680
EDIT CATION
and the withholding of its proper share of the State school fund from any locality where schools or teachers are permitted to fall below the required standard. In extreme cases the State authorities have interfered directly to prevent the evil results of local inefficiency or contumacy. In addition, the States, almost without exception, maintain at their own expense schools for. the training of teachers, known as normal schools. Many of the States also offer inducements to the cities, towns, and districts to exceed the prescribed minimum of efficiency. Through the steady exercise of State supervision the school buildings have improved, the standard for entrance upon the work of teaching has been raised, the programme of studies has been made more effective and more uniform, and the length of the school term has increased. The Constitution of every State now contains some provision as to public education. Each State has an executive officer charged with the enforcement of the State school laws. Sometimes, as in New York, this official has plenary powers; sometimes, as in Massachusetts and Ohio, he is little more than an adviser. In twenty-nine States this official is known as the superintendent of public instruction; in Massachusetts and Connecticut he is called secretary of the State board of education; other titles used are commissioner of public schools, superintendent of common schools, and superintendent of public schools. The schools are administered, on behalf of the taxpayers, by an elected board of school trustees in rural school districts, and by an elected (though sometimes appointed) board of education or school committee in cities and towns. In 836 cities and towns there is a local superintendent of schools, who directs and supervises the educational work and acts as the executive officer of the board of education. The schools in the rural districts are under the direct supervision of a county superintendent of schools or similar official, who is often chosen by the people, but who sometimes is named by the State authorities. The county and city superintendents are often charged with the duty of holding examinations for entrance upon the work of teaching, and of issuing licences to those persons who pass the examinations. This system works best where it is carefully regulated by State law. Thirty States, one Territory, and the District of Columbia have enacted compulsory education laws, but the enforcement of them is usually very lax. In fifteen States and Territories there are no compulsory education laws, although there are in existence there fully organized school systems free to all children. The usual age during which school attendance is required is from 8 to 14. Provision is made in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota, and Michigan, for sending habitual truants to some special institution. Laws forbidding the employment of children under a specified minimum age in any mercantile or manufacturing establishment are in force in twelve States, and are usually administered in connexion with the compulsory education laws. The universal establishment of public secondary schools (high schools), and the existence of State universities in all of the States south and west of Pennsylvania, has brought into existence a system of State education which reaches from the kindergarten and the elementary school to the graduate instruction offered at State colleges and universities. This system includes (1) about 1500 free public kindergartens scattered over fifteen States; (2) free public elementary schools within reach of almost every home in the land; (3) free public secondary schools (high schools) in every considerable city or town and in not a few rural communities; (4) free land grant colleges, supported in large part by the proceeds of the nation’s endowment of public lands, paying particular attention to
[united states.
agriculture and the mechanical arts, in all the States; (5) State universities, free or substantially so, in all the States south and west of Pennsylvania; (6) free public normal schools, for the professional training of teachers, in every State except Nevada and Wyoming, and in every Territory except Indian Territory; (7) free schools for the education of defectives in nearly all the States; and (8) the national academies at West Point and Annapolis for the professional training of military and naval officers respectively. Miss Susan E. Blow, herself the leading exponent of kindergarten principles in the United States, has pointed out that the history of the kindergarten movement reveals four distinct stages in its develop- g^ens ment: the pioneer stage, having Boston as its centre; the philanthropic stage, which began in the village of Florence, Mass., and reached its climax at San Francisco, California; the national or strictly educational stage, which began at St Louis; and the so-called maternal stage, which from Chicago as a centre is spreading over the entire country. During the first stage public attention was directed to a few of the most important aspects of Froebel’s teaching. During the second stage the kindergarten was valued largely as a reformatory and redemptive influence. During the third stage the fundamental principles underlying kindergarten training were scientifically studied and expounded, and the kindergarten became part of the public school system of the country. The fourth stage, which, like the third, is fortunately still in existence, aims at making the kindergarten a link between the school and the home, and so to use it to strengthen the foundations and elevate the ideals of family life. In 1898 there were 4363 kindergartens in the United States (1365 of which were public), employing 9937 teachers (2532 in the public kindergartens) and enrolling 189,604 children (95,867 in the public kindergartens). Of the 164 public normal schools, 36 make provision for training kindergarten teachers. The scientific and literary activity of some of the private kindergarten training classes is very great, and they exert a beneficial and stimulating effect on teaching in the elementary schools. It is generally admitted that from the point of view of the children, of the teachers, of the schools, and of the community at large, the kindergarten has been and is an inspiration of incalculable value. The elementary school course is from six to nine years in length, the ordinary period being eight years. The pupils enter at about six years of age. In the cities the elementary schools are usually in schools***1* session for five hours daily, except Saturday and Sunday, beginning at 9 a.m. There is an intermission, usually of an hour, at midday, and short recesses during the sessions. In the small rural schools the pupils are usually ungraded, and are taught singly or in varying groups. In the cities and towns there is a careful gradation of pupils, and promotions from grade to grade are made at intervals of a year or of a half-year. The best schools have the most elastic system of gradation and the most frequent promotions. In a number of States there are laws authorizing the conveyance of children to school at the public expense, when the schoolhouse is unduly distant from the homes of a portion of the school population. Co-education of the sexes in the elementary school is the salutary and almost uniform practice in the United States. Fewer than 6 per cent, of the cities offer exceptions to this rule, and in most of these the separation of boys and girls has arisen from the position or original arrangement of the school buildings, and is likely to be discontinued under more favourable conditions. The programme of studies in the elementary school includes English (reading, writing, spelling, grammar, composition), arithmetic (sometimes elementary algebra
