436 



NA TURE 



"[March 12, 1885 



and Kansas, where schools have become fewer. Though 

 the contrary might have been expected in an increasing 

 country, a great complaint of the Report is the multitude 

 of small schools which require consolidating for the sake 

 of employing better teachers and apparatus. The sugges- 

 tion is made that each State should fix a minimum of 

 salary to be paid to any teacher ; this not only must be 

 good for the children, but would of itself urge forward 

 the consolidation, where distance allowed it, of small 

 schools of less than ten or twelve scholars. 



In Rhode Island, and in city schools generally, the 

 competition of factories is lamented. The deficient aver- 

 age attendance is imputed to the demand for cheap 

 labour ; and obligatory laws are quoted, among other 

 things, as an antidote. It should not be forgotten that 

 the inexorable enforcement of those laws is what is in 

 reality the greatest kindness to poor families ; for if the 

 cheap labour of young untaught children once enters the 

 market in the smallest quantities, it becomes impossible to 

 gain a fair price for the work of those older and better 

 taught. But, protected from all such unfair competition, 

 the child's education becomes a common necessity. No 

 doubt the difficulty is much felt in Alabama, North Caro- 

 lina, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the only States whose 

 reports are generally unsatisfactory : States where negro 

 labour keeps down the wages of white children. 



There has been an increase, again, in the number of 

 teachers : with regard to which it is interesting to note 

 that in three States the number of men has fallen off, 

 while in them, and even in frontier States, that of women 

 has increased : and an increase also in the item of 

 teachers' salaries ; even in Illinois with fewer of them, 

 in Indiana, where the population has decreased, and in 

 Michigan, where in past years the amount had fallen off. 



The variation in different States of the expenditure on 

 education, however, is still exemplified in the fact that 

 Massachusetts pays fifteen times the amount per head 

 that Alabama pays ! 



The educationists of Kentucky, where whites and 

 blacks are treated alike with regard to schooling, appeal 

 to the Peabody Trustees for advice to the Legislature. 

 This latter body, who are gaining an influence like that 

 of our Charity Commission, have concentrated their 

 money upon training teachers, with successful effect over 

 school work in the south. Another benefactor has be- 

 queathed over 700,000 dollars to the whites of New 

 Orleans for educational purposes. 



... The improvement in the organisation of systems, the 

 greater efficiency of work, and the deeper interest felt by 

 the people, is indicated by the public schools in some 

 States superseding the private ones ; and Gen. Eaton 

 attributes to the influence of the superintendents (officers 

 whom we have before quoted as combining the know- 

 ledge of our inspector with the zeal of our chairman of 

 School Board) the two most promising general move- 

 ments now going on, viz. the increase of local taxes for 

 education in the Southern States, and the effort to abolish 

 small independent, irresponsible districts in the older 

 Northern States. 



Still, nothing can be more depressing than that, in a 

 community naturally the leading people of the world, a 

 sober report of a patriotic commissioner should still find 

 it necessary to say more than once in his Report, that a 

 work so all-important to the future of that community as 

 education should be marred by school commissioners 

 persisting to license the cheapest teachers they can pro- 

 cure, and using the license as a means of favouring 

 relations, political supporters, and such like ; thus ren- 

 dering useless the efforts of examining bodies, who have 

 pointed out the really competent persons for this most 

 responsible office. 



We have no need to enlarge again here upon the 

 United States difficulty, the education of the negro. The 

 burning question of course is, Who is to pay for it ? The 



Report speaks confidently of securing national aid, the 

 need of which has been so strongly urged before. One 

 gentleman gave 1,000,000 dollars towards the work, but 

 religious denominations have so far been the great sup- 

 porters of black education. 



We, in England, can better enter into the labours of 

 those who are trying to raise the street Arabs to a gene- 

 rally higher level. Few things ought so much to convince 

 anxious reformers how little their improvements depend 

 upon the form of government, as to see how the struggle 

 of the poorest for existence is as sharp and demoralising 

 in the large towns of the United States as it is in England. 

 One of the leaders of the Kindergarten system lays it 

 down that " the best energies of the faithful teacher are 

 often required when the work of the schoolroom is over. 

 There is much visitation to be done to look up absent 

 children, and, where sickness invades, the teacher is often 

 called upon to supply medical aid and other necessary 

 help ; and, where death ensues, there is sometimes no one 

 but the Kindergarten helpers to see the little one 

 decently buried ; " and, in fact, not only to take all the 

 duties and responsibilities off the hands of parents, but 

 to provide an antidote to their mischievous example and 

 teaching. Their success in many cases must lead its 

 supporters on to the venerable yet now radical propo- 

 sition, which will be most offensive to Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer, that education from infancy should be the work 

 of the State ; and, strange as such a suggestion must 

 seem among English homes, it is very much in harmony 

 with modern division of labour which makes the parent 

 less able to educate, in the full meaning of the word, a 

 family, and the professional Kindergartens so much more 

 so. And the same principle is to be traced in the recom- 

 mendation that homes, as well as training-schools, should 

 be found for nurses. 



Both in primary and secondary schools witness is borne 

 to the improved teaching. The importance to the former 

 of the example of good teaching to be found in the nor- 

 mal schools, as well as the precept on the subject, is fully 

 insisted upon ; a difficulty often met with being the work 

 of correcting bad teaching in the lower schools : while, 

 on the other hand, the multiplication of teachers well 

 trained in public normal schools is, as we have said, urged 

 as the surest, and, in the long run, the most economical 

 means of raising the standard of education throughout the 

 country. 



Examinations like our Oxford and Cambridge Locals, 

 held by the regents of New York, are leading to greater 

 uniformity in the teaching of the second-grade schools. 



Perhaps the most striking thing in the Report is the 

 important part which women are now taking in study, as 

 well as in teaching, in the United States. The demands 

 and attractiveness of commercial life to the young men 

 of America, with the energy and self-reliance of its women, 

 are leading to the result that the latter are becoming the 

 learned class there. We have already remarked upon the 

 large and increasing proportion of female teachers in all 

 the elementary schools. But, moreover, while twice the 

 number of women begin a high school course, three times 

 as many women as men complete the fourth year. Although 

 the increase is not large this year, there are over 40,400 

 women in institutions of superior instruction. At Purdue 

 University, where practical mechanics is taught, a num- 

 ber of young ladies have been among the special students, 

 and " have done the same work as the young men, and, 

 though progressing much slower, have been nearly as 

 successful." Educated women are now also the leaders 

 of many philanthropic movements. 



The education of the blind and the feeble-minded is 

 urged as a matter of public economy, their cost if left un- 

 cared for amounting to much more. The same considera- 

 tions have many times been urged in favour of reform 

 schools. But they are all attempts to counteract laws of 

 nature that all these diseased specimens shall be inexor- 



