CHAP, XIII.] SCHOOLS IN NEW YORK. 187 



needle at great distances without the aid of local batteries. The 

 use, however, of this instrument has been comparatively small in 

 Great Britain, the cost of messages being four times as great as 

 in the United States. 



The population of the State of New York amounts, in the 

 present year (1845) to 2,604,495 souls. Of this number as 

 we learn by the report of the government inspector of schools, no 

 less than 807,200 children, forming almost one-third of the in 

 habitants, have received the benefit of instruction either for the 

 whole or part of the year. Of these, 31,240 attended private 

 schools, and 742,433 the common or public schools of the state. 

 We are also informed in the same official document, that the 

 number of public schools is now 11,003. The whole amount 

 of money received by the school trustees during the year for 

 teachers wages, and district libraries, was 1,191,697 dollars, 

 equal to about 250,000/. This sum has been raised chiefly by 

 rates, and about one-third of it from the revenue of the school 

 fund, which produces a yearly income of 375,387 dollars. The 

 teachers in the common schools, both male and female, are 

 boarded at the public expense, arid, in addition to their board, 

 receive the following salaries : Male teachers, during the winter 

 term, 1 4 dollars, 1 6 cents ; and during the summer term, 1 5 

 dollars, 77 cents per month, equal to about 5Ql. a year. Female 

 teachers, 7 dollars, 37 cents in the winter term, and 6 dollars, 

 2 cents in the summer term. In some counties, however, the 

 average is stated to be as high as 20, or even 26 dollars per 

 month for the male teachers, and from 9 to 1 1 for the female. 

 There are also district libraries in connection with most of the 

 schools. 



All these 11,000 schools have been organized on what has 

 been styled in England, even by respectable members in the 

 House of Commons, the infidel or godless plan, which generally 

 means nothing more than that they are not under the manage 

 ment of the clergy. The Roman Catholic bishops and priests 

 command a vast number of votes at the elections in New York, 

 yet they failed, in 1842, to get into their exclusive control that 

 part of the public school money which might fairly be considered 



