March 27, 1884] 



NA TURE 



505 



An additional interest, moreover, is lent to this Report 

 by the working up of the information supplied by a Com- 

 pendium of the Census of 1880. Here are given very full 

 particulars of the changes in distribution of population 

 during the last ten years, and of the amount of education 

 still required by its various classes. 



As to the former we may mention in passing that the 

 Report calculates that more than half the English-speak- 

 ing people of the earth live now in the United States, 

 which in size and population has become the fourth nation 

 of the world. Rather more than one-eighth, six and a 

 half out of fifty millions, of its inhabitants are immigrants ; 

 and a singularly similar proportion exists between the 

 coloured and the white population. Emigration is a 

 stream westwards, not only across the Atlantic but across 

 the continent of America. While 1,21 1,000 of the popu- 

 lation of the State of New York were immigrants to it, 

 882,000 had emigrated from it. Nearly 10,000,000 out of 

 43,000,000 of natives had moved from the States of their 

 birth to other States. It would seem to an Englishman in his 

 own land that this " unsettled " state of the country must 

 loosen all the feeling of attachment to the soil suggested 

 by the word " home" ; but it must, as the Report describes, 

 tend immensely to consolidate the widespread territories; 

 and it certainly suggests the fairness of the great work 

 of education being made a national and not a State 

 function. 



Of the emigrants from Europe there were twice as 

 many from Ireland as from Great Britain, but the Irish 

 were equalled in number by the Germans alone, and the 

 total Teutonic immigration in proportion to that of Irish 

 was as 40 to iS. "The preponderance, therefore, of 

 Celtic methods and ideas among our immigrant popula- 

 tion is at an eni, at least for the present. The German, 

 Scandinavian, and British elements will exert an ever- 

 increasing Teutonic influence, and will form a strong, 

 steady, and sensible influence to counterbalance the 

 volatile and brilliant qualities of the Irish blood. Not 

 the least among the attractions which have drawn 

 to America the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians whose 

 steady industry and stalwart vigour is felt with im- 

 mense effect along the northern border States and Terri- 

 tories, are the schools, to which they give their hearty 

 support. In these schools they find less of class educa- 

 tion in -America even than in Germany, where the children 

 are separated, the high from the low, the rich from the 

 poor, at the entrance into the school-room ; instead of the 

 social intercourse, the common interest, the mutual enjoy- 

 ment which may be the result of the American public 

 school." Nor is all the advantage to the immigrant only. 

 "The influence of the Germans has been exercised in 

 behalf of better methods of primary instruction, thorough 

 training, and high standards in the intermediate and 

 higher grades, the introduction of the German language 

 into the schools, and science training, especially as re- 

 lated to the development of our internal resources." 

 Much do we want more of a similar element in England 1 

 Much information is condensed in sixteen diagrams or 

 outline maps showing at a glance various results of the 

 census. 



A list is given of 251 " cities,'' towns, that is, containing 

 over 7500 inhabitants. Belonging to these are — 



17 per cent, of the population ; 



26 ,, ,, ditily attendance ; 



ZZ .> >, annual school income ; 



49 ,, ,, school property. 



Nothing can speak more strongly than the above figures 

 of the advantage to education afforded by the concentra- 

 tion of population such as is the case in England. Even 

 in a country where the rural population forms five-sixths 

 of the whole, and is felt to be of vastly greater import- 

 ance than it is in England, only one-half of the school 

 property and two-thirds of the income is devoted to them ; 



■wlereas, to secure equal advantage to the scholars, these 

 proportions ought to be more than reversed. As it is, a 

 rural school and an ungraded school are almost synony- 

 mous, and more exact reports from each State of their 

 efficiency and means are strongly urged, and their want 

 of trained teachers regretted. But even in the cities the 

 population keeps ahead of the provision of " sittings,' 

 till New York already requires over 50,000, and Brooklyn 

 and Chicago over 30,000, more than their present supply. 

 The latter has been driven to the certainly unhealthy 

 practice of "double divisions," teaching, that 1=;, one set 

 of children after another within twenty-four hours. Very 

 far, therefore, are these large cities from carrying out the 

 suggestion here quoted from the London School Board, 

 of providing schools beforehand for increasing population. 



The excess of female over male teachers has become a 

 national characteristic, and our Report accounts for it 

 not only by the superior attractions of pioneer life for the 

 men, for it is the case even in States where men largely 

 preponderate ; but also by the industry and intelligence 

 which have become the inherited tendencies of the women 

 of the Northern -States. In the colleges, accordingly, we 

 note that just over ten thousand women are being co- 

 educated with men, and " the experience of these institu- 

 tions shows that co-education is entirely practicable, and 

 is recommended by their officers upon considerations of 

 economy, its agreement with the conditions of family 

 life, and its practical results." The equal capacity ol 

 women with men for higher education, our Report asserts, 

 has been conceded both in Europe and the United 

 States ; and it quotes elsewhere the large increase of 

 female pupil-teactiers in England compared with the 

 corresponding increate in males. Extra care has been 

 given to the reports on this subject, both on account of the 

 attention directed from other countries upon the United 

 States and aho because it may well form a standard of 

 social progress. But the " meagre wages " of which the 

 Report speaks are illustrated by the fact that even in Penn- 

 sylvania, where excellent provision is made for the e.K- 

 amination and appointment of teachers, the average 

 salaries for men were about 40/. for the six months' teach- 

 ing required in the year, and 33/. for women, while in 

 Alabama the average was only 20/. A large increase in 

 the number of female students at the normal colleges 

 shows, however, that these wages are not to be spurned, 

 if they do not attract the highest talent desirable. /. 11 

 Bills introduced into Congress agree in providing that a 

 large part of the national aid proposed shall be applied 

 to the increase of teachers' salaries. It would seem, 

 liowever, that the difficulty of the thinness and dispersion 

 of the population causing schools to be small, and there- 

 fore education per head costly as well as inefficient, is 

 rather increased by an unwise feeling of independence 

 which objects to be joined with neighbouring districts, 

 even where distance allows it. To gratify this same feel- 

 ing, also, the State Government, after lajing down wise 

 and complete rules, has left in some cases to the school 

 authorities and to the people themselves in each city or 

 town, the whole practical control of the work. It is like 

 passing an Act of Parliament without making it the duty 

 of any body of men to see that it is enforced. A State 

 supervision is a step towards centralisation, which is, no 

 doubt wisely, recommended strongly by our Report. 



The desirability that curriculums should be laid down 

 by the central authority is quoted as the experience of tte 

 world, and of Belgium particularly, where, whenever the 

 schools have followed definite programmes, progress has 

 been marked, while in schools in which the whole matter 

 has been left to the teachers routine has prevented it. 



The long recesses, caused in a new country by the 

 scarcity of labour during harvest times, so shorten the 

 educational year that while on the one hand it is felt that 

 not enough is provided for in the curriculum of most 

 schools, on the other hand, time is too short to allow the 



