The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1869-01-14
EDUCATION.
COMMON SCHOOLS.

COMMON SCHOOLS.
The annual report of the Superintend-
ent of Common Schools exhibits the con-
dition of that department in highly
satisfactory manner. Within the State
there are 1,9lS school districts 1876
schools 1882 graded schools IL sos
school directors; 73 county, city and
borough superintendents; 1911 teach
ers :and 500, SIS pupils. The cost of
tuition for the year was S3,273,2 1863 43
of building, purchasing and renting school
houses, 81 ,991, ,l52 55; of contingencies,
SS54,253 2l. These three items, with
expenditures for all other purposes con-
nected Herewith, amount to the aggre-
gate sum OF s6,200,537 So.
These facts are exhibited with great
satisfaction, as they show the average an
nual cost for the tuition Of each pupil to
be about seven dollars and seventy-four
and half cents. The average amount
paid to each teachor is about Sl95 Ia
per annum. This, in my opinion, is too
small salary to secure the services of
competent teachers and | am fully justi
fed in urging the necessity of increased
compensation. 1t is but just, and it will
have an elevating tendency not only up
on the teachers but the manner in which
their duties are performed.
Your attention is called to the fact that,
Notwithstanding the ample provision now
made by law for the education of all per-
sons between the ages of six and twenty
one years, large numbers of children,
principally in our cities, do not attend any
kind of school. Over twenty thousand
of this class are found in Philadelphia,
and the number in the state is estimated
to be not less than seventy-fve thousand.
These children grow up in ignorance, fire.
quently without employment, and many
of them contract habits of vice, which
eventually cause them to be committed
to houses of refuge, county prisons or
penitentiaries. Humanity and sound pub
lie policy demand that something be done
to remedy this growing evil, and also that
of the neglected condition of considerable
numbers of children in the aims and poor
houses in many of the counties.
Four Normal Schools are now re-
cognized as State institutions. The num-
Der of students attending them during
the past year was 2,l15, of whom eighty
graduated. Two additional Normal
Schools will probably go into operation
during this year, one located at Blooms
burg, Columbia county, and the other at
California, Washington county. The
value of these institutions to the common
schools system cannot be estimated. Onr
schools are comparatively worthless with
out qualified teachers, and such teachers
can most easily be obtained from the
Normal institutes, where the art of teach
ing is made specially.
A meeting of the presidents and other
of number of our pincipal
Colleges was held in Harrisburg last win
ter, the object of which was to bring
about a closer union of all our educa-
tional institutions, andconnect by bond
of sympathy, if not of organic structure,
the common schools, high schools, acade-
mics and colleges. The establishment of
such an educational department seems to
be desirable.
There is no subject more worthy the
deliberations of the Legislature than the
promotion of the welfare Of our common
schools. They Immediately underlie the
characteristic features of our social sys-
tenn they are fountains of that wide
spread intelligence, which, like peren-
nial vitality, pervades the nation, and are
nurseries of that inquiring spirit to which
we are indebted for the purity and pre-
servation of our free institutions. In
republican governmen education is sure
basis of power and public prosperity
By it the people are taught to discern
and estimate the value of their own rights;
to distinguish between oppression and the
exercise of lawful authority to discri-
inmate between liberty and licentiousness;
to preserve an inviolable respect for the
laws, and exercise "eternal vigilance"
1t is admitted that a thoroughly educated
people alone can be permanently free
by educational culture patriotism is ex-
panded, and the principles, manners and
sentiments of the whole people are as
simulated. Many of the sources of jcal-
ouslysand prejudice are diminished, social
harmony largely increased, and the struc
ture Of our free and happy system of
government cemented, strengthened and
adorned.
SOLDIERS ORPHANS SCHOOLS.
In his report the Superintendent of
Soldiers Orphans Schools exhibits the
total expenditure for their support from
December !, 1867 to may 81, 1868, to be
$780, $40 26; total number of pupils nj the
schools 3,43l average cost per pupil 500
06! for six months and the average
weekly expenses per pupil 81 654. The
fiscal year of these schools, like that of the
common schools, terminates by law on the
last day of May of each year. The pre-
sent report of the Superintendent, there
fore, embraces only six months, aud re-
pnrtS will ha p,aHa mn IN the z st uaV of