CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (NATIONAL AID TO COMMON SCHOOLS.) 



223 



rary training-schools, or in extending opportunities for 

 normal or other instruction to competent and suitable 

 persons, of any color, who are without necessary 

 means to qualify themselves for teaching, and who 

 shall agree in writing to devote themselves exclusive- 

 ly, for at least one year after leaving such training- 

 schools, to teach in the common schools, for such 

 compensation as may be paid other teachers therein. 



SEC. 10. That no jbart of the educational fund allot- 

 ted to any State or Territory or the District of Colum- 

 bia shall be used for the erection of school-houses or 

 school-buildings of any description, nor lor rent of the 

 same. 



SEC. 11. That the moneys distributed under the 

 provisions of this act shall be used in the school dis- 

 tricts of the several States and Territories in such way 

 as to provide, as near as may be, for the equalization 

 of school privileges to all the children of the school 

 age prescribed by the law of the State or Territory 

 wherein the expenditure shall be made, thereby giv- 

 ing to each child an opportunity for common-school 

 and, so far as may be, of industrial education ; and to 

 this end existing public schools, not sectarian in char- 

 acter, may be aided, and new ones may be established, 

 as may be deemed best, in the several localities. 



SEC. 12. That any State in which the number of 

 persons ten years of age and upward who can not read 

 and write is not over 5 per cent, of the whole popula- 

 tion thereof shall have the right to receive its allot- 

 ment and to apply the same for the promotion of com- 

 mon-school and industrial education, or the education 

 of teachers therein, in such way as the Legislature of 

 such State shall provide. 



SEC. 13. That the Secretary of the Interior shall re- 

 ceive from the Governor of each State and Territory a 

 report, to be made by or through such Governor on or 

 before the 30th day of June of each year, giving a de- 

 tailed account of the payments or disbursements made 

 of the school fund apportioned to his State or Terri- 

 tory and received by the State or Territorial treasurer 

 or officer under section 4 of this act, and of the bal- 

 ance in the hands of such treasurer or officer withheld, 

 unclaimed, or for any cause unpaid or unexpended, 

 and also the amount expended in such State or Terri- 

 tory as required by section 8 of this act, and also of 

 the number of public, common, and industrial schools, 

 the number of teachers employed, the total number of 

 children taught during the year and in what branches 

 instructed, the average daily attendance, and the rela- 

 tive number of white and colored children, and the 

 number of months in each year schools have been 

 maintained in each school district, and such other in- 

 formation in relation to the use of the school fund and 

 the condition of common-school education as the 

 Secretary of the Interior may require. And if any 

 State or Territory shall misapply or allow to be mis- 

 applied, or in any manner appropriated or used other 

 than for the purposes herein required, toe funds, or 

 any part thereof, received under the provisions of this 

 act, or shall fail to comply with the conditions herein 

 prescribed, or to report as herein provided, through 

 its proper officers, the disposition thereof, such State 

 or Territory shall forfeit its right to any subsequent 

 apportionment by virtue hereof until the full amount 

 so misapplied, lost, or misappropriated shall have 

 been replaced by such State or Territory and applied 

 as herein required, and until such report shall have 

 been made : Provided, That if the public schools in 

 any State admit pupils not within the aixes herein 

 specified it shall not be deemed a failure to comply 

 with the conditions herein. 



SEC. 14. That on or before the 1st day of Septem- 

 ber of each year the Secretary of the Interior shall re- 

 port to the President of the United States whether 

 any State or Territory or the District of Columbia has 

 forfeited its right to receive its apportionment under 

 this act, and how forfeited, and whether he has with- 

 held such allotment on account of such forfeiture; 

 and each State and Territory and the District, of Co- 

 lumbia from which such apportionment shall be with- 



held shall have the right to appeal from such decision 

 of the Secretary of the Interior to Congress ; and if 

 the next Congress shall not direct such share to be 

 paid, it shall be added to the general educational fund 

 for distribution among the other States and the Terri- 

 tories and District of Columbia which shall be entitled 

 to the benefit of the provisions of this act. 



SEC. 15. That the Secretary of the Interior shall be 

 charged with the practical administration of this act 

 in the Territories and the District of Columbia, 

 through the Commissioner of Education, who shall 

 report annually to Congress its practical operation, 

 and briefly the condition of common and industrial 

 education as affected thereby throughout the country, 

 which report shall be transmitted to Congress by the 

 Secretary of the Interior, accompanying the report of 

 his department. 



Mr. Blair made the following statement of 

 facts as a justification of the proposed meas- 

 ure: "In 1880 there were 105,465 Chinese, 

 148 Japanese, and 66,407 civilized Indians. I 

 am aware of no means by which the actual 

 number of voters in the United States can be 

 ascertained, but if we add to the total of male 

 population over twenty-one years of age one 

 eighth of the total of 1880 we have 1,603,793, 

 and in all at this time 14,434,142. Assuming 

 one half the foreign-born males of voting age 

 to be naturalized, we have a voting element as 

 follows, making allowance for increase of one 

 eighth in each element since the census was 

 taken: Native-born white voters, 9,203,332; 

 foreign-born white voters, 1,728,274; colored 

 (excluding Chinese, Japanese, and Indians), 

 1,479,739; total voting population of the 

 United States in 1884, 12,411,345; or in round 

 numbers there will be 12,500,000 men whose 

 ballots will or may decide the next presidential 

 election. 



"The percentage of illiterate white males over 

 twenty-one years of age by the census of 1880 

 is 7'8, and of colored the rate is 68*7. There is 

 no perceptible change in this percentage for 

 the better, judging from the fact that the illit- 

 erate population increased, according to a 

 statement of the Commissioner of Education, 

 between the years 1870 and 1880, 581,814 per- 

 sons. There is some confusion in the data, 

 but I think there was an increase during that 

 period substantially as estimated by the com- 

 missioner. We have then at the present time 

 an illiterate white voting population of 852,- 

 665; illiterate colored voters, 1,016,580; total 

 illiterate voters, 1,869,245. 



"I do not believe that more than two thirds, 

 or at the most three fourths, of the voting 

 population of this country is to-day in posses- 

 sion of a degree of proficiency in the arts of 

 reading and writing that qualifies them, through 

 the use of those arts, to exercise the right of 

 suffrage more intelligently than do total illiter- 

 ates. The school education of great multitudes 

 is nominal, not real. 



"I purposely omit further data as to the dis- 

 tribution of the illiterate vote. If it were uni- 

 formly dispersed it would be less dangerous. 

 But concentrated as it is in masses at points 

 along the line, while intelligence can never be 



