Wilmington daily commercial., 1874-08-13
schools for Delaware.
Contributed for the Commercial. ]


The deplorable condition Of the schools In Del
aware is felt and acknowledged by all our better
classes Of citizens, not only in this State but in
adjoining States. The Commissioner OF Edu-
cation, in his report for 1871, says The
absence of any supervision of education in Del
aware renders it impossible to give, as is done
in the case Of most other States, an abstract of
the authorized reports showing the condition of
the schools of the State. The only State report
concerning education is the account contained
in the Auditors report of the amount Of the
State fund distributed to each district.
As consequence of this absence of State re-
ports, it results that the only official data for
judging of the educational condition of the in
habitants of the entire State arc to be found in
the illiteracy returns of the national census.
Let US take superficial survey from official
sources of the literary condition of our
State with design of arousing the attention of
thinking men to the necessity Of making greater
effortsin behalf of educating the masses OF our
population. A yery wise man, if indeed he was
man, once said "They that be whole need not
a physician, but they that are sick" He had
prescience enough TO know that the first step i'll
curing any malady was deep and settled con-
viction of its existence. Poverty, ignorance and
sin, will no more be cured than disease without
knowing Of the necessity of cure.
We are one OF the original century -honored
Thirteen States that signed-in our case by the
hands of Caesar Rodney, George Read and
Thomas Mckean-the Declaration of Indepen-
dence. We entered on career of glory with
l.. l.
of the Union. We had every advantage that
healthy climate fertile soil, contiguity to our
largest cities, and an extensive seaboard could
afford Let us see how we stand before the
world as seen by our last census.
In 1870, there was one Daily Newspaper pub
lished to 125.0l4 inhabitants-THE WILMINGTON
COMMERCIAL three semi-weeklies, 13 weeklies,
l monthly, with total annual circulation of l.
596. 4s0 copies or only 10 copies per year of all
kinds to each of our inhabitants, and one pub
lieation to lis square miles of our territory
This has not good look before the world. II
is true that Virginia and Georgia have but l.
copies Of paper to an inhabitant per year, tha
South Carolina has but 8, and North Carolins
has but but Maryland has 25 copies to al
inhabitant Pennsylvania has 81, Rhode Islant
46 Massachusetts "a ; and New York 1l3
Again, Delaware has one publication to III
square miles Of territory, while New Jersey ha
one publication to 63 square miles New Yorl
one to 81 Connecticut one to go Rhode Islan,
one to so. This comparison does not place ou
State as we would like to see her. For the in
telgense of people the world over is judge,
by the amount of newspaper and periodical cir
culation which they support
The following tables show at one view, til
population of eight of the 13 original States i
1870, the amount annually expended for schoC
purposes i'll the aggregate, and the ayerag
amount to each individual. together with th
percentage of iliteracy among native whitei
colored and foreigners of the age of 20 yeaI
and over. They will form the basis of an intel
esting study to those who care for the welfar
of the State. l will arrange the States in alphl
/ betical order