Abstract
THE work of education in the United States of America, as delineated in the Commissioner's report, is making steady progress and keeping pace with the great increase of population in that country, where are 266 cities with an average of 40,000 inhabitants, and a lowest limit of 7500. Various States are able to perceive that a more efficient course of education provided in them for the next generation is one of the greatest attractions to those earnest striving settlers who are the backbone of a growing country; and money and energy in increasing amounts are devoted to the purpose. The successful guidance of these powers to desired results depends largely upon the selection of capable district superintendents who will provide for the more careful selection and improvement also of teachers, and introduce the best methods and the best facilities of instruction; thus making common to the many what would have been confined to the extra intelligent few. The first use, therefore, to be made of liberal money votes is the provision of high-class inspectors, who can be secured only by higher salaries. One important duty of these officers arises from the system of establishing schools in every district being so perfect in all of the United States, that in Connecticut, for example, there are 158 school districts which have less than eight scholars in attendance during the year, and one case is quoted, not as being by any means unparalleled, of a school having only four scholars during the year, and for three months having one only, whose education consequently cost the district 60 dollars. In such circumstances the State inspectors can recommend the consolidation of several of these school districts into one. Where this cannot be done, it is not likely that an efficient, qualified teacher can be secured for each. Yet rather than this scattered population should grow up half taught, the New York superintendent of popular instruction recommends that a sufficient salary shall be made good out of State or general Government funds. It is the more necessary to meet this difficulty as population is not everywhere increasing. In Maine, for example, population has decreased, and the number of school districts has been reduced already.
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ODELL, W. Education in the United States 1 . Nature 34, 55–56 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/034055a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/034055a0