dren and children of recent immigrants to this country and for negro children.

During the year this division made a survey of public and private kindergartens and kindergartens in manufacturing villages and in benevolent institutions in the United States. The results of this survey have been published as a bulletin of the bureau. With the assistance of a committee of 20 experts, members of the International Kindergarten Union, the division made a study of all the kindergarten training schools of the country, about 200 in number, and has since prepared the results of this study for publication. The division also made studies and digests of the work of the kindergarten and primary grades of the public schools. In this study it made inquiries as to the double sessions in 92 cities. Primary teachers in 114 and kindergarten teachers in 40 cities were asked for information and opinions as to changes needed in the kindergarten work and in the primary grades. The results of this study have been summarized for publication in a bulletin of the bureau. The division also collected from training teachers, supervisors, and directors of kindergartens and others photographs and plans of kindergarten buildings and equipment for kindergarten classes, which material, before the close of the fiscal year, was used in the preparation of a bulletin. on kindergarten buildings, rooms, and equipment. A digest was made of the laws pertaining to public-school kindergartens and the qualifications of kindergarten teachers in the 48 States, Numerous inquiries have been answered with regard to Stato laws relating to kindergartens, methods of creating public sentiment for the extension of kindergarten work, plans of buildings and equipment for kindergartens, location of training schools for kindergarten teachers, the value of the kindergarten as a part of the public-school system, the relative value of the single and double daily sessions for kindergartens, the difference between the kindergarten and the Montessori schools for small children, etc. A kindergarten exhibit was made at several expositions and State fairs and at the meetings of educational associations. Two lantern-slide lectures on kindergartens were circulated; speakers were sent to conventions, and on request assisted in campaigns for the establishment of kindergartens; several demonstration kindergartens were established.

The specialist and assistants in negro education visited and inspected negro schools in the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas, and made comprehensive studies of each school visited. The more important schools of Kentucky, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri were also visited and inspected. The aggregate value of the property of the 400 schools visited was found to be $12,500,000, their annual income a little less than $3,000,000. They have approxi

mately 75,000 pupils, of whom 15,000 are reported as pursuing secondary subjects. As a result of these studies this bureau now has descriptive statements of each of these schools, showing location and type of school, attendance, training and sex of teachers, character and organization of work, financial condition and management, condition and upkeep of the plant, and relation of the school community to whites and negroes. On this basis have been prepared recommendations of changes and improvements which the studies indicate to be necessary. For each of the States two tables have been made showing the private and public school facilities for colored children in each county. Incidental to the main work of this survey some constructive work was done in the schools visited. This included improvements in the accounting systems of the schools, in cleanliness and sanitation of dormitories, and in increase of interest in those elements of education that are especially needed in the rural sections. American children are in school less than 4 per cent of their time from birth to 21 years of age. The home, the primitive and primary institution for the education of children, is still the most important agency for education for life-physical, mental, moral, industrial, economic, social, civic. The school is still only supplementary. Any agency, therefore, that would promote right education most effectually must find some means of cooperating with the home and of helping parents, who are the most constant, and should be the most effective, teachers of their children.

It was for this purpose that the Home Education Division of the Bureau of Education was formed in May, 1913, in cooperation with the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations. Its aim is to investigate means and methods of improving education in the home, to assist parents in directing the play of their young children, promoting their early mental development, fostering the formation of right moral habits and establishing their physical health, the latter probably the most important element in education for life and efficient living. It also aims to bring about a more intelligent cooperation between the home and the school, so that both may work together intelligently for the welfare of the children and to extend the education of boys and girls who have quit school, by stimulating and directing their home reading and study.

Through the cooperation of county school superintendents this division obtained within the year the names of 23,930 intelligent and influential women in 949 counties, each living near a country or village school, and invited their cooperation in carrying out its aims. This list has been much enlarged within the current year. It is hoped that the division may be able to obtain the cooperation of at least one such woman in the neighborhood of every rural school in the United States. Since the organization of this division many parent

teacher associations have been organized, circulars of information have been distributed, and brief courses of reading for parents, children, and older boys and girls recommended. Six extensive courses of reading for children of different ages have been prepared and distributed. Plans are in preparation by which boards of education and State school officers will cooperate in the promotion of this work. In the preparation of these reading courses the bureau has had the assistance of a cooperating committee of special collaborators, consisting of C. Alphonso Smith, Edgar Allen Poe professor of English in the University of Virginia; Charles Forster Smith, professor of Greek in the University of Wisconsin; Richard Burton, professor of English in the University of Minnesota; and William L. Phelps, professor of English literature in Yale University; and of several collaborators especially interested in literature for children. The division has also prepared, for distribution, lists of lantern slides of educational value, suitable for use in parent-teacher associations and other similar societies.

Education begins at birth, and the first years of life are the most important. Loss of life or health, arrest of development, the formation of vicious habits, or the acquirement of false ideas and ideals in these years may render impossible or ineffective all efforts at education in later years. Realizing the supreme importance of the proper care of children in these earliest years, the division of home education obtained within the year the names of more than 10,000 mothers of children under 3 years old and prospective mothers who needed advice in regard to the care of their children and corresponded with them or sent them helpful printed matter. To 6,626 of these were sent copies of a bulletin of the United States Public-Health Service, "On the Care of Babies," donated to the bureau for this purpose. This work has been much enlarged within the current fiscal year. In this work the bureau has also had valuable assistance from the executive committee of the American Medical Association.

The Home Education Division has two offices, one in the city of Washington and one in Philadelphia. The office in Washington is under the immediate direction of the secretary of the division. The Philadelphia office is under the direction of a special collaborator of the bureau, who is also general director of the division.

The Division of Civic Education was established in March, 1914, in cooperation with the National Municipal League. The purpose of this division is to investigate methods of teaching, in the schools and elsewhere, those things that pertain directly to the duties and responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy, and of membership in larger and smaller communities, and to foster the desire and will to so live and act as to promote the public welfare.

Whatever calling or profession one or another may follow, all are citizens. Citizenship is inevitable, without regard to age, position in life, vocation, race, social position, or the possession of the right of suffrage. Every citizen is constantly influenced for good or bad by many agencies, and must become helpful and useful to the community or else a burden to society or a menace to the State, and perhaps both. The school, and every other conscious agency of education, whether for children and youths or for adults, should work for civic righteousness and efficiency.

It is generally conceded that the methods now in common use for teaching the duties of citizenship are inadequate, and there is a strong widespread demand for help in developing better methods. On the other hand, successful experiments have been made here and there which seem to show the way to better methods and results. To find and bring together the best thought and experience on this subject, and make them available to all teachers, school officers, and others interested in civic education, and to bring into cooperation with the Bureau of Education all the agencies that have hitherto been working toward the common end of the better teaching of this subject, but independently of each other, has been the first work of this division. These agencies include not only schools and colleges, but numerous civic leagues and other organizations which both supplement the work of the schools for children and youths and also provide for adults instruction in civics and the duties of citizenship.

Within the brief period between the establishment of this division and the close of the fiscal year the specialist in civic education gathered, organized, and developed much information about civic education in elementary schools; cooperated with several associations studying civic education in secondary schools; began a study of the preparation of teachers, both in training and in service, for effective work in this and allied subjects; and cooperated with the American Political Science Association in an inquiry in regard to instruction in government in colleges and universities. Through the cooperation of the Intercollegiate Civic League, he visited seven colleges and universities and observed the work of civic and goodgovernment clubs of college men in these institutions and wrote a preliminary report of his observations. He also visited, on invitation, the cities of St. Louis, Kansas City, Louisville, Boston, and Yonkers to confer with school officers and civic committees relative to the reorganization of civic instruction both through the school and through other agencies. Plans were begun and have since been continued for the development of more adequate methods of civic instruction for adult immigrants and for the stimulation and promotion of public discussion and debate of questions of general and

local public interest in colleges, schools, clubs, and social centers. A series of brief circulars, known as "The civic-education series," was begun and has been continued. These circulars are mailed to school officers and teachers in elementary and secondary schools. Through the cooperation of the North American Civic League a division for the investigation of the education of immigrants was established in April, 1914, under the immediate direction of a trained sociologist and investigator, who was at once assigned to work in connection with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor, at Harrisburg, to make investigations of illiteracy among adult immigrants and of methods of preparing immigrants for citizenship and for participation in American industrial, social, and civic life. The work undertaken then has since been finished and reported, and other important work begun.

Within the year the Editorial Division of the bureau issued the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Education in two volumes, Volume I being a comprehensive survey of the progress of education within the year in the United States and a briefer survey of progress in other countries; Volume II being a survey of statistics of education in the United States. Fifty-three bulletins were issued, containing a total of 4,122 pages. Among these were studies of industrial education, prison schools, special features in city school systems, rural education surveys, pension systems for teachers, economy of time in education, school playgrounds, the reorganization of secondary education, school hygiene and health in schools, education of immigrants, legislation and judicial decisions relating to education, school systems of Switzerland, England, and Denmark, compulsory school attendance, vocational guidance, kindergartens, salaries of teachers, and university extension. More than a half million copies of these bulletins were distributed.

The issue of brief multigraphed circulars on educational subjects, begun a year or two ago, developed considerably during the year. Approximately 600,000 copies of various multigraphed articles were mailed. Special statements on educational matters were issued to the newspapers during the year at the rate of three a week. While it is impracticable to check up systematically the publication of this material, the clipping returns indicate that the percentage of use is high. This service is useful in popularizing knowledge of education and is constantly increasing. At the end of the year the number of persons reached by each issue of the various circulars. was as follows: Press letter, 2,200; city-school circular, 5,000; legislative circular, 2,700; rural-school letter, 5,200; higher-education letter, 1,500. In the case of some of the circulars it was found necessary to order much larger editions than here indicated, to answer the demand for additional copies, and the bureau was com‐