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ERRATA.

Page xli, last line: read 57,615, instead of 517,615.

Page lxi, seventh line: read advancing, instead of advances.
Page lxxv, sixteenth line: read Xenophon, instead of Zenophon.
Page xcii, thirty-first line: read Anatomy, instead of Analysis.
Page xeiv, forty-fourth line: insert an asterisk at the end.
Page cxv, forty-fifth line: read Jowett's, instead of Jowelt's.
Page cxlvi, thirty-first line: read 430, instead of 30.

Page 104, eleventh line, and wherever else observed: read Theological, instead of
Theologic.

Page 170, third line, and wherever else observed: read technical, instead of technic. Page 181, fortieth line, and wherever else observed: read clerical, instead of cleric. Page 238, fortieth line, and wherever else similarly used: read classical, instead of

classic.

Page 366, tenth line, and wherever else observed: read chemical, instead of chemic. Page 707, fifth line, and elsewhere in Table No. XII: read III.—PHARMACEUTICAL, instead of 4. Pharmaceutic.

Page 712, first line, and elsewhere in Table No. XIII: omit, (Universities, colleges, &c.) Pages 720 and 721, opposite Lafayette College: omit all numbers in columns 3, 6, 8

and 26.

Page 826, first line, and wherever else similarly used: read historical, instead of

historic.

REPORT.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION,
Washington, D. C., November 15, 1873.

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 individuals, society, and the state. It is of interest to the sailor to know whether his chart and his observations enal le 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, in lustry, 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

opinions of the most eminent educators, nor with local experiences, records, and statistics, nor with the widest theoretical generalization.

Almost every one who endeavored to understand the diverse facts in connection with education in this country complained of the lack of a general summary. Great and noble efforts had been made to supply this desideratum; particular features, methods, or systems had been examined; some very valuable special statements had been published; but there was no report for my guidance. There was not anywhere in existence any complete list of colleges, academies, or high schools; there was no summary of the work accomplished by the several State- and city-systems. Forty years ago, Jared Sparks had sought to make out a list of colleges, to show the annual work done by them; thirty-five years ago, Dr. Henry Barnard secured the insertion of some inquiries respecting the intelligence of the people in the schedules of the census; yet, in 1870, when engaged on my first report, I was told by persons of great intelligence that they considered the reports of Dr. Fraser and M. Hippeau the best to be found on the subject of American education. The preparation of the report for that year was like cutting a path through an untrodden forest.

The law indeed required this Office to collect such statistics and facts as would show the condition and progress of education in the several States and Territories; but it will be readily seen that under these requirements many serious questions arose as to how the collection should be made and what class of facts and statistics should be included. I could not divest my mind of that comprehensive conception of education suggested by, a most eminent philosopher, who declared that "education, in its larger sense, is one of the most inexhaustible of all topics. Though there is hardly any subject on which so much has been written, by so many of the wisest men, it is as fresh to them who come to it with a fresh mind, a mind not hopelessly filled with other people's conclusions, as it was to the first explorer of it; and, notwithstanding the great mass of excellent things which have been said respecting it, no thoughtful person finds any lack of things, both great and small, still waiting to be said or waiting to be developed and followed out to their consequences. Education, moreover, is one of the subjects which most essentially require to be considered by various minds and from a variety of points of view; for, of all many-sided subjects, it is the one which has the greatest number of sides. Not only does it include whatever we do for ourselves and whatever is done for us by others, for the express purpose of bringing us somewhat nearer to the perfection of our nature; it does more; in its largest acceptation, it comprehends even the indirect effects produced on character and on the human faculties by things of which the direct purposes are quite different: by laws, by forms of government, by the industrial arts, by modes of social life; nay, even by physical facts not dependent on human will: by climate, soil, and local position. Whatever helps to shape the human being-to make the individual what he is or hinder him from being what he is not-is part of his education."*

I decided that it would be inadmissible to treat in a national Office education in any partial or limited sense of the word and that it was proper to seek first those results least liable to future modification. In carrying out this purpose, it seemed to me that certain limitations were absolutely essential for the proper conduct of the Office, and I have endeavored to have them ever present for the guidance of whatever was undertaken in it. I felt that a work coming into so close relations to the instrumentalities for the training of the youth of the nation should regard most scrupulously all the great principles on which depends the perpetuity of our institutions and of the spirit which leads and assures the progress of our civilization, such as that sacred privacy and responsibility of individuals and localities and institutions, in which none should intermeddle.

Resolving that no effort of the Office should with my consent infringe this freedom, I saw, or seemed to myself to see, in the facts and experiences which each institution, *Address on "Literary and scientific education," by J. Stuart Mill, delivered at the University of St. Andrews, February 1, 1867

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