TABLE 9.-Summary, by geographical divisions, of the comparative statistics of State Group. school systems. North Atlantic Division. The classification of States made use of in the foregoing table is the same as that adopted for the United States Census of 1880, and is as follows: North Atlantic Division: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Now York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. South Atlantic Division: Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. 21 South Central Division: Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. North Central Division: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. Western Division: Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Novada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and California. It may be said, by way of explanation, that, in computing any ratio, percentage, or per capita, for any division, no State is included that does not furnish a return for hoth the components which enter into such ratio, &c.; and unless at least four such States are found for the three first divisions, or five for the two last, the result is left blank in the table; though in every case, for any ratio, all the States reporting both components are used to obtain the general result for the United States. The following table gives the totals for the United States, for the eleven years ing with 1885-86, of the principal items of public school statistics: end 1876. 1877. REMARKS UPON THE TABLES. The preceding tables present the principal facts regarding State school systems, and are as accurate and as complete as the material at the disposal of the Bureau permits. In their compilation, reports for the current year have been received from 41 States and Territories (excluding Alaska), a decrease of 4 from 1875-76. In some cases where reports have not been received, either the figures of a former year have been used, or if it was especially necessary to get a total for the United States for the current year, estimates have been made by the Bureau from the best data available. An attempt has been made to increase the usefulness of the tables by giving comparisons with the preceding year, also comparisons of the principal items with each other for the current year, thus presenting in a systematically tabulated form results which each individual using the tables would otherwise have been obliged to compute for himself. These inter-comparisons, whether they took the form of differences, per capitas, or percentages, gave in some instances results so abnormal as to indicate serious errors in the data; either special letters of inquiry were written in regard to these or the results were omitted if there was no time for inquiry. The comparative tables furnish a very ready means, as far as they go, of determining by inspection the relative educational status of the different States. A careful study of the returns from which the tables of statistics of State school systems have been compiled shows that there is much yet to be accomplished before a truthful comparison of the educational condition of the different States can be made. A common understanding among superintendents as to the signification of the various terms in use, and as to the processes by which the results for tabulation are to be ascertained, is especially necessary. In computing averages, for instance, a great diversity of methods prevails. "Average daily attendance" means one thing in one State and another thing in another State, while the average pay of teachers is calculated in several different ways. The practice of giving due weight to the component parts of an average is frequently disregarded. Inter-State comparison under such circumstances is obviously misleading. The financial branch of educational statistics is in need of a definite nomenclature and a uniform system of classification. It is especially desirable to determine what expenditures come under the head of “current," since the current, or regular, expenditure, as distinguished from the permanent, is the best measure of what the people are paying out for education from year to year. Superintendent William R. Creery, of Baltimore, said in 1874:1 "I have had the question put to me as to the cost of education per pupil in the city of Baltimore. I have said in reply, 'upon what basis do you wish me to calculate the cost? Shall I include salaries, rents, ground-rents, books and stationery, incidentals, interest on cost of buildings, or shall I omit some of these charges? I can calculate it just as you wish and make the cost per pupil all the way from $10 to $23 per annum. If I wish to make the cost per pupil small I take a large divisor and a small dividend; that is, I take all the pupils who have been in during the year for a divisor and only a part of the total cost for a dividend.' The truth is, as things are now, the calculation of cost is a kind of sliding scale, to be used as superintendents find it necessary." It may be that in the absence of any common understanding as to what should be included in "current expenditure," the salaries of teachers and superintendents should be used as a basis for computing per capita expenditure. The total receipts and expenditures given in the tables are not intended to include balances on hand or carried forward; also to avoid duplication, receipts from the sale of bonds and payments ou account of bonded indebtedness are excluded. In some of the returns which were received by the Bureau it was found, upon comparison with the corresponding printed reports, that balances as well as bond sales and payments were included in the total receipts and expenditures. These items were eliminated when practicable, and all the States placed in this Report upon as equal a footing as the data at the disposal of the Bureau permitted. In order to arrive at a knowledge of what relative portion of their means the people of a State are paying out for education, an acquaintance with the total value of all taxable property is necessary. The column containing this item is the least satisfactory of all for purposes of comparison. Arbitrary valuations of property, differences in rates of assessment, and other formidable difficulties, render the tabulated results untrustworthy, except as a general guide. It is hardly conceivable that any considerable improvement will be made in this latter regard; but respecting the other points of which mention has been made, it needs only the united action of the State superintendents to make effective progress. At least, we know the direction in which effort should be made. A wide-reaching and minutely classified body of State statistics is not to be striven for, at least at the present time; rather the salient points are to be sought after, those possessing the most educational and economic significance. To determine these on a uniform basis and by uniform methods for all the States is an object greatly to be desired. Population.-Among the foremost of these items is population. Population is a factor of prime importance in a scheme of educational statistics. Comparisons based on enrolment and average attendance furnish no clew as to the relative extent of the diffusion of education among the whole people of a State. Some way of arriving at comparisons based on the total population, or upon the population between certain fixed ages, uniform for all the States, is a great desideratam. This was fully ap preciated by the committee which drew up the State schedule in 1874, in which the population from six to sixteen was called for, as well as the population under six and that between sixteen and twenty-one. The attempt to get these items reported, however, has been a failure. In the last Annual Report of the Bureau the population from six to sixteen is reported from only four States, and the population under six from Oregon only. The "school population," or population of the school age, as periodically determined by the State school censuses, has indeed been very generally reported by the State superintendents; the differences in the school ages of the several States, however, render the school population valueless for purposes of inter-State comparison, Circular of Information No. 1, 1874: Proceedings of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association, page 17. though it is liable to be used for that purpose by persons who, through ignorance or thoughtlessness, do not take into consideration the difference in the school ages of the different States; hence the apparent superiority in point of school attendance of such States as Massachusetts, whose school age is only five to fifteen. In view of the desirability of ascertaining the population of the various States on a uniform basis as regards ages included, it has been deemed advisable to compute them approximately from the best data at hand. Happily the State school censuses themselves afford the best and altogether a very satisfactory means of arriving at the result in a large number of instances. The United States census of 1880 gives the population for each year of age for all the States and Territories. Now, it may be assumed with sufficient accuracy for present purposes that in any State the population of any age, six to fourteen, for example, or the total population, increases from year to year in the same ratio as the State school population as determined by the State school censuses. The proportion of the population of any given age, though widely different in different sections of the country, may be regarded as constant in any given State for a short period of years. Upon this principle the total population and the population of six to fourteen have been computed, using as a basis the school population as determined by the State enumeration for the following States and Territories: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Arizona, Montana, and Utah. 1 The age six to fourteen was selected on account of its having been recommended by a committee of the National Council of Education as the obligatory school age, the school census age, and as the age upon which educational statistics should be based. The total population is added as furnishing the only ground for international comparison. It is felt that any considerable errors that exist in the populations as thus computed arise not so much from the assumption of the principle made use of, as from the errors in the school censuses themselves-errors which are generally recognized to exist. Increased accuracy in the enumeration of school youth is urgently demanded in order to place this branch of educational statistics on a sounder basis. In addition to the method above described, fourteen States and Territories, viz: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Florida, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Dakota, New Mexico, and District of Columbia, furnish an actual census of the total population for the summer of 1885, or one which may be accurately reduced to that date. Where there is neither a school census nor a general census it has been necessary to fall back upon the population of 1870 and 1880 as furnishing the rate of increase, as in the case of Delaware, Missouri, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wyoming; or in some of the Southern States where the census of 1870 was notoriously defective, upon those of 1860 and 1880, as in the case of Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. It is true that there is no law governing the increase of population from time to time, and the assumption that its increase from 1880 to 1885 is in the same ratio as fron. 1860 or 1870 to 1880 does not take into account abnormal changes or disturbing influ ences that have been at work since 1880; but it is the best assumption that is available, and it is far preferable to use the populations as thus deduced than those of 1880, or the heterogeneous State school populations. In the case of Nevada, Idaho, and Washington, special methods were used, combining the features of one or more of the above, according as the data at hand demanded. 1 Addresses and Proceedings of the National Educational Association, 1885, p. 474. |