II.—As to its Work.

The operations of the Bureau are prescribed and indicated by the act of March 2, 1867, to which it owes its being. That act says it shall be established "for the purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several States and Territories, and of diffusing such information respecting the organization and management of school-systems and methods of teaching as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school-systems, and otherwise promote the cause of education."

The collection of information as to the condition and progress of education in the whole United States is the first branch of the work thus outlined. The field for exploration it presents embraces the thirty-seven States and eleven Territories. To make the exploration thorough, the Bureau must examine every school-law, and mark whatever change or amendment may be made, including the charters of city-boards of education, with their rules and ordinances. It must sift, for things deserving general attention, the reports of every State-, county-, and city super-intendent of the public schools that may be sent to it. It must get at the work not only of the public high schools, but also of the private academies and special preparatory schools. It must look through the annual catalogues and calendars of a long list of colleges and universities; schools of divinity, law, medicine, and science; reformatories, and institutions for the training of the deaf and dumb, the blind, and the feebleminded—selecting from each what is worthy to be noted in the way of either improvement or defect. And besides all this, it must keep its eyes wide open to observe the growth of libraries, museums, schools of art or industry, and other aids to the proper training of the people; must see what the educational journals say as to school-matters in their several States; must note what may be worth preserving in the utterances at teachers' associations and gatherings of scientific men; and must keep up, with reference to all these things, an incessant correspondence with every portion of the country. In fact, its correspondence reaches, more or less directly, to the 48 States and Territories, to 206 cities, 132 normal schools,^* 144 business-colleges, 54 Kindergarten, 1,455 academies, 103 schools especially engaged in preparing pupils for the colleges, 240 institutions for the

^* Some of these, normal departments in colleges and other schools.

page 6 higher training of young women, 383 colleges and universities, 73 schools of science, 115 of theology, 37 of law, and 98 of medicine; with 585 libraries, 26 art-museums, 53 museums of natural history, 40 institutions for the instruction of deaf mutes, 28 for the blind, 9 for the feeble-minded, 400 for orphans, and 45 for the reformation of misguided youth. The list of institutions in correspondence with the Bureau, already over 4,000, is steadily increasing, and must increase, with the growth of population and of schools, to fully 5,000, while that of individual correspondents, now much over 8,000, must soon reach a far greater number. The returns thus made to it, of perfectly free will, on education, exceed considerably what were gathered for the census of 1870 by an army of house-visitant officials, armed with authority for requiring answers to their questions.

The "diffusion" of the information thus collected, to "aid the people in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school-systems and otherwise promote the cause of education," is the second branch of the work to be performed. The language of the law, however, here, "such information as shall aid," widens the field of research considerably; sends the Bureau to the study of school-systems elsewhere prevalent; and induces inquiry as to the ministries of instruction in the several European states, as to the useful suggestions in foreign educational reports and journals, and as to the systems of training in the universities, gymnasia, real-schools, schools of architecture and drawing, and the various institutions for primary education in every civilized community or state, that whatever is peculiar or excellent in each may be collected, with a view to the assistance of our educators in their work.

All this, with the educational collections from our country, is presented by the Bureau : (1) In the form of annual Reports, each giving abstracts of the various classes of instruction, (such as primary, secondary, superior, professional and special,) with lists and statistics of all noticeable institutions and estimates of progress or retreat in various lines; (2) in occasional Circulars of Information, of which twenty have been published up to 1875, besides others of a closely kindred character, not so designated; and (3) in written answers to inquiries on school-matters addressed to the Commissioner, from a great variety of sources, both in this country and abroad.

The amount of intelligence conveyed by these means with respect to educational systems, school-laws, and important in- page 7 stitutions, is such as has never previously been made generally accessible in the United States; such as no agency belonging merely to a single State could possibly have gathered and such as private persons could not have obtained, without vast labor and a great expense, except through publications thus brought freely within reach.^*

How highly the intelligence thus spread abroad is valued, and how much it has aided in harmonizing the school-systems of the States and improving in new districts the methods of instruction, might be shown by strong testimonies from very many of our educators. The Bureau cannot violate the sanctity of correspondence by printing the kind words written to it by free pens, but lets this brief report respecting it be made to show what is the work laid on it, and what, with comparatively scanty means, has been the measure of success secured in this through the friendly co-operation of school-officer.

The limitations imposed upon the Bureau with reference to its work deserve some notice in a paper of this kind. It is very evident, from the language of the act creating it, that it was not to be left to do what work it pleased. The field in which it is to operate is, in that act, distinctly marked for it, and the kind of work to be done by it within that field is told in words that no one need mistake. To repeat, it is established "for the purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several States and Territories, and of diffusing such information * * * as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school-systems, and otherwise promote the cause of education."

It may be noted here that no power whatever is given the Bureau but that of gathering and disseminating information upon school-affairs; no lordship over school-officials is conferred; 110 authority over the school-systems of the States is hinted at; 110 warrant for coercing even an answer to the questions it may ask in its researches is sought or bestowed. The liberty of research and of publication is declared with authoritative voice, and nothing more. A governmental agency for getting at the facts of education, and so grouping these that all may have the benefit of the instruction they convey, the Bureau stands before the various school-officers to interrogate, but not to rule them. It has to depend upon their courtesy for a reply to its

^* A list of these publications may be found in Appendix A.

page 8 interrogations, and would be helpless if that courtesy should fail. It is simply a "clearing-house for educational information."

Not even in the Territories, where the legislative power of Congress is supreme, has any authority been given to the Bureau to direct what educational systems shall prevail. They are included with the States in the limitation of its duties above indicated, and to them, as to the States, a hand of help, and not of rule, is all that it is authorized by Congress to extend. It may gather information from them as to the progress and condition of education in their bounds; may distribute among them, for their benefit, such other information as it has from the various sources in its sphere of view; and may comment, if it should please, on the information it conveys, to show its value or its bearing; but there, alike with Territories and with States, its power ends. It cannot force on them its conclusions; cannot require that its suggestions shall be carried out; cannot demand that any defect which it may see in their systems of instruction be amended. Conveyance of intelligence fitted to amend defects is the extent of the authority accorded to it even with reference to education in the Territories.

That this view is correct is evident from several tilings connected with the first origination of the Bureau, as well as its entire administration.

(1) The spirit of the National Educational Association, from which the action for establishing it emanated, has been from the first opposed to national control of education, and in favor only of a moderate national "aid and comfort" for it. The whole drift of the action it has taken on this point has been for a perfectly free working of State-systems and against a national compulsory one. The very paper of Mr. White, which formed the basis of the memorial to Congress for the creation of the Bureau, took up the question of the starting of a system of education by the General Government, and pronounced against it as "too wide a departure from the settled educational policy of the country to be seriously entertained." At a succeeding meeting the same year, at Indianapolis, Hon. Oramel Horsford, State-superintendent of public instruction in Michigan, read, with apparently general approval, a paper on "National education," of kindred purport.^* At the meeting in Trenton, in 1869, in

^* The same view was enunciated and illustrated by the present Commissioner, in an address before the association, at Cleveland, in the summer of 1870.

page 9 which, as has been shown, the Bureau was heartily indorsed, a communication from a prominent clerical gentleman of Massachusetts, favoring "A national system of free schools," "met"—says an educational journal of that period—"but little favor." To make its position on the subject perfectly distinct, the association appended to its resolutions approbatory of the Bureau the following one:

Resolved, That, in petitioning Congress for the creation of a Department of Education, in connection with the General Government, this association contemplates neither the establishment of a national system of education nor any interference whatsoever with the systems of education established in the several States.

At the meeting at Saint Louis, August, 1871, when a scheme for establishing, by congressional enactment, systems of public schools in States where they were not existent was being agitated, the final seal was put upon this matter, as far as the association was concerned, by a paper from Hon. J. P. Wicker-sham, of Pennsylvania, a warm friend of the Bureau, in which a national compulsory system was argued against upon the grounds: (a) that "the establishment of such a system is in opposition to the uniform practice of our National Government;" (b) that "it is in opposition to the wishes of the founders of the Republic and the leading statesmen of the nation; "(c) that "it is of doubtful constitutionality," and (d) that "it is in apposition to a sound republican political philosophy."

This apparently uniform spirit of the body out of whose desire for it the Bureau sprung is accepted as one decisive indication of the limitation intended to be put upon its action.

(2) The expressions of the memorial which urged on Congress the formation of the Bureau afford a kindred indication of the limited powers which the memorialists desired that it should be authorized to exercise. Having stated the benefits to be hoped for from its establishment, the paper goes on thus : "The highest value of the Bureau would be its quickening and informing influence, rather than its authoritative and directive control." And again : "The true function of such a Bureau is not to direct officially in the school-affairs in States, but rather to cooperate with and assist them in the great work of establishing and maintaining systems of public instruction."

(3) Concurrent with these recorded ideas of the memorialists are those expressed in Congress by prominent men in favor of the Bureau, at the time of the debates on the question of creating it.

For example, General Garfield, of the House, by whom the bill for it was introduced, said, while strenuously urging the importance of a general training of the people: "The genius of our Government does not allow us to establish a compulsory system of education, as is done in some of the countries of Europe. There are States in this Union which have adopted a compulsory system, and perhaps that is well. It is for each State to determine." Mr. Bout well, then also in the House, remarked, in kindred strain : "This measure is no invasion of State-rights. It does not seek to control anybody. It does not interfere with the system of education anywhere. It only proposes to furnish the means by which, from a Bureau here, every citizen of every State in this Republic can be informed as to the means of education existing and applied in the most advanced sections of this country and the world."

In the Senate, Mr. Norton said he would not vote for it if it was to control education in the States; but, on the understanding that its office was simply to collect and disseminate information, informing one State of the manner of conducting schools and the school-systems to be found in another, he approved of it and believed it would be beneficial to the country. Mr. Trumbull, in the same honorable body, answering the objection that this was a scheme to take the control of education from the States and give it to the central Government, said "it was not so by any means. It was merely to establish a center for the dissemination of information among the States as to improvements in building school-houses, in methods of imparting instruction, and so on, and for giving a history of the disposition of the vast amount of property which the nation has donated for purposes of education."

These several indications of the bounds within which it must confine itself are taken by the Bureau, with the law which gave it birth, as demonstrating what must be its sphere of action. It is to be an aid to instruction in the States, and not a lordship over it. Information, not direction, is the line of work assigned to it. It may courteously question State-officers and teachers, but may not undertake to rule them. Content with this and not disposed to go a step beyond, it not only can disclaim all thought of intermeddling with State-systems, but also fearlessly appeal to the several school-officers with whom its duties bring it into contact, whether it ever trespasses upon their fields or threatens in the least to turn into a tyranny what was meant to be an aid to them. But, happily, there is no need page 11 for such appeal. The pleasantest relations constantly subsist between it and the educational authorities in all the States. It is in receipt of frequent and most gratifying evidence of their cordially kind feeling and readiness to co-operate with it in its work. In proof of this, citation may be made from freely-published testimonies, without touching private correspondence.

For instance, at the session of the National Educational Association held in Boston, August, 1872, the assembled educators passed a resolution congratulating themselves and the country that the National Bureau of Education was beginning to meet the wants of teachers by pursuing investigations which increased the value of educational statistics and by publishing occasionally, for the benefit of the educators of the country, the rare products of the educational field in this and other regions. They also respectfully recommended that facilities for the publication of its Circulars of Information be increased and that Congress should provide for a larger edition of the annual Report, to be distributed among teachers and school-officer, that they might have each year in the conduct of their work the advantage of its aggregated information drawn from the previous year's experience.

It is hoped that these showings of the limitations put upon the work of the Bureau and of the confidence reposed in it by State-teachers and State-officers, as administered in strict compliance with these limitations, may help to correct misconceptions, not infrequently apparent, as to possible interference with the independence of State-systems ot instruction; for any one may see that such interference is impossible from an agency whose business is just to gather from all quarters educational hints, information, and statistics, and spread these, for the general benefit, by its publications and its correspondence through the country. And that this, and on more, is the duty that is laid on it is indicated clearly, not only by the act which gave it its existence, but also, as has been shown, by the spirit of the great association that suggested it, by the terms of the me-

^* While this pamphlet is passing through the press, the following additional testimonials of the appreciation of the Bureau among educators come to hand: (l) That the Massachusetts State Teachers' Association, at its meeting in Boston, December 28-30, 1874, passed, unanimously "a resolution to memorialize Congress in favor of the continuance and liberal support of the National Bureau of Education;" (2) that the New York State Association of School-Commissioners and Superintendents adopted at its session, December 20, the following:

Resolved, That we have noticed with deep regret the apparent want of appreciation, on the part of a largo number of Representatives, of the Bureau of Education at Washington, the great value of which we have learned by our individual experience, not as building up a central power in education at the national Capital, which it appears to us inadequate ever to do, but as enabling those engaged in education in the various States to have access to the information necessary to make their work thorough and efficient.

page 13 morial winch led to the formation or it, and by the expressions in the congressional debate on that formation.

That the Bureau does, besides this, from its being a known organ of the Government, an incidental duty, not included in its special aim, by furnishing to foreign governments and individuals much-needed information as to our school-systems and school-methods, no one will complain of who desires good-neighborhood among the nations.^* Our country is honored by being applied to for such information, and the pride of our people in the educational status they have reached would be amply gratified if the Bureau could spread out before them the returns of approval from its many foreign correspondents.

Of the value of such a means of international communication as the Bureau is, an illustration was afforded in the case of the Exposition at Vienna, in 1873. In previous world's fairs the condition of the United States with regard to education had been scarcely touched, from want of any agency to organize the material for exhibition. But at Vienna, through the facilities which this Office was able to furnish from its national position, the educational instrumentalities of the country—public-school-systems, institutions of learning, libraries, and others—wereenabled to represent their statistics, methods, apparatus, and literature, so as to secure special recognition, and carried off forty-eight premiums. Of the four grand diplomas of honor given the United States in the educational group, one was bestowed on this Bureau "for distinguished services in the cause of education and for important contributions to the Exposition."