The Topeka state journal., 1909-01-08
EDUCATION IN THE NATION.

Statistics generally are mighty dry
reading and rather undesirable means
of presenting arguments, regardless
of their exactness as a method of ex-
preston, but those contained in the
report of the federal commissioner OF
education for the year ended June 80,
1907, which has just been issued, can
not fail to be intensely interesting and
especially in the form of the resume
of them which has been prepared by
Edward L. Thorndike, of the Teach
ers college of Columbia university
and which is used as a preface to
them.
From this it is learned that in the
formal school education throughout
the country is used a material plant
valued at from twelve to thirteen mill
lion dollars, the labor of $4,000
teachers or other educational officers,
and more or less of the time of
eighteen million students. equivalent
roughly to the time implied by one
hundred and fifty days attendance on
elementary school by twelve and a
half million children, by a full years
work in a school of secondary grade
by a million boys and girls in their
teens, and by a full years work in
college, professional school, or other
institution by two hundred thousand
young men and women.
The labor of the teachers, many of
whom work for only a part of the
normal city-school year costs about
$500, 100000. The pay for fuel. light,
janitorial services. repairs, deprecia-
ton of books. school supplies, insur-
he ic oh
900. For the depreciation of the
plant not so charged should properly
be added a yearly sinking fund of
perhaps $25,OOO,0OO Adding an in
terest charge of per cent on the in
vestment in the plant and the annual
bill for formal school education
throughout the country comes to over
four hundred and seventy-f1ve mil
lions of dollars. Additions to the
plant were made in 1907 to the extent
of from ninety to a hundred million
dollars.
Concerning the method of ad-
ministering education it is noted that
the public provision for and the con-
troll of education has now so far ad-
vanced that roughly nine-tenths of
elementary education and the educa-
tion of teachers, over two-thirds of
secondary education. and over a third
of college and higher technical educa-
tion are provided and controlled by
the public. Professional education,
other than the training of teachers
and engineers. is still largely a func-
tion of private provision and control
The following rough comparison
may serve to define further the status
M od in he
The plant used for formal education
is valued at 1 per cent of the entire
national wealth, or twice the value of
the telephone systems in the country,
or ten times the value of the Pullman
ue of the railroads.
The number of teachers is approx
mately that of the clergygmen. en-
gineers. lawyers, and physicians to-
gether, five times that of the regular
army and navy, and about twice that
of the saloon keepers and bartenders
and their assistants.
The annual expenditure for educa-
ton, exclusive of additions to the
plant, is somewhat over twice the ex-
penditure for the war and navy de-
partments of the national government
1t is about three and one-half times
the expenditure of the national gov
ernment in 1907 for pensions. 1t is
about one-fourth times the wholesale
cost of the sugar and coffee consumed |
in the nation annually. In connection |
with the comparison of the cost of |
education in the United States as com |
pared with the cost of maintaining |
the army and navy it is interesting to |
know that the military in France |
costs 81 for every seventy cents that !
is expended in that country on educa- |