REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith the report of the Commissioner of Education for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1914, to be published in two volumes. The first volume of this report will contain a brief interpretative review of the progress of education in the United States within the year and a still briefer report of the most important phases of progress in education in foreign countries. The second volume will contain statistics of education for the year within the United States. Neither part of the first volume is as complete as it should be; several important topics of education in this country have been omitted because the bureau had on its staff no specialists in these departments and had no funds with which to employ other persons to write these chapters. The report from other countries can never be made as complete as it should be until the bureau has more experts in foreign school systems, a much larger corps of translators, funds to pay the expenses of investigations in foreign countries, and reasonable stipends to expert correspondents. It is not necessary to emphasize the importance of having once each year a complete and accurate interpretative survey of all important work in education in all parts of the world. Without it we may not hope to obtain the best results from our systems of schools and other agencies of education. nor to obtain the fullest results from the money invested in them. Every problem in education has come to be international. The work of the humblest district school should be done in the light of all the knowledge of education the world has been able to gain. The statistics of the second volume can never be made complete and accurate until it is made possible for the bureau to send expert statisticians to State and city education offices and to the several institutions of learning of which reports are made. I know of no other agency that attempts to compile accurately so large a body of important statistics without such expert agents in the field. That the tendency toward democracy in education for the service of democratic, political, civic, social, and industrial life continues is shown clearly by the several chapters of this report. In this country we shall never be satisfied until we have assured to each child that kind and degree of education necessary for the fullest and most perfect development of its humanity, for the complete life of manhood |