Now, if such appropriations as these are not absurdly inadequate, what are they?
They are limited to eight years, and during those eight years the mean average annual appropriation is less than $10,000,000. Think of it for a moment. An amount ($9,625,000) appropriated by Congress to cure the illiteracy of the whole nation—only $1,057,325 more than Illinois now spends in a year for educational purposes; only $1,361,755 more than Pennsylvania spends, and only $804,086 more than is spent by Ohio; while it is $1,797,593 less than the state of New York expends in a single year within her borders for like purposes!
Take the exact figures of the census returns, and the amount actually needed is easily ascertained for that year—though it must be remarked that the amount needed is not remaining the same, nor diminishing, but increasing every succeeding year. The school population in 1880 was 16,243,822. To educate that population required an assumed average annual expenditure of not less than $10 each, or $162,438,220. The real expenditure was but $91,158,039. Hence there was in that year a necessity for an expenditure of at least $72,085,783 more than was actually expended.
But let us examine the statistical facts a little more closely. It is true that the school population then was 16,243,822, but it is also true that of that number only 10,013,826 were enrolled in the public schools, and of these again only 6,118,331 took advantage of their opportunities for instruction by daily attendance at those schools. Here, then, we find that the $91,158,039 was expended in educating the 6,118,331 children who daily attended school, and that the actual average cost per scholar, therefore, was $14.90, and not $10. We discover also, that while 6,118,331 children were in daily attendance at the public schools, 3,895,495 children on the rolls of such schools were not in daily attendance, and that 6,229,996 other children of school age had not even the opportunity or facilities for any such education! It is plain, therefore, that had the 10,125,491 children of school age in the two latter classes—those who failed to take advantage of the school opportunities offered them, and those who had no such opportunities at all—been compelled, as they should be (except in case of sickness or other very sufficient cause), to daily attend public schools, then instead of the $91,158,039 actually expended in such schools that year, there should have been expended $242,027,855 that year, in order to give all children of school age an equal educational chance. In other words, the expenditure, as compared with the necessities of the case, left a deficit for that one year of $150,869,816.
Now it is to make up for the deficiencies in the school facilities already provided in the states and territories, that Congressional legislation and national aid is proposed. But it would puzzle the combined mathematicians of all countries and ages to demonstrate that an annual deficiency of $150,000,000, or more, can be made up by an expenditure of $77,000,000, dribbled out in annual sums varying from $5,000,000 to $15,000,000, during eight successive years.
While, however, to meet the necessities of the case fully and absolutely would call for enormous annual appropriations, yet as the utmost conservatism and moderation should govern all experimental legislation involving large appropriations, so in legislating upon this subject it were safer to adopt the basis and estimate of least requirement heretofore given, and adopt $50,000,000 as the amount that should be annually appropriated for this important purpose.
It is to be kept in mind, also, that an annual appropriation to this extent need not add one dollar to the burden of taxation now borne by the people.
In this connection it is not necessary to discuss any of the questions relating to the methods of raising our national revenue. Whatever differences of opinion there may be touching those methods or means, it must be conceded that our nation, under the present system and laws, holds a high and even commanding position among the civilized governments of the world, and that our people are enjoying more than an average degree of prosperity. It is our duty to use every effort to advance to still higher prosperity. In the meantime, however, any bill appropriating national aid to education should be based upon our present condition. Our revenue now exceeds our expenditures per annum by fully the amount ($50,000,000) sought to be appropriated by the bill referred to. Hence its enactment would not add one dollar to the taxes already imposed. It follows, then, that should Congress be asked to support a measure making annual appropriation of $50,000,000, derived from the internal revenue taxes and the sale of public lands, for school purposes, opposition to such a measure on the pretext that it would impose additional burdens upon the people would be flimsy and without force, and only transparently veil an opposition to increased facilities for educating our children.
If our children are to be provided with adequate facilities for proper and necessary instruction, the burden must be imposed in some form; and none can be devised that will bear more equally upon all, and be felt as little as this.
It is an old truism that “every rose hath its thorn.” The advance of civilization and knowledge has its drawbacks as well as its advantages. This is manifested very distinctly in one direction in our own country. The rapid invention and introduction of labor-saving machinery has had a very marked tendency to draw the laboring population from the rural districts, and congregate it at the manufacturing centers. This, although it may be attended with many important advantages, has some very serious disadvantages, and is, perhaps, in part the cause of the serious contests we have seen of late years between capital and labor. It increases the population of the cities, and proportionately decreases that of the rural districts, and, as a consequence, increases the cost of living, as it advances the price of property in the cities. It also tends very largely to increase the power and influence of corporations, monopolies, and other associations of this kind. The single item of transportation is vastly enlarged by this fact, and thus is increased the necessity for, and the power of, the railroads of our country. The effect of bringing together at these manufacturing centers large bodies of employés is, that for self-protection, combinations of labor, as against the encroachments of capital, are formed. Irritation and contests follow.