needed relief to our foreign commerce. And why? It will not enable our shipbuilders to compete with the shipbuilders of the Clyde. From the study that I have been able to give to the subject, I affirm that all the subsidies, bounties, and drawbacks provided in this bill will not enable us to compete with the cheap iron vessels built on that river. Germany and all the maritime countries of Europe, even those that admit shipbuilding materials free of duty, have utterly failed to compete with the Clyde shipbuilders. All the maritime countries of Europe are to-day going to them to buy their vessels for their own trade. The price of labor and materials there is so much less than here that it will require nearly one hundred per cent of government aid to enable us to compete with them. This is the testimony of experts and the experience of other nations. I affirm, therefore, that for the purposes of our foreign trade this bill is wholly inadequate, and for the purposes of the coasting trade it is wholly unnecessary. On this statement, to which I challenge the attention of the House, I rest my opposition to this bill. But I will add another consideration.

There is one feature of this bill, the subsidy provision, which is odious to the American people. It is a feature, I think, which no man in this House, certainly no representative of an inland district, can support and sustain himself before his constituents. And now we are called upon, at the last moment, to vote, as we shall be compelled to do, I presume, under the previous question, upon a new bill, which has not yet been read, but which has been reported by the committee as a substitute for the original bill and all the amendments. Under these cir

cumstances, I think it wiser to lay the bill and the pending amendments on the table, or to recommit and postpone it until in calmer times and with fuller deliberation we can devise some real and effective remedy for our decayed commerce. I am not at liberty to make a motion on this subject, and will now return the floor to the gentleman from Illinois, by whose courtesy I have been occupying it.

1 Mr. Farnsworth.

THE NATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION.

SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JUNE 8, 1866.

Ar its annual meeting held in Washington, D. C., in February, 1866, the National Association of School Superintendents memorialized Congress to establish a National Bureau of Education. A bill was also prepared by the direction of the Association, embodying its views. By the request of the Association, Mr. Garfield presented the memorial and the bill in the House of Representatives. The bill was read twice, referred to a select committee of seven, and ordered printed. April 3 following, he reported from the committee a substitute for the original bill, — changed only in the name. June 8, he closed the debate upon the bill in the following speech. The vote was adverse. Immediately a motion to reconsider was entered. June 19, the motion to reconsider was carried, and the bill passed. At the next session the bill passed the Senate, and the President's approval, March 2, 1867, made it law.

This measure was peculiarly Mr. Garfield's work. He introduced the subject to the House, was the chairman of the special committee, reported the second bill, and was its principal champion on the floor. Both the Bureau and his speech attracted the attention of educators and the friends of education beyond the sea. An example is furnished by the following letter:

"ROCHDALE, January 4, 1868.

"DEAR SIR, I write to thank you for sending me a copy of General Garfield's speech on education. I have read it with much interest. "The department now to be constituted at Washington will doubtless prepare statistics which will inform the world of what is doing in the United States on the Education question; and the volume it will publish will have a great effect in this country, and, indeed, in all civilized countries. You will have observed the increased interest in education shown in England since the extension of the suffrage. I hope some great and good measure may be passed at an early period. I am very truly yours.

"GEORGE J. ABBOTT, Esq., United States Consul, Sheffield."

"JOHN BRIGHT.

The bill as drawn by Mr. Garfield, and as it became a law, is as follows:

"An Act to establish a Department of Education. "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there shall be established, at the city of Washington, a Department of Education, for the purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several States and Territories, and of diffusing such information respecting the organization and management of schools and school systems, and methods of teaching, as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country.

"Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That there shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a Commissioner of Education, who shall be intrusted with the management of the Department herein established, and who shall receive a salary of four thousand dollars per annum, and who shall have authority to appoint one chief clerk of his Department, who shall receive a salary of two thousand dollars per annum, one clerk who shall receive a salary of eighteen hundred dollars per annum, and one clerk who shall receive a salary of sixteen hundred dollars per annum, which said clerks shall be subject to the appointing and removing power of the Commissioner of Education.

"Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the Commissioner of Education to present annually to Congress a report embodying the results of his investigations and labors, together with a statement of such facts and recommendations as will, in his judgment, subserve the purpose for which this Department is established. In the first report made by the Commissioner of Education under this act, there shall be presented a statement of the several grants of land made by Congress to promote education, and the manner in which these several trusts have been managed, the amount of funds arising therefrom, and the annual proceeds of the same, as far as the same can be determined. "Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the Commissioner of Public Buildings is hereby authorized and directed to furnish proper offices for the use of the Department herein established."

MR.

R. SPEAKER, -I did intend to make a somewhat elaborate statement of the reasons why the select committee recommend the passage of this bill; but I know the anxiety that many gentlemen feel to have the debate concluded, to

allow the private bills now on the calendar, and set for today, to be disposed of, and to complete as soon as possible the work of this session. I will therefore abandon my original purpose, and restrict myself to a brief statement of a few leading points in the argument, and leave the decision with the House. I hope this waiving of a full discussion of the bill will not be construed into a confession that it is inferior in importance to any measure before the House; for I know of none that has a nobler object, or that more vitally affects the future of this nation.

I first ask the House to consider the magnitude of the interests involved in the bill. The very attempt to discover the amount of pecuniary and personal interest we have in our schools shows the necessity of such a law as is here proposed. I have searched in vain for any complete or reliable statistics showing the educational condition of the whole country. The estimates that I have made are gathered from various sources, and can be only approximately correct. I am satisfied, however, that they are far below the truth.

Even from the incomplete and imperfect educational statistics of the Census Bureau, it appears that in 1860 there. were in the United States 115,224 common schools, 500,000 school officers, 150,241 teachers, and 5,477,037 scholars; thus showing that more than 6,000,000 of the people of the United States are directly engaged in the work of education. Not only has this large proportion of our population been thus engaged, but the Congress of the United States has given 53,000,000 acres of public lands to fourteen States and Territories of the Union for the support of schools. In the old ordinance of 1785, it was provided that one section of every township one thirty-sixth of all the public lands of the United States should be set apart, and held forever sacred to the support of the schools of the country. In the ordinance of 1787, it was declared that, “religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." It is estimated that at least $50,000,000 has been given in the United States by private individuals for the support of schools. We have thus an interest, even pecuniarily considered, hardly second to any other. We have school statistics tolerably complete from only seventeen States

of the Union. Our Congressional library contains no educational reports whatever from the remaining nineteen. In those seventeen States, there are 90,835 schools, 129,000 teachers, 5,107,285 pupils; and $34,000,000 is annually appropriated by the legislatures for the support and maintenance of common schools. Notwithstanding the great expenditures entailed upon them during four years of war, they raised by taxation $34,000,000 annually for the support of public education. In several States of the Union, more than fifty per cent of all the tax imposed for State purposes is for the support of the public schools. And yet gentlemen are impatient because we wish to occupy a short time in considering this bill.

I will not trouble the House by repeating such commonplaces, so familiar to every gentleman here, as that our system of government is based upon the intelligence of the people. But I wish to suggest that there never has been a time when all our educational forces should be in such perfect activity as at the present day. Ignorance-stolid ignorance-is not our most dangerous enemy. There is very little of that kind of ignorance among the white population of this country. In the Old World, among the despotic governments of Europe, the great disfranchised class the pariahs of political and social life — are indeed ignorant, mere inert masses, moved and controlled by the intelligent and cultivated aristocracy. Any unrepresented and hopelessly disfranchised class in a government will inevitably be struck with intellectual paralysis. Our late slaves afford a sad illustration. But among the represented and voting classes of this country, where all are equal before the law, and every man is a political power for good or evil, there is but little of the inertia of ignorance. The alternatives are not education or no education; but shall the power of the citizen be directed aright towards industry, liberty, and patriotism? or, under the baneful influence of false theories and evil influences, shall it lead him continually downward, and work out anarchy and ruin, both to him and the government? If he is not educated in the school of virtue and integrity, he will be educated in the school of vice and iniquity. We are, therefore, afloat on the sweeping current: we must make head against it, or we shall go down with it to the saddest of destinies. According to the census of 1860, there were 1,218,311 inhabitants of the United States over