22 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



The total population of Spain at that time was 9,087,821 

 males and 9,530,265 females, making a total of 18,618,086. 

 The elementary schools numbered 25,340 public schools with 

 1,617,314 pupils, and 6,181 private schools with 344,380 pupils, 

 giving a total of 31,521 schools with 1,961,694 pupils. In addi- 

 tion there were ten universities, numerous high and normal 

 schools, trade, technical, and engineering and professional 

 schools of all kinds. The illiterates in 1900 amounted to 5,- 

 290,368, or less than 30 per cent of the population. These illit- 

 erate persons were, for the most part, persons from maturity 

 to old age — chiefly hard-headed peasants who had old-fash- 

 ioned notions about the necessity of reading and writing — 

 while the younger generation was growing up bright and alert. 

 The lack of schools is also accounted for. Spain has local 

 government ; and the thrifty Spanish countryman will not tax 

 himself to maintain schools, while the stipend derived from the 

 central government at Madrid (which spends about $9,500,000 

 a year on education) is in itself too small to maintain schools, 

 where no local taxation has been provided. An analogous sit- 

 uation may be found in North Carolina and Tennessee. In 

 North Carolina in 1900 the illiterates were 28 per cent of the 

 population, and in Tennessee they were a little over 20 per 

 cent. 



When we compare the sums spent by Spain on the educa- 

 tion of her children and the school attendance there with the 

 sums spent in New York State, the comparison is not alto- 

 gether unfavorable. The various provinces and communes 

 in Spain supply the largest amount of money to support the 

 schools. I have not at hand exact figures for 1900, but I am 

 told that it is between three and four times as much as the 

 central government furnishes. In the State of New York local 

 taxation produced $34,721,611 for public education, while the 

 state government supplied $4,616,769 for the same purpose. 

 The total population of the State in 1900 was 7,268,012, so 

 that the State supplied a little over fifty cents per capita. The 

 attendance in the New York public schools throughout the State 

 for the year 1900 was 873,157 pupils. Spain, with two and 

 one half times the population of the State of New York in 

 1900, supplied twice as many pupils to her public schools, and 

 the central government supplied for education about twice as 

 much money as the central government of the State of New 



