Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1868-01-16

| Prot. j. p. Wickersham. the efficient and
excellent State Superintendent of Common
Schools in Pennsylvania, presents the fol-
lowing figures in relation to the State, in
his annual report =
| Whole number Of districts .. 1889
Whole numher of schools ........... 13,06l
Whole number of pupils in atten-
Ounce. NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. 600, l63
Average attendance of pupils. ....... 41i, 537
Percentage of attendance upon the
whole number. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 62S
Average length Of school term--5 mo. 1Gsl days.
Average cost Of tuition per month for
each pupil. So cts
Whole number of male teachers. 49,. 6,e19
Whole number Of female teachers. i. $500
Average salaries of male teachers per
month. ......................... 1856 81
Average salaries of female teachers
per month. ........................ 27 81
T@tal cost Of tuition. 2, 49,, ,5I2 9S
Total cost o iu Il and contingencies Col ,0S7 q
Total cost for purchasing building
renting, and repairing houses. 49,. 985, 80 90
Total expenditures of the system for
tuition, fuel, and houses. mann. a, ,G68 1852 go
Total State appropriation. .......... $4,000 90
Total State appropriation for common
school purposes excluding county
superiniendents' salaries. ........ 1885, ,s1s 9s
Average number of mills on a dollar
school tax. x....................... 1926
Average number of mills on dollar
building tax. 5.0i
Total cost of system, being whole
amount of tax levied and State ap-
preparation. ...................... .5,9il ,2oo 20
Mr.. Wickersham, in the course of his re-
port, says:-
Some narrow views still prevail, respect
ing the design of our common school sys-
TEN, which, it is thought, q brief statement
of that design may tend to correct.
A common school system is a system of
schools, designed to impart an education as
complete as possible to all, impartially, at
the public expense. Its aim is to make ed
ucation universal, impartial, and free.
1t is held by some that the design of COM
mon schools is to furnish free instruction
only to the poor. This was the design of
the system established in 1909, which was
superseded by the present system; but our
just discrimination. Since 1884 our schools
are open to all, and free to all.
Others seem to think that the design of
our common schools is to furnish instruction
only in the elements of knowledge. This
class are the bitter opponents of graded
schools and high schools. They maintain
that it may be well enough to teach all the
children of the State to read and write. and
keep accounts, but that any one who desires
to extend his knowledge beyond this point,
should pay for it. In opposition to this
view, il has always been held by the friends
of common schools, that thu aim of the sys-
tenn is to impart to all as complete an edu-
cation as possible-that its crown and glory |
is its grammar and high schools. That is a
most contracted view OF education which |
would limit the requirements of children in
our schools to reading, writing and arith-
metic. 10 make good citizens, an education
broader and higher is wanted-an education
that can he attained through our common
schools and must be. Our common school
system. is based upon the fact that an edu-
cation, the best the circumstances will war
rant, is every mans birth-rght.
Education, in some countries, is confined
to a caste. Those who belong to particu-
lar caste are allowed the privileges of an
education, from which all Others are de-
barred.
In other countries the only persons edu-
Gated are particular classes-the priests, the
nobility, the ich, the powerful.
In still other countries, sex, race, color, Is
allowed to make difference in educational
privileges.
A common school system recognizes no
such unjust distinctions or determinations
in respect to education. The great principle
that undcrles such system is, that since
God made all minds capable of being edu-
Gated, it is their right to be educated-to be
educated to the highest degree practically
attanablc.