Among other lines of special study and investigation fostered by the universities and promising results of immediate practical value, are those relating to the English language and to the history of our own people. To the last mentioned belongs the early history of educational institutions, a line of research which may very properly be encouraged by this Office.

ATTENDANCE ON COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY COURSES..

While provision for liberal culture and for a high order of professional and special training is increasing among us, and our leading colleges and universities are attracting the attention of foreign educationists and writers, by reason both of their material resources and their scholastic excellence, the opinion is gaining ground among us that the number of young men who avail themselves of this provision is relatively smaller than at an earlier period of our history.

The material collected by this Office during the last fifteen years is undoubtedly sufficient, if properly analyzed, to throw much light upon this matter. In order, however, that definite conclusions should be reached, more time must be given to the investigation than is afforded in a single year, and in the case of many colleges special inquiries instituted. The results of some preliminary studies in this direction are given in Appendix VI, page 468.

At this early stage of the inquiry the inference seems to be justified that the number of students pursuing the branches which were comprised in the old uniform college curriculum has relatively declined, but that this loss is more than compensated by the attendance upon advanced scientific and special courses.

MANUAL AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION.

Interest in the subject of "manual training" has shown no abatement during the year under review. Although few new experiments in this direction have been reported, distinct progress in respect to the general understanding of the subject is noticeable. This progress appears chiefly in the clearer recognition of the relation that manual training bears to general development, or, in other words, in the clearer recog nition of its educational function. Physiologists have long been telling us that muscular exercise invigorates the brain; in addition to this important result which the exercise of the hand shares with all other bodily exercise, the advocates of manual training have urged its effects in quickening observation, in increasing the range and acuteness of the perceptive faculties, and in establishing an "intimate familiarity be tween the mind and things." This broad conception is gradually replac ing that narrower view in which manual training is regarded merely as a means of promoting industrial aptitude, or of affording preparation for specific arts. In a number of cities public opinion seems to be prepared to give practical effect to the idea forcibly expressed by Dr.

J. D. Runkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that "to give hand instruction its full educational value it should be incorpo. rated into the school course and pursued systematically in connection with cognate studies."

The advance in public opinion here noted is due to several causes. Among them must be included the influence of manual-training schools or courses co-ordinated to public grammar and high schools, as in Baltimore and Boston, or created by private endowment, as in St. Louis and Chicago. While the main purpose of these schools is professedly educational, they do undoubtedly promote among their pupils a disposition toward mechanical pursuits, and shorten by their training the period of apprenticeship for such of their pupils as eventually apply themselves to particular trades. Thus manual-training schools of the class referred to contribute somewhat toward the solution of the great industrial problems of the day.

As regards provision for training skilled workmen for the various trades involving the application of science and design, little has been accomplished in the United States. The demand for such provision has, however, sensibly increased during the year, and the public discussion of this requirement has led to a clearer understanding of the province of existing technical schools, and of the direction in which future efforts are most urgently required.

In the larger cities private individuals and associations are doing much to provide industrial training for the children who can only thus be kept from the ranks of the vagrant and vicious. The Industrial Education Association of New York is perhaps the most conspicuous example of organized effort for this particular purpose.

Every year affords new evidence of the wisdom of the Congressional act of 1862, under which "colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts" have been established in the several States of the Union. Very few of these colleges have, indeed, as yet realized the whole purpose of their foundation In some sections of the country their practical work has been confined to the agricultural department, in others to the department of mechanic arts, while in a few instances the practical work has been sacrificed to the literary and theoretic. In the main, however, these partial developments are due to accidents of time or place, and present no obstacle to fuller development in the future. On the whole, these colleges have proved to be efficient instrumentalities for the practical education of the people, and their experience throws much light upon the kind of education demanded by the classes engaged in agricultural and mechanical pursuits and the means by which the demand may best be met. New laboratories, the erection and equipment of machine shops, and the extension and improvement of experi mental farms and stations are general features of these colleges for the current year. This group of colleges, together with the scientific schools not endowed by the land grant of 1862, afford large provision for a ED 86-II

high order of technical and scientific training throughout the country. The extent to which the South is participating in the general movement for manual and industrial training should not be overlooked. The colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi have materially increased their equipment for practical work during the year; the Legislature of Georgia has appropriated $65,000 for the building and furnishing of a technological school, the Tuskegee Normal School, Alabama, is developing a work for the colored people of that State which embodies the best features of the Hampton Institute; and Tulane University has thrown its powerful influence on the side of a full, rounded, symmetrical education in which manual training is a recognized feature. In connection with the work in the South particular interest attaches to provision for manual and technical training in the cities of Washington and Baltimore.

Successful experiments have been made during the year in the introduction of manual training into the public schools of Washington; the Baltimore Manual-Training School reports progress for the year, and the city has continued to be a special centre of interest for those who are watching the development of technical instruction in the United States through the action of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company in establishing a technological school in the interests of their service. The investigations made in preparation for this enterprise, and the exceedingly valuable and comprehensive report* in which the results have been embodied, throw great light on the whole subject of technical instruction, and cannot fail to exercise a stimulating influence on similar enterprises throughout the country, and more particularly in that section to which Baltimore belongs geographically.

REPORT ON EDUCATION IN FINE AND INDUSTRIAL ART.

Part I of this report, on " drawing in public schools," was finally made ready for the press, and the volume printed during the spring of 1886. It being a Senate document, only a small edition of 250 copies was obtained, by kindness of the Department, for distribution by this Office. An additional number was ordered by Congress, however, of which 2,000 copies were allotted to this Office for distribution.

Work on Part II has progressed to such an extent as to warrant the expectation that it will be ready for the printer during the year 1887.

REPORT ON INDIAN CIVILIZATION AND EDUCATION.

Ever since the Centennial Exhibition, when the Department made an instructive and suggestive display of articles illustrating progress in adapting the native Indians of the United States to the conditions of civilized life and thought, this Office has collected material, printed and written, upon this subject.

Service Report on Technical Education, with special reference to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad service, by Dr. W. T. Barnard.

Another collection of articles, even more interesting and suggestive, was displayed in 1885 at the New Orleans Exhibition by the Indian Office, under the direction of Miss Alice C. Fletcher. This collection excited so much interest in Indian progress and civilization that the Senate in February, 1885, ordered the material bearing upon the subject in the possession of the Bureau to be printed. Miss Fletcher was assigned by my predecessor, the Hon. John Eaton, to the task of enlarging and preparing this material for the press, and has made such progress that it is my expectation that the work will be ready for the printer in a very short time.*

EDUCATION IN ALASKA.

When I took charge of this Office I found that Dr. Sheldon Jackson, general agent of education for the Territory of Alaska, had just departed upon a tour of inspection. For information as to the condition of things before his departure, I beg to refer to the report made by him to you for transmission to Congress. If later information is received while this Report is going through the press, it will be inserted in an appendix.t

ESTIMATES AND RECOMMENDATIONS.

In my letter of October 20, 1886, submitting estimates of the Bureau of Education for 1887-'S8, I used the following language:

It will be seen that I have asked for appropriations amounting to $70,095, which is in excess of the appropriations for 1886-187 by $2,500.

This amount is made up of $200 to the increase of the salary of the chief clerk, $500 additional to the library, and the salary of a librarian, or clerk of class four, $1,800. The sum of $500 is a very small addition to the allowanse for the purchase of such books as should be placed upon the shelves of the library. So many new publications are being issued, that it is absolutely necessary to make a selection from them and to keep our library well supplied with the leading works upon subjects appertaining to the work of the Bureau.

The salary of the chief clerk should be made equal to the salary of the same officers in the other Bureaus of the several Departments.

The library, now numbering nearly twenty thousand volumes of valuable works, on nearly every subject pertaining to education and the philosophy of teaching, should be well equipped, with a librarian skilled in the newest and best methods of arrangement and classification. His services in these departments of his work would not only be invaluable, but his familiarity with the subjects treated in the books of the library would be of untold convenience, and make the library a most valuable adjunct of the Bureau. For these reasons I have asked for an appropriation

of $1,800 for a librarian, and trust that it will be granted.

The tendency is to increase in the work committed to the Bureau of Education. The statistical branch of the office is daily subjected to additional burdens in the shape of State, city, school, college, and university reports from the United States, and from many foreign countries. The statistics from all these ever-increasing sources are to be collected, tabulated, put in form, and finally given a local habitation in the Annual Report. The labor is twofold what it was in former years, and all indications point to a large and continuing increase in its operations. If it be decided that the

Since the date of this Report, Miss Fletcher has completed her work, and the manuscript has been sent to the Public Printer.

+ See Appendix XI, p. 750, infra.

Bureau is to be kept within its present limits of investigation, in spite of the many new subjects now occupying the attention of educationists, the present force of the Office can be made to do the work as now done; but if the Office is to comprehend these topics in its range of inquiry, to treat them as the advance in the methods of statistical science requires, and as the expectations of its intelligent correspondents hope for, some addition to the force will have to be made.

If the present force cannot be increased according to the views and purposes of the administration, I shall most cheerfully conform to its policy, and endeavor with the means at hand to produce the best attainable results.

Accompanying the foregoing letter I submitted the revised estimates therein mentioned. The following tabular statement compares the items of that estimate with the corresponding items of the appropriations made for the fiscal years 1886-'87 and 1887-'88, respectively:

To the labors of my predecessor, the Honorable John Eaton, for more than sixteen years the Commissioner of this Bureau, I am much indebted. The records and reports of this Office attest the efficiency of his work in the cause of Education. Whatever of good it has accom. plished is attributable, in great measure, to his energy, zeal, and selfdevotion.