TABLE 12.-SCHOOL REVENUES, REDUCED TO A PER CAPITA BASIS.

TABLE 12 A-PERCENTAGE CLASSIFICATION OF SCHOOL REVENUE, SHOWING THE
PERCENTAGE OF THE WHOLE REVENUE RECEIVED FROM EACH SOURCE NAMED.

SCHOOL EXPENDITURES.

[Tables 13, 14, and 14 A, Pages 81, 83, and 84.]

The total amount expended for common schools in the United States during the school year 1886-87, or according to the latest reports, was $115,103,886, an increase of $3,798,959 over the amount last reported by this Office.

This amounted to an average expenditure of $1.99 per capita of total population, $10.27 per capita of population 6 to 14 years of age, and $15.40 per capita of average attendance. The schools were kept open a mean length of 135 days (Table 5, Column 6), so that each dollar expended furnished about 9 days' schooling on an average. The Northern and Western Divisions expended from three to five times as much per capita of population 6 to 14 as did the two Southern divisions. When the proportion of actual wealth expended is considered, however, the disparity nearly or quite disappears; though the statistics on this point are incomplete and unreliable, yet they show satisfactorily in a general way that the South is expending about as much relatively of its available means for education as the North. The average expenditure for all the States reporting the necessary data was 5.61 mills per dollar of assessed valuation.

By far the greatest expenditure per capita of average attendance (setting aside Alaska with its expenditure of $59.72 per capita of average attendance) is met with in the Western Division where it averages $25.12.

The amount reported as expended for salaries of superintendents and teachers is $79,531,925, indicating a yearly increase of $2,641,722, or at the rate of 3.44 per cent. per annum. This exceeds the rate of increase of either the school population or average attendance, as will be seen by reference to Table 16.

Of the total amount expended for schools, 14.42 per cent. was expended for sites, buildings, furniture, libraries, and apparatus; 69.10 per cent. for the salaries of superintendents and teachers; and 16.48 per cent. for all other purposes. (Table 14 A.)

It will be observed that the older North Atlantic States are expending proportionably quite as much of their school moneys for sites, buildings, etc., as the newer North Central States, and considerably more than the Western States. The least relative expenditure of this permanent character is met with in the Southern States, as might be expected rom the low density of population and mild winter climate.