DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION,
Washington, D. C., June 30, 1883.
SIR: I have the honor to submit my thirteenth annual report.
So large a number of systems and institutions of education have been able to bring their reports up to the end of June, 1883, that this report is closed at that date. It will aid this Office greatly if this date should prove convenient for all those who are coworkers with it in the preparation of data included in these annual reports. So far little space has been given to the work of the Office itself. The reports have been devoted to the briefest summary of the vast amount of educational data in hand, but anything like a full representation of the work of the Office any year would fill a volume larger than this. It would contain the latest discussions of a variety of topics touching education the world over, based on the latest statistics, in which these would appear incidentally only. This part of the work of the Office comes and goes with the daily mail. Not infrequently single communications require months of research, and the results find their way into educational literature and thought and action, but are not known to have had any connection with this Office. One division, having three clerks, reports fifty-six days devoted to work of this character.
The communications sent out numbered 30,745 and those received 67,875. At the cost of great labor an entire rearrangement of the document division has been effected, which adds much to its efficiency. The documents distributed numbered 323,592 and were usually mailed in separate packages. Many of these were sent in response to individual requests. One document was asked for by as many as ten thousand persons, requiring the writing of as many addresses. This distribution of documents has favorably affected many educational methods and appliances. The teachers' institutes have been much more freely supplied than before. Circulars and bulletins were went to 406 institutes held in twenty-three different States. Seventy-eight of these teachers' gatherings in a single State were furnished these publications. So far there is no means of ascertaining the number of teachers thus supplied with valuable information.
The following circulars of information have been printed and distributed since the Eumeration in the previous report:
No. 1, 1882. The inception, organization, and management of training schools for aarses. 28 pp.
No. 2, 1882. Proceedings of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association at its meeting at Washington, March 21-23, 1882. 112 pp. No. 3, 18-2. The University of Bonn. 67 pp.
No. 4, 1882. Industrial art in schools, by Charles G. Leland, of Philadelphia. 37 pp. No. 5, 12. Maternal schools in France. 14 pp.
No. 6, 1882. Technical instruction in France. 63 pp.
No. 1, 1883. Legal provisions respecting the examination and licensing of teachers. 46 pp.
No. 2, 1883. Coeducation of the sexes in the public schools of the United States.
No. 3, 1883. Proceedings of the Department of Superintendence of the National
Educational Association at its meeting at Washington, February 20-22, 1883. 31 pp.
The following bulletins have also been issued:
Instruction in morals and civil government. 4 pp.
National Pedagogic Congress of Spain. 4 pp.
Natural science in secondary schools. 9 pp.