to have become within this ten-year period the accepted standard in education for the practice of law. While the number of students in law and in theology increased, the number in medicine and in dentistry decreased. The number of medical and of dental students had decreased also in each of the two years immediately preceding, so that during the three years there was a loss of 2,138 in the number of medical students and of 1,422 in the number of dental students. In 1906 the number of students in pharmacy was 5,145, an increase of 201, and the number of veterinary students was 1,445, an increase of 176 over the previous year. NORMAL SCHOOLS. The statistics of the past year, embodied in Chapter XVIII, show in all of the schools devoted partially or wholly to the professional training of teachers an enrollment of 97,257. These students are distributed among the several classes of institutions as follows: In public normal schools, 59,429; in private normal schools, 9,508; in universities and colleges, 13,771; in public high schools, 9,021; in private high schools, 5,528. There were reported as engaged in this work 1,236 institutions. Of this number, 464 are public and 239 private high schools, 269 universities and colleges, 181 public and 83 private normal schools. These, in the main, constitute the sources of supply from which all classes of schools recruit their required quotas of regularly trained teachers. The chapter mentioned presents the statistics of the 264 training schools for teachers known as public and private normal schools. The growth of public normal schools has been constant since 1890, while the progress of private normal schools in the same time has been fluctuating. The latter reached the high-water mark in 1897, when there were 198 private normal schools with 24,181 students. For the past nine years there has been a gradual decline in the number of schools and enrollment of students, although the quality of the work done by the remaining schools is undoubtedly superior to the average of 1897. Many of the weaker schools have been closed, while others have ceased to be distinctively normal schools, becoming private secondary schools or business schools. The following table compares 1890 and 1906 statistics: 1889-90. In- Normal Normal 1905-6. In- Normal Normal Schools. struct- stu- gradu- Schools. struct- stu- graduors. dents. dents. ates. ors. ates. An exhibit of the aggregate of public appropriations from year to year since 1890 will illustrate the growth of public normal schools in this country. For the school year ending June, 1906, the States, counties, and cities paid $4,643,365 for the running expenses of their public normal schools, an increase of $511,759 over the preceding year. In addition, the expenditure for new buildings reached $1,549,906. The following table gives a synopsis of appropriations for public normal schools for each year since 1889: Public appropriations to public normal schools for seventeen years. The statistics of the current year show a total of 9,560 schools engaged in secondary instruction (Chapter XIX). Of this number, 8,031 were public and 1,529 private institutions. The number of students enrolled in the former was 722,692 and in the latter 101,755. In addition to these numbers, which cover enrollment in the regularly constituted secondary schools alone, 19,258 pupils in public and 80,694 in private colleges and other institutions having preparatory departments received instruction in secondary branches during the year, making a grand total of 924,399. This latter number represents about 1,100 to the 100,000 of estimated population. A total of 97,877 graduates from public and private high schools is reported. This constitutes 11.81 per cent of the total enrollment, a ratio which has remained nearly uniform for the past seventeen years. The following table shows by geographical divisions the increase in the enrollment of secondary students in 1905-6 over the preceding year: Students receiving secondary instruction in public and private high schools and academies and in preparatory departments of colleges and other institutions. For the past three years a little more than 1 per cent of the total population of the country has been enrolled in secondary schools. There has been a steady increase in the ratio since 1890, when the secondary enrollment constituted but little more than one-half of 1 per cent of the population. The enrollment in private secondary schools has hardly preserved its ratio since 1890, while the public secondary school enrollment has increased in a greater ratio than the population. This comparative progress is clearly shown in the following table: Secondary students and per cent of population. MANUAL AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING. In 510 of the 1,325 cities having 4,000 population and over, manual training was taught in some of the grades of the public schools in 1905-6 (Chapter XX). This was a marked increase over the year 1904-5. In 1890 only 37 city school systems included manual training in the course of instruction. In 1894 the number had increased to 95, in 1900 to 169, in 1904 to 411, in 1905 to 420, and in 1906 to 510. In 1894 this Bureau received reports from 15 manual training schools. These schools had 3,362 students in manual training, 2,403 males and 959 females, all of secondary or high school grade. The next year, with the same number of schools reporting, there were 4,892 students. In 1897 the number of schools had increased to 40, with 13,890 students. Industrial training schools, or schools in which certain trades were taught, were subsequently included with manual training schools, and since 1897 the statistics given are for "manual and industrial training." In 1898 there were 58 manual and industrial training schools, with 18,977 students. All of these were reported as students of secondary or high school grade. Those not actually pursuing such secondary studies had been required to master certain secondary branches before entering. In 1900 there were 69 schools, with 24,716 students; in 1904 there were 98 schools, with 36,680 students; in 1905 there were 106 schools, with 43,197 students; and in 1906 there were reported 113 schools, with 48,612 students. COMMERCIAL AND BUSINESS SCHOOLS. Reports to this Bureau from 4,925 different institutions show that for the scholastic year 1905-6 there were enrolled 253,318 students in business or commercial studies (Chapter XXI). This was an apparent decrease of 9,480 from the preceding year. The regular business schools had an enrollment of 130,085, the public high schools had 95,000 in business studies, the private high schools and academies had 13,868, the normal schools 2,497, and the universities and colleges 11,868. SCHOOLS FOR THE TRAINING OF PROFESSIONAL NURSES. Chapter XXII is devoted to a statistical review of nurse training schools in the United States for the year ending June 30, 1906. The increase in the number of schools reporting is 112, or 13 per cent. A gain of 6 per cent is made in the number of students and a gain of 10 per cent in the number of graduates. The number of students in such schools reached the surprisingly high total of 21,052. SCHOOLS FOR THE COLORED RACE. In the 16 former slave States and the District of Columbia there are separate schools for the whites and negroes (Chapter XXIII). It is estimated that at the present time about 20 per cent of the public school funds in the South is for the support of schools for the negroes. For the year 1905-6 the sum of $46,140,967 was expended for the schools of both races. The public school expenditure for the entire South since 1870 has aggregated $864,383,520. It is estimated that at least $155,000,000 of this sum has been expended to support common schools for the colored race. There were 129 high schools for negroes in 1906, the enrollment of secondary students being 6,576. Tables 3 to 11 summarize the statistics of 101 private institutions devoted to the secondary and higher education of the negro race, and give in detail the statistics of these private schools, so far as it was possible for this Bureau to obtain the information. A number of schools failed to respond to repeated requests for statistics. REFORM SCHOOLS. The statistics of 97 reform schools for the year 1905-6 are presented in Chapter XXIV. In many of the States juvenile reformatories are known as State industrial schools. In this report they are classed as reform schools. In nearly all cases the inmates of these schools have been committed in pursuance of State laws. The 97 industrial and reform schools had 824 teachers for the instruction of 35,789 pupils. Only 1,894 of the inmates were not under school instruction, the total number of inmates being 37,683, of whom 29,289 were boys and only 8,394 girls. There were 30,144 inmates learning useful trades. SCHOOLS FOR THE DEFECTIVE CLASSES. In 1906 there were reporting to this Bureau 39 public schools for the blind (Chapter XXV). There were 479 teachers employed-162 men and 317 women. In the 39 institutions, 4,205 pupils were enrolled-2,264 boys and 1,941 girls. There were 135 schools for the deaf, 59 of that number being State institutions, 60 public day schools, and 16 private day schools, with an aggregate enrollment of 12,270 pupils. The 59 State institutions had 10,634 pupils-5,848 boys and 4,786 girls; the 60 public day schools had 1,111 pupils-574 boys and 537 girls; while the 16 private day schools had 525 pupils― 222 boys and 303 girls. There were 25 State schools and 16 private schools for the feeble-minded. In the State institutions there were enrolled 16,500 pupils 8,872 boys and 7,628 girls. In the private institutions the enrollment was 853 pupils-472 boys and 381 girls. RECOMMENDATION. From different parts of the country a scarcity of teachers is reported, and the unfortunate falling off in the number of men engaged in teaching still continues. These conditions are not peculiar to our own land, but are in some measure paralleled in certain European countries. They seem to mark a tendency of the time rather than a local movement. But the tendency undoubtedly appears in extreme form in the United States. The cause and the remedy of this shortage of teachers demand investigation. At this time, however, I desire only to call attention to the need of securing a sufficient number of competent teachers for certain new schools which are coming into being. I refer especially to the new schools of agriculture and other industries. We are on a rapidly rising wave of agricultural and industrial education. Fifteen years ago there was not, to my knowledge, a single public school of agriculture in this country other than the colleges endowed under the Morrill acts of 1862 and 1890. Since that time schools of agriculture and domestic arts, generally of high school grade, have been established by the States of Alabama, California, Georgia, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. And in the legislatures now in session in the States of Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin bills have been introduced providing for the establishment or the extension ED 1906-VOL 1- -III |