tions, it is difficult to call it anything else than a highly centralized despotism."

741. Local Government and Centralization.-These definitions are quoted by Mr. Fiske from Mr. Toulmin Smith:

"Local self-government is that system of government under which the greatest number of minds, knowing the most, and having the fullest opportunities of knowing it, about the special matter in hand, and having the greatest interest in its well-working, have the management of it or control over it."

"Centralization is that system of government under which the smallest number of minds, and those knowing it the least, and having the fewest opportunities of knowing it, about the special matter in hand, and having the smallest interest in its well-working, have the management of it or control over it."

CHAPTER LVI.

STATE EDUCATION.

REFERENCES.

Bureau of Education, Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams (a valuable series of monographs devoted to education in the different States); Boone, Education in the United States; Hough, Constitutional Provisions in regard to Education in the several States of the American Union (a bulletin published by the Bureau of Education, 1875); Bureau of Education, Report of Commissioner for 1868, I., Education a National Interest; Donaldson, The Public Domain, etc.; Knight, History and Management of Land Grants for Education in the Northwest Territory; Ten Brook, American State Universities and the University of Michigan.

742. No National School System.-The provision of education is not included among the powers delegated to the National Government. The Constitution does not contain the words education and schools, and hence its adoption left the whole subject where it had already been, in the hands of the States, save as Congress might, from time to time, under the general welfare clause, indirectly render them assistance.

743. The State Systems.-Some of the States already had systems of public schools in 1787, which they have extended and improved. The other States have organized them, and every State in the Union now has a system of schools more or less perfect. These systems are all provided for, or are at least recognized, in the State constitutions, and are fully elaborated in school laws.

I. THE SCHOOL PROVISION.

744. Common Schools.-The studies prescribed by the State laws or constitutions are called the legal studies. They differ somewhat in different States, but the so-called common branches of English study are found in all the

States. The minimum time that the schools must be in session, which is prescribed by law, ranges from four to seven months in the year. Many of the States have enacted laws making a certain amount of education or school attendance compulsory.

745. High Schools.-All the States make provision for the creation and support of high-schools, but only Massachusetts makes them compulsory. In that State these schools must be open ten months in the year, exclusive of vacations, and be taught for the benefit of all the inhabitants of the town. The high schools, or the best of them, serve the double purpose of fitting for college and giving a preparation for life more extended than that furnished by the common schools.

746. Normal Schools.-Massachusetts founded the first State Normal School, in 1839. There are in this country now 140 public normal schools, State and local, with 35,000 students, and 6,000 graduates a year. Some of the State schools are managed by the State boards of Education, and some by special boards of trustees. The city schools are managed by the local boards of education that create and maintain them. The special object of the State schools is the professional education of teachers for the schools of the State; of the local schools, similar education for local teachers.

Pedagogical professorships exist in some of the State Universities as in those of Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and in Cornell University.

747. State Universities.-Congress has given Ohio three townships of land, Florida and Wisconsin four each, Minnesota three and a half, and the other public-land States two each for the creation and support of universities. The State Universities of these States were founded in whole or in part with funds derived from these sources, and they are to-day largely supported in the same way. Still,

these institutions, or most of them, receive assistance from the State. Several of them receive, besides appropriations for special objects, the proceeds of special taxes. The University of California receives a tax of one mill on each dollar of taxable property in the State, the University of Colorado one-fifth of a mill, and the University of Michigan one-sixth of a mill.

The Universities of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and West Virginia, all of them State institutions, have received no assistance from the National Government.

748. Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges.-Congress passed an act in 1862 granting a quantity of land, or in States where Congress had no lands, land-script, equal to 30,000 acres to each State, for each Senator and Representative in Congress to which it was entitled under the census of 1860, that should, subject to the terms of the act, provide a college for teaching agriculture and the mechanical arts. No part of the proceeds of these lands or of the interest can be applied to the provision of buildings, and not more than ten per cent. thereof to the purchase of building sites. All of the States have complied with the terms of the act, or are in course of complying; some, by creating new institutions, and some, by adding new departments to old ones. In some States the funds thus arising have been largely supplemented from other sources, public or private. Congress also votes them money annually.

II. THE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION.

749. Employment of the State Machinery.-To a considerable extent, the public schools are administered by officers to whom other branches of the State administration are intrusted. Mention may be made of State auditors, comptrollers, and treasurers, county auditors and treasurers, and of township clerks and treasurers. But an efficient school system requires a special administrative machinery, both State and local.

750. State Boards of Education.-Massachusetts created the first board of this description, in 1837. Many

of the other States, but not all of them, have followed this example. The Massachusetts board consists of the Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, and eight other persons appointed by the Governor and Council for eight years. The Michigan board consists of the State Superintendent, and three other members elected by the State at large for six years. The more efficient of these boards have jurisdiction, under the law, of questions that arise in the administration of the schools; the less efficient have few and comparatively unimportant duties. Commonly the board stands in a directory or advisory relation to the educational executive of the State.

751. State Educational Executive.-In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Texas, this officer is elected, for no fixed period, by the State Board, and is styled the Secretary of the Board of Education. In Rnode Island, Georgia, and Ohio he is styled the Commissioner of Schools, and in the remaining States, the Superintendent of Schools or of Public Instruction. He is elected by the Legislature in New York and Virginia, and appointed by the Governor in Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Georgia, Tennessee, and Minnesota ; in the other States, with exceptions named and one other, he is elected by the people. The term, save in the three States first mentioned, is two, three, or four years.

In some States, as New York and Pennsylvania, the Superintendent is the real head of the State system of schools, performing numerous and important duties; but in others, as in Ohio and Michigan, he is little more than a clerk charged with the collection and publication of educational statistics. The Principal of the Maryland State Normal School is the head of the school system of that State.

752. County Boards. Many of the States have constituted county boards of education. Such a board is made up of representatives of the townships or school districts, who are also charged with local duties, as inspectors, direct