percentage was 9.54. The percentages corresponding to these in private high schools are 26.50 and 21.47.

City school systems (Chapter XXIV, pp. 1305-1415).-City school systems, on the whole, are among the most highly organized of all the agencies contributing to the education of the masses of our people. Their evolution from the simple village schools of earlier times to the complex systems of the present, embracing, in addition to those departments dealing directly with instruction, numerous departments having to do with organization, administration, and maintenance, whereby the systems as a whole may effectually subserve the purpose of their being, well merits careful study.

The tables given in this chapter contain the statistics of 1,212 incorporated places of a population of 4,000 and upward. The total enrollment in day schools in these places for the current year was 5,078,664, which number constitutes 31.2 per cent of the entire enrollment in the common schools of the nation. The value of school property as reported for the year was $423,253,680, and the total amount expended for all purposes was $129,836,203; these numbers represent 61.8 per cent and 47.5 per cent, respectively, of the corresponding items for the common schools of the nation. The figures of enrollment, as given above, relate to day schools alone. In the evening schools, maintained as organic parts of city systems of instruction, were earolled the current year 270,692 pupils, requiring for their instruction 6,318 different teachers. Out of the 178 cities of the first class (population 8,000 and upward), which maintain evening schools, 127 are situated in the North Atlantic States, where industrial activities assume largely the form of manufacturing. An increase in the enrollment in evening schools in 1904 over the year 1903 of 18.1 per cent, and an increase in the number of cities maintaining evening schools from 158 to 178, are noted.

DISTRIBUTION OF PUPILS IN THE SEVERAL GRADES.

The chapter on city schools in the Report for 1898 (Chapter XLVII) contained a series of tables showing the enrollment in the several school grades in 24 representative cities. The tables below present practically the same data for the present year, but include a larger number of cities.

Enrollment by grades or year's work in elementary schools (58 cities of 8,000 and over).

Enrollment by grades or years, elementary and secondary (46 cities of 8,000 and over).

The summary below exhibits the present status of schools in cities of 8,000 inhabitants and upward as compared with their condition for 1902-3.

Summary of statistics of cities containing over 8,000 inhabitants, showing increase from pre

vious year.

Normal schools (Chapter XXVIII, pp. 1667-1725).—The statistics of the present year embodied in this chapter show in all the schools devoted partially or wholly to the professional training of teachers an enrollment of 87,239. These students are distributed among the several classes of institutions as follows: In public normal schools, 59.2 per cent; in private normal schools, 13.7 per cent; in universities and colleges, 11.6 per cent; in public high schools, 8.6 per cent; in private high schools, 6.9 per cent. There were reported as engaged in this work 1,220 institutions. Of this number, 449 are public and 272 private high schools, 230 universities and colleges, 178 public and 91 private normal schools. These, in the main, constitute the sources of supply from which all classes of schools recruit their required quotas of teachers. The ratio of women students to the whole number of students is found to be 65.8 per cent, a figure somewhat less than the ratio which women teachers bear to

all teachers as determined on the basis of last year's statistics. This latter ratio, including universities and colleges, was 71.5 per cent.

The two summaries below present, respectively, the status of public and of private normal schools for 1889-90 and 1903–4, and public appropriations to public normal schools for each of the last fifteen years.

Public appropriations to public normal schools for fifteen years.

For sup-
port.

$1,312, 419

$900, 533

1,285,700

409, 916

1898-99.

1,567, 082

394, 635

1899-1900.

1,452,914

816,826

1,996, 271
1,917,375

1,583,399

1900-1..
1901-2.

1.003,933

Length of service of teachers.-Chapter XXIII (pp. 1227-1302) contains tables giving the results of an inquiry into the length of service of teachers in the common schools of 379 cities and towns of 8,000 inhabitants or over. These tables show the number of teachers hav

ing taught from one to forty years and over. It appears that 30.75 per cent of the total number of teachers have taught less than five years; 25.48 per cent have taught from 5 to 10 years; 17.31 per cent have taught from 10 to 15 years; 11.21 per cent have taught from 15 to 20 years; 6.68 per cent have taught from 20 to 25 years; 4.29 per cent have taught from 25 to 30 years; 2.44 per cent have taught from 30 to 35 years, the period which in continental Europe usually entitles to retirement at four-fifths of the last year's salary; 1.82 per cent have taught from 35 years to 40 years and over, a period which in Europe entitles to retirement at full salary. The number of teachers of long service, say 20 years and over, is over 15 per cent of the total number reported.

The average length of service, regardless of where performed, proves to be 14.7 years for men and 11.1 years for women. Cincinnati has the highest average-namely, 16.8 years for both sexes. Boston follows with 15.3 years, while St. Joseph, Mo., records the lowest average, to wit, 9.2 years.

The following table gives the summarized percentages of the tables of Chapter XXIII. To facilitate calculations the percentages are also grouped in five-year periods.

Pensions for university professors. Chapter III (pp. 133-247) contains a compilation of rules and regulations relating to pensions and annuities paid to professors of German universities. The question of providing pensions for teachers has of late years assumed an importance in this country not anticipated twenty years ago. The munificent gift of $10,000,000 for the establishment of a pension fund for college professors by Mr. Andrew Carnegie attracts public attention as this report goes to press. In large cities private initiative among teachers has done much in securing small annuities to superannuated or disabled teachers, and city authorities have lent their official aid to these efforts. In some States the legislatures have readily responded to the request of teachers and framed laws for the

establishment of pension funds, the distinctive feature of which, however, is that no teacher shall be obliged to contribute to the pension fund, voluntary membership being a requisite of any pensionfund society. This is quite in harmony with our democratic form of government, while in Germany membership is compulsory; i. e., membership in any teaching body means, nolens volens, the payment of regular contributions to the pension fund of that body except in elementary schools, where the State assumes the entire burden of pension payment.

In the United States only three States have provisions for teachers' pensions paid by the State, to wit, Maryland, Ohio, and New Jersey (see pp. 2449-2451 of Annual Report of 1903), while Germany has been for generations in a preeminent degree the country of civilservice pensions. The timely gift by Dr. Theodore Marburg, of Johns Hopkins University, of a manuscript to this Office makes possible an exhibit of the regulations in force in the twenty-one German universities with reference to pensions for professors and provision for their widows and orphans. The author of this compilation starts with the provisions for support of professors and their families in the ten Prussian universities; then follow those of Alsace, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Saxony, Baden, Hesse, Thuringia, and Mecklenburg in the order named. Many points usually overlooked in establishing new pension funds are found here well met by provisions which are evidently the result of long and vexatious experience. The sums granted to retired professors, to widows of professors, and to their orphans may not seem large for America, but they may be weighty considerations for a professor in deliberating upon a call to another institution of learning. It may be stated that in all the many years of administration of these pension funds in Germany no case of default has occurred.

Teachers' salaries.-The first question of interest to the teacher inquiring about salaries is: Are the positions of teachers, in a State, annual positions, or merely temporary occupations lasting only for a small fraction of the year? The annual position means a teacher employed by the year, who takes up teaching as a vocation, and does not have to shift to other occupations to eke out his salary received from his vocation as teacher.

In most rural districts that are sparsely settled the taxable wealth is small, and the State does not make an apportionment of its annual funds sufficient, when divided pro rata for each person of school age, to provide for a full school year's instruction; instead of nine or ten months, instruction for only three or four, or five months possibly, is provided. Consequently the individual teacher has to find his main vocation in some other occupation than teaching-generally that of a farmer. The ungraded rural school can not afford to employ pro