Report of the Commissioner of Education Made to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year ... with Accompanying Papers

SIR: I have the honor to submit my fourth annual report. The disasters which have fallen upon the finances and industries in portions of the country have, in some instances, embarrassed the progress of education by delaying the payment of teachers and by depriving many poor children of the opportunity of attending school; but, on the whole, the year has been one of substantial progress in this important interest. Especially is this true as respects the work assigned this Office.

The facts now ready for use present, as respects amount, definiteness, and freshness, a striking contrast to the condition of educational information when my first report was commenced, in 1870.

Doubtless we cannot expect that the result of efforts in this direction for any year will be wholly satisfactory until every child is brought under the influence of elementary instruction and there is a sufficient number of youth in the secondary, superior, and special grades of training to assure the progress of the Republic in the improvement of all its vast opportunities.

At present, however, these facts cannot be fully, accurately, and promptly collated; yet any report of them must carry with it a certain useful impression, as it reveals the extent of ignorance that prevails in quarters and the evils that flow from it to individnals, society, and the state. It is of interest to the sailor to know whether his chart and his observations enable him to compute accurately his position and bearings. It is of no less consequence to the patriot to know whether his country is responding to the necessary conditions of growth and perpetuity. This he can never know if he leaves out of view what is transpiring with the rising generation. He may compare the facts relating to the material condition of his country with those respecting other nationalities, and may find them flattering to his pride; and yet, if he has not taken into consideration the educational factors-the efforts for the culture of the young-and their effects, and the other facts which may be definitely known, showing whether ignorance or intelligence, vice or virtue, crime or justice, honesty or dishonesty, are on the increase, he has left out the one element most essential to a correct conclusion.

Commerce, industry, legislation, and administration would go back towards barbarism, if the care of the young were neglected for a single generation. The lack of these data for our whole country has for a long period been a standing complaint among students of American civilization. No officer could make satisfactory replies to foreign inquiries. No statesman could find facts for the formation of his opinions or the guidance of his conduct. There was much pompous boasting of American intelligence, but nobody could exactly describe it.

The most cminent investigators in this field had confessed their embarrassment. The demand for something comprehensive and complete was increasing from every quarter and every interest. Leading minds in other countries, as they saw the restored Union rise above the commotions which had been thought by monarchists certainly fatal to it and to republicanism, more universally accepted education as the primal cause of national safety as well as of national progress and in this belief came here to study it anew. At the same time the transition through which our own society was passing, especially in those sections where slavery had been abolished, increased the public. solicitude in this direction. The desire for information was not satisfied with the

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Report of the Commissioner of Education Made to the Secretary of the ...