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 1900 to 78,659,439 acres, to which there must be added various special grants made from time to time to the states and devoted to education. The portion of the public domain so set apart in 1900 amounted in all to 86,138,473 acres, or 134,591 English sq. m. This is an area greater than those of the six New England states, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware added together. It is a portion of the earth’s surface as great as the kingdom of Prussia, about seven-tenths as great as France, and considerably greater than the combined areas of Great Britain (including the Channel Islands) and the kingdom of Holland. Besides the enormous grants of land in aid of education, the national government has maintained since 1802 a military academy at West Point, New York, for the training of officers for the army, and since 1845 a naval academy at Annapolis, Maryland, for the training of officers for the navy. It has also taken charge of the education of the children of uncivilized Indians, and of all children in Alaska. It has voted, by act of 1887, a perpetual endowment of $15,000 a year for each agricultural experiment station connected with a state agricultural college, and, by act of 1890, an additional endowment of $25,000 a year for each of the agricultural colleges themselves. The aggregate value of land and money given by the national government for education in the several states and territories is about $300,000,000.

In 1867 the Congress established a bureau of education, presided over by a commissioner who is under the jurisdiction of the secretary of the interior, the purpose of which is declared to be to collect “such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several states and territories, and of diffusing such information respecting the organization and management of school systems and methods of teaching as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country.” The bureau has therefore no direct power over the educational policy of the several states. It has, however, exercised a potent influence for good in its advisory capacity. Up to 1900 this bureau had published 360 separate volumes and pamphlets, including 31 annual reports, covering from 800 to 2300 pages each; and the number has since been much increased. The annual reports alone of the Commissioner of Education are mines of information. These standard works of reference are distributed gratuitously in large numbers to libraries, school officials and other persons interested, and to foreign governments. The several commissioners of education have been: Henry Barnard, 1867–1870; John Eaton, 1870–1886; Nathaniel H. R. Dawson, 1886–1889; William T. Harris, 1889–1906; Elmer Ellsworth Brown, 1906–  .

In the United States the sovereign powers are not all lodged in one place. Such of those powers as are not granted by the Constitution to the national government are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. The power to levy taxes for the support of public education has been almost universally held to be one of the powers so reserved. The inhabitants of the several local communities, however indisposed they may have been to relinquish absolute control of their own schools, have been compelled to yield to the authority of the state government whenever it has been asserted, for except under such authority no civil division—county, city, township, or school district—possesses the power to levy taxes for school purposes. Moreover, since the exercise of state authority has uniformly improved the quality of the schools, it has usually been welcomed, not resisted. In general, it may be said that the state has used its authority to prescribe a minimum of efficiency which schools and teachers must reach, and it enforces this minimum through inspection 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 in America of public secondary schools (high schools), and the existence of state universities in all of the states south and west of Pennsylvania, have 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 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 nearly every state; (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