mills in any one year, for the purpose of building school-houses or purchasing school sites, which tax shall be levied and collected as provided in the general school law: Provided, That no special school tax shall be levied or assessed in any district until the same shall have been submitted to the qualified voters of such district, as required by law, and a majority of the votes cast shall be in favor of such tax.1 1Sch. Law, 1885 and 1886, title 12, sec. 66. CITY-SCHOOL SYSTEMS. MAGNITUDE OF THE INTERESTS INVOLVED. Table 14 (pp. 240-303) presents the school statistics of 471 cities containing each 5,000 inhabitants or more. From an examination of the headings of the several coluinns it will be seen that the inquiries sent out by the Bureau included all the particulars that go to the making up of a complete exhibit of the educational condition. While some of these are of greater general importance than others, yet it is believed that none is absolutely unimportant. The many omissions in the several columns show how difficult it is to secure the full information sought. In the number of cities included in the exhibit is massed about one-fifth of the total population, supplying about one-fifth of the total school enrolment of the country, and contributing for school purposes nearly one-third of the entire income reported for all public-school purposes. The magnitude of these interests, the independence of the cities in respect to their management, the great variety of conditions which they represent, the grave, social problems which are involved in their success or failure, impart the utmost importance to this chapter of the educational record. Moreover, the separation of the facts pertaining to the city systems from the general view of the country is essential to a clear understanding of the work and the requirements of the rural schools. For these reasons it is greatly to be desired that the returns from the cities should be complete and explicit. Next to the item, "total population"-which is taken from the census of 1880 and affords a very unsatisfactory basis for comparative study at the present time-the item of enrolment is most fully given, all the cities but one being included in the total (viz, 2,185,418), or 18 per cent. of the population in 1880. The enrolment in private schools is reported for 360 cities and increases the total enrolment to 22 per cent. of the population. The average daily attendance (viz, 1,563,927) is for 354 cities, and the total expenditure (viz, $38,326,641) for 367 cities. The expenditure for teaching, or for teaching and supervision, which is the largest and most constant item of expense, and therefore of most value for comparative study, is not reported from 55 cities. The following table summarizes the most important particulars relating to school finances, the cities being grouped by geographical sections. This summary, it should be observed, simply presents the statistics specified in a convenient form for reference. No satisfactory comparisons can be instituted without reference to populations and total property valuations, items not easily obtained. TABLE 11.—Summary of statistics relating to city-school finances. TABLE 11.-Summary of statistics relating to city-school finances-Continued. In the following table an effort has been made to supply data for the comparative study of the chief conditions of the school systems of 55 cities, grouped according to their population and geographical position. For the first group, which includes cities of from 5,000 to 20,000 inhabitants, the ratio of enrolment to the population is most uniform in the North Atlantic and North Central Divisions. In all the geographical sections the greatest variations in the ratio of coroiment to population are in the cities having from 20,000 to 80,000 inhabitants. The ratio of average attendance to enrolment are quite uniform for cities of the same rank as regards population in each section, the greatest exception to this gen |