250 



EDUCATION, UNITED STATES BUREAU OF. 



important subject of courses of instruction in 

 the secondary schools of the country, 30,000 

 copies of which were printed by the Bureau of 

 Education and distributed in 1894. This com- 

 mittee was appointed in July, 1892, and was 

 presided over by Dr. Eliot, President of Harvard 

 University. Nine subcommittees were formed, 

 so that the experience and scholarly thought of 

 90 persons, representing all parts of the country, 

 were brought to bear upon the great confusion 

 existing in the curricula of secondary schools, 

 with a view to reforms. The edition of this 

 work was rapidly exhausted, and many requests 

 for it have been forwarded from foreign coun- 

 tries, particularly from England and France. 

 The " Report on Legal Education," prepared by 

 a committee of the American Bar Association 

 and the United States Bureau of Education, 

 published in 1893, covered the whole field at 

 home and abroad. 



In the circulars of information, a series of his- 

 tories of education in the respective States was 

 projected by Commissioner Dawson, with the 

 view of awakening interest and securing co-op- 

 eration with the bureau. These resulted favor- 

 ably in the Southern States, which were iirst 

 undertaken. Nineteen histories have been writ- 

 ten since the first, in 1887. This work is per- 

 formed by persons outside of the bureau, work- 

 ing under the supervision of Prof. Herbert B. 

 Adams, who are paid from sums economized 

 from its appropriations. Among the circulars 

 of recent date is especially to be mentioned that 

 on " Abnormal Man," essays on education and 

 crime and related subjects, by Dr. Arthur Mac- 

 Donald, with digests of literature, and a bibliog- 

 raphy. The edition of 20,000 has been exhausted, 

 and a second edition of 3,000 copies has been or- 

 dered. The " Statement of the Theory of Amer- 

 ican Education," formulated for the first time, 

 was prepared in 1874 by William T. Harris, of 

 St. Louis, Mo., and Duane Doty, of Detroit, 

 Mich., at the request of the bureau, and received 

 the approval of the majority of educators. 

 Among subjects covered by the bulletins are 

 architecture and hygiene of schools, compulsory 

 education, instruction in special lines, school dis- 

 cipline, and special features of foreign systems. 



It is the aim of the bureau to establish at 

 Washington the most complete collection of 

 works on education in the world. At present 

 the total number of volumes is 57.890, and of 

 pamphlets 140,000, while the collection of cata- 

 logues and publications of colleges is the largest 

 and most complete in the country. Additions 

 during the past year were 5,100 volumes and 

 10,000 pamphlets. Many of the foreign works 

 are received in exchange for publications of the 

 bureau. A catalogue of educational subjects is 

 kept, the printing of which by Congress is urged, 

 and it is contemplated that this shall contain an 

 analytical index to the more important sources 

 of educational information, which will be of 

 value to libraries possessing such works. More 

 than 60 foreign journals are taken. At the close 

 of the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 a gift 

 was made to the bureau of 1,500 bound volumes 

 and 415 manuscripts, drawings, etc., from the 

 French educational exhibit, the duplicates (in all 

 500 volumes) to be selected and forwarded to 

 other libraries specified by the French officials. 



The collection included French classics, official 

 reports, university publications, and complete 

 sets of school exercises showing curricula and 

 methods of instruction. The museum belonging 

 to the bureau contains more than 20,000 articles, 

 or series of articles, arranged in 30 large glass 

 cases ; but owing to the extremely crowded con- 

 dition of the bureau in its narrow quarters this 

 is practically inaccessible. It consists of models 

 of school buildings, appliances of all kinds used 

 in instruction in all parts of the world, speci- 

 mens of work done by pupils, notably sewing 

 schools of Japan, Indian work, and casts of 

 tique gems, illustrating classic literature, 

 erection of a building to be used exclusively by 

 the bureau in place of its present inadequate 

 rented rooms has been petitioned for by the Na- 

 tional Educational Association. It is then pro- 

 posed that the library and museum shall be the 

 depository of every native book, map, chart, ap- 

 paratus, etc., intended for use in schools, copy- 

 righted or patented, with the aim of forming a 

 valuable collection. The bureau has taken part 

 in all national and international expositions, 

 and in many local ones. It has received awards 

 and acknowledgments, notably at Vienna, Phila- 

 delphia, and the two Paris expositions, taking 

 the grand prize in that of 1889. The most im- 

 portant feature of the exhibit made by the bureau 

 at the World's Fair in Chicago was the American 

 Library Association Model Library, represent- 

 ing as nearly as possible the 5,000 books that a 

 new library ought to obtain first for its collection. 

 Suggestions for these were made by 75 librarians 

 and specialists, and publishers gave the books se- 

 lected. The Bureau of Education contributed the 

 greater part of the expense of the exhibit, and 

 published the catalogue in an edition of 20,000 

 copies. The library was put into complete work- 

 ing order, showing the most approved methods 

 of shelving, cataloguing, and issuing books, and 

 at the close of the exposition the whole was de- 

 posited permanently with the bureau at Wash- 

 ington, where it furnishes an object lesson 

 great value ; and the catalogue, presenting t\ 

 complete systems of classification, is the most ii 

 structive volume yet printed on the subject 

 libraries, and where the establishment and suf 

 port of libraries by taxation is authorized suj 

 plies a need of expert advice in making the fir 

 purchases. Of almost equal importance was tl 

 exhibit of statistical charts prepared to show tl 

 condition of education at home and abro 

 which furnished graphic representation of tl 

 relative illiteracy of European nations ft 

 which we receive our immigrants, and affords, 

 connection with the census charts, an easy m< 

 of determining where the greatest exertion m\ 

 be put forth to raise the standard of educatk 

 The exhibit of the work done by the bureau 

 Alaska possessed special interest* also. 



In connection with a description of the I 

 reau, the statistics of education in the Unit 

 States, as given by the last annual report of the 

 commissioner, are of interest. The latest com- 

 plete returns are for 1892, and show 13,203,877 

 pupils enrolled in the public schools of our 

 country, out of a school population of 19,192,- 

 894 that is, of persons from five to eighteen 

 years of age. This represents an increase of 

 202,238 over the enrollment of the previous 



