The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-27

clearing house could do nothing for this institution because it is a trust com pany.
 It would be lucky for the business community if this disturbance should mark the end of the chain bank sys- tenn. An odd phase of the situation Is that the gamblers and stock manipu lators who precipitated the crisis had to turn for aid to the conservative element whom they have been most loud in condemning.
 The report of the commissioner of education gives some interesting sta tistics of our educational affairs. Dur ing the year 1904-05 almost 100000 students were enrolled in schools and colleges and in special schools in the United States, of whom 17,000,000 att tended public institutions and the bal ance private institutions.
 The enrolment in the schools and colleges was distributed as follows: Elementary sch ools, 17,019,259; secon- dary schools. thigh schools and acade- mies), 876,050; universities and colleges, 13S,544; professional schools, 61 1922, and normal schools, 65,3 300. To these figures sh ould be added 727,371 pupils in spe- cial schools. During the last fifteen years the increase in enrolment in oObOOlS anu COilc6CSt itdNih6 bHt oPC- cial schools out of consideration, has been one of 3,647,697-that is, of 25 per cent-wlile the gain In population al- most 32 900, ,000--amounts to 32 per cent. On the other hand, the percen- tage of the school population (persons between and IS years of age) enrolled in the schools has increased from 57 per cent to 70 per cent during the last thirty-fve years.
 axnanditura a1ncat tiOn during the year under review amounted to $376,996,472, a sum equal to more than one-half of the cost of the na- tional government
 The aggregate of school property in- creased almost $50,000. 900 in value dur ing the year, reaching a total of $733,- 446,805, while the average expenditure for school purposes grew from 16.5 to 16.8 cents per day for the instruction of each pupil.
 One of the interesting chapters of the report is that relating to state school systems. We are told here that several states expend annually for schools $25 per capita of school population, and several less than $3 per capita; that one state maintains it's schools 194 days in the year, and another only S6, that one state pays it's teachers S65 per month, anu dnOliti Oiiy SNot that one state enrolls over 90 per cent of it's school population, and another less than AS per cent.
 Another interesting chapter shows that the total value of property pos sessed by the institutions for higher education amounts to $514,S40,412. a gain of almost $50.000, 900 over the amount for the preceding year. The endowment funds have increased to $234.791,239, and the remainder rep resents the value of the material equip ments used for instruction purposes.
 There are forty-one institutions that have endowment funds of over s1,000,- 900 each. The institutions had an az gregate income of $41,775,101. an in crease of almost s1 100000 over that for the year previous, 36.9 9 per cent being derived from tuition and other fees, 23.6 per cent from endowment funds, 236 per cent from state appropria- tions. 6.9 per cent from federal appro- priations, and per cent from miscel- laneous sources. The benefactions for