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maintenance of evening schools at the public expense, especially evening drawing schools and evening high schools; for the same reason they have objected to the establishment of Kindergärten. But their heaviest guns have been brought to bear on the free public high school. They have persisted in trying to create a popular sentiment in opposition to the high school by representing it as a contrivance of the rich to rob the poor. But all these adverse efforts have been unavailing. All the attempts to restrict the application of the principle of gratuity have utterly failed. During the period of this special opposition the free high school has advanced more rapidly than in any other period of its history.

When the principle of free public instruction is once admitted there is no possibility of drawing a line and saying beyond this it must not go. The free common school of the people means the free high school of the people and the free college of the people. They are all necessary for the well being of a democratic society. On this point a former president of Harvard University, Edward Everett, in pleading for a legis. lative grant to that institution, used this language:

I will thank any person who can do so to draw the line between them [elementary and higher education]; to show why it is expedient and beneficial in a community to make public provision for teaching the elements of learning and not expedient nor beneficial to make similar provision to aid the learner's progress towards the mastery of the most difficult branches of science and the choicest refinements of literature. The assertion that school education is the interest of many and college education the interest of the few is founded in a great fallacy. A good college education for those who need it is just as much the interest of the many as a good school education. They are both the interest of all, that is, the interest of the community.

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The principle of gratuity, which has become the characteristic feature of the American system, was not generally adopted at the outset. In its progress it has had to encounter formidable obstacles. It has had to contend against the opposition of aristocratic prejudice, sectarian interest (so universally opposed to liberal State provision for public schools), the short-sighted selfishness of capital, the blind ignorance of the classes most benefited by it, and the erroneous views on the subject of many real friends of popular education. Thus far it has in every contest triumphed over all opposing forces; and, judging from the past, it is reasonable to infer that it will not only maintain its present ground, but make further advances in providing free infant schools, evening schools of different descriptions on a far more liberal scale, industrial day schools, and, finally, free instruction of the college grade.

FREE TEXT BOOKS AND STATIONERY.

Gratuity of text books and stationery is the natural and inevitable sequel to gratuity of tuition. Indeed, a system of instruction cannot be properly reckoned as free which does not supply free books as well as free

tuition and free accommodations. Something may be said to the purpose against every possible arrangement. The opponents of this provision tell us that it is communism: the only proper answer to this charge is that gratuitous instruction is in exactly the same sense communism. They say that it is detrimental to the development in the pupils of the spirit of self reliance. To this assertion the reply is that the same objection has been urged against free tuition, but experience has shown it to be without foundation. Moreover, it is said, the pupils will not take proper care of the books which they do not own. Experience refutes this assertion, too. In fine it is claimed that it is a good thing for pupils to own their books and keep them after leaving school as mementos and for the purpose of reference. This is no doubt a just claim, but it is of little importance compared with the great advantages of free books. The two chief arguments in favor of free books are (1) the economic consideration: the saving of expense and the great saving of the time of the teachers and pupils; (2) the moral consideration: an invidious distinetion between the children of the well to do and the indigent, as far as school provision is concerned, is obliterated. The policy of furnishing free books was long ago adopted by New York. Its success here has led to its adoption in a number of other cities, and it appears to have been generally approved wherever it has been applied. In Philadelphia the average yearly cost for each pupil has been less than one dollar. the recent session of the legislature of Massachusetts, 1884, an act was passed requiring all the towns and cities in the State to furnish all the pupils in the public schools with free books and stationery. There is, however, one danger to be guarded against to which the free book system is liable, namely, that school committees may be tempted to permit the principals of schools to select text books from an approved list, as is the case in New York City, instead of requiring an absolute uniformity in all the schools of the same city or town. The Massachusetts act referred to is defective in not embodying this safeguard. There can be no doubt that ultimately gratuity of school books will be coextensive with gratuity of tuition, as they rest on one and the same foundation and a conclusive argument in favor of one is equally conclusive in favor of the other.

Remove all possible distinction between the children of the rich and the children of the poor man. Let the children go into the school-house that is free for all of them. And the teachers - they, too, are free, certainly. But why withhold the books? So the legislature said there shall be free text books for all the children of this Commonwealth. Those are good things and they are in the laws.- (Extract from a speech by His Excellency George D. Robinson, governor of Massachusetts.)

ECONOMY.

Good educational advantages are nowhere cheap, and it is wise to assume that good schools must, in the nature of things, be costly schools.

The immediate result of this legislation has been to largely increase the number of pupils entering the high school.

It is not necessary to admit, however, that schools are uniformly good or bad in proportion as they are dear or cheap. There is large scope for economy in the administration of a school system. An examination of school reports makes it apparent that school boards differ widely from one another in respect to their ideas of what constitutes true economy in the management of school affairs. Some boards seem to be ambitious to prove that they are educating pupils at the lowest cost per capita; and, accordingly, they publish in their reports comparative tables, showing that the schools under their charge are carried on at less expense than those of other cities selected by them for comparison. Some boards and superintendents are constrained to make such exhibits, doubtless, to silence the clamor of illiberal taxpayers against what they call extravagance in the maintenance of public schools. But in the more advanced communities the school boards very generally assume that it is their first duty to provide schooling of a very high degree of excellence rather than to run the system at the cheapest rate per scholar. It is pretty safe to assume that cheap schools are poor schools; but, on the other hand, it is not true that the cost of instruction per capita is a sure indication of the value of the instruction afforded. In a wise administration, while the best education is aimed at, or, at any rate, a reasonably good quality of education, at the same time, in every part of the service, care is taken that every dollar of the school money is turned to the best account. The appropriate legend to be placed over the door of the school board hall is, "Good schools for all; not a dollar to be wasted." From the mere fact of high or low cost per capita of a school system, no inference can be drawn as to the merit in the economic point of view of the school board. That administration is the best, economically considered, which makes every dollar yield the best return. The question is where to save without detriment to efficiency. I found in the Denver system a remarkable example of efficiency and economy combined. This was the result, of course, of the superior ability and public spirited devotion of the school board and superintendent.

In the current criticisms of our city school systems, the hackneyed complaint is that the school money is lavished on showy school architecture. This complaint is, for the most part, groundless; but it is a fact worthy the attention of authorities charged with the responsibility of school-house building that the cost of school-houses in different cities is not at all proportioned to their capacity and general excellence. I have been astonished to find school-houses in one city, school-houses costing $10,000 or $12,000, apparently as good as those costing $30,000 or $40,000 in another.

Cities might be named where great stress is laid on economical management in giving out dippers, brooms, and mats, while immense waste is all the while going on with the teaching force of the teachers and the

learning capability of the pupils, for the want of a wise and efficient direction.

In carrying on a system of schools, by far the largest item of cost in money is that of tuition. The rate of tuition is determined, of course, by the number of teachers and the rate of their salaries. With high salaries and a liberal supply of teachers, or, what amounts to the same thing, a small number of pupils to a teacher, the cost of tuition per capita must, of course, be large. On the other hand, by paying the teachers a minimum salary and assigning them a maximum number of pupils to teach, of course, we have as a result the minimum cost of tuition per capita, and with it, inevitably, a minimum result. As a rule, each school board has assigned to it yearly a certain fixed amount of money for the ordinary school expenses. This being the case, by far the most important economic question for the board to decide is that relating to the adjustment of the rate of salaries and the number of pupils to a teacher. A maximum number of pupils to a teacher will afford a maximum salary, while a minimum number of pupils to a teacher affords the minimum salary. It is evident that both these extremes should be avoided. In this matter, the middle ground is the wise one. Now, what is the middle ground in respect to the number of pupils to a teacher! Experience must determine. If as many as seventy-five or a hundred pupils are given to a teacher, every school man knows that the result must be insufficient instruction. On the other hand, there are enthu siastic reformers who insist that the number of pupils to a teacher in the public schools should be as low as thirty in order to produce the desired result. But it is evident that the employment of teachers sufficient in number for this plan, at living salaries, would involve an expenditure beyond the means available in the present state of society. A fair medium number of pupils to a teacher in a well graded system of the primary and grammar grades lies somewhere between the limits of fifty and sixty. Fifty-six may be considered as a reasonable standard register number for the primary grade, sixty and fifty being the maximum and minimum limits respectively. The grammar grade, especially in the upper classes, might be allowed a little lower standard. With good school rooms and furnishings, an average of fifty four on the register of the primary and grammar grades taken together would, perhaps, come nearest to meeting the requirements both of economy and efficiency. An average register of fifty-four ought to give an average attendance of about fifty. This number can be efficiently handled by the average teacher in one class in such branches as writing, drawing, spelling, object lessons, singing, and perhaps reading. In some other branches, such as arithmetic, grammar, geography, &c., where it may be expedient to divide the class into two sections, twenty-five is not too large a number for class instruction by the average teacher.

As the number to a teacher rises above the standards here assumed, the efficiency of instruction must rapidly diminish. As it falls below,

the expense rapidly increases; but experience proves that the value of the results does not increase in the same ratio. I imagine that superintendents are not accustomed to find in classes of forty pupils to a teacher any appreciable superiority over classes containing fifty pupils to a teacher. It has been held by some educational officials that in the lowest primary classes a much smaller number of pupils should be assigned to a teacher than in the higher grades; but this view is not sustained by the soundest pedagogical authority. The higher the grade the smaller the number of pupils to a teacher. This is a sound principle, and there is no good reason why it should not be applied to the lowest primary classes as well as to other grades.

In our country little or nothing has been done by statutory provision to limit the number of pupils that may be assigned to a teacher, while in the foreign countries prominent in education the maximum number of pupils to a teacher is prescribed by law. With us this is a matter within the control of the school boards.

Taking New York in illustration of the phase of economy under consideration we find regulations of the board as to the number of pupils to a teacher, as follows:

(1) No class in the grammar school shall contain more than sixty pupils.

(2) No class in the primary school shall contain more than seventy-five pupils. (3) No teacher shall be appointed by the board of trustees in any ward unless the average attendance of pupils shall be equal to at least thirty-five to each teacher in a grammar school and at least fifty to each teacher in a primary school (exclusive of the principals and teachers of special subjects).

By comparing these regulations one cannot but be struck by the very wide range between the maximum and minimum limits, this range being twenty-five both in the grammar and primary schools. If the board of trustees in one ward should carry on the grammar schools with the maximum number of pupils permitted to a teacher and the trustees in another with the minimum number, the cost per capita for tuition in the former would be about 58 per cent. of the cost in the latter. Again, if the trustees of a ward should require the primary schools to keep up the maximum number to a teacher, while running the grammar schools with the minimum number, the cost per capita in the former would be only about 46 per cent. of the cost in the latter, this calculation being based on the assumption that the ratio of the cost for salaries of principals is the same in both grades. The principle on which the discrimination between the grades is made is no doubt correct; but the difference seems to be quite too much in favor of the grammar grade. A glance at the existing facts as to the number of pupils to a teacher in the New York system will make the matter still clearer. For convenience, only round numbers are used. The cost per pupil for 1882 in the grammar schools was $32 and the number of pupils to a teacher was about 33, the salaries averaging nearly $1,000 to a teacher. Now, if the number of pupils to a teacher had been 50, the salary to a teacher

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