best thought this Department could give it. He thought educators need more courage and confidence; if we agree that a thing is right, let us fight for it.

A DELEGATE said that it is often difficult to obtain action by legislatures on educational subjects, because other matters, seemingly of more immediate interest, push them out of the way. He would ask if the southern members of Congress are favorable to the distribution of the land sales fund to the States for educational purposes.

Dr. ORR could speak in the affirmative for the Georgia delegation.

The PRESIDENT and Dr. HANCOCK Combated the idea that Mr. Goode and Senator Hoar's bills for the purpose mentioned are intended to centralize the power over education in the hands of the Federal Government.

Dr. ORR said that last year he had conversed with many Senators and Representatives, and was sure that at least fifty of those he had talked with are in favor of some such measure; even some who are extreme advocates of Mr. Calhoun's views on State rights make an exception of this matter, and believe that the whole country should see to it that no section becomes weakened or degraded through the ignorance of its population.

Prof. T. M. MARSHALL, of the State Normal School at Glenville, W. Va., said that some members of Congress are very indifferent to and ignorant of such matters; others are well disposed. The Department, instead of spending so much time over matters in which members are all agreed, would do better if it proceeded to convince the public and Congress that measures relating to education are of vital importance. The only way is to put a concise printed statement before them, or to seek personal intercourse with them, whenever proper and possible, and inform them what is necessary to be done.

Mr. BARRINGER and Dr. ORR heartily concurred in advising the same

course.

EDUCATION AND THE TENTH CENSUS.

Dr. HANCOCK thought the Department should do something for the better collection of facts relating to education by the tenth decennial

census.

On motion of General Eaton, the subject of the census was now taken up.

Dr. HARRIS. I would support that motion, and desire to point out in what respect we need a correction of the schedule on which the census is based. General Francis A. Walker, who has had the census in charge, is well known to be a competent man for the position. He is preparing very interesting tables in respect to the sociology of the United States and other important census matters. But there is one direction in which his labors could be made much more available to us in our school interests, and that is in the way of correcting local cen

suses. These are known to be utterly erroneous and unreliable for our purposes from many causes. One is, that the census is taken by a man who goes from door to door and inquires of the servant maid who live in the house between the ages of 5 and 21 years. He thus gets his information from an unreliable, and, in a large number of cases, an unintelligent, and for that reason untrustworthy source. Now, the United States census is taken with the utmost care; the schedule is left to be filled out by the household, and there are so many items in it that it insures close attention, the items of ages in particular being taken with the greatest care. The school items call for the number of children less than 1 year old, the number at 1 year, the number between 1 and 2 years, the number less than 3, and so on up to 4 years of age. They do not give the number between 5 and 6 years, or between 6 and 7, but they give those from 5 to 9 years, then those from 10 to 14, then from 15 to 19, then from 15 to 17, and so on. But there is no possible way of getting at the number who are of school age by the United States census in any State, because the ages do not correspond with the ages Mr. Walker has taken. What we want, therefore, is that the schedule shall show the ages by years from 1 to 21, male and female; and not only with reference to that generally for the States, but for minor subdivisions, as in other matters, so that we can see the difference in the cities and in the growth of the cities. The number in Missouri, for instance, is 39,795, in every aggregate of 100,000, between the ages of 5 and 21 years; but the cities are not given in that way. The city of Chicago is not given, but the whole State of Illinois. Now in St. Louis we have 90 per cent. of the ratio of the State; we have there more old persons; and Chicago has only about 80 per cent. of the ratio of the whole State; a very interesting social point, showing the rate of emigration of the different States. We took a local census the other day, in December, a school census, and we found that it was taken so poorly, and was so unreliable in its results, that we had less children than in 1870, and it gave us 40,000 less population than the United States census. The national census for 1870, which was so much more accurate and reliable, showed an increase of 30,000 in four years. These remarks will go to show how important it is that the census of the United States should correct its schedule for the ages between 1 and 21. After some remarks on the undoubted magnitude of the illiteracy not reported by the census takers and on the necessity of selecting those officials with greater care than heretofore, the convention voted that a committee of three be appointed to confer with the Commissioner of Education and with the Superintendent of the Census on this subject; and Messrs. Hancock, Harris, and J. O. Wilson were appointed such committee.

The PRESIDENT read invitations for the Department from the BookSewing Machine Company to inspect the machine at the Government Printing Office; also from Mrs. Louise Pollock to visit her Kindergar ten, at 929 Eighth street.

Prof. GEORGE P. BEARD, of the Southwestern Normal School of Pennsylvania, announced that Rev. Doctor J. H. Vincent, of Chautauqua, N. Y., had made arrangements for a teachers' institute for the last two weeks of next July.

UNITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION.

The President then introduced General John Eaton, United States Commissioner of Education, who read the following paper:

My friend Dr. Wickersham has requested me to speak of the wants of the Bureau of Education; and, as you know, we have all learned that, when he is our chief, prompt obedience is the only course. I am more than willing to admit the duty of making a statement about the Bureau as complete and frank as possible to the members of this association, to whom its origin and its success hitherto are so largely due.

The administration of the responsibilities of education in the several States and cities had for some time revealed a certain lack in our educational resources; no State or city could supply it; it was not a lack of authority, for there is abundant authority vested in every State. But the need was felt of an efficient medium for the collection of educational data and their generalization and publication.

Something of what was wanted by educators had been undertaken by the General Government in reference to other subjects, especially agriculture and meteorology, and indeed in reference to education itself, by including certain items relating to institutions of learning and illiteracy in the schedules of the later censuses. The new bureau was to collect and diffuse information respecting education, not to interfere in the management or courses of study of any educational institutions. The Department of Agriculture does not direct the operations of the farmer; the census does not shape a single fact that it records; the Bureau of Education does not direct a single school that it reports—it only collects and disseminates information.

It has now been in operation nearly twelve years. Of the three years of toil and care spent in its administration by my able and learned predecessor I need not speak. To the discharge of my own responsibilities I have always invited the closest scrutiny of every one who would take time to investigate, especially of all educators.

The Bureau cannot very well make known its wants without recalling in some measure what it has done and is doing. We should not therefore forget how absolutely wanting in guides and standards were its beginnings. To aid our conception, suppose we go back to the time when there was no national report on education, and, taking up the law organizing the Bureau, examine the requirement for an annual report; and, recognizing the fact that the Office properly has no authority outside its clerical force, let each one of us for himself think what would be his plan for such a report.

SCOPE OF THE WORK UNDERTAKEN.

Shall the plan stop with some one phase of education-elementary schools, private schools, academies, and other schools for secondary instruction, colleges, or professional schools? Shall it, in short, exclude any feature of education in the country, or shall it include all systems and institutions properly classed as educational? Evidently the latter, and when the comprehensiveness of the plan is determined on, there remain innumerable questions as to details.

Many of you now here, and others in the country prominent as educators, know how these questions were settled by us nine years ago. We sought to interpret the law by the prevailing intelligent educational sentiment of the country. That sentiment, as I said before, with a unanimity that left in my mind no doubt, could not be satisfied with an annual national report that attempted to comprehend anything less than a statement concerning all the institutions and systems of education in the several States and Territories.

It should be remembered that at that date two States were without school superintendents; that even a list of State superintendents could not be kept corrected to date for even a few months; that there was no list of the superintendents of even those cities having separate municipal school administration, and that there were no lists of colleges, or of academies, or of normal schools, or of reformatories, and so on. Moreover, it should be noted that each week and month brought to the Office demands for information upon educational experience and topics not elsewhere to be obtained, often requiring extensive research and elaborate treatment. In planning the report, we are brought directly to consider the question of collecting material. The States and many of the cities published reports, colleges and academies published catalogues, and numerous school journals and educational pamphlets were produced annually. As the work of the Office was to be conducted on the historical method, manifestly all material of this kind was to be sought for the past as well as for the present and the future; thus arose the necessity for an educational library as a part of the Office. Out of the communications between this Office and the ministries of instruction in other countries in reference to education the foreign department of the library grew.

But when you have begun a collection of books about education you can hardly avoid collecting educational appliances also; often the book without the appliance is well nigh useless to the investigator; hence came the educational museum, and chiefly in a mass from the Centennial Exhibition.

We continually found that all the additional information wanted about education (which could not at that time be obtained and to collect which this Office was founded) could not be gathered from any books, journals, or reports then in existence by any means thus far devised. Bringing

all the statistics together from the several State and city reports as published for their domestic use, it was found that there was that difference in nomenclature and methods of treatment, of objects sought, and means used, that reasonably fair and intelligent comparison and inferences were possible only in a limited degree. To supply this want, the Office, as you are aware, in conference with State officers for the State, city officers for the city, presidents of colleges for the colleges, and the heads of different classes of institutions, after numerous experiments, adopted forms of blanks to be sent out to each; these were to be filled by the responsible person addressed and returned to the Office. Here, it should be kept in mind, there is no authority, no requirement; only the rightness of the act, as acknowledged by all concerned and as deemed of value and interest by them. Moreover the fulness of the returns is wholly a matter of their comity. The result has been before you and before the country these several years. I know of no parallel voluntary contribution of statistical information anywhere. Of the imperfections none can know better than those who fill the blanks and those who collate them. The sending out of these questions it will be seen was in no way an effort to change systems and methods of work anywhere adopted as a necessity of local administration. 'It was simply an effort to state in the same nomenclature the facts on different points from data which had been theretofore gathered and published, but so published as to be valueless for purposes of generalization. The improvement in the numbers, fulness, and correctness of these replies furnishes some of the most gratifying experiences connected with the administration of the Office. Not a few administrators of institutions and systems have assured us that the effort to answer these inquiries has had the most healthful influence upon the care with which local records are made and reported.

The subdivisions of work and the methods of business in the Bureau must necessarily accord with the Department in which it is an office, and yet it must not be devised in such a way as to exercise any executive authority.

This description of what the Office has sought to do in the discharge of its duty to collect educational statistics and information, so far conveys an idea of what it wants to do in this respect.

PUBLICATIONS OF THE OFFICE.

We turn naturally to the second department of the duty of the Bureau, viz, the publication of information in respect to education.

I have referred to the annual report required by law. This, however large it may have seemed, has been crammed with the results of the process of collecting the information above described, and yet the demand from many quarters is always for more extended information upon many of the topics treated. Often this demand from localities, institutions, or systems requires special collections of facts and separate treatment and publication; hence comes the publication of what are