The State schools, in charge of Professor Wilkinson, for the benefit of the blind and the deaf and dumb, in which both classes are accommodated in the same building, would be an honor to the oldest community.

The schools of San Francisco, however they may have suffered from the ebb and flow of public interest, constitute a system of many excellencies that has in itself the means of correcting mistakes and of increas ing its efficiency as the public may demand. Among its officers and teachers there are some who have no superiors. The cosmopolitan schools, in which German and French are taught, are worthy of careful study by all city officers who have presented to them the solution of the question of teaching other languages than the English in the free schools. Mr. Henry Bolander, the principal of one of these schools, has just been elected State superintendent.*

The free public schools of the city furnish for all its citizens who are anxious to preserve the young from the evils and temptations of city vagabondism, the grand medium by which their efforts may be made. successful.

EDUCATION OF THE CHINESE.

Education on the Pacific coast has an additional interest from the fact that here our civilization stands face to face with that of China, Japan, and the other countries of the Orient. Here the Chinese have already come in large numbers, chiefly men-women coming only of the lowest character, and never as wives. Yet, Chinese children in San Francisco are numbered by the hundred; but neither there nor elsewhere in the State does the system of public instruction make any provision for them. So far as that is concerned they are outcasts; they are prohibited the opportunity of gaining intelligence and virtue. There has been, however, occasionally, instruction at public expense; but the schools for this class are almost entirely the result of Christian charity. The Chinese children are, to some extent, educated under their own teachers, according to the manner of their native land. † Prejudice, interest, reason, and Christian principles are in great confusion in regard to the question of the method of treating these new

*Hon. Mr. Widber is superintendent, and Hon. John Swett deputy superintendent, of the city schools.

By the courtesy of Nathaniel T. Allen, esq., of West Newton, Massachusetts, this Bureau has been supplied with the following statement of facts in regard to education in China, obtained by him through the late Hon. Anson Burlingame, and at an interview with the Chinese embassadors whom he met in Berlin.

They stated that in China there is no system of public schools, all education being acquired and instruction imparted in private schools at the expense of parents. If a parent is wealthy he will have a private teacher in his own house. Where the parent is not able to do this alone, several families combine to employ a teacher. A single teacher may thus have, in some cases, two hundred pupils under his care and instruction. There are no laws obliging parents to educate their children, but those who have the means generally do so. The proportion who are uneducated is not known, although this must be large, as many are too poor to educate their children. The examinations for advancement to different grades, with a view to employment by the government, are very severe, especially the first three, at thirteen, fifteen, and seventeen years of age; but out of 1,000 applicants, only 12, upon an average, pass the grades and become government officials or mandarins. The child of the poorest parent may obtain the highest post, only a few classes being ineligible. The daughters of the wealthy, if trained at all, are educated at their own homes. Their education is meager in amount. The moral philosophy of Confucius is rigidly taught. According to a communication from a correspondent of the New York Observer, at the examination for the degree of Tsin-ze, or graduated scholars this year, the number of successful candidates was limited by an imperial decree to 326. The number of students who entered their names for examination was 8,210. The first named on the list of sucful candidates was Li Lwanchee, of Chihli province, and his name was published over the empire, as that of the senior wrangler of his university is in England.

comers. Their industry is wanted, but in many respects their pres ence is abhorred. Certain points, however, seem plain; they should not be allowed to violate the police or sanitary laws, the rules and regulations necessary to social purity, civil peace and order, common cleanliness and health. Now, even while the prejudices are strong against them, they have been allowed to congregate on streets and in alleys, to concentrate in large numbers in restricted quarters, and, by the large rents paid, make encroachments into portions of the city once settled by the best people; and there, in the very heart of this thriving city, as if in the midst of paganism, gather every condition of individual and public disease, immorality, vice, and crime. In the creation of these sources of vice, crime, and misery are the evils of the presence of the Chinamen, and not in any industry or honesty or skill in business that they may bring. Yet, they are more likely to be insulted, attacked, and injured in the pursuit of an honest livelihood than to be molested in the establishment and maintenance of these slums for the destruction of themselves and the American youth of the city. If the community would rid itself, as it plainly has a right to do, of these evils which are so manifest, there would be less ground for anxiety in the direction where complaints are loudest.

Unfortunately, proscription in the State, in the matter of education, has been carried out rigorously against the children of Indians, and often against the blacks. The schools for the Indians are exclusively under the control of the General Government. Many of these pioneer communities have yet to learn that they cannot afford to allow any one, however alien to their own race, to grow up in ignorance. A similar proscription extends throughout Oregon and Nevada.

In California the popular sentiment in favor of education is strong and active. The diversity of elements in their midst, and the dangers they threaten, have forced upon many minds a conviction of the necessity of universal education to public security. The question of enacting laws for compulsory education by the State has been widely agitated and vigorously maintained.

OREGON.

*

In Oregon, however, the educational sentiment is far less active and vigorous. This State, with 95,274 square miles, larger than all New England by one-half, has a population of 90,923, and a school population of 34,000.

This State, especially fortunate in the feature of the school law which requires a school-tax to be levied in every county, is unfortunate in many other respects. The executive of the State, in addition to his other onerous duties, is made by the constitution, superintendent of public instruction. The governor, assisted by the secretary of state, is, nevertheless, giving to this vital interest his special attention, the need of which is freely confessed by many of the best citizens of the State. So far separated from the other States of the Union, the educators of Oregon have received comparatively little aid in their difficult task from their coadjutors in the other portions of the country.†

*The Commissioner wishes hereby to acknowledge the special obligations under which he was placed during his recent visit by the marked courtesies of Governor Grover and Hon. Mr. Chadwick, secretary of state, who furnished him every facility for prosecuting his researches.

A recent address, by J. A. Waymire, on free schools for Oregon, and the frequent newspaper communications of the Rev. George H. Atkinson, D. D., are useful in forming and awakening educational sentiment.

Among a people rich in lands, the children are growing up with opportunities for education which are entirely inadequate to their needs, and there is danger to the State unless speedy action is taken. The sentiment in favor of attending school, of study, of the use of means for improvement, is not strong enough; it is too easy for the young to grow up in ignorance, and to become occupied with frivolities and vices.

The schools need to be at once made free from the tuition fees by which they are so often embarrassed outside of Portland and Salem. A local tax should be levied for every county, in addition to the State tax. There should be a well-qualified and competent State superintendent, whose efforts should be exclusively devoted to the preparation and presentation of arguments fitted to arouse public attention to this vast and fundamental interest; to catch, too, the attention of the young, and stimulate their aspirations, and to scatter throughout the State the information needed in regard to the building of school-houses, organizing districts, management of schools, qualification of teachers, and the best means for their success in instruction and discipline.

So far the wealth of the State has been little affected by the cultivation of science and skilled industry. The interesting and peculiar mineral resources have had no systematic, scientific investigation. However, a single citizen-the Rev. Thomas Condon, of Dalles-on his own responsibility and by his own researches, has attracted the attention of the world by collecting a museum unsurpassed in some particulars.

Every feature of culture, from the lowest to the highest, has the most ample room and scope in this State. Properly encouraged, and fostered by a vigorous system of public instruction, the addition to the wealth and prosperity of the State thus secured would be incalculable.

NEVADA.

Nevada, notwithstanding her sparseness of population, is making steady progress in promoting general education. Vigorous supervision gives life to the whole system, and adequate provision for the elementary education of all the children is proposed, except for such as are "unpopularly complexioned." Salaries of teachers are decreasing. A high school has been established in Virginia City, the only one, it is believed, in the State.

The State depends upon California for the normal training of teachers and for the education of the deaf and dumb. The number of schoolchildren is reported at 3,952. Of these, 2,988 are enrolled in the schools.

EDUCATION IN THE TERRITORIES.

After a careful examination of all the sources of information last year, the population of the District of Columbia and the Territories was put down at 700,000; the number of Indians more or less directly cared for by the General Government in the several States was found to be 100,000, making a total of over 800,000. For all this population the National Government is as directly and intimately responsible in all particulars as are the several State governments for their own citizens. No element of this responsibility more completely underlies all others thau education. It determines both the capacity for sentiment and action.

In the early history of the Government a lively appreciation of this responsibility was shown. Few acts stand out more conspicuously in the annals of those times than the ordinances which determined the character of the civilization of the northwestern territory. Moreover,

the early settlers were chiefly from those portions of the Union most advanced, and they were likely to be the most enterprising of the section from which they came. Foreign interference, possible or actual, in reference to boundaries, perhaps quickened public attention. Of this nothing now exists to excite apprehension or put the country upon its guard. The Territories are securely our own. Open, indeed, to immigration from all the world, portions of them are as fully controlled by the higher elements of our civilization as any part of the country, while in others foreign immigration is much greater than formerly, and in some, the mass of the population, as in New Mexico and Utah, are of foreign birth or parentage; thus presenting reason for anxiety that there should exist from the first all those institutions, especially common schools, upon which, in a peculiar sense, we must depend for the formation of a character fully in harmony with the sentiments and practices which elsewhere prevail, and which are the glory of our land.

It is not enough that the form of the institutions of liberty is recognized in the statutes and governments of these Territories. Those instrumentalities calculated to inspire a love of freedom and an understanding and appreciation of its objects, customs, and laws, should be active, universal, and efficient. Of this, in the practice of the last twenty years, there has been no assurance. In that period such has been the failure to infuse universally into our territorial possessions those instrumentalities, that ignorance has actually largely increased in New Mexico, and Mormonism has made for itself a home in Utah.

NEW MEXICO.

It should be remembered, and cannot be too often repeated, that in 1856, on the question of the adoption of a law for the establishment of schools in the Territory of New Mexico, the vote stood 37 for and 5,016 against it.*

It should be remembered that this is a Territory which, according to the census of 1870, has a population of 93,874, of whom 86,254 are of foreign-Spanish or Mexican-descent, and consequently do not speak the English language.

The secretary of the Territory, in a communication of recent date, says: "There are four or five schools under the supervision of the Roman Catholic Church, and two under the auspices of the Presbyterian board of missions. The attendance is very small, and there is not a public school in the Territory." A simple statement of this fact ought to be sufficient to make the cheek of any honest American mantle with shame.

* Rev. J. A. Truchard, of the Roman Catholic Church, in an address delivered on the 31st of August last at St. Michael's College, Santa Fé, says:

"There has been no governor who has not adorned his messages with a flowery encomium on education; no candidate for delegate to Congress who has not given to education a prominent plank in his political platform. The legislative body enacted laws on education, and not unfrequently have we read in the newspapers of this Territory what they have published on so important a subject.

"And what result has been obtained so far? What advancement? What progress has been made in the education of youth in New Mexico? I am sorry to say, ladies and gentlemen, so far nothing, or next to nothing, has been obtained. Much has been said on schools, but little done. In order to prove this, I need only lay before you the deplorable state of the schools throughout this Territory. I except Santa Fé, Taos, Mora, Las Vegas, and other towns which have colleges and convents founded by Rt. Rev. Bishop Lamy and the clergy of the diocese."

After affirming that indifference is the chief cause of the failure of the schools, he proceeds to say: "The second cause of this deplorable evil is the want of resources,

UTAH.

In Utah, with a population of 86,786, there are 30,702 of foreign birth, and 51,807, both of whose parents were foreigners; so that there now appear to be 21,105, who, although not foreign-born, are growing up under influences derived from those not born on our soil. Of the whole population, 25,333 are of school age. The territorial superintendent observes that the present territorial school system has been supervised and sustained without a dollar or an acre of land from the General Government. There is great complaint from the antipolygamists in the Territory that the teaching of Mormon tenets is made more prominent in the schools than instruction in letters or science.

COLORADO.

Colorado, with a total population of 39,864, and a school population between five and twenty-one of 8,593, reports an enrollment in the public schools of 5,345. The total expenditures for school purposes are reported as $98,105. These figures contrast favorably with those of some other Territories.

NEED OF TERRITORIAL SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS.

Does not a just consideration of the vast interests involved in these Territories, present and prospective, require, on the part of the General Government, at least an intimate knowledge of the facts, and that the moral support of the national sentiment should be extended to them? There can be no question raised as to the responsibility of the Government. The laws of Congress are the basis of their organization; the officers are appointed by the President, and held responsible to him. A systematic report of facts with regard to education certainly is the least that could be expected, and would, of itself, be of great value. I am, however, decidedly of the opinion that it would be altogether for the interest of the Territories and the country if a new office-that of

the poverty which reigns throughout this unhappy country, but a poverty such as had never existed in past times. Money has disappeared, and no work does the daylaborer find. How can he afford to send his children to school when he can barely give them their daily bread? How can he pay the teacher, buy books, and so forth, when he has not wherewith to clothe them? And how many poor widows, how many parents, are thus situated! Many among them desire to give their families the education needed, but cannot, for want of means, in a country like New Mexico, where there exist no educational funds, either from the Territory or from the Government of the United States.

"It is true that Congress has donated for that purpose some lands in every village or precinct; but these lands have either not been surveyed, or are not tillable, thus remaining entirely useless for the intended object. Thus matters stand in New Mexico: on the one band, schools that are good for nothing; and, on the other, a total impossibility of establishing and supporting better ones."

The following, among other resolutions, was adopted at a mass meeting of the citizens of New Mexico, held at Santa Fé, in November, 1870:

"That the peculiar situation of New Mexico, and the conditions under which she was acquired by the United States, are such that it seems but just that the people should receive aid from the General Government for the purpose of establishing public schools. The majority of the inhabitants are of foreign descent-people born under and accustomed to the institutions of a foreign government. They speak a foreign nguage, and are not familiar with our customs or our laws; they have had no advantages which would enable them to be otherwise; and it would be at once magnanimous, more than just, and an act of prudence on the part of the Government, to aid in ducating a people who are soon to have a voice in the management of our national