EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Patea Mail, Volume II, Issue 106, 15 April 1876, Page 2

EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Thr “ Melbourne Argus” thus summarises the fifth annual report of the Commissioner for Education for the United States, which was issued at the beginning of November last. There had been an increase of 164,000 attending the public schools during the year, and an augmentation of the school income to the extent of 1,232,000 dols. According to the last census there were 10,500,000 children in the United States who were between the school ages, that is to say, from 6 to 16 years of age. Of these, 8,000,000 were on the rolls, while the daily average attendance was 4,500,000. The total income of all the public schools in 1874 was 82,000,000 dols, the total expenditure being 74,000.000. Great disparities exist in the salaries paid to teachers. In the Cherokee nation, where the maximum is obtained, those of the male teachers are £540, and of the females £4OO sterling per annum ; hut in Massachusetts they are as low as £220 for the former and £BO for the latter; which would certainly not go far as two-thirds of the amounts named would in Victoria. The cost of education per capita for the children in average attendance at the public schools is highest in the Cherokee nation, where it ‘e £4 16s per head; the lowest in Virginia, where it is only 16s per head per annum. In New York it is four guineas, in Massachusetts £4, and in Nebraska, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, where the social conditions are so dissimilar, it is £3 12s per head. There are 1031 institutions of instruction in the United States, but while there was an increase of 408 in the number of teachers during the year 1874 there was a falling off of 20,891 in the number of students, a circumstance attributable to the financial depression and commercial disasters of the year. The effect of these is described as having been especially observable in the preparatory schools for the superior instruc-

tion of women. Nevertheless there were 503 degrees conferred on women during the year 1874, and there are now no loss than 29*000 girls studying in colleges and scientific schools* and 53,000 in the preparatory schools. The Commissioner of Education stated that, for some time to come* it is intended to take an annual census of the school population, so as to ascertain the exact proportion of the children receiving instruction.