Popular Education / For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes

by Ira Mayhew

If we were to embrace in the estimate the whole number of students in attendance at the universities, colleges, academies, and seminaries of learning of every grade, it would not materially vary the result, for all these taken together are less than one tenth part of the number in attendance upon the common schools. That the number of children attending schools of any grade is less than might be inferred from the foregoing statements, will be apparent when we consider the following facts.

In the United States, taken together as a whole, only one person in ten of the population attends any school whatever any part of the year. Now it is well known that a large number of children under five years of age attend school in many parts of the country, and a much greater number that are over fifteen years of age. I have already said that the entire number of children in attendance upon all our schools is twenty thousand less than one half of the entire number of free-born white children in the United States between the ages of five and fifteen years. This leaves two millions of children uninstructed. We shall have a more just view of the scantiness of our provisions for adequate national education if to this number, appalling as it is, we add the total number of those attending under five and over fifteen in various portions of the country.

Again: no one supposes that in any part of the Union adequate provisions are made for the education of the rising generation, even in a single state. But in the New England states, and in New York and Michigan, one fourth part of the entire population attend school some part of the year. This is twice and a half the general average throughout the Union, and more than five times the average attendance in the majority of the remaining states.

In round numbers, the proportion of the entire population that attend school in the different states of the Union is, according to the census, in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, each, one in three. In Michigan,[61] Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, the proportion is one in four. In Rhode Island, it is one in five. In Ohio and New Jersey, each, one in six. In Pennsylvania, one in eight. In no other state is the proportion more than one in ten, while in ten states it is less than one in twenty-five.

In fixing this proportion, the nearest whole number has been used. In no state is the proportion in attendance upon the schools as high as one in three. Michigan heads the states in which the proportion is one in four. In this state the proportion is somewhat greater than one in four; it is, however, nearer this than one in three. In the other states the proportion is less than one in four. The states are all arranged according to the size of the fraction, there being less difference in the attendance in Vermont and Michigan than in the latter state and New York.

At the time the last census was taken, Michigan had recently been admitted into the Union, and the state government being but just organized, the school system had only gone partially into operation. According to the census of 1840, the proportion in attendance upon the schools of this state was only one in seven. During the interval from 1840 to 1845, at which time the census of this state was again taken, the population had increased from two hundred and twelve thousand to upward of three hundred thousand, showing an increase of about fifty per cent.; the number of primary schools had increased from less than ten thousand to more than twenty thousand, making an increase of more than one hundred per cent.; and the attendance upon these schools had advanced from thirty thousand to seventy-six thousand, giving the very remarkable increase of one hundred and fifty per cent. in five years, when, as already stated, the proportion in attendance upon the common schools was more than one in four of the entire population. And during the next two years the number of children in attendance upon the schools increased from seventy-six thousand to one hundred and eight thousand, showing an advance of more than forty per cent. from 1845 to 1847.

It is gratifying to know that this important interest, which underlies all others, is receiving increased attention in various portions of the United States. Among the most striking illustrations that I have noticed of these indications of national improvement, I will instance two.[62] The following interesting items of fact are gleaned from an address by the superintendent before the public schools of New Orleans, February 22d, 1850—a most befitting day for a school celebration. These statistics strike us more forcibly when we consider that they relate to the metropolis of the South, and to the capital of a state in which, according to the last census, only one person in one hundred received instruction in the primary and common schools of the state. The public schools of the second municipality of New Orleans were established in 1842, comprising at that time less than three hundred pupils. Now the constant attendance is upward of three thousand—ten times what it was eight years ago. But even this increase, large as it may seem, is not sufficient to constitute the proportion in attendance upon the schools of the state even one in fifty of the entire population.

Kentucky furnishes the other indication of improvement which I propose to notice. In this state, according to the last census, only one in thirty-three of the entire population attended the common schools during any part of the year. The number of children at the present time in that commonwealth, as reported by the second auditor, between the ages of five and sixteen, leaving out the colored children, is one hundred and ninety-three thousand. The number provided with schools, as reported in 1847, was twenty-one thousand; in 1848, thirty-three thousand; and in 1849, eighty-seven thousand; showing a clear advance in two years of sixty-six thousand.[63] But, with all this improvement, one hundred and five thousand children do not derive any personal benefit from the public school system. In other words, eighteen thousand more children in this state are still growing up without instruction than as yet attend the schools. And the utter inadequacy of the common school privileges of even these will be apparent when it is understood that in the great majority of the districts more than nine tenths of the schools are taught but three months during the year.

We have as yet only considered the great destitution of schools of any kind, in which the moiety of the children that attend school at all receive instruction, and the fact that very many of these are kept open but three months during the year.[64] The inadequacy of existing provisions for the proper education of the rising generation will be more strikingly apparent when we consider the incompetency of, I may perhaps safely say, the majority of persons who are put in charge of the public schools of the country. It is readily conceded that, in those states where education has received most attention, there are many teachers who are thoroughly furnished unto all good works. But it is far otherwise with the majority of teachers even in the more favored states. The testimony of Governor Campbell already quoted, will apply to the teachers of many other states. After speaking of the large number of children in Virginia that "are growing up in ignorance for want of schools within convenient distances," he remarks, that "of those at school, many derive little or no instruction, owing to the incapacity of the teachers, as well as to their culpable negligence and inattention."