Report of the Commissioner of Education

Fifteen counties have levied no tax. In nine of these, schools have been organized and sustained by private contributions, under the law.

Many obstacles had, of course, to be overcome, arising from ignorance and old prejudices; and though, as yet, much remains to be done, it cannot be denied that free schools are rapidly gaining favor with the people. Much of the progress is due to the zeal and discretion which county superintendents and members of the boards of public instruction have displayed in the exercise of their powers. The State superintendent remarks: "There is every reason to believe that the system will triumph, and, becoming a part of the permanent polity of the State, will endure to bless through party changes and successive administrations."

THE SEMINARIES.

Of these there are at present two, viz: The East Florida Seminary and the West Florida Seminary. These institutions are in operation under the law which created them. The East Florida Seminary was removed to Gainesville in 1867. There were for the first term 100 pupils, including 6 State pupils. For the scholastic year 1867-'68 there were about 80 pupils, including 5 State pupils or beneficiaries. For 1868-69 there were 75 pupils, including 5 beneficiaries. The present attendance is 90, with but one beneficiary. Forty of these are in the primary department, which is sustained by the county board of instruction. The teachers who have received their education at this seminary have all been very successful. From the report of the West Florida Seminary we glean the following:

"After a suspension of twelve months, (1868 '69,) and the appointment of a new board by the governor, this institution was reopened on the first Monday of October last with a corps of six teachers. After mature deliberation it was determined to abolish the system of charging for tuition, and make the school free. This has largely increased the attendance. The annual expenses have amounted to $7,000, ($5,500 for teachers' salaries, and $1,500 for repairs and incidental expenses.) During the scholastic year 1869-70 the number of pupils was 148; 73 in the male department, and 75 in the female department. About one-third are in the academic department. The semi'nary is now in a more prosperous condition than it has been at any time since the

war.

SCHOOL AND SEMINARY LANDS.

During the past year there were sold: School lands, 3,290 acres, bringing $5,561 44; seminary lands, 270 acres, bringing $641 34. There are supposed to be about 600,000 acres of school and seminary lands remaining unsold, but the exact amount is not obtainable.

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE LANDS.

The scrip representing these lands cannot be located in this State, because the government lands lying in it are reserved for homestead entry, nor can the State, by the terms of the grant, locate the same within the limits of any other State, or any Territory of the United States, but its assignees may thus locate said land scrip.

AID RECEIVED FROM THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.

Assistance received through the agency of the Freedmen's Bureau was as follows: Rent was paid during the month of December for buildings, at the rate of $10 each, in the several counties, as follows: Alachua, 16; Clay, 9; Columbia, 7; Duval, 9; Franklin, 4; Gadsden, 15; Nassau, 5; Orange, 8; Walton, 2; making a total of 75. This sum, although nominally appropriated for rent, is devoted to the payment of teachers' salaries.

Twenty school buildings, accommodating about 2,500 pupils, have been constructed by the general government during the years 1868-69, at an outlay of $52,600.

THE PEABODY FUND.

The following generous offers have been made by Dr. Sears, general agent of the fund: St. Augustine, $1,000; Jacksonville, $1,000; Monticello, $700; Appalachicola, $500; Lake City, $650; Barton, $300; Tallahassee, $1,000; Quincy, $600; Madison, $500; Marianna, $400; making a total of $6,650. Most of these places have complied with the terms proposed, opened the schools, and received their proportion of the munificence. Several others have made application for assistance. A pledge of 9,300 volumes has also been made from the fund.

GENERAL EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS.

The returns have been received from twenty-eight counties. Some of them appear to be incomplete.

Number in twenty-five counties between four and twenty-one years.
Number in three counties irregularly reported.............

38, 400

3,500

Total in twenty-eight counties

41,900

Total number of schools reported in operation before the 1st December, 1869, 175 total number in operation January 1, 1870, over 250; total number of pupils in attendance, 7,575.

Returns from seven counties, giving the most complete and accurate reports, show that in a registration of 2,543 pupils, there are fatherless 530, or more than 1 in 50 of the whole; motherless 176, or more than 1 in 15 of the whole; orphans 88, or more than 1 in 29 of the whole. The schools have an average of 29 pupils each.

Annual interest, equally divided between the two seminaries, about...

Expenditures in favor of East Florida Seminary
Expenditures in favor of West Florida Seminary.
Interest due and collectable...

Interest due and payable to East Florida Seminary.
Interest due and payable to West Florida Seminary.

Appropriated by legislature to common schools.....

$73,292 45 641 34

$73,933 79

$10,460 90

52 50

10,513 40

$50,000 00

COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS.

Table of counties, county superintendents, and general statistics of Florida, May, 1870.

*Hon. C. THURSTON CHASE, superintendent public instruction, Jacksonville.

CHILDREN.

N. B.-Where blanks occur no organization exists, or no information has been received. *Recently deceased.

GEORGIA.

PEABODY FUND (DR. SEARS) REPORT.

The city of Savannah has received the past year $1,500, which is reduced the present year to $1,000; Columbus received this year $1,500 instead of $2,000 last; the city of Atlanta, after much effort, was induced to appropriate $50,000 for free schools, receiving aid from the fund of $2,000. There is a good normal school in the city for colored teachers, the building of which cost over $20,000. The fund made provision for 10 pupils, allowing $50 to each. The usual amount of aid has been offered Tunnel Hill, but the conditions are not complied with. The city of Augusta is offered $1,000, upon condition of the schools being properly graded and placed under a superintendent; terms not yet complied with. Four thousand dollars a year are allowed by the fund for the education of colored people in the State. From the report of the superintendent of public schools of Savannah, it appears that in October, 1868, four primary, three intermediate, two grammar, and two high schools were in operation there; a provision

quite insufficient for the number of children. Another grammar school has since been added.

At a special meeting of the State Teachers' Association, held November 17, 1869, for the purpose of recommending changes in the law, the report of a committee appointed at the previous annual meeting was adopted. The following is an abstract of the report, many suggestions of which will probably be incorporated in the law of the reconstructed State.

The advantages, of the free-school system are strongly set forth, and also some of the difficulties the people of Georgia have to contend with in the education of the youth: 1. Poverty. "According to the report of the comptroller general, there were in Georgia in 1860, slaves to the number of 458,540. These slaves, at an average of $500 each, were worth $229,270,000. Large as is this sum, we doubt whether it is more than onehalf the aggregate of the entire losses of the State." They are now citizens, and themselves needing education, and the most vital interests of the State demand that they shall be educated.

2. The impossibility of educating white and colored children in the same schools, consequent upon an invincible repugnance in the minds of both," entailing a double expense for separate schools.

3. Sparseness of population, which they propose to remedy by migratory schools. 4. Alleged injustice in educational tax.

PLAN PROPOSED.

A State commissioner and board of education to be appointed. The commissioner to be chairman of the board, who should be his legal advisers. The commissioner to superintend the educational interests of the State, collect information, make report to the general assembly, receive a salary, and have an office at the seat of government. The governor and comptroller general to be ex-officio members of the board. Other members chosen from the general assembly. Also a county board of seven, to be chosen by the people; said board to appoint a county commissioner to superintend the educational affairs in the county. Commissioners to act as examiners, meet twice a year, examine teachers, grant licenses, &c. In thinly settled districts, two or more school-houses within the district, schools migrating from one to another. People of the district to provide school-houses. Trustees chosen by vote of people. Separate schools for white and colored in all cases. Colored people, if they prefer, to have their own county officers and trustees. Normal schools as soon as possible, two for white pupils, one for male and one for female, and one for colored pupils. School revenue to be obtained from poll-tax, taxes upon property, and voluntary taxation. Taxes from colored people to be set apart for colored schools, with an equal amount from general fund. The following statement of the history of education in Georgia, by Hon. Martin V. Calvin, Augusta, Georgia, is added:

"Our first constitution was adopted in 1777-a few months after the Declaration of Independence. The fifty-fourth section thereof declares, schools shall be erected in each county, and supported at the expense of the State. On the 31st of July, 1783, the legislature appropriated 1,000 acres of land to each county for the support of free schools. In 1784 the general assembly appropriated 40,000 acres of land for the endowment of a college or university. The university was chartered in 1785. The preamble to the charter was as follows, and, in the language of Dr. Church, would do honor to any legislature, and will stand a monument to the wisdom and patriotism of those who framed it, and those who adopted it:

"As it is the distinguished happiness of free governments that civil order should be the result of choice, and not necessity, and the common wishes of the people become the laws of the land, their public prosperity and even existence very much depend upon suitably forming the minds and morals of their citizens. When the minds of the people in general are viciously disposed and unprincipled, and their conduct disorderly, a free government will be attended with greater convulsions and evils more horrid than the wild uncultivated state of nature. It can only be happy where the public principles and opinions are properly directed and their manners regulated. This is an influence beyond the stretch of laws and punishments, and can be claimed only by religion and education. It should, therefore, be among the first objects of those who wish well to the national prosperity to encourage and support the prin ciples of religion and morality, and early to place the youth under the forming hand of society, that by instruction they may be molded to the love of virtue and good order. Sending them abroad to other countries for education will not answer the purpose, is too humiliating an acknowledgment of the ignorance or inferiority of our own, and will always be the cause of so great foreign attachments that, upon principles of policy, it is inadmissible.'

"An act appropriating 1,000 acres for the endowment of each of the county academies was passed in 1792.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) were appropriated in 1817 for the support of 'poor schools.'

"Dr. Church, in a lecture before the Georgia Historical Society, in 1845, gave utterance to a truth which is all the more obvious by lapse of years, when he said:

"Had we carried out the views of her early patriots and the framers of our first constitution, Georgia would now have a system of education equal, if not superior, to that of any State in the Union.'

"Nearly a quarter of a century has elapsed since these words were spoken, and yet nothing of a really positive character has been done to attain the mark of our high calling, the demands of the people, through conventions, to the contrary notwithstanding."

The latest communication to this office, from a leading educator in Georgia, gives an encouraging account of the prospect that an excellent school law will soon go into operation in that State, which has just passed the legislature. At present Savannah and Columbus are the only cities in the State that have school systems worthy of the name. Augusta, Atlanta, and Macon, however, are fast coming forward in the adoption of better systems than have heretofore existed. The public schools have been operated throughout the State under what is commonly known as the "poor school law," administered by the board of education in each county, composed of the ordinary -an officer peculiar to this State-and a commissioner, appointed by the judge of the supreme court. Under this system teachers receive seven cents per day for each pupil in actual attendance; paid once per annum, at the end of the year. Salaried teachers are the exceptions.

Colonel J. R. Lewis, State school commissioner, Atlanta, Georgia.

ILLINOIS.

The following information is taken from the seventh biennial report of the superintendent of public instruction, Hon. Newton Bateman, embracing the years 1867-'68:

Number of white persons in the State between the ages of six

1868.