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or womanhood, for the intelligent performance of the duties of citizenship, and for making an honest living by intelligent and skilled labor of some kind. A desire for such education for all the children of all the people is growing more or less rapidly in all countries of the world. At last the world is beginning to understand that all children, whatever their birth or condition, have certain rights which become obligations for society and state, and that chief among these is the right of education. The world is also becoming conscious of the fact that neither society nor state can ever attain to its best until every individual unit of it has attained unto its best. The first duty of a democratic state certainly is to provide equal and full opportunity of education for all its children.

WORK OF THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION.

The work of the bureau is itself not an unimportant part of the educational life of the country. More and more do education officers, teachers, and people look to it for information, advice, and help in working out their problems and promoting education in all its forms. For this reason they are interested in its organization, support, purposes, and work. In the near future I purpose to submit for publication a manuscript covering in detail the first three items. A brief account of some of the more important features of its development and work for the fiscal year covered by this report follows as a part of this introduction. To this are appended the recommendations contained in the Statement of the Commissioner of Education to the Secretary of the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1914.

Within the year two new divisions were established, the Division of Civic Education and the Division of Education of Immigrants; the first in cooperation with the National Municipal League, the second in cooperation with the North American Civic League. The Division of Home Education, maintained in cooperation with the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations, was enlarged. Since the beginning of the current fiscal year, there have been established two other divisions: The Division of Vocational Education, including trade and industries, with one specialist, and education for home-making with two specialists, and the Division of School and Home Gardening with three specialists. In the maintenance of the School and Home Gardening Division the bureau has the cooperation of the International Child Welfare League. The Division of Rural Education was enlarged by the addition of one specialist within the fiscal year covered by this report, and has been further enlarged within the current fiscal year by the addition of two assistants. There have also been added within the current fiscal year a translator and four clerks. These additions to the working force of the bureau within the current fiscal year were made possible by an

increase of $30,600 in the annual appropriations made by Congress for its support.

The Division of Higher Education studied recent developments in the universities of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; the preparation of teachers for secondary schools in Germany, France, and England; science teaching in the secondary schools of the United States; and standards of universities, colleges, normal schools, and secondary schools in the United States. A representative of the bureau spent one or more weeks at each of the more important universities of the British Isles. Dr. Charles II. Judd, of the school of education, University of Chicago, who held the position of specialist in higher education for several months at the beginning of the fiscal year, visited schools for the preparation of secondary teachers in Germany, France, and England, and made a careful investigation of their courses of study, both academic and professional, and of their examinations and standards of qualification. Dr. Otis W. Caldwell, of the University of Chicago, held a temporary appointment in the division, and made a personal inspection of the teaching of science in some of the more important schools in the Southern States. Dr. S. P. Capen, of Clark University, was appointed specialist in higher education and assigned to this division as chief of the division February 1, 1914. Before the end of the fiscal year he visited and inspected 29 colleges and universities; at the request of The Adjutant General of the War Department, he rendered a decision as to the eligibility of about 350 universities, colleges, and schools for inclusion in the list of institutions to be accredited by the United States Military Academy; and he attended and took part in ten educational conferences of associations interested in higher education. In person or by correspondence he consulted with the representatives of all the large national associations directly interested in higher education as to the best methods of listing colleges and universities in respect to their standards and efficiency, and with the cooperation of these associations began the organization of a committee which has since held a meeting in the office of the Commissioner of Education and organized itself for a careful study of the work for which it was formed. The committee consists of the following:

Prof. Walter Ballou Jacobs, New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.

Commissioner John H. Finley, Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland.

Prof. Bert E. Young, Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States.

Prof. H. A. Hollister, North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Dean R. D. Salisbury, Association of American Universities.

Chancellor Samuel Avery, National Association of State Universities.

Dr. N. P. Colwell, American Medical Association.

President Charles S. Howe, Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education.
President D. J. Cowling, Association of American Colleges.

73226°-ED 1914-VOL 1——II

The specialist in higher education also cooperated with a committee of the Association of Collegiate Registrars in a criticism and reconstruction of methods of recording college activities and the statistical forms of the Bureau of Education; began the preparation of a scheme for the tabulation of the college curriculum, the completion of which will enable the Bureau of Education to determine with greater facility questions relating to the quality and standing of any given institution of higher education; and began a series of higher-education letters to be sent to universities, colleges, normal, professional, and technical schools, nine of which were prepared and mailed before the end of the fiscal year.

This division examined and certified as to the accuracy of the reports of the land-grant colleges receiving aid under the acts of Congress of August 30, 1890, and March 4, 1907; made a special examination of the methods of accounting in use in three landgrant colleges for negroes, and as a result of this examination is suggesting for all the institutions of this class a more efficient method of accounting. Six land-grant colleges were visited, and the division examined in detail one of these colleges at the request of its officials and made a detailed report of the findings.

Within the year the Division of School Administration collected and prepared for publication important statistics in regard to school administration in 1,300 towns and cities having a population between 2,500 and 30,000. It also collected and compiled information in regard to school savings banks, information on departmental teaching, and information in regard to the duties and work of superintendents in small cities. It prepared for publication as bulletins of the bureau manuscripts on Compulsory Attendance; Special Features in City Schools; Legislation and Judicial Decisions of the Years 1910-1912; Legislation and Judicial Decisions of 1913; and Administration of State Systems of Education. The division also began a complete digest of all the school laws of all the States, Territories, and dependencies of the United States, which has been continued and completed within the current fiscal year. There is much need for such a digest, and this will shortly be published as a bulletin of the bureau.

This division issued 16 circular letters on various phases of city school work and 6 circular letters of information on important school legislation considered and enacted during the year. The chief of this division visited and studied the schools of 22 cities in 10 different States, and assisted in making a survey of the schools of the city of Ogden, Utah.

During the month of August, 1913, the special agent in school hygiene and sanitation assembled and installed Part I of the scientific exhibit of the Fourth International Congress on School Hygiene

held at Buffalo, N. Y. This part of the exhibit received much attention from people from all parts of the world, and the permanent international committee of the congress voted to recommend that similar exhibits be made at future congresses. The Division of School Hygiene and Sanitation completed studies of methods and means of health teaching in the United States, and of buildings and grounds for rural schools, and began studies of open-air schools and school baths, both of which have since been completed. It also made a supplementary study of American school architecture, and prepared a bibliography of school hygiene, including summaries of scientific work gathered for the Fourth National Congress on School Hygiene. Cardboard models of rural schoolhouses were sent on request to many school boards and exhibited at a number of educational associations. It is believed that the value of these models in calling attention to the urgent need of better school buildings has been great.

In the division of rural education one specialist devoted most of his time to the study of rural education in the Southern States and in conference with State, county, and local authorities in these States. He attended conferences in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, and other States, and aided in organizing the national conference of State supervisors and inspectors of rural schools held at Louisville, Ky., under the direction of this bureau. Another specialist spent most of the year in the States of the far West. In Utah he studied the relative merits of county supervision. and district supervision in two adjacent counties and the organization of schools in agricultural villages and small towns. In this and other Western States he studied the rural high schools and the means adopted for bringing school and home into closer cooperation. In the course of these studies he visited approximately 300 rural schools and attended approximately 100 meetings of parent-teacher associations and school-improvement leagues and attended 48 meetings of State and county associations and institutes.

Still another specialist spent the year in the Middle West, visited schools, and attended meetings of teachers and school officers in Colorado, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. He prepared reports of his investigations of the schools of Minnesota, Colorado, and Illinois, and prepared for publication four bulletins on the rural schools of Denmark, giving the results of an investigation of these schools made by himself and two special collaborators of the bureau in the spring of 1913.

The fourth specialist made a study of consolidated schools and public transportation of pupils, and prepared the results of this study for

publication as a bulletin of the bureau, directed the preparation of reports on education in the Appalachian Mountain region of the South and on special work of county superintendents. In March, April, and May he visited the British Isles and made a study of rural education in England, Scotland, and Ireland, with special reference to the work of continuation schools in rural communities, agricultural education, and education for home making in regular and village schools.

All of these specialists attended State, county, and local meetings of school officers, teachers, and citizens held in different parts of the country for the discussion and consideration of the organization, management, and support of rural schools, and gave much valuable assistance.

The division prepared and has in circulation nine duplicate sets of lantern slides on consolidated and rural schools and transportation at public expense. Each set is accompanied by a typewritten outline lecture and by printed material for further information. These slides have been sent to county superintendents and others interested in rural schools, and have been in constant use. Many more such sets are needed to supply requests for them.

The division issued periodically a rural-school letter, which was sent to all State, county, and township superintendents, rural-school inspectors, and others who have to do with the administration of rural schools. These letters are made up of brief reports of interesting experiments and developments in the work of rural schools.

The Kindergarten Division of this bureau, established in the spring of 1913, in cooperation with the National Kindergarten Association, has already developed into an important agency for the promotion of the education of young children. There are in the United States approximately 4,000,000 children between 4 and 6, which is ordinarily considered the kindergarten age. While some formal education in the kindergarten or elsewhere would be helpful for all or most of these, the home conditions of at least half of them are such as to make the demand for such education for them imperative. Only about 300,000 of these children are enrolled in the public and private kindergartens, and probably not more than 2,000 or 3,000 in Montessori schools and other schools for the education of children under the public-school age. There is little hope of reaching these children except by making the kindergarten a part of the public-school system in every city, town, and village. By doing this, not only would two years be added to the period of education of millions of children whose educational life must at best be all too short, but a beginning in the formation of moral and social habits could be made, not possible later, and much could be added to the individual development of the children in these very important years of their lives. The kindergarten has a special and unique value for the hundreds of thousands of foreign-born chil

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