43,406 43 



Total amount of expenditures over earnings, ex- 

 clusive of special appropriations for wall, rail- 

 road, new shops, etc $67,800 45 



In addition to the Insane Asylum at Utica, 

 built many years ago, the State has erected 

 within the past few years the Willard Asylum, 

 at Ovid ; the Hudson River State Hospital, at 

 Poughkeepsie ; the Homoeopathic Asylum for 

 the Insane, at Middletown ; and the Buffalo 

 Asylum ; making in all five large institutions. 

 In addition to these there are many private and 

 local establishments, but almost every asylum, 

 whether public or private, is filled with patients 

 within a very short time after it is ready to 

 receive them. The amount expended for con- 

 struction upon the various asylums up to the 

 30th of September, 1878, was $6,374,273.48, as 

 follows: Utica, $1,437,559.31; Willard, $1,513,- 

 664.97; Poughkeepsie, $1,697,665.88 ; Buffalo, 

 $1,096,352.91 ; Middletown, $629,030.41. The 

 number and condition of the insane of the State 

 in the various public institutions, November 30, 

 1878, based upon returns by the respective offi- 

 cers of such institutions, were as follows : 



I. In the State asylums for acute insane : 



In the State Lunatic Asylum at Utica 607 



In the Hudson Ei ver State Hospital 232 



In the State Homoeopathic Asylum 146 



Total. 



985 



II. In asylums that provide for both acute and chron- 

 ic insane, under special acts : 



In the New York City asylums 2,658 



In the Kings County Asylum 982 



In the Monroe County Asylum 182 



Total. 



III. In institutions for the chronic insane : 



In the Willard Asylum 1,895 



In the county poorhouses and county asylums 1,903 



Total... 



The total number of insane persons in the institutions, 



public and private, November 30, 1878, was 8,771 



Total number, November 30, 1877 7,921 



Increase 850 



The New York State Inebriate Asylum at 

 Binghainton is regarded as having wholly failed 

 to accomplish the purposes for which it was 

 established. 



The National Gfuard at the close of the year 

 consisted of 7 divisions, 13 brigades, 1 regiment 

 and 12 separate troops of cavalry, 1 battalion 

 and 10 separate batteries of artillery, and 23 

 regiments, 6 battalions, and 31 separate com- 

 panies of infantry ; in all comprising 1,323 

 commissioned officers, and 18,885 non-commis- 

 sioned officers, musicians, and privates, making 

 an aggregate force of 20,208. 



The following is a statement of the num- 

 ber and condition of the common schools of 

 the State, and of the number of pupils in- 

 structed in them during the year ending Sep- 

 tember 30, 1878: 



Total receipts, including balance on hand Oc- 

 tober 1, 177 $11,793,627 67 



Total expenditures 10,626,505 69 



Amount paid for teachers' wages 7,756,844 81 



Amount paid for schoolhouses, repairs, furni- 



ture. etc 1,868,429 57 



Estimated value of schoolhouses and sites.. 80,147,589 00 



Number of schoolhouses 11,824 



Number of school districts, exclusive of cities 11,270 

 Number of teachers employed for the legal 



term of school 19,948 



Number of teachers employed during any por- 

 tion of the year 80,567 



Number of children attending public schools . 1,032,052 



Number of persons attending normal schools. 5,522 

 Number of children of school age in private 



schools 118,864 



Number of volumes in school-district libraries 751,584 

 Number of persons in the State between the 



ages of five and twenty-one years 1,615,256 



The views of Governor Robinson on the 

 scope of the public schools were forcibly ex- 

 pressed to the Legislature in his message of 

 January 1, 1879, as follows : 



In my former messages I have given fully my views 

 in regard to the proper scope and extent of the 

 schools that should be maintained by general taxa- 

 tion. All my subsequent observatio_n has confirmed 

 the opinions expressed upon this subject. To the ex- 

 tent of giving to every child in the State a good com- 

 mon-school education, sufficient to enable him or 

 herto understand and perform the duties of Ameri- 

 can citizenship, and to carry on intelligently and 

 successfully the ordinary labors of life, the common 

 schools are and should be objects of the deepest con- 

 cern to the whole community. To the few who de- 

 sire and are capable of a still higher education, and 

 who have an ambition to shine as professional men 

 and in the arts of literature, music, painting, and 

 p_oetry, the door is wide open for them to win dis- 

 tinction in those callings. But to levy taxes upon 

 the people for such purposes is a species of legalized 

 robbery, and even the recipients come to know it. 

 Their sense of justice can not fail to condemn it; it 

 lowers their standard of morality, and helps to de- 

 bauch instead of purifying public opinion. It also 

 breeds discontent on the part of those who are edu- 

 cated, or attempted to be educated, to something 

 above that for which they are fitted. It really dis- 

 qualifies them for those duties and labors to which 

 alone they are by nature adapted, so that not only 

 great injustice but great demoralization is the result 

 of a system which collects money by force from one 

 man to educate the children of another man for call- 

 ings which they can never fill. The argument some- 

 times advanced that this system is a benefit to the 

 poor is an utter fallacy. The children of the poor 

 man generally leave the schools with a common- 

 school education, and go to work for themselves or 

 their parents. Yet while the poor man's children 

 are thus at work, his little home is taxed to give to 

 the children of others a collegiate education. Nine 

 in ten of those educated iu the so-called high schools 

 at the public expense, would far better pay their own 

 bills than to have them paid by the people of the 

 State. These views are so manifestly just that I 

 have no doubt they will ultimately prevail. Indeed, 

 there seems to have been already a cessation of efforts 

 to establish high schools, academies, and colleges, 

 and support them by taxation. So far as I can learn, 

 the normal schools established in various parts of the 

 State are, with two or three exceptions, wholly use- 

 less, and fail almost entirely to accomplish the ob- 

 jects for which they were established, and for which 

 the State is annually paying large amounts of money 

 from the Treasury. I recommend an inquiry into the 

 working of these institutions, and a discontinuance 

 of all those which fail to accomplish the purposes of 

 their establishment. 



At the "Women's Suffrage Convention, held 



