NUMBER OF PUPILS IN ALL GRADES OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

Table II shows that the children enrolled in the public elementary schools in 1903 numbered 15,417,148. The course of study in the public schools includes eight years for the elementary grades, that is to say, for schools that are known as "district schools," the pupils in this class of schools entering at 5 and 6 years of age and remaining for various lengths of time.

In Chapter XXIII (p. 1176), showing the wall charts and other statistical exhibits of the Bureau of Education at the world's fair in St. Louis, an estimate has been made of the number of children in each year or grade of the course of study," and also the number of pupils in attendance at each age from 5 to 18.

In the first year's work the number of pupils was
Second year or grade.

Third year or grade...
Fourth year or grade
Fifth year or grade.
Sixth year or grade....

Seventh year or grade

5, 149, 296 2,912, 462 2, 426, 263 2, 168, 956

1, 288, 114

700, 885

405, 693

323, 607

15, 375, 276

Eighth year or grade

The total in the eight grades of the public elementary schools in
the year 1902.

In the same table the attendance in the public secondary schools or high schools is given, namely:

The total in the high school course of four years for 1902...

243, 433

147, 192

101, 903

73, 596

566, 124

The great falling off of pupils in the higher grades is noticeable both in the elementary schools and in the high schools. The number in the senior class of the high school is less than one-third of the attendance in the first year's work in the high school. The number of pupils that enter the eighth grade is about one-sixteenth as large as the number of pupils that enter the first grade. The first-grade work, no matter what the age of the pupil is who enters upon it, consists in learning how to read in the primer or first reader. A primer or first-reading book contains from 1,200 to 2,000 words drawn mostly from the colloquial vocabulary, that is to say, from the words in use in common speech and familiar to all persons by ear. The later readers (second, third, fourth, and fifth) have a continually increasing vocabulary of words that are known only to the eye and are rarely heard in colloquial

a Estimated on the basis of returns received from parts of the country in which reliable statistics are kept in regard to this item.

speech. The more of the higher vocabulary the pupil learns in school the greater becomes his power of thinking accurately and expressing with precision his thought, and the greater, of course, becomes his power of understanding what he reads in books and periodicals.

The English language, above all languages, contains a difference between its colloquial and scientific vocabularies. The words in the colloquial vocabulary are more largely of Anglo-Saxon origin, and relate to simple ideas and to familiar objects and relations found everywhere among the humblest people as well as the people of the highest social rank. But the words that express refined ideas, complex thoughts and scientifically accurate observation, are nearly all of Latin and Greek derivation and not from Anglo-Saxon roots. This peculiarity of the English language makes it very difficult for the illiterate person to ever acquire the use of technical terms, inasmuch as they are not built up in English upon the Saxon roots, but upon Latin and Greek roots. The word "knowledge" itself is colloquial and Anglo-Saxon, but the word "science" is Latin, and the words idea, technical, theory, philosophy, chemistry, geology, astronomy, etc., are derived from Greek. The attempt on the part of ambitious illiterates to use the higher vocabulary for accurate expression results in such ludicrous mistakes as are attributed to Mrs. Partington. The word "antidote," for instance, is changed into "nanny goat." So in Hamlet the words "coroner's inquest law" become "crowner's quest law." Without some knowledge of the colloquial vocabulary of the Latin and Greek, these high technical terms used for scientific purposes and by English literature for the expression of its deeper thoughts and finer shades of feeling do not get understood, for it is necessary to know the sensuous meaning of the words used by metonymy in technical or spiritual applications in order to think readily with these higher terms. With these thoughts in view it is interesting to know that one-third of all the pupils in the elementary schools are mastering the printed forms. of the most common colloquial words, and that only about one-third reach the school readers which contain in them the purely literary words, that is to say, reach the studies of geography, history, and arithmetic, and acquire the technique of the most elementary science. It is of interest in this connection to note that the growth. of the high schools from year to year and the increase in the number of pupils who have reached the study of elementary Latin, of algebra, and other studies of a technical character, show that there have been introduced into each community in the United States in ten years from two to three times as many persons in each million as was formerly the case who have learned in the high school how to use technical terms and the higher literary vocabulary intelligently.

As shown in columns 4 and 5 of Table II, relating to secondary instruction, the public secondary pupils number 608,412, and the

private secondary (in preparatory schools, academies, seminaries etc.), 168,223, the same making an aggregate of 776,635. Against these 608,412 public secondary pupils there were only 221,522 all told in 1890.

The number of secondary pupils in private preparatory schools, academies, seminaries, etc., is about the same as the previous year, the decrease being very slight, only 413 pupils, while the increase in the public high schools was 42,288.

The following table shows the movement of secondary students in public and private institutions of all kinds in the past fourteen years; also the same figures reduced to per cent of population:

Secondary students and per cent of population.

The number of secondary students in public and private high schools alone the past fourteen years is shown in the following table:

Public and private high schools since 1889–90.

The noteworthy increase of secondary instruction in public high schools in recent years is due to the policy adopted by large villages and counties to provide for free secondary instruction from public taxation.

The number of students in universities and colleges (as seen in columns 6, 7, and 8 of Table II) the past year was 125,834, the same being an increase of 6,338. The increase in the universities and colleges under public control was 2,869, and the increase in universities and colleges under private and corporate control is 3,469.

In Table IIIa the variation of increase of the school system for the past thirteen years is shown, and Table IIIb shows the per cent of population receiving education of different grades in private schools as compared with the public schools for three epochs, as follows:

TABLE IIIa. –Increase in thirteen years of the total number of persons receiving education and of the total population.

TABLE IIIb.-Per cent of the population receiving education of different grades.

THE AVERAGE AMOUNT OF SCHOOLING PER INHABITANT.

Table IV a gives the average number of years of schooling, measured by the city session of schools of 200 days as a standard. The scale gradually ascends from 1870 to 1900, beginning at 3.36 school years of 200 days in 1870 and rising to 5.23 school years (or 1,046 days) in the year 1900. Since 1900 the number has hovered between