REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C., July 22, 1903.

SIR: I have the honor to submit herewith the Annual Report of this Office for the year ending June 30, 1902.

The enrollment in schools and colleges, public and private, during the year 1901-2 was 17,460,000, the same being an increase of 160,770 pupils over the previous year. Of this number there were enrolled in public institutions supported by taxation and funds belonging to States and municipalities 16,041,016, as against 15,710,394, the number reported for the previous year.

Besides the enrollment in schools and colleges, as given above, there were pupils enrolled in special institutions more or less educational in their character and more or less of a practical or business character as follows:

Schools in Alaska supported by incorporated municipalities (partly estimated)...

1,700

Orphan asylums and other benevolent institutions.

15,000

Private kindergartens

105,932

Miscellaneous (including schools of music, oratory, elocution, cookery, and

various special arts)

50,000

Total.

620, 840

Adding the enrollment in these special schools to the total of schools giving general education, we have a total of 18,080,840.

The general items of statistics for the country as a whole and for the five census divisions may be seen in the following three tables.

In Table I is given a comparative summary of items of attendance of pupils, the number of teachers, receipts and expenditures, showing the increase from decade to decade for more than thirty years in what are called common schools, including under this designation schools of the elementary and secondary grades supported from public funds. It will be seen that in the past six years the per cent of the total population enrolled in the common schools has not materially changed, being between 20 and 21 per cent of the entire population and about 72 per cent of the entire number of persons from 5 years to 18. The number in daily attendance during the sessions of the schools has risen from about 4,000,000 in the year 1869-70 to nearly 11,000,000 in the past year. The attendance has increased in regularity somewhat in the past thirty years. But the greatest increase has been in the length of the school term. This is due to the growth of villages and cities. A continually growing per centum of the population lives in large villages and cities and holds its schools open for a larger number of days cach year. The average term of all schools was 132 days in 1870 and 145 days the past year. The average number of days attended by each pupil enrolled in the schools reached 100 days the past year for the first time in the history of the schools. The normal length of the school session in villages and cities is nine or ten months of 20 days cach, vacation days being excluded, but public holidays such as fall within the school year-for example, Washington's Birthday and Memorial Day-are included in the school year, which amounts in cities to 200 days and perhaps in the majority of villages to 180 days. The number of women teachers has risen to 317,204 out of a total of 439,596 teachers in the common schools of the United States. It will be noticed that twenty-two years ago the percentage of male teachers was nearly 43, while the past year it had fallen below 28. The average salary of teachers shows a very slight increase, that of male teachers being nearly $50 a month and that of women teachers being nearly $40. The aggregate of school property arose to more than $600,000,000 the past year, its increase being $25,000,000 over the previous year and an increase of $171,188,299 over the value of common school property in 1869–70.

The amount of money for the support of schools derived from local taxation that is to say, municipal and county taxation-has steadily increased, due chiefly to the incorporation of large villages into cities and the provision for the schools out of the municipal tax fund. The increase of income from local taxes the past year was nearly $10,000,000 over the previous year, and the increase of receipts from all sources over the previous year, for the use of schools, was nearly $15,000,000. The average expenditure per pupil of average attendance has

increased pretty constantly since 1880, the total expenditure being $12.71 per pupil of average attendance in 1880 and $21.38 per pupil in 1902. The percentage of expenditure for several purposes is shown in Table I to be as follows: 17.7 per cent for sites and buildings; salaries of teachers and superintendents, 63.8 per cent; other purposes, such as janitor hire, fuel, apparatus, text-books for indigent pupils, etc., 18.5 per cent.

J.-General statistics.

TABLE I.-Common school statistics of the United States.

1869-70.

1879-80.

1889-90.

1896-97.

1897-98.

1898-99.

1899-1900.

1900-1901. a

1901-2. a

68.1
143.0

68.6
143.0

10, 632, 772
68.6
144.3

68.5

69.1