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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 83

The National Bureau of Education: Its history, work, and limitations

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The National Bureau of Education:

Washington: Government Printing Office. 1875.

The National Bureau of Education.

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The Bureau of Education, an Office in the Department of the Interior, publishes the following statement of its origin, purposes, practical working, and publications, the numerous inquiries addressed to it on these points making it expedient to have some such method of answering correspondents.

I.—As to its History.

This Office had its rise in the need long felt by leading educators of some central agency by which the general educational statistics of the country could be collected, preserved, condensed, and properly arranged for distribution. The sense of this need found expression finally in the action taken at a convention of the superintendence-department of the National Educational Association, held at Washington, February, 1866, when it was resolved to memoralize Congress in favor of a National Bureau of Education. The following memorial was accordingly prepared, containing substantially the arguments for the establishment of such an Office by the Government, which had been submitted to the convention in a paper by Hon. E. E. White, of Ohio :

Memorial.

Memorial to the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :

At a meeting of the National Association of State and City School-Super-intendents, recently held in the city of Washington, D. C., the undersigned were appointed a committee to memorialize Congress for the establishment of a National Bureau of Education.

It was the unanimous opinion of the association that the interests of education would be greatly promoted by the organization of such a Bureau at the present time; that it would render needed assistance in the establishment of school-systems where they do not now exist, and that it would also prove a potent means for improving and vitalizing existing systems. This it could accomplish :
1.By securing greater uniformity and accuracy in school-statistics, and so interpreting them that they may be more widely available and reliable as educational tests and measures.
2.By bringing together the results of school-systems in different communities, States, and countries, and determining their comparative value.
3.By collecting the results of all important experiments in new and special methods of school-instruction and management, and making them the common property of school-officers and teachers throughout the country.
4.By diffusing among the people information respecting the school-laws page 2 of the different States; the various inodes of providing and disbursing school-funds; the different classes of school-officers and their relative duties; the qualifications required of teachers, the inodes of their examination, and the agencies provided for their special training; the best methods of classify-and grading schools, improved plans of school-houses, together with inodes of heating and ventilation, &c.—information now obtained only by a few persons and at great expense, but which is of the highest value to all intrusted with the management of schools.
5.By aiding communities and States in the organization of school-systems in which mischievous errors shall be avoided and vital agencies and well-tried improvements be included.
6.By the general diffusion of correct ideas respecting the value of education as a quickener of intellectual activities, as a moral renovator, as a multiplier of industry and a consequent producer of wealth, and, finally, as the strength and shield of civil liberty.

In the opinion of your memorialists, it is not possible to measure the influence which the faithful performance of these duties by a National Bureau would exert upon the cause of education throughout the country, and few persons who have not been intrusted with the management of school-systems can fully realize how wide-spread and urgent is the demand for such assistance. Indeed, the very existence of the association which your memorialists represent is itself positive proof of a demand for a national channel of communication between the school-officer of the different States. Millions of dollars have been thrown away in fruitless experiments, or in stolid plodding, for the want of it.

Your memorialists would also submit that the assistance and encouragement of the General Government are needed to secure the adoption of school-systems throughout the country. An ignorant people have no inward impulse to lead them to self-education. Just where education is most needed, there it is always least appreciated and valued. It is, indeed, a law of educational progress that its impulse and stimulus come from without. Hence it is that Adam Smith and other writers on political economy expressly except education from the operation of the general law of supply and demand. They teach, correctly, that the demand for education must be awakened by external influence and agencies.

This law is illustrated by the fact that entire school-systems, both in this and in other countries, have been lifted up, as it were bodily, by just such influences as a National Bureau of Education would exert upon the schools of the several States; and this, too, without its being invested with any official control of the school-authorities therein. Indeed, the highest value of such a Bureau would be its quickening and informing influence, rather than its authoritative and directive control. The true function of such a Bureau is not to direct officially in the school-affairs in the States, but rather to co-operate with and assist them in the great work of establishing and maintaining systems of public instruction. All experience teaches that the nearer the responsibility of supporting and directing schools is brought to those immediately benefited by them, the greater their vital power and efficiency.

Your memorialists beg permission to suggest one other special duty which should be intrusted to the National Bureau, and which of itself will justify its creation, viz: an investigation of the management and results of the frequent munificent grants of land made by Congress for the promotion of general and special education. It is estimated that these grants, if they had been properly managed, would now present an aggregate educational fund of about live hundred millions of dollars. If your memorialists are not misinformed, Congress has no official information whatever respecting the manner in which these trusts have been managed.

In conclusion, "your memorialists beg leave to express their earnest belief that universal education, next to universal liberty, is a matter of deep national concern. Our experiment of republican institutions is not upon the scale of a petty municipality or state, but it covers half a continent and embraces peoples of widely diverse interests and conditions, but who are to continue "one and inseparable." Every condition of our perpetuity and progress as a nation adds emphasis to the remark of Montesquieu, that "it is in a republican government that the whole power of education is required."

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It is an imperative necessity of the American Republic that the common school be planted on every square mile of its peopled territory and that the instruction therein imparted be carried to the highest point of efficiency. The creation of a Bureau of Education by Congress would be a practical recognition of this great truth. It would impart to the cause of education a dignity and importance which would surely widen its influence and enhance its success.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

E. E. White

, State-Commissioner of Common Schools of Ohio.

Newton Bateman

, State-Superintendent of Public Instruction, Illinois.

J.S. Adams

, Secretary of State-Board of Education, Vermont. Washington, D. C.,

The above memorial was presented in the House of Representatives by General Garfield, February 14, 1866, with a bill for the establishment of a National Bureau on essentially the basis the school superintendents had proposed. Memorial and bill were both referred to a committee from seven of the States.* On the 15th of June following the bill was reported back from the committee, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute, providing for the creation of a department of education, instead of the bureau originally proposed. Thus altered, it was put upon its passage, and, after some frank opposition on one side and very able advocacy on the other, it received, June 19, 80 votes in favor to 44 against it. In the Senate it was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, with a view to determining whether there were any legal or constitutional obstacles to the approval of it. This committee, after holding it till the winter-session, reported it back without amendment and with a recommendation that it pass; and, having been discussed, February 26, 1867, on a motion to restore the title of Bureau, it went through, without division, on the 1st of March, receiving on the next day the approval of the President.

The person selected as the first incumbent of the office of Commissioner of Education was Hon. Henry Barnard, LL. D., of Connecticut, distinguished for his labors on behalf of education in his native State, for five years commissioner of public schools in Rhode Island, for some time chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, and also eminent for his efforts in behalf of education. page 4 literature. He was nominated for the post by President Johnson, March 11, 1807, and confirmed by the Senate March 16. Holding the office for three years, he had the task, at once honorable and arduous, of starting a scheme of operation and of getting the yet rough wheels of the organized machine at work. As he failed to receive the congressional co-operation that was hoped for, the National Superintendents' Association came to his aid, and, in a meeting held at Trenton, N. J., August, 1869, passed, unanimously, the following preamble and resolutions:

Whereas it was in consequence of the earnest and often-repeated recommendation of the State and National Teachers' Associations, and especially as the action taken at the session of the Association of School-Superintendents, held February 6, 1866, in the city of Washington, that Congress finally established the Department of Education; and whereas the more recent action of the Senate and House of Representatives seems to indicate a want of confidence in such a department as a useful agency in the promotion of education : Therefore,

Be it resoled, That this association appoint a committee of three to act in conjunction with a like committee of the National Teachers' Association, with instructions to confer with the authorities at Washington in regard to the best interests of the National Bureau, or Office, of Education.

Resolved, That the joint committee appointed as above be instructed to represent to Congress that it is the unanimous opinion of the members of this association that such a Department, at the seat of the General Government, clothed with all the powers and having all the facilities contemplated in the law by which it was originally established, would be of almost incalculable utility in collecting and disseminating information for the use of the great multitude of school-officers of every rank, who are now or who may hereafter be concerned in the organization and management of schools and school-systems in scores of States and thousands of cities and towns throughout the length and breadth of a territory which already covers almost a continent.

Resolved, That the said committee be further instructed to urge upon Congress that the causes which have impaired the present usefulness of said Department—whatsoever they may be—be not permitted to weigh against the continuance and liberal support of the Department itself.

The "liberal support" thus asked for was not given, and on the 17th of March, 1870, Dr. Barnard retired and was succeeded by the present Commissioner. He found the Office shorn of honors and emoluments, the original Department having been reduced to a Bureau, the salary of Commissioner cut down from 84,000 to 83,000, and the appropriation for the work from 820,000 to 86,000, while only two clerks, at 81,200 each, were employed in collecting from all quarters of the world the information upon school-matters to be circulated throughout all our country. This exceedingly inadequate force he has, with the cordial aid of the President, of the Secretary of the Interior, and of Congress, succeeded in increasing to something nearer an approximation to the work to be performed, though it remains still greatly short of what the wide range of the duties of the Bureau calls for.

* The committee of Representatives consisted of Messrs. Garfield of Ohio, Patterson of New Hampshire, Boutwell of Massachusetts, Donnelly of Minnesota, Moulton of Illinois, Goodyear of New York, and Randall of Pennsylvania, Mr. Randall, however, not acting with the others, us he observed on the floor of the House.

Messrs. Trumbull, Harris, Clark, Poland, Stewart, and Hendricks.

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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.

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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.

At the session of the department of superintendence of the same association, held in Washington January, 1874, the following resolutions, presented by Messrs. Ruffner of Va., Bick-nell of R. I., Hopkins of Ind., Newell of Md., and Jillson of S. C., the committee on aid to education, passed with apparently unanimous approval:

Resolved, That this convention strongly approves the policy hitherto pursued by the Federal Government of leaving the people and local government of each State to manage their own educational affairs without interference, believing that the principle on which this policy is based is as sound educationally as it is politically.

Resolved, That this convention acknowledges the great service done to the cause of education by Congress in establishing and maintaining a Department of Education, similar in principle to those of Agriculture and Statistics, whereby appropriate information from all parts of the world may be gathered, digested, and distributed, and whereby a number of important ends may bo subserved in connection with the work of education. It would also acknowledge the very valuable service already done by the Bureau of Education, and would venture to express the hope that its means of usefulness may be increased.

The State Teachers' Association of Missouri, too, at its annual meeting, held in Warrensburg, December, 1873, adopted this resolution:

Resolved, That we recognize the great value of the work of the United States Commissioner of Education, and respectfully ask our legislators and Representatives in Congress to render the Bureau of Education every possible facility for collecting and distributing the important facts and statistics embraced in the circulars and annual Report of the Commissioner.

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Hon. W. H. Ruffner, State-superintendent of instruction in Virginia, and offerer of the Washington resolutions quoted, makes this further voluntary statement in his report for 1873:

Those who have to deal practically with this matter of State-education know what need there is of some central depot of information, where educational facts from all parts of the world may be gathered, digested, and distributed over the country, as is done by the present Bureau of Education. This is a work too large and costly for any State-office, and yet is important to all. This Bureau is intended to occupy a position on educational matters similar to that occupied in their respective spheres by the Bureaus of Agriculture and of Statistics, and should never be allowed to go beyond this.

And finally, Hon. H. A. M. Henderson, State-superintendent of education in Kentucky, speaks thus in his report for 1874:

I am opposed to any national scheme for popular education, or the creation of any United States Bureau, or Commissioner, who shall be invested with any authority over the superintendents of the separate States.* * * I am not opposed to a Commissioner of Education, to bo located at Washington, as at present, whose relations to the subject of popular education shall be those of a general statistician. The annual report he sends out is worth the cost of the Bureau. It has always, afforded me pleasure to co-operate with him in his quest far information, and I have received valuable aid through the agency of his Office.*

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."

* In the debate upon the organizing act, in 1867, Senator Yates gave as one reason for voting to create the Bureau, that it would meet a want in this direction, a foreign friend of education having complained to him of the difficulty he experienced in finding any central source of information on such points. He could gather up reports from different States, but any connected view of education in the whole United States was not accessible. In fact, as was said by Hou. G. F. Hoar, upon the floor of Congress, the only respectable accounts of education in this country then published had been prepared by foreign governments.

The Library of the Bureau.

Full justice could not be done to the Bureau without some notice of this department of its work. As one of the fruits of its researches into educational facts and statistics, a library of almost unexampled richness in its special line has gradually grown up beneath its hands. This is, in part, composed of page 14 choice collections bearing on the history and art of education in this country and abroad; in part, of the accumulations made in the process of annual examination into the condition of public-school-instruction, the state of academies and colleges, and the rise and-work of professional and special schools.

For one element of it, there come in, each year, the educational journals of the country, the reports on education from our various States and Territories—including not only those of State-superintendents of instruction, but also those of the superintendents in the counties—and those of the cities and large towns. To these are added the annual reports of high schools, union-schools, preparatory schools, and normal schools; of young ladies' seminaries, business-colleges, agricultural colleges, classical and scientific colleges and universities, with the schools of science, law, medicine, and theology standing connected with these, or apart; while to close the list come schools for orphans, for deaf mutes, for the blind, for youth that need to be reformed as well as taught, for the instruction of a force of well-trained nurses, of apprentices for our marine, and of officers for the Army and Navy of our Government. Collections of school-laws go to fill up the list and aid in the investigation of systems of instruction; while prominent publishers of educational works send in their specimens to show what improvements in the means of teaching are continually going forward.

All these collections are, as fast as time and means permit, so bound, classified, and properly arranged as to be immediately available for any line of educational research to be attempted, whether it refer to the forms of State-and city-systems of instruction or to the condition of academic, collegiate, professional, or special training in any recent period or year.

For another element there are full sets of reports on education from Great Britain and Ireland, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden and Norway, the British Colonies, Brazil, and the Argentine Republic, while pretty full, though not complete, ones are on hand from Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, Chili, Mexico, Ecuador, and the United States of Colombia.

Both these two elements come in with little other expense to the Bureau than the exchange of its own publications with the governments, officers, institutions, and publishing-houses from which they are received.

Then, as a third element, there are, besides encyclopedias for page 15 reference, as large collections as small funds will admit of works relating, in a variety of ways, to the education and civilization of the world, the progress of knowledge, the development of art, and the condition of literature and science.

Works bearing directly on education as a science or an art form a fourth element. Among these may be enumerated: (1) Works of all the prominent German writers on these themes, such as Comenius, Basedow, Pestalozzi, Niemeier, Beneke, Denzel, Graser, Schleiermacher, Herbart, Diesterweg, &c.; (2) all the important works on the history of education in Europe, as well as in the United States; (3) a large number of German, French, and English treatises on educational questions; (4) the chief German, British, Austrian, French, Swiss, and Italian educational periodicals; (5) the many works on special topics in the line of education that have grown out of the controversies, the needs, and the desire for information of the last few years in our own country and abroad.

Those who have had opportunities for comparison of this with kindred libraries abroad do not hesitate to say that, great as are the means for such collections under the monarchies of Europe, this of the Bureau of Education is, for the ground it covers and for purposes of practical investigation, superior to any in existence, except, perhaps, one at Vienna. And of course, as its accumulations are continually going forward and its materials more and more systematized for work, its value as a library of reference increases with each added year.

* The committee of Representatives consisted of Messrs. Garfield of Ohio, Patterson of New Hampshire, Boutwell of Massachusetts, Donnelly of Minnesota, Moulton of Illinois, Goodyear of New York, and Randall of Pennsylvania, Mr. Randall, however, not acting with the others, us he observed on the floor of the House.

Messrs. Trumbull, Harris, Clark, Poland, Stewart, and Hendricks.

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

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

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

* 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.

* In the debate upon the organizing act, in 1867, Senator Yates gave as one reason for voting to create the Bureau, that it would meet a want in this direction, a foreign friend of education having complained to him of the difficulty he experienced in finding any central source of information on such points. He could gather up reports from different States, but any connected view of education in the whole United States was not accessible. In fact, as was said by Hou. G. F. Hoar, upon the floor of Congress, the only respectable accounts of education in this country then published had been prepared by foreign governments.

Appendix A.

Publications of the Bureau of Education.

Under Dr. Barnard.

  • * Report for 1867-'68.
  • *Special Report on the District of Columbia.

Under present administration.

  • *First Annual Report, 1870.
  • *Second Annual Report, 1871.
  • *Third Annual Report, 1872.
  • *Fourth Annual Report, 1873.
  • *August, 1870. Circular respecting illiteracy of 1860; school-room diseases, &c.page 16
  • *July, 1871. Report on the systems of public instruction in Sweden and Norway.
  • November. 1871. Methods of school-discipline.
  • December, 1871. Compulsory education. January, 1872. German and other foreign universities.
  • *February, 1872. Reports on the systems of public instruction in Greece, the Argentine Republic, Chili, and Ecuador, with statistics of Portugal and Japan and an official report on technical education in Italy.
  • March, 1872.
    1.An inquiry concerning the vital statistics of college graduates.
    2.Distribution of college students in 1870-71.
    3.Facts of vital statistics in the United States, with tables and diagrams.
  • April, 1872. The relation of education to labor.
  • June, 1872. Education in the British West Indies.
  • July, 1872. The Kindergarten.
  • November, 1872. American education at the International Exposition to be held at Vienna in 1873.
  • *1872. Free-school policy in connection with leading western railway
  • No. 1, 1873. Historical summary and reports on the systems of public instruction in Spain, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Portugal.
  • No. 2, 1873. Schools in British India.
  • *No. 3, 1873. Account of college-commencements, for the summer of 1873, in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
  • No. 4, 1873. Lists of publications by members of certain college-faculties and learned societies in the United States.
  • No. 5, 1873. Account of college-commencements during 1873 in the Western and Southern States.
  • No. 1, 1874. Proceedings of the department of superintendence of the National Teachers' Association.
  • No. 2, 1874. Drawing in public schools: the present relation of art to education in the United States.
  • No. 3, 1874. History of secondary instruction in Germany.
  • 1874. Contributions to the annals of medical progress and medical education in the United States before and during the War of Independence.
  • 1874. A statement of the theory of education in the United States of America, as approved by many leading educators.

* Bureau's supply exhausted.

Of each of these, 20,000 copies were ordered by Congress and 5,000 put at the disposal of the Bureau.

As to this, the congressional action was: The House had voted for 20,000 copies of this Report, and when the Senate, on economical grounds, made it 5.000, the House, adhering to its first vote, called for a committee of conference, and only yielded after much effort to secure the larger number. The following is the resolution finally adopted : "Resolved, That there be printed, of the Report of the Commissioner of Education for l873,5,000 copies, of which 2,500 copies shall be for the use of the Commissioner and 2.500 shall be for sale by the Congressional Printer at the cost of paper and press-work, with an addition of 10 per cent." This makes the price to purchasers only 68 cents for a volume of 1,048 pages, the postage on which is, tinder the new law, but 10 cents.