1869, in which a detailed history of the school work in each State will be found. A very interesting review of the operations of the bureau has already been published' by Mr. Sidney Andrews, and I avail myself of two instructive tables which he has compiled from the above-mentioned reports, and which show most eloquently the progress and importance of the work.

Table showing the number of freedmen's schools, teachers, and pupils.

Of the pupils at the date of the last report all but 6,746 were slaves at the opening of the rebellion. In 1867 the freedmen paid $150,000 for tuition and $60,000 for school buildings; in 1868 they paid $175,000 for tuition; and in 1869 the account will reach about $200,000 for tuition and $125,000 for buildings.

NORMAL SCHOOLS FOR FREEDMEN.

The sixth semi-annual report upon schools for freedmen contains short notices of some of the principal normal schools. It is stated that but few of these institutions as yet approach the true idea of such an institution, but they are well designed and the plans for most of them are excellent and thorough. They will, as soon as possible, supply teachers for the freedmen from their own race. Among those cited are: The Howard University at Washington; the Fisk School, Nashville, Tennessee; Berea College; Biddle Memorial Institute; High School, Quindaro, Kansas; Lincoln University, Oxford, Pennsylvania; Avery College, Alleghany City, Pennsylvania; and the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Virginia.

The Howard University, Washington, D. C., was incorporated by Congress March 2, 1867, and is designed to afford special opportunities for a higher education to the freedmen. The trustees purchased one hundred and fifty acres of land in a very favorable location near the city, and by selling about two-thirds of it for building lots, secured, with a little additional help, the means of payment for the

In "Old and New," while this report was passing through the press, February, 1870.

whole. By the aid of the educational funds of the Freedmen's Bureau two large buildings have been erected, one for recitation rooms, philosophical chamber, laboratory, library, offices, and chapel, and the other for dormitories and a boarding-hall. It is the design of the trustees to build up at the nation's capital a large and efficient institution, amply sufficient for supplying the demand of this new era and to give intelligent youth, whatever may have been their previous condition, the benefits of a thorough collegiate and professional education.

The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute was opened under the auspices of the American Missionary Association in April, 1868. It was incorporated in the following September, "for the purpose of preparing the youths of the South, without distinction of color, for the work of organizing and instructing schools." The location is a very suitable one, and the institute appears to be peculiarly well adapted for the work, and is conducted on wise principles. It was commenced and is energetically managed by General Samuel C. Armstrong.

POPULAR EDUCATION

CHAPTER III.

PRIMARY EDUCATION.

GENERAL AGENCIES OF PRIMARY EDUCATION-SCHOOL BUILDINGS AT THE EXPOSITION-GENERAL DISREGARD OF PROPER VENTILATION—THE SCHOOL-HOUSE FROM THE UNITED STATES-SCHOOL BUILDINGS OF SWITZERLAND NECESSITY FOR IMPROVEMENT IN OUR SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE—PRUSSIA, OUTLINE OF BRANCHES TAUGHT IN A PRIMARY SCHOOL-COMPARISON WITH THE PRIMARY SCHOOL INSTRUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES-SUPPLEMENTARY AGENCIES OF PRIMARY EDUCATION-LECTURES, LYCEUMS, LIBRARIES-SCHOOLS FOR THE DESTITUTE AND VICIOUS— SCHOOLS FOR THE IDIOTIC.

There is a sense in which the term "popular" embraces the entire range of the education of a people; but the intention is to restrict it here to the more usually accepted idea of "common-school education."

I. GENERAL AGENCIES.

In no one respect is there, for the nations attempting a systematic diffusion of its blessings, so radical a defect as in the character of the buildings provided for primary schools. Details on this subject are not within the range of this writing; but the vast educational interests involved forbid the omission of such references as may direct the attention of both patrons and government to the existing defects and their remedies.

SCHOOL BUILDINGS.

After an examination of the school buildings on exhibition at the Exposition, the observations in many lands, and the collation of numerous reports on school interests, it is respectfully submitted that the buildings of this class do most lamentably fail of their proposed end.

Just here both pleasure and duty call for a reference to the exhibits of school buildings at the Exposition, (a special report on which, and on kindred subjects, was assigned to another Commissioner,) for the purpose of noticing the enterprise and success with which the State of Illinois furnished a school-house which, in all respects of adaptation to school purposes, was not only superior to other exhibits of its kind, particularly in respect of neatness and means of lighting and ventilating, but to the average of those I have found in any European country. It is also to be noted that the commissioners, through whose agency it was provided, did not aim to present a school-house peculiar to their State, nor yet the

ideal one of an American educator, but a real one, such as might serve to show the average (this one a little superior) of those in actual use as the "cross-roads" and "country school-house" of the northern and western States.

But even this school-house was seriously faulty, in that it did not properly provide for ventilation, though in this respect superior to those from Prussia, Saxony, and Sweden, providing not at all-its three large windows opening both from the top and the bottom; while in the others the windows, besides being inadequate to lighting, had upper sashes that were immovable. Still, every one who understands the physiology, so to speak, of ventilation, as well as its chemistry and mechanics, knows that in winter this mode of purifying the vitiated air of an apartment, while it effects the intended object, can do so only at the peril of some of the occupants.

It would add but a trifle to the cost of a school building to ventilate by flues, so constructed as to be managed at pleasure, and to give to each pupil, without the calamity of cold-taking inseparable from window ventilation, a constant supply of fresh, pure air, which would be of incalculable economic value to the soul and body of a school population. While it would have been unfair to place on exhibition a building quite superior to its kind, when assuming to give an opportunity of comparing the actual status of the American school-house with those of other nations, it is none the less deplorable, and none the less disgraceful to our own than to other countries, that the importance of thorough ventilation should have so little practical recognition. We know that each child needs at least eighty cubic feet of air for the processes of a healthy respiration. Where, among the volumes of school enactments and regulations, are to be found the requirements of law to this end? While many are ample in providing the requisite number of schools, and not a few are taking measures to see that the teacher is not overtasked in the number of pupils in his individual care, the child for whom these provisions are primarily made is confined to such space as his elbows may secure, and his lungs limited to a scanty and vitiated share of the air provided for a defrauded set of school-fellows. As far as school statutes show the action of government in this regard, England alone, while so far behind in most of its common-school provisions, enacts that the aid granted to a school is to be withheld, "if the school is not taught in a building certified by the inspector to be healthy, properly lighted, drained, and ventilated, and containing, in the principal schoolroom, at least eighty cubic feet of internal space for each child in average attendance."

These vital physical conditions having been met, there remain the desiderata of agreeability and pleasurable emotions to be considered; and no school-house is thoroughly adapted to its purposes whose appearance does not inspire emotions of real pleasure in its attendants.