CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

The Rev. B. Felsenthal, of Chicago, writes that Chicago has an estimated Jewish population of 10,000. He estimates that 90 per cent. of the Jewish children attend the public schools, and remarks that "it is safe to assert that every Jewish child receives at least a good elementary education, the care for the proper education of the children being an old and firmly-rooted trait of the Jewish character." There is one private school in the city, taught by Rev. L. Adler, where instruction is given in Hebrew. About 100 children are in attendance. For instruction in Hebrew parents generally rely on the Jewish Sabbath-schools and on private tuition.

In all

There are six Hebrew congregations, each of which has a Sabbath-school. these the rudiments of Hebrew are taught. From 500 to 600 children attend these Sabbath-schools.

There are five lodges of the order of B'nae Brith (Sons of the Covenant,) and seven other benevolent societies. A Jewish hospital is supported, where poor sick persons, of all beliefs, are received. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum, at Cleveland, receives considerable contributions from Chicago. (The Jews of the Eastern States have their orphan asylum in New York, those of the South in New Orleans, and those of the Pacific States in San Francisco.) Besides the Chicago congregations, there are in Illinois four others-two in Quincy, one in Springfield, and one in Peoria.

CINCINNATI.

Rev. Isaac M. Wise, of Cincinnati, furnishes the following information:

In reply to your official note of the 28th ultimo, I have the honor to state:

1. There are no Jewish elementary schools in this city. The last Talmid Yeladim institute was dissolved three years ago.

2. There are three Hebrew schools for religious instruction attached to three congregations, viz:

a. Benai Yeshurun congregation, superintendent, Isaac M. Wise; four teachers; 180 pupils; two sessions weekly, Saturday and Sunday; objects, Hebrew, Jewish religion, and history.

b. Benai Israel congregation, superintendent, Max Lilienthal; three teachers; 150 pupils; sessions and objects as above.

c. Ahabash Achim congregation, M. Goldemmer, teacher and superintendent; sixty pupils; sessions and objects as above.

Besides, the above named three rabbi teach, each, annually a confirmation or graduating class of twenty to forty pupils.

It is our settled opinion here that the education of the young is the business of the State, and the religious instruction, to which we add the Hebrew, is the duty of religious bodies. Neither ought to interfere with the other. The secular branches belong to the public schools, religion to the Sabbath schools, exclusively. Therefore I cannot give you any particular statistics as to Hebrew children in the various schools.

PROGRESS

OF EDUCATION IN THE
TINE REPUBLIC.

ARGEN

Under the inspiration of President Sarmiento, who is one of the most earnest, as well as one of the most distinguished, of educators, popular education in the Argentine Republic is constantly progressing; receiving, in every way, the warmest support from the government. The following summary, from the report of Minister Avellaneda-a volume of some 400 pages-shows what has been accomplished. It will be seen that this young republic looks to the United States for educators, as well as for an example of its system of education for the people:

"The department of public instruction has been very busy, during the past year, establishing new schools, granting subsidies, improving every branch of popular education, and losing no opportunity to enlighten and instruct all classes of the people, especially in the more remote provinces, where the lamp of learning shed but a flickering and uncertain light amid a dense fog of ignorance.

"The provinces coöperate in the good work. San Juan gained the prize of $10,000 for having one-tenth of its population attending schools, and devotes the money to the establishment of upper schools. Entre Rios (under the administration of the late General Urquiza) spent the entire subsidy from the federal government in new colleges. Salta is building a splendid structure of this kind, and Tucuman has voted three times its usual sum for educational purposes. Corrientes has subscribed $4,000 to bring out school books and furniture from the United States. Rioja has arisen from

a lethargy of generations, and in every part of the republic the preaching of Sarmiento has called into life new schools and an incipient thirst for improvement.

"The number of children attending school throughout the republic appears to be, according to the census, 89,500, but the returns of the various schools show this is an exaggeration, and if we deduct 14 per cent. the return of 77,000 children will be much nearer the truth. Hence the minister calculates there are at present 350,000 children who neither attend school nor receive the simplest rudiments of education. He adds that of the 40,000 immigrants who arrive annually two-thirds do not know how to read. "The statistical returns of education in the various provinces are:

"This includes 1,884 youths belonging to the national colleges, (of which there are 14 in the republic,) being an increase of more than 80 per cent. on the returns for the previous year. In 1867 the province of Rioja was destitute of schools, and now it has over 2,000 children in course of instruction, besides a high school, with 217 collegians. "The national government attaches great importance to the establishment of normal schools for the training of teachers, which is, in fact, the most necessary element in the whole system. The first normal school will shortly be established in the old government-house at Paraná, under the direction of Mr. George Stearns, from the United States, who is to receive a salary of $2,400 per annum, and a lady teacher at $1,000 per annum. The new national college at Corrientes, under Dr. Fitzsimons, has already 156 pupils, and receives a subsidy of $2,000; Dr. F. furnishes a long and luminous report on education, based on the London university system.

"Night schools have been established in Buenos Ayres, Salta, and Santiago del Estero, each of which is attended by 100 or 200 adults. Libraries are also about to be opened in each of the upper provinces, at a cost of $1,500 each, for use of the public. Infant schools or Kindergarten form another item of improvement; the first being opened in Buenos Ayres. The observatory at Cordoba will shortly be inaugurated, Dr. Gould being shortly expected from the United States with his staff. Congress has also authorized the minister to send abroad for 20 first-class professors for the University of Cordoba and the national colleges; 8 are expected from Germany. "The new subsidies granted during the year amounted to $90,660, viz:

"Among minor subsidies we find subscriptions for Doña Juana Manso's Annals, Barbati's History, Wickersham on Schools, &c. The budget also provides $100,000 for the purpose of buying books for distribution in the provinces. The budget for 1870 shows a total of $785,027 for the department of instruction, worship, and justice, which will be increased by $80,000 for the ensuing year."

EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.

In affording the means of education to its deaf and dumb the United States has done more, proportionally, than any other nation in the world.

Florida and Oregon are the only States of our country in which no provision has been made in this regard. And this omission is owing, probably, rather to the fact that public attention has not been drawn to the subject, than to any unwillingness on the part of the people of these States to recognize the claims of deaf-mutes to education. From being regarded in the days of its inception in 1816 as a charity, the furtherance of which was to be urged on humane and philanthropic grounds, the work of instructing deaf-mutes has now come to be looked upon as an essential feature of that system of

public education, obtaining more and more in the world, the basis of which may be shown to rest on considerations of pure State selfishness. For as the expense of education in general can be shown to be a wise investment, bringing to the State a large return in the elements of material prosperity, so it has latterly been made clear that to educate the deaf and dumb is cheaper than to leave them in ignorance.

In the early days only indigent deaf-mutes were taught at public expense. But at the present time, although some institutions require certificates of pecuniary inability for free admission, the education of the deaf and dumb is practically as free as that of

other children.

For nearly fifty years the system of instruction in the United States remained uniform, being substantially that introduced from France, in 1816, by Dr. Thomas H. Gallaudet, who organized the first American deaf-mute institution, at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817. This system discards articulation, and makes large use of a language of signs which is natural to the deaf-mute, and which affords at all stages of his education a free, precise, and full means of conveying ideas.

Text books, however, and written exercises enter largely into the course of instruction from its commencement, and the great work to be accomplished is to impart to the deaf-mute child a knowledge of language as it is written or printed, and a facility in its use.

This acquirement having been made, the education of the deaf-mute may be proceeded with to a range of culture as high as is possible in the case of persons who hear and speak. The mute also has, in his ability to express thought in writing, an exact and easy, though somewhat slow method of communication with all who can read and write. Within a few years the German, or articulating method, has been regarded with favor in certain quarters, and two institutions, one the Clarke Institute, founded by private benevolence, in Northampton, Massachusetts, and one in New York City, have been established, wherein the exclusion of the sign language is attempted, and oral speech is sought to be made the medium of communication between teacher and pupil. Public attention having been thus directed to this feature of deaf-mute instruction, the Columbia Institution, at Washington, sent its president, in the spring of 1867, to examine the most prominent articulating schools of Europe with a view of determining whether any change in the system of the old institutions in the direction suggested by the new schools of Massachusetts and New York City was desirable. The report on this inspection of foreign schools, published in the tenth annual report of the institution, while urging the retention of the old system as the most valuable for the general instruction of the deaf and dumb, advised that instruction in articulation be given in. all schools for deaf-mutes; and expressed the opinion that not over one-third of the pupils in such schools can be expected to engage successfully in the proposed study. In the spring of 1868, the subject of articulation was discussed in a conference of principals of institutions for deaf and dumb held at Washington, and the following resolutions were adopted:

"Resolved, That in the opinion of this conference it is the duty of all institutions for the education of the deaf and dumb to provide adequate means for imparting instruction in articulation and lip reading to such of their pupils as may be able to engage with profit in exercises of this nature.

"Resolved, That while in our judgment it is desirable to give semi-mutes and semideaf children every facility for retaining and improving any power of articulate speech they may possess, it is not profitable except in promising cases, discovered after fair experiment, to carry congenital mutes through a course of instruction in articulation.

Resolved, That to attain success in this department of instruction an added force of instructors will be necessary, and this conference hereby recommends to boards of directors of institutions for the deaf and dumb that speedy measures be taken to provide the funds needed for the prosecution of this work."

The recommendations of these resolutions have been accepted and acted upon in nearly all the large institutions of the country, thus adding, with a marked harmony of action, a feature of no little importance to the national system.

To a full course of training in the usual elementary branches taught in common schools, a majority of the institutions of the deaf and dumb add instruction in trades and useful labor, so that their pupils on leaving are fitted at once to exert themselves intelligently and successfully for their own maintenance.

Thus does the American system of deaf-mute instruction take a class of citizens deprived of one most important sense, and cut off from the exercise of one of the most important powers of man-a class once ranked in the eye of the law with idiots and imbeciles, a class once only a drag and burden to society-and so cultivate their remaining powers, through the senses that are still unimpaired, as to make them intelligent and useful men and women, able to earn the means for their own subsistence, fitted to assume the burden of sustaining others, and to add to the aggregate wealth of the community.

But this is not all that has been done for the deaf and dumb of the United States. In the year 1864 the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, located at Washing

ton, and sustained by the Federal Government, organized a department in which might be afforded to deaf-mutes of high mental capacity a full academic course of study, such as is given in colleges and universities.

Congress has evinced its approval of this novel undertaking by appropriating ample means for the maintenance of the work, and by authorizing the admission of students from all the States and Territories of the United States.

More than sixty young men and women, representing twenty-two States and the District of Columbia, have availed themselves of the advantages thus afforded, and nine have been already graduated from a course of study equal, in the severity of its requirements, to that of the most respectable colleges of the country.

The following extract from the last report of the institution (not yet published) is of interest as showing the practical results of the college work in fitting deaf-mutes for positions in life much higher than they could hope to reach were their education limited to that of the common schools:

"What the graduates of the college do.-In the progress of our college and the presentation of its interests to the public, the questions are often asked, rather doubtingly, "But what can your graduates do in the struggle of life?" "What positions can they fill that shall justify the expenditure of time and money necessary to their collegiate training?" Our practical answers to these questions were begun to be given last year by our first three graduates, who were at once called to fill honorable and useful positions, one in the service of the Patent Office, one to instruct his fellow-mutes in Illinois, and the third to supply a professor's place, as tutor, in the college from which he had just graduated.

"The young men of our second graduating class have also given gratifying evidence that their collegiate training has been to good purpose. One has been called to teach in the Tennessee Institution for Deaf-mutes; another has been employed in a similar manner in the Ohio Institution; a third has taken an eligible position as teacher in the new Institution for Deaf and Dumb in Belleville, Canada; the fourth is a valued clerk in the Census Bureau; and the fifth is continuing his studies here with a view of becoming a librarian, while he fills temporarily the position of private secretary in the office of the president of the institution.

"The aggregate annual income to-day of the nine young men who have graduated from our college is $9,600, giving an average of more than $1,000 to each. This may, perhaps, be taken as the present market value of their services to the community, and is no mean return for the cost of their education. But who can measure the probable influence for good which these educated young men may be expected to exert during the years they may reasonably hope to live and labor in the world?"

An examination of the table of statistics, while it sustains the claim that the United States takes the lead of other countries in caring for the deaf and dumb, reveals also the fact that much yet remains to be done in order that the benefits of education may be extended to all the mutes of our land.

The proportion of this class of persons to the entire community does not vary materially in the different States. This being the case, it appears that several of the larger and older commonwealths are greatly behind what might be expected of them in the number of deaf and dumb under instruction.

In no instance is this discrepancy more marked than in the State of Pennsylvania, with a population in 1860 of 2,900,000, where only 238 deaf-mutes are reported as being under instruction, while New York, with a population less than one-third greater, reports more than double the number of deaf-mutes in school. Ohio, with a population less by 600,000, reports nearly one-third more deaf and dumb in its institution; and Illinois, with but little more than half the population of Pennsylvania, greatly exceeds it in the number of mutes provided for.

E. M. GALLAUDET, Ph. D., LL.D.

EDUCATIONAL

PROGRESS

IN ENGLAND.

A great advance has been made in the system of public education in England during the past year, one which gives promise that before long the proud boast of Americathat education is offered as a free gift by the State to the child of every citizen-will also be that of the mother country. The preliminary step was taken in 1869, when the government took upon itself. the supervision of the endowed schools of the kingdom. These endowed schools, many of them of great antiquity, were founded by benevolent people, generally for specific purposes. In many cases the value of the foundation has greatly increased, owing to the rise of real estate; and also abuses have sprung up, to correct which, and to reader available for general educational purposes, so far as may be practicable, those moneys devoted to education, was the object of the bill. A few of the larger schools, such as Eton, Harrow, Rugby, which have been notably well

managed, were excepted from the provisions of the law. With these express exceptions, it includes all endowed schools. We are indebted to the visit of the Right Honorable A. J. Mundella, M. P., for information concerning the recent school legislation.

ENDOWED SCHOOLS.

The endowed schools bill was passed in 1869, which has for its object to bring all the educational endowments of England, many thousands in number, and some of them of very large amount, entirely under the control of the educational department. This law requires a complete statement of all the property of every educational corporation established in England; and some of them have been grossly mismanaged-have been entirely wrested from the purposes for which they were founded. Most of them were founded to give education to the poor, but have fallen into the hands of the rich. Some of them have increased enormously in value, but instead of giving a simple elementary education to the poor, they have given the very highest classical education to the sons of rich men. By this act all these are brought under the control of the educational department, and it is intended that they shall supply the means of sustaining education of a higher character, preparatory for the university. It is proposed to offer scholarships to a certain percentage of the scholars of the elementary schools who shall distinguish themselves, to sustain them in this higher school. Mr. Forster described it, in the words of Napoleon, as "la carière ouverte aux talents."

SCHOOLS AND THE SCHOOL LAW IN ENGLAND.

The central authority rests in the council of education, and the whole of England is cut up into certain districts for school purposes, which are under the charge of inspectFor instance, suppose Yorkshire has two inspectors, who go to every elementary school and report upon each to the vice-president of the council of education. If there is any improvement to suggest, that is done; or, if a teacher should be removed, that is reported and acted upon. If children pass a certain examination an extra grant is made to the school. There are certain standards from one to seven inclusive, and the higher the standard which a class reaches, the greater the grant from the educational fund for that school. The payment is dependent upon the results, and the teacher is therefore earnest in pushing on his work.

"In regard to truancy, we shall, whenever we get the law well in working order, alter that word 'may' to 'shall.'"

Within one year provision has to be made for the education of every child in Eng land and Wales; and this, it is anticipated, will require that the present number of school-houses shall be doubled. The school boards are authorized to provide funds for those additional buildings by issuing bonds running for thirty years at 4 per cent.

The discussion in Parliament which resulted in the present act was long and earnest, and the advance indicated by this bill, which is confined in its action to England and Wales, will be fully appreciated only by those who followed the course of the debate or were familiar with the previous state of public education in Great Britain.

The question of compulsory attendance was very earnestly discussed, and was finally left to separate school boards, who have a certain discretionary power of enforcing attendance; but the advocates of compulsion do not propose to be content until its ultimate adoption.

The question of religious education in schools was also very warmly debated, and resulted, as will be seen in the following summary of the acts, in making them wholly unsectarian.

The leading features of the law will be found in the following abstract, prepared by Mr. James Richardson of New York for the Educational Gazette, which is prononnced by Mr. Mundella to be a clear and fair statement of the law as it passed, which we make use of in default of receiving our official copy of the act. The bill was prepared and brought in by Mr. William Edward Forster (vice-president of the council of education) and Mr. Secretary Bruce, and was ordered printed by the House of Commons February 17, 1870. The present act was passed August 9, 1870.

ENGLISH ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT.

BY JAMES RICHARDSON, NEW YORK.

The complete text of the new education law of England and Wales having at last been published, we are able to see exactly what its provisions are.

The object of the law is to secure the establishment in every school district of public schools sufficient for the elementary instruction of all the children resident therein whose education is not otherwise provided for. School districts are either municipal boroughs or parishes included in them. An elementary school, in the meaning of the act, is a school in which elementary instruction is the principal part of the education