The Lafayette advertiser. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], La.) 1865-19??, 1906-10-17
THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL
BY NEWTON DENT.
The Billion-Dollar School System That Is Educating
Eighteen Million American Boys and Girls-Its
Vast Cost and Extent, Its Completeness, and
Some Of Its Peculiar Features.
Munsey's Magazine, September.

American misunderstanding more.
Yet. as we shall see. a simple descrip-
It'd Rf its greatness reads like the
story of an empire. In fact, if the
realm of S%choolville, United States,
were a country In itself, it would rival
France in rea and Spain in popula-
ton. 1t would be almost as rich as
Hungary in its And IN the
character and efficiency of its public
officials, it would be unsurpassed by
any country in the world.
To be more exact, our public school
season begins this month with more
than eighteen millions of pupils, TAX
ing their seats in two hundred and
sixty thousand buildings, under the
instruction of four hundred and sixty
thousand teachers, and at an expense
of two hundred and sixty million
dollars a year. The present value OF
our schOOlhouses is more than seven
hundred millions; and if we add to
this the selling price of all the school
lands, we shall find that the American
public school is pretty nearly a billion
dollar institution-the largest and
richest of all educational systems
either of to-day or Of any former
period in human history.
Uncle Sam is certainly proud of his
youngsters. He is bent on giving
them the best education that his money
can buy. He spends more on his
schools than he does on his army and
navy. In Asia, a skilled workman
seldom gets more than fifteen cents a
day in wages; yet Uncle Sam gives
slightly more than this for every days
instruction of every boy and girl IN
der his flag. All told, the liberal old
gentleman who wears stars ON his
hat AMI stripes on his trousers pays
q school bill of five thousand dollars
a minute, and feels satisfied that he
gets good value for the money.
In spite OF the unparalleled sums
of money which have been given to
our universities in recent years, the
United States is still a public school
country. Half of the boys and girls
are done with school at fifteen and
begin to earn their own living. At
seventeen only one out of four is left
at his books. And while the aforesaid
Uncle Sam has a standing offer OF
sixteen years. free education to any
American child that demands it, it is
still q fact that few take complete
advantage of his generosity.
Roughly speaking, the average full
grown American has had a Thousand
days of schooling. This is twelve
times as much as the average OF a
hundred years ago. 1t is an evidence
of amazing progress. But it is moi
long enough to make college degrees
q drug on the market. 1t is almost as
true to-day as it ever was that the
primary school is the greatest OF all
influences in developing the abilities
and molding the character of the
American people.
Education has been the chief indus
try of the United States" So said
Joseph Choate on one occasion be-
fore the professors of a British uni
versity. This, of course, was set down
as a humorous exaggeration. But he
might easily have defended his boast.
had he chosen to do so, by drawing a
comparison between the schools OF
America and those of Europe. For
instance, he might have shown that
the yearly cost of the schools OF New
York City is much more than the an
nual revenue of either Switzerland or
Denmark, and that the United States
spends as much for education as all
the nations of Europe combined.
He might have told the story-al
most Incredible to Europeans-of the
multi-millionaire school systems of
the Western States-of Texas, Utah,
Washington, Michigan, and Minneso-
ia, which shower upon childhood the
wealth that foreign countries lavish
upon royalty. Each one OF these five
States has endowed its schools with
vast tracts Of land that yield an in
come of from one to three millions a
year. Some of the richest iron mines
of Lake Superior-those wonderful
mines where a fifty-ton a is loaded
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