■f 
 

 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 HISTORY OF COMMON SCHOOL/ EDUCATION IN NEW YORK FROM 1633 TO 1904 
 
 BY CHARL.ES E. FITCH 
 
 Prepared under the direction of Charles R. Skinner, Superintendent of Public Instruction 
 
 J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS 
 ALBANY, NEW YORK 
 D367111-N4-1000 
 
EDUCATIONAL HISTORY 
 
 A History of the common school in New York 
 
 B Biographical sketches of superintendents of public 
 instruction 
 
MAY 24 i905 
 i). ot 0. 
 
A History of the common school in New York 
 
 Prepared by Charles E. Fitc« under the direction of the Superintendent of 
 Public Instruction 
 
 It is fifty years since the Department of Public 
 Instruction was instituted. A review of its adminis- 
 tration during that period is pertinent at its close as 
 is also reference to what was done for education in 
 New York previously thereto. 
 
 In the development of popular education in the ™* ^'V 
 United States, New York is entitled to primacy in two New York 
 respects — the genesis of the common school system and 
 supervision of the same by the state. That system has 
 been defined and promoted by various commonwealths 
 and aided by grants from the federal government, until 
 there are throughout the union schools free to all, con- 
 serving a patriotic citizenship and assuring an en- 
 lightened nation, but it is from New York that the chief 
 leadings, those of public provision for their maintenance 
 and central authority for their conduct have proceeded. 
 The first public school in the country was that which J*,f J^ st 
 was begun in New Amsterdam in 1G33 with Adam 
 Roelandson as its master. Precedence in this regard 
 must be accorded to the Dutch colony of New Nether- 
 land. Other colonies followed, if they were not stimu- 
 lated by, its example. There can be no dispute as to 
 the chronological order. It is said but not shown that New Eng. 
 a school existed in the town of Plymouth in 1633, and schools 
 one in Marshfield in 1615. In 1G73, fifty-three years 
 after Plymouth Rock was sighted, the court ordered the 
 setting up of a sehool to be supported by the revenue 
 from the Cape fishery. Boston, in Massachusetts Bay, 
 in 1C35, " at a general meeting upon public notice " 
 voted "that our brother, Philemon Pormont shall be 
 entreated to become schoolmaster for the teaching and 
 nurturing children with us," but there is no evidence 
 that the request was acceded to. The next year " at a 
 general meeting of the richer inhabitants, there was 
 given towards the maintenance of a free schoolmaster 
 for the youth with us, Mr Daniel Maud being now also 
 chosen thereunto." In 1611 it was ordered that Deare 
 Island should be occupied for the keeping of a free 
 school (so called) for the town. In 1643, Dedham set 
 apa^*t sixty acres for the use of the church and a free 
 
Department of Public Instruction 
 
 school. In 1643 Roxbury allowed £20 a year for the 
 support of a schoolmaster, to be raised out of property 
 bestowed by certain of its inhabitants, and a little later 
 Charlestown, Cambridge, Dorchester, Ipswich and 
 Salem made similar arrangements. In 1642, the Gen- 
 eral Court ordered that children should be brought up 
 to learning and labor, imposing fines upon parents and 
 others who neglected their duty in these particulars, 
 and on November 11, 1647, it passed the celebrated 
 statute, which is sometimes assumed to be the precursor 
 of all school legislation in the land and, with preamble, 
 quaint and fantastic now, but sincere and serious then, 
 revealing the theocratic inclination of its framers, 
 decreed that in order to thwart the designs of " that 
 old deluder Satan," " every township in this jurisdic- 
 tion after the Lord hath increased them to the number 
 of fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint one 
 within their town to teach all such children as shall 
 resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be 
 paid either by the parents or masters of such children, 
 or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as 
 the major part of those that order the prudentials of 
 the town shall appoint." Connecticut, with settlement 
 beginning in 1634, soon thereafter gave attention to 
 educational matters; Hartford, in 1642, appropriating 
 £50 annually for a school, in which the tuition fees 
 were 20 shillings a year, the children of parents unable 
 to pay being instructed at town charge; and, in the 
 code of laws adopted in 1650, the Massachusetts ordi- 
 nance of 1647 was incorporated verbatim and made 
 imperative upon all the towns. New Haven, shortly 
 after its settlement, in 1637, enjoined the deputies in 
 each plantation to see that all parents and masters, 
 either by their own ability and labor, or by employing 
 such schoolmasters and other agencies as the plantation 
 might afford, should have their children and appren- 
 tices taught to read the scriptures and other books in 
 the English tongue, and those who failed in their duty 
 were to be fined, and, if they continued contumacious, 
 their charges were to be placed in the hands of those 
 who would better educate and govern them. The town 
 of New Haven, in 1642, ordered that a free school be 
 set up and a schoolmaster, Ezekiel Cheever, was 
 presently hired at £20 a year, his salary being subse- 
 quently increased to £30, and in 1657 the General Court 
 ordained that every plantation should provide a school- 
 
A rbtikw or r-rs administration 3 
 
 master, one-third of hi* salary to be paid by the town 
 and two-thirds by the parents or guardians of the pupils. 
 The territory of Connecticut was enlarged in 1665 by 
 the absorption of New Haven, and various school laws 
 were matured, that of 1G78 requiring that towns of 
 thirty families should keep a school " to teach children 
 to read and write " being the most precise in its man- 
 dates. Other colonies laid the foundations of their 
 common school systems respectively as follows: Rhode ^""Jjjt 1 
 Island in 1640; New Hampshire in 1649; Delaware in tions gen- 
 1657; Pennsylvania in 1683; Maryland in 1694; Vir erally 
 ginia in 1752. 
 
 These dates determine the precedence of New Nether- 
 land in planting the elementary school in American soil. 
 She was the pioneer. Nor was this merely the accident 
 of primordial settlement. In the evolution of the 
 republican state, the Dutch anticipated their neighbors 
 in appreciating responsibility for the education of the 
 young and in designing the measures necessary to that so™of "~ 
 end. The Pilgrims, notwithstanding their sojourn in I? nt ?" a,ld 
 
 ° » J Puritan 
 
 Holland and the inspiration there extended, made, as inspiration 
 has been seen, long delay. The Puritans came to the 
 Atlantic coast in considerable numbers in 162S, and the 
 great migration occurred in 1630. Among the laymen 
 there were those of high intellectual endowments; many 
 were of comfortable estate; some possessed large 
 wealth ; while the clerical element, paramount in 
 influence, was specially able and liberally educated. 
 Within twelve years from the landing at Salem, there 
 were eighty ministers in Massachusetts who had been 
 ordained in the church of England and who were nearly 
 all graduates from Cambridge university. The Puri- 
 tans were a compact and homogeneous body, well 
 equipped and well organized, with a definite object in 
 view. That object was to found a Christian state in 
 the new world — " to raise a bulwark against anti- 
 Christ " as John White, the chief promoter of the enter- 
 prise, declared. To this all their thoughts were directed * 
 and all their energies were devoted. They brought 
 with them English ideas, customs and institutions, 
 among which was not the common school. That was 
 the creation of succeeding years. The people in Eng- 
 land knew nothing of the common school and the 
 English people who came to America did not bring it 
 with them. The charter, wrested from the king, with 
 its distinct enunciation of corporate rights and privi 
 
1 Department of Public Enstruction 
 
 leges, construed by its grantees as adequate for the 
 government they fashioned, embraced no educational 
 warrant. 
 
 Although Henry Hudson ascended the river, which 
 bears his name, in 1609, it was not until twenty years 
 The settle- later that the real settlement of New Netherland began. 
 New ivetn- New York owes her being, not to lofty religious senti- 
 ment, as does New England, nor to passion for stirring- 
 adventure, as does Virginia, but to Dutch genius for 
 trade. But growth was, at the first, slow. In 1G29 the 
 inhabitants consisted only of the little company of 
 Walloons, who had come over in 1G24 and tbe servants 
 of the West India company, grouped at trading posts 
 from Manhattan io Beverwyck (Albany), who were 
 wholly engrossed in exchanging baubles and trinkets 
 for furs with the Indians and returning inordinate 
 profits to their employers therefrom. There were in the 
 territory three or four small forts, but there were no 
 mechanical industries, no tilling of the earth except 
 for the bare necessities of the scanty population, and 
 but feeble attempts at the making of homes. The com- 
 pany had, in 1621, been granted a monopoly of tra le 
 on the coasts of Africa and America and invested with 
 almost sovereign powers by the States General of the 
 United Netherlands, the latter retaining some control 
 by commissioning the governors and demanding reports 
 from them, but experience had shown that no benefits 
 accrued to the plantation beyond those from the com- 
 merce in peltries and that the interests of the company 
 would l»e enhanced, as it was also (dear that the 
 resources of the company could be utilized, only by 
 stimulating colonization. With the larger outlook, 
 charter of came the charter of freedoms and exemptions issued by 
 amiVv-"* the company June 7. 102!), to all such as should colonize 
 emptions^ ^ eyy Netherland. This instrument was singularly 
 inconsistent in its articles. While it asserted the 
 liberties of the individual and guaranteed him certain 
 notable immunities of person and property, its conces 
 sions of immense manors confirmed feudal tenures 
 and customs, exalted caste, magnified proprietary fran- 
 chises and grievously vexed colonial and even state 
 administration far into the nineteenth century. Its 
 invitation to immigration, however, was a broad one, 
 becoming more generous in 163S, when each settler was 
 promised as much land as he could cultivate, was 
 granted practically free trade with the mother country, 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION » 
 
 and equal justice was pledged to all inhabitants and 
 visitors, in civil and criminal proceedings. Under 
 these benign behests, the earth yielded its harvests, 
 thrift followed frugality, communities expanded and 
 law reigned. 
 
 But the distinguishing and now illustrious feature of 
 the charter of 1629 was the prescription concerning 
 education. It was that " the patrons and colonists £**ai d prel 
 shall in particular, and in the speediest manner, scription 
 endeavor to find out ways and means whereby they may 
 support a minister and schoolmaster that thus the 
 service of God and zeal for religion may not grow cool 
 and be neglected among them, and they shall, for the 
 first procure a comforter of the sick there." 
 
 This was the first educational edict in America. 1 1 
 was reaffirmed substantially in the " New Project of 
 Freedoms and Exemptions " in 1630, and in 1638 it was 
 made obligatory that " each householder and inhabi- 
 tant shall bear such tax and public charge.as shall here- 
 after be considered proper for the maintenance of 
 clergymen, comforters for the sick and like necessary 
 officers and the director and council there (New Nether- 
 land) shall be written to touching the form hereof, in 
 order on receiving further information hereupon, it be 
 rendered the least onerous and vexatious ;" and, in 1640, 
 the company assumed formally certain responsibilities 
 which, indeed, it had already generously borne, in these 
 "words: "And no other religion shall be publicly admit- 
 ted in New Netherland, except the Reformed, as at pres- 
 ent preached and practiced by public authority in the 
 United Netherlands, and for this purpose the company 
 shall promote and maintain good and suitable 
 preachers, schoolmasters and comforters of the sick." 
 Spiritual instruction was, of course, dictated, as was 
 the rule in all Protestant lands, and the divorce of 
 church and state was yet remote, but in these several 
 rescripts, the means by which the cost of the common 
 school was defrayed, for more than two centuries, were 
 indicated. Thev were public largess, general taxation, Early 
 
 , , , , '. , . „ , , , . , methods 
 
 and ratable tuition fees, and upon this scheme, no of support- 
 essential improvement was made, until the free school, Jj , o s n ednca- 
 in its integrity, was willed by the people. It is not 
 contended that these agencies were operative concur- 
 rently and continuously for the whole period, nor that 
 there were not lapses in their application at certain 
 I imes and places, but, in larger or lesser measure, either 
 
Department of Public Instruction 
 
 The Dutch 
 school :i 
 public 
 school 
 
 Definition 
 
 of tlie conL 
 
 rami school suffice 
 
 system 
 
 separately or jointly, they obtained throughout, and the 
 credit of founding the public school in America must 
 be conceded to the Dutch and particularly to the policy 
 of the Dutch West India company, itself derived from 
 the methods which had long prevailed in Holland and 
 made it the most thoroughly educated nation in Europe. 
 Henri Taine says : " In culture and instruction, as well 
 as in the arts of organization and government, the 
 Dutch are two centuries ahead of the rest of Europe;" 
 and if this is true now, it certainly was then. It is sug- 
 gested that the early Dutch school in New Netherland 
 was not a public school, in the American acceptation, 
 as not conforming to the definition of such " as estab- 
 lished, supported and controlled by the people acting in 
 their political capacity as a civil body politic.'' This 
 definition formulated to fit a case in a controversy as 
 to primacy is narrow and misleading. The inquiry 
 does not depend so much upon the manner in which 
 the American school had being as upon what manner 
 of school it was — not whether it was appointed by the 
 public but whether it was conducted for the public. 
 The question is not as to whether New York, under 
 the West India company and the States General, had 
 less or more of popular government than Massachusetts, 
 under the theocracy and its articles of incorporation. 
 It is as to which served the cause of popular education 
 the sooner and the better. Magna Charta is an in- 
 delible sign manual of human freedom, even if it was 
 forced from the sovereign by feudal barons, with their 
 hands on their swords, and was not of parliamentary 
 persuasion. Although the schools of Prussia were of 
 autocratic dispensation, they are free in fullest mean 
 : ng and broadest view. The narrow definition does nol 
 An accurate statement of what the common 
 school system is has been framed by President Andrew 
 S. Draper. It is a system of "schools for the common 
 welfare and the public security, supported by public 
 moneys, managed by public officers, in which all the 
 people have common rights and which are free from 
 whatever may offend conscience or abridge those 
 rights;" and, as the Educational Review says, "the 
 germ of this system is to be found in the schools estab- 
 lished by the early Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam." 
 Inasmuch as two clergymen of the Reformed church, 
 Sebastian Crol and John Huyck, ministered in 1626 
 in New Amsterdam, when it numbered barely one hun 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION i 
 
 died souls and as, in the infant Dutch communities, ^^"'h. 
 the parson and the pedagogue might be one and the ™£°°J~ 
 same, it is a fair inference that either or both of these 
 instructed the young and that the keeping of school 
 began in the year mentioned, an inference which is 
 strengthened by the fact that the colonial estimate for 
 1625 included the salary of a schoolmaster at 360 florins, 
 but no record to that effect, remains. The Dutchman 
 was not so diligent a chronicler as the Puritan who 
 tallied every step he took and wrote history as he made 
 it. The educational data of New Netherland are sadly 
 deficient. The opening, however, of the school by Roe- 
 landson, in 1633, is amply authenticated and it has a 
 long and honorable history. The succession of its trus- 
 tees and teachers has been preserved. With occasional 
 interruptions, it was continued as a public school dur- 
 ing the Dutch ascendancy, ceased as such with the 
 English occupancy, in 1664, being thereafter sustained 
 by the consistory of the Reformed church, under the 
 direct supervision of its deacons, was discontinued dur- 
 ing the revolutionary war, was reorganized in 1783 and 
 is still in existence as the school of the Collegiate Re- 
 formed church in the city of New York. 
 
 In 1652, New Amsterdam obtained a municipal char- ^I^er 1 * 001 * 
 ter and a second school was inaugurated. The city was Dutch rule 
 to manage its own finances and was directed to pay 
 all official salaries, including those of the schoolmasters, 
 but it neglected to do so and, two years later, the 
 colonial government resumed the collection of taxes 
 and their disbursement. As towns were erected on 
 Long Island and the Hudson, it was the uniform prac- 
 tice to reserve lots for school sites, and houses were 
 built thereon. Thus there were public schools at Flat- 
 bush, Newtown, Hempstead, Southampton, Brooklyn, 
 Esopus, Albany and other places, and licenses for pri- 
 vate schools were freely issued. For the last eighteen 
 years of Dutch rule, Petrus Stuyvesant was director- 
 general, and that doughty w r arrior and stern execu- 
 tive seems to have been deeply impressed with the im- 
 portance of the common school as related to the weal 
 of the state. His deliverances in its behalf were not 
 infrequent. In his proclamation of September 22, 1647, 
 proposing the appointment of nine men as tribunes or 
 advisors to himself and his council from a list of eight- 
 een nominated to him by the inhabitants, he stated his 
 reasons therefor, as follows : "Whereas, we desire noth- 
 
Department op Public Instri 
 
 The 
 
 natnral 
 order of 
 scliool 
 establish- 
 ment 
 
 ing more than that the government of New Nethcrbnd, 
 entrusted to our care, and principally New Amster- 
 dam, our capital and residence, might continue and in- 
 crease in good order, justice, police, population, pros- 
 perity and mutual harmony, and be provided with 
 strong fortifications, a church, a school, trading place, 
 harbor and similar highly necessary public edifices and 
 improvements, for which end we are desirous of obtain- 
 ing the assistance of our whole commonalty, as nothing 
 is better adapted to promote their own welfare and com- 
 fort, and as such as is required in every well regulated 
 government." He wrote earnestly to the classis of Am- 
 sterdam "for a pious, well qualified and diligent school- 
 master" for "nothing" he adds "is of greater importance 
 than the right, early instruction of youth." In November 
 of the same year, he announced to the nine men that the 
 company could contribute a portion of the sum needed 
 for educational purposes and that it would continue 
 such aid regularly "to promote the glorious work" prom- 
 ising also that a schoolroom and a dwelling for the 
 master should be supplied during the ensuing winter. 
 In 1658, he welcomed Alexander Carolus Curtius and 
 informed the company of his arrival. "We hope and 
 confide" he said, "that the company shall reap gnat 
 benefits from it for their children, for which we pray 
 that a bountiful God may vouchsafe his blessing." Rec- 
 tor Curtius came as the principal of a Latin, or gram- 
 mer school, which the company provided. 
 
 The Dutch observed the natural order in their educa- 
 tional economy. They attended first to the elementary 
 and next to the secondary department. The latter, they 
 held, was the sequence of the former. They did not 
 plan the college, because of lack of means and possibly 
 because they thought that individual incentive and 
 patronage would suffice for it when it should be 
 demanded. Indeed. New York, as a state, has been 
 quite consistent in its adherence to the voluntary prin- 
 ciple in higher education. Aside from a few gifts in 
 the earlier stages of its development, now wholly dis- 
 continued and for denominational institutions consti- 
 tutionally inhibited and certain recent provision for 
 courses in practical industries, the state has, while exer- 
 cising a mild supervision over its colleges and profes- 
 sional schools refused pecuniary assistance to them. 
 The amount heretofore donated, exclusive of $305,000 
 derived from lotteries, is less than $450,000, the last 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 
 
 appropriation — $25,000 — being to the Elmira female 
 college in 18G7. The chief concern of the state is for 
 the common school. Both the Puritan and the Cava- 
 lier reversed the natural order. The primal educational 
 enactment in Massachusetts was an appropriation of 
 £000 to Harvard college, for which, as fitting students 
 for the ministry, the theocracy always evinced the 
 liveliest solicitude; and, in Virginia, the charter of Wil- 
 liam and Mary antedated, by over sixty years, any legis- 
 lation for institutions of a lower grade. Throughout his 
 administration, Stuyvesant continued to manifest an 
 interest in education, and, at its close, public schools 
 existed in nearly every town and village, imparting in- 
 struction in Latin, Greek, mathematics, reading and 
 writing — drill in the catechism not being omitted— 
 through the medium of the Dutch vernacular and, 
 toward the end, through the English tongue also. 
 
 Under the rule of the English, the common school J t !' b e ools 
 languished in New York, such of its life as lingered H£ d ^ . 
 being mainly referable to the insistence of certain Dutch rule 
 communities upon its sustenance by taxation; and, it 
 is noteworthy that, during the brief Dutch reoccupa- 
 tion, care was again bestowed upon it by the provincial 
 authorities. In December, 1073, it was ordered by Gov- 
 ernor-General Colve and the council that all the inhabi- 
 tants of the town of Bergen, which was then within 
 their jurisdiction, should pay their share for the sup- 
 port of the precentor and schoolmaster, and, in May, 
 1074, it was further ordered that the sheriff proceed to 
 immediate execution against all persons who still 
 declined to pay. As Daniel J. Pratt says in his An- 
 nals of Public Education, " the foregoing action on the 
 part of the governor and council seems to have fully 
 settled and confirmed the policy of the Dutch admin- 
 istration in regard to free public schools supported 
 solely by taxation, and w T hich, but for the reconquest by 
 the English, might, perhaps, have continued without 
 interruption to this day." 
 
 It is not to be inferred, as has already been intimated 
 that elementary education perished utterly under 
 English rule. In 1(105, Governor Nicolls licensed one 
 John Schutte "for the teaching of the English tongue" 
 at Albany, upon the ground that such teaching was 
 necessary to the government, and upon the condition 
 that he should "not demand any more wages from each 
 scholar than is given by the Dutch to their Dutch school- 
 
10 Department ok Public Instruction 
 
 master." It is not a violent assumption that defi- 
 ciencies in his compensation were to be made up in 
 the Dutch manner. In 1671, Governor Lovelace 
 directed the justices of the peace, constables and over- 
 seers of the town of Hempstead to cause speedy pay- 
 ment to be made to Richard Charlton of the arrears 
 of his salary as schoolmaster, according to the terms 
 of the contract made with him by the town. In 1691, 
 immediately succeeding the so-called Leisler rebellion, 
 Richard Ingoldesby, commander-in-chief of the province 
 of New York and the honorable council ordered that Jorst 
 de Baane, the schoolmaster of New Utrecht, should re- 
 ceive the salary duehim as such, and that no other school- 
 master should officiate in the town without a license from 
 the government. This order was in compliance with a 
 petition of the resident justice of the peace and the min- 
 ister setting forth that because De Baane had refused 
 to side with the rebellion, certain ill-affected persons 
 had compelled him "to forsake the place, although the 
 land, out of which the schoolmaster and reader of the 
 town is maintained, was given to the town by the said 
 justice, out of his proper estate." The school, started 
 in Flatbush in 1659, was continued until 1802, when it 
 was absorbed in the academy. The list of its teachers 
 has been preserved, as also have the articles of agree- 
 ment of the town with two of these — Jan Tibout, in 
 1681, and Johannes Van Ekkelen, in 16S2 — from which 
 it appears that each was to receive a salary of 400 
 guilders, in addition to tuition fees, and perquisites for 
 bell-tolling, the delivery of funeral invitations and other 
 functions vested in his office. The schools that were 
 licensed by the early English governors, especially by 
 Lord Cornbury, may be regarded fairly as public ones. 
 Among these were the license to Thomas Huddleston, 
 on the 5th of December, 1705, "to teach the English 
 language, writing and arithmetic, in the town of 
 Jamaica, Queens county" and that to Thomas Jeffrey, 
 on the 17th of April, 1706, " to keep and teach school 
 within the city of New York and to instruct all children 
 with whom you shall be intrusted in the art of reading 
 and arithmetic for and during my (Oornbury's) pleas- 
 ure;" and, in July, 1712, authority was given by Gover- 
 nor Hunter to Allane Jarratt "to teach writing, arith- 
 metic and navigation and other parts of the mathe- 
 matics to all such persons as shall be desirous to be 
 Instructed therein within the oity or province of New 
 York." 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 11 
 
 Any account of education in New York would be™* y s £; r 
 singularly incomplete which did not, at least, allude the Propa- 
 to the service rendered it by the Society for the Pro pa- tiie Gospel 
 gation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. It was and part» re sn 
 
 still is a missionary body of the church of England. 
 Organized in 1701, its object, as stated, in 1730, by its 
 secretary, the Rev. David Humphreys, D. D., was 
 two-fold, to wit, "to unite the growing generation in 
 their language, as well as in their religious principles." 
 The school was to do battle for the supremacy of En- 
 glish speech and the ecclesiastical order. The society 
 bestowed annual stipends upon its schoolmasters, 
 ranging from £10 to £40, the first school being located 
 at Rye in 1704. Between that year and 1775 it em- 
 ployed about 60 teachers, schools being maintained in 
 the counties of Albany, Suffolk, New York, Richmond 
 and Westchester. The pupils were mainly the children 
 of poor parents and included quite a proportion of 
 slaves and some Indians. In addition to supplying 
 teachers, the society offered in 1728 to found a library 
 in New York city, provided the books it donated should 
 be cared for properly. Governor Montgomery laid the 
 proposition before the assembly, which promptly ac- 
 cepted it, with a vote of thanks, and assurance that a 
 bill should be passed for the preservation of the volumes 
 when they should arrive. They came, but the assem- 
 bly failed to redeem its promise and no further action 
 in the premises was had. The society did excellent ser- 
 vice, which it is proper to recognize even at this distant 
 day and to admit the claim that, with its ministrations, 
 it has rightful place in the common school succession. 
 Under English rule, the work of the society was con- 
 scientiously prosecuted; certain Dutch schools, with 
 the auspices and conditions indicated, remained in 
 being and licenses were granted to English schools. It 
 is significant that upon a map of the city of New York, 
 made from an actual survey by T. Maerochalcken, in 
 17(33, both the Dutch and English free schools are 
 designated. 
 
 While, therefore, it is true that, with the latitude ^StSi 
 of interpretation as to its quality, which has been sug- ■«* chari- 
 gested, the common school did not become entirely ex- effort 
 tinct, during the century that intervened between the 
 surrender by the Dutch and the evacuation by British 
 troops, it is true that it came near to dissolution. 
 Whatever vitality inhered in it was due either to in- 
 
12 
 
 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Develop- 
 ment in 
 New Eng- 
 land and 
 New York 
 compared 
 
 apiration purely local or to organized charitable effort. 
 If two or three of the earlier royal governors exhibited 
 some interest in it, their successors betrayed none. It 
 was without system or supervision, sporadic instead of 
 general, and lacked conspicuously governmental sanc- 
 tion. Instances, however, occurred in which provincial 
 legislatures, Dutch in their majorities, strove strenu- 
 ously but ineffectually for its promotion as against the 
 prerogative of the executive ; a bill was proposed in the 
 assembly of 1G91 " to appoint a schoolmaster for the 
 educating and instructing of children and youth to 
 read and write English, in every town in the province," 
 which came to naught. A paragraph in a letter of 
 President Johnson of Kings college, to Archbishop 
 Se; kei\ in April 1702. is worth quoting. Eeferring to 
 the illiberality of the New York colonial authorities 
 concerning educational grants he says: " It is a great 
 pity when patents are granted, as they often are. for 
 large tracts of land, no provision is made for religion 
 or schools. I wish therefore, instructions were given to 
 our governors never to grant patents for townships, or 
 villages, or large manors, without obliging the patentees 
 to sequester a competent portion for the subject of reli- 
 gion and education." The wish of the good president 
 was not realized. The English had no elementary school 
 system in England, and their government had no obj< I 
 in constructing one here. The English aristocracy, 
 transplanted to and perpetuated in New York, was at 
 one with royal authority in refusing to favor — indeed, in 
 opposing actively — popular education. In its esteem, 
 education was for the classes, not for the masses. For 
 its rising generations, were fireside homilies, private 
 tutelage and the training schools and universities of 
 England and, from the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, the colonial granimer school and college. 
 
 It is. at this time, in the comparison, that New 
 England becomes the superior of New York in the 
 development of the common school. The Puritans were 
 unlike the English who directed the course of the royal 
 government in New York. They were of the same 
 stamp as the men of Naseby and the Long Parliament. 
 They were independent and democratic. If they were 
 somewhat slow in breaking away from English preced- 
 ent and thus failed in the initiative which the Dutch 
 assumed, their pioneer conditions induced them to the 
 departure, as they also led them to separate from the 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 13 
 
 church of England and to prescribe the Congregational 
 communion. If they first set up the college and the 
 secondary school, they later started the elementary 
 school as the sentiment of the people asserted itself, 
 and the common school once sanctioned was not per- 
 mitted to decay; it was resolutely and consistently 
 maintained. 
 
 Three acts comprehend all that the colonial legis ^g'sfative 
 lature of New York did for education from 1664 to acts of a 
 
 century 
 
 1775; none of these related to the elementary school; 
 two were in behalf of the grammar, or high school, and 
 one was the appropriation to Kings college of certain 
 moneys derived from public lottery and the excise reve- 
 nue. On the 27th of November, 1702, an act for the 
 encouragement of a grammar free school was passed 
 and approved by the governor and council. It provided 
 for the appointment by the governor, on the recom- 
 mendation of the common council of the city, of a 
 schoolmaster who should instruct the male children of 
 French, Dutch and English parents in the English, 
 Latin and Greek tongues, and also in the arts of reading 
 and writing and that he should be paid the sum of £50 
 annually to be raised by taxation for a term of seven 
 years. Under it, Mr. George Morrison, who seems to 
 have been fairly successful in his calling, was commis- 
 sioned and the school expired by limitation of the term. 
 It was not until 1732 that the legislature took further 
 action concerning secondary education. On the 14th of 
 October in that year it passed "an act to encourage a 
 public school in the city of New York for teaching 
 Latin, Greek and mathematics," which was assented to 
 by the governor and was, in several respects, an admir- 
 able measure. It appointed, as master, Alexander Mal- 
 colm, who had already afforded commendable proof of 
 his abilities as a private preceptor, at an annual salary 
 of £40 for a term of seven years, to be paid from the 
 fund accruing from licenses issued to hawkers and ped- 
 dlers and it distributed free scholarships to twenty 
 youths from the various counties, to be named by the 
 respective authorities of each in the following propor- 
 tions : to New York ten, to Albany two, and to 
 Kings, Queens, Suffolk, Richmond, Orange, Ulster and 
 Dutchess each one. The school was in operation eight 
 years, when it was discontinued, and, thereafter, sec- 
 ondary education, throughout the province, depended 
 upon individual benefaction and patronage. The two 
 
14 
 
 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Snmmary 
 prior to 
 the state- 
 hood of 
 New York 
 
 First 
 attention 
 to higher 
 education 
 
 The Re- 
 gents of 
 the Uni- 
 versity 
 
 acts have been cited, as the revelation, among other 
 things, that for a time, at least, the law-making body 
 regarded the high school as a public charge, setting an 
 example, which modern legislation has largely followed ; 
 and the grammar school could not have been considered, 
 as it was in some of the colonies, a mere tender of the 
 college, because it was more than twenty years after 
 the second law was enacted that the college was char- 
 tered. 
 
 The review of education in New York, prior to the 
 revolutionary war. is necessarily fragmentary and im- 
 perfect, if not baffling, owing to the scantiness of the 
 records, but from them the primacy of the Dutch in in- 
 augurating the common school, its continuance by vari- 
 ous expedients, weakening with the passing of the years, 
 the rise and decadence of the public grammar school, 
 the licensing of select and fostering of charity schools 
 and the founding of the college appear with sufficient 
 distinctness to warrant the statement that the line of 
 popular instruction was never entirely broken. With 
 independence and statehood, New York soion became 
 prominent in the onward movement of education and 
 her leadership has since been as pronounced as was the 
 original impulse of the colony from which she sprung. 
 
 As a state, however, she gave her first attention to 
 higher and not to elementary education, according in 
 this respect with the English provincial policy, her 
 statesmen also who were fashioning the commonwealth 
 being mindful of the conception of a university which 
 Diderot and other French philosophers had enunciated 
 in their writings. In response, therefore, to the appeal, 
 which Governor George Clinton addressed to the legis- 
 lature that convened immediately after the close of the 
 revolutionary war; an act was passed, on the first of 
 May, 1784, which vested in a corporation, The Regents 
 of the University of the State of New York, all the 
 rights, privileges, and immunities that had inhered in 
 the governors of Kings college, which had been seriously 
 embarrassed in its conduct and property by the war 
 and the reorganization of which was urgently de- 
 manded. The act also empowered the regents to found 
 schools and colleges in any part of the state and to 
 endow the same. The regents comprised the governor, 
 lieutenant governor, president of the senate, speaker of 
 the assembly, attorney-general, the mayors of New York 
 and Albany, twenty-four persons named from the eleven 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 15 
 
 counties, and others selected by the clergy of the re- 
 spective religious denominations, one from each body. 
 On the 2(Jth of November, 1784, the act was amended by 
 adding to the number of regents thirty-three others 
 specifically named and providing that a quorum for the 
 transaction of business should be nine, including the 
 presiding officer — the chancellor. The board thus con- 
 stituted was a cumbrous body (sixty-four, exclusive of 
 the clerical representatives), was widely scattered and 
 manifestly incompetent to perform its functions as 
 trustees of the college. 
 
 It soon recognized its own deficiencies and the neces- 
 sity for remedial measures. A duly appointed com- 
 mittee, upon which were Alexander Hamilton and Ezra 
 L'Hommedieu, justly accredited as the authors of the 
 university system that has since obtained, presented a 
 report, which the board adopted, in which the defects 
 of the law were clearly set forth and a plan of reorgani- 
 zation was outlined. In this report a pregnant para- 
 graph occurs which shows the appreciation entertained 
 by the board of the obligation of the state to general as 
 well as to higher education. This is its expression: 
 "But before your committee conclude, they feel them- 
 selves bound in faithfulness to add that the erecting of 
 public schools for teaching reading, writing and arith- 
 metic is an object of very great importance, which ought 
 not to be left to the discretion of private men. but be 
 promoted by public authority. Of so much knowledge, 
 no citizen ought to be destitute, and yet it is a reflection, 
 as true as it is painful, that but too many of our youth 
 are brought up in utter ignorance." The main recom- 
 mendations oif the committee were embodied in a bill, 
 which became a law. on the 13th of November, 1787, 
 and has remained substantially unchanged, except as 
 the jurisdiction of the university has, from time to time, 
 been enlarged, partly by force of the original measure 
 and partly by special statutes, its field of work now in- 
 cluding not only academies, colleges, professional and 
 technical schools, but also libraries, museums, study 
 clubs, extension teaching and similar agencies for home 
 education. The law of 1787, repealing the prior acts 
 relating to the university and directing the separate 
 government of Kings, in it styled Columbia, college, cre- 
 ated a body of twenty-one regents, of whom the gover- 
 nor and lieutenant governor, for the time being, were 
 two. In 1842 and 1854 respectively, the secretary of 
 
16 Department of Public Instruction, 
 
 state and the superintendent of public instruction were- 
 made members ex officio, thus increasing the board to 
 twenty-three. The remaining nineteen were named, to 
 serve without compensation, their successors, as resig- 
 nations or deaths should occur, to be elected by and to 
 hold office during the pleasure of the legislature — a life 
 tenure. 
 rowers of The regents were empowered to charter colleges and 
 regents to incorporate academies and to have supervision over 
 the same, being authorized and required to visit and in- 
 spect them, examine into the condition of education 
 and the discipline therein and to make an annual re- 
 port thereof to the legislature. They were to have au- 
 thority to confer degrees above that of master of arts 
 and to apply their estate and funds in such manner as, 
 in their judgment, should be most conducive to the pro- 
 motion of literature and the advancement of useful 
 knowledge. In 1894, they were made a constitutional 
 bi i ly, to be governed and its corporate powers exercised 
 by regents whose number shall not be less than nine. 
 By the legislation of this year, their number has been 
 reduced to eleven, with tenures of eleven years each. 
 The reorganized board is 117 years old, has been com- 
 ponent, of many distinguished, and some illustrious, 
 citizens, has uniformly been well officered, and has dis- 
 charged its duties intelligently and efficiently. It has 
 an honorable history and a wide jurisdiction — a juris- 
 diction, however, which is limited by the sphere of the 
 voluntary principle. It has had no connection with tax- 
 supported education, except as it distributed the income 
 of the literature fund and certain appropriations, by 
 virtue of recent enactment, and visited and inspected 
 high schools and academic departments of union 
 schools. This exception, which was an anomaly, oc- 
 curred by the resolution of these from the academies 
 and by implication to those originally of public found- 
 ation; but it has been set aside and supervision 
 over tax-supported secondary education vested in 
 the Commissioner of Education to whom it properly 
 belongs. 
 (ioTemor The first official utterance in favor of common schools 
 cun'on the iu t nis state — that of the committee of the regents in 
 tne n c d om-° f 1787 — ^as keen heretofore quoted. The regents re- 
 inon school newed their recommendation to this effect in their 
 state 1 " * e several reports to the legislature in 1793, 1794 and 1795. 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS VDMINISTRATION 17 
 
 But it was the behest of Governor George Clinton, 
 more than any other persuasion, that induced the legis- 
 lature to lay the foundations of the common school 
 in this commonwealth. George Clinton, soldier of the 
 revolution, statesman of the republic and the first, and 
 for over twenty years, chief magistrate of the state of 
 New York, had a keen appreciation of all that enured 
 to its upbuilding. He was solicitous for its inter- 
 ests and jealous of any invasion of its rights. His 
 sturdy opposition to the ratification by New York of 
 the federal constitution, because he believed that by it 
 the state surrendered to the general government rights 
 which it should have reserved unto itself, is explicable 
 by his zeal in its behalf, his devotion to its autonomy, 
 its welfare and its glory; and he certainly regarded 
 the education of its youth as essential to these ends. 
 It was at his suggestion that the University was in- 
 corporated, as also that, in 1789, two lots, in each town- 
 ship, of the public land thereafter to be surveyed was 
 set apart for gospel and school purposes : and, in his 
 annual message of 1795, are these memorable words: 
 " While it is evident that the general establishment 
 and liberal endowments of academies are highly to be 
 commended, and are attended with the most beneficial 
 consequences, yet, it cannot be denied that they are 
 principally confined to the children of the opulent, and 
 that a great portion of the community is excluded from 
 their immediate advantage. The establishment of com- 
 mon schools throughout the state is happily calculated 
 to remedy this inconvenience, and will, therefore, en- 
 gage your early and decided consideration." In con- 
 formity with this injunction, " an act for the encour- The first 
 agement of schools" in that year provided that **1 islatlve 
 £20,000 should be annually appropriated for five 
 years "for the purpose of encouraging and maintain- 
 ing schools in the several cities and towns in this state, 
 in which the children of the inhabitants residing in 
 the state shall be instructed in the English language, 
 or be taught English grammar, arithmetic, mathematics 
 and such other branches of knowledge as are most 
 useful and necessary to complete a good English edu- 
 cation." The act regulated the quota by counties but, 
 beyond this, the apportionment was made on the basis 
 of the taxable inhabitants, and the supervisors of the 
 counties were required to raise by tax in each town a 
 sum equal to half of that received from the state. 
 
 2 
 
1& Dbpartmknt op Public Instruction 
 
 Provision was made for the supervision of the schools 
 and for annual reports. Returns from sixteen out of 
 the twenty-three counties, for the year 1798, show that 
 1,352 schools were then organized in which 59,660 
 children were taught. The law expired by its own limi- 
 tation in 1800. In 1801 an enactment for the raising 
 by lotteries of the sum of $100,000 was made. $12,500 
 thereof were to be paid to the regents, by them to 
 be distributed to the academies and the remaining 
 $87,500 were to be deposited in the treasury, to be 
 disposed of for the benefit of the common schools in 
 such manner as the legislature should determine. The 
 comptroller was directed subsequently to invest the pro- 
 ceeds in real estate. The principal responsibility for 
 this act and for certain laudable attempts at educa- 
 tional legislation, during the next few years, is ascribed 
 to Jedediah Peck and Adam Comstock, who served 
 together for an extended period in the assembly and 
 senate and who were not liberally educated men, but 
 notably sagacious, diligent and patriotic. The lot- 
 teries, w T hich now seem an exceedingly objectionable 
 device for advancing the cause, for which they were 
 utilized, but which public sentiment then approved, 
 were known as " literature lotteries " and existed until 
 1821 when, by the constitution, all lotteries w r ere pro- 
 hibited. 
 Land* de- Nothing further was accomplished, although Gov- 
 ■chooi »ur- ornors Jay, Clinton and Lewis successfully recoin- 
 po " e * mended action, until 1805, when the Legislature 
 
 ordained that 500,000 acres of the vacant and unappro- 
 priated lands of the state should be sold and the avails 
 made a permanent school fund, when the interest 
 thereon should amount to $50,000. In 1811, Governor 
 Tompkins again called attention to the subject, and 
 he w r as authorized to appoint five commissioners to 
 report a plan for the organization and establishment 
 of common schools. He named, as such commissioners, 
 Jedediah Peck, John Murray, jr., Samuel Russell, 
 Roger Skinner and Samuel Macomb, who, on the 14th 
 of February, 1812, submitted a report, accompanied by 
 the draft of a bill, which in the law adopted during 
 the legislative session of that year became one of the 
 most momentous steps ever taken in educational prog- 
 ress, here or elsewhere. 
 
 The outlines of the plan, as sketched by the com- 
 missioners, were these : " That the several towns in*tbe 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 19 
 
 state be divided into school districts, by three com* 
 missioners, elected by the citizens qualified to vote for 
 town officers; that three trustees be elected in each 
 district, to whom shall be confided the care and super- 
 intendence of the school to be established therein; that 
 the interest of the school fund be divided among the 
 different counties and towns, according to their respec- 
 tive population, as ascertained by the successive cen- 
 suses of the United States; that the proportions re- 
 ceived by the respective towns be subdivided among 
 the districts into which such towns shall be divided, 
 according to the number of children in each, between 
 the ages of five and fifteen years ; that each town raise 
 by tax annually as much money as it shall have re- 
 ceived from the school funds; that the gross amount 
 of monejs received from the state and raised by the 
 towns be appropriated exclusively to the payment of 
 the wages of the teachers; and that the whole system 
 be placed under the superintendence of an officer ap- 
 pointed by the Council of Appointment." 
 
 It is from this last mentioned article that New York The second 
 
 ■••i t • ednca- 
 
 derives her second educational primacy, in a state sys- tionai pri- 
 tem with a single responsible head. Its wisdom has been jJ , e a ^ y Yoru 
 vindicated by the experience of ninety years, and her 
 leading therein has been followed by every state in the 
 union. In some other respects, the commissioners ad- 
 mit that from the common school systems of neighbor- 
 ing states they had gathered much important informa- 
 tion, but in this respect they learned nothing from 
 others. They created. One section of the law, that 
 which made it optional with a town to comply with, or 
 to forego the advantages and avoid the burdens of the 
 act, was soon seen to need modification ; and, in the 
 second year of its operation, it was, upon the suggestion 
 of the superintendent, made obligatory. The adminis- 
 tration of the new svstem was confided to Gideon Haw- The admin. 
 
 • i istration 
 
 ley, as superintendent of common schools, who proved of Gideon 
 to be admirably adapted to his work. He had a genius HaTFley 
 for organization, was broad-minded and of quick sym- 
 pathies, patient in matters of detail and of shining in- 
 tegrity of character. He was to New York, what 
 Horace Mann was to Massachusetts and Henry Barnard 
 was to Connecticut, both an inspirer and a guide. He 
 was. as he has often been called, the father of the com- 
 mon school system in the state. Born in Huntington, 
 Connecticut, September 26, 1785, he became, when nine 
 
L!0 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 years old, a resident of Saratoga county. He was gradu- 
 ated from Union college in 1809, studied law and was 
 practicing in Albany, when on the 14th of January, 
 1813, he was elected superintendent. He retained office 
 until February 22, 1821, meanwhile having been ap- 
 pointed secretary of the regents, March 25, 1814, and 
 continuing as such until 1841. In 1842 he was made a 
 regent and served in that capacity until his death in 
 Albany, July 17, 1870, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. 
 Xo man has had a longer association, a more intimate 
 acquaintance with, nor a deeper and more salutary in- 
 fluence upon, our educational affairs than he. His name 
 deserves to be held in lasting remembrance. Xo state- 
 ment of the achievements of his administration could be 
 more perspicuous than that which he modestly ascribes 
 to the inherent quality of the system itself, in his sixth 
 annual report, in 1819, where he says: '"The same data 
 also afford evidence that common schools have risen in 
 public estimation, and received a degree of care and at- 
 tention to their concerns, corresponding with their in- 
 crease and prosperity. If these results were the only 
 evidence of a beneficial operation in the system of com- 
 mon schools provided by law, they would be sufficient 
 to establish the public confidence in the policy of thai 
 system, and to secure it a permanent duration. But it 
 is well known, although it does not appear from any 
 data in the returns, that the system has produced other 
 results noit less in magnitude or merit. It has secured 
 our schools against the admission of unqualified 
 teachers, by requiring them to submit to examination 
 before a public board of inspectors, and to obtain from 
 them a certificate of approbation, before they can 
 legally be employed. It has imparted to common 
 schools a new and more respectable character by making 
 them a subject of legal notice, and investing them with 
 powers to regulate their own concerns. It has corrected 
 many evils in the discipline and government of schools, 
 not only by excluding unqualified teachers, but by sub- 
 jecting the schools and course of studies in them to the 
 frequent inspection of public officers. It has founded 
 schools in places where, by conflicting interests or warn 
 of concert in the inhabitants, none had been before es- 
 tablished; and, it has. by its pecuniary aid, enabled 
 many indigent children to receive the benefits of educa- 
 tion which would not otherwise have been within their 
 reach." In 1821, when Superintendent Hawley retired. 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 21 
 
 there were 6,323 organized school districts, from 5,489 
 of which reports had been made, showing that 317,633 
 children had been under instruction during that year, 
 that the public bounty was sufficient to defray the ex- 
 penses of the schools, for about three months in each 
 year and that in most of the districts poor children 
 were enabled to attend school free of charge. It is in- 
 teresting to note that the unification of the educational 
 systems of the state was practically, if not nominally, 
 accomplished under Mr. Hawley, from the fact that he 
 was for seven years both superintendent of common 
 schools and secretary of the board of regents. 
 
 In 1805, an educational work was begun in the city sSfoor^si- 
 of New York and continued until 1853, to which, jg^Vork 
 although it did not come within the specific direction city 
 of the educational department of the state, reference 
 is here pertinent, because of the standing of the men 
 enlisted in it, the zeal with which it was prosecuted, 
 the good it wrought, and, more than all, the earnest 
 and even bitter controversy it inspired and the princi- 
 ple which the issue of that controversy confirmed. On 
 the 19th of February, 1805, twelve prominent citizens 
 of New York, impressed with the conviction that no 
 opportunity was afforded for the education of children, 
 outside the charitable and denominational schools, met 
 at the house of John Murray in Pearl street and ap- 
 pointed a committee to devise a plan of relief. The 
 report of the committee, sustained by hundreds of 
 signatures to a petition to the legislature, resulted in 
 a law of the same year entitled "An act to incorporate 
 the society instituted in the city of New York for the 
 establishment of a free school for the education of 
 poor children who do not belong 1<>. or are not pro- 
 vided for, by any religious society.'' Its income was 
 restricted to |10,000 and the annual membership fee 
 was fixed at eight dollars, but members contributing 
 $25 were privileged to send one and those contribut- 
 ing $ 40 two children to any school under its care. The 
 number of trustees was thirteen, increased from time 
 to time until it reached LOO. In all 434 persons served 
 in this capacity. l>e\Yi11 Clinton was the first presi- 
 dent continuing as such until his death in 1828. In 
 1808, the name was changed i<> I he Free School 
 Society of New York, and its scope enlarged " to all 
 children who are the proper subjects of a gratuitous 
 education.'' In 1826, the corporation was styled " The 
 
22 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Public School Society of New York " and the trustees 
 were authorized to provide for the education of all 
 children in the city of New York not otherwise pro- 
 vided for "whether such children be or be not the proper 
 objects of gratuitous education, and without regard to 
 the religious sect or denomination to which such 
 children or their parents may belong ; " and to require 
 from those attending the schools a moderate compensa- 
 tion ; but no child to be refused admission on account 
 of inability to pay. The pay system was, however, 
 abolished in 1832. At the outset subscriptions were 
 obtained and on the 19th day of May, 1806, the first 
 school was opened. In 1807 an appropriation of $1,000 
 was made by the legislature toward erecting a house 
 and $1,000 were directed to be paid annually for defray- 
 ing the expenses of the school. The city also gave a 
 building and $500 for repairing it, on condition that 
 the society should teach fifty almshouse children. 
 State and municipal aid thus began ; grant succeeded 
 grant; and the schools became public to all intents and 
 purposes, although under the control of a private cor- 
 poration. In 1813 the legislature ordained that that 
 portion of the school moneys apportioned to and raised 
 in the city of New York should be distributed " to the 
 trustees of the Free School Society, the Orphan Asylum 
 Society, the African Free School and the trustees of 
 such incorporated religious societies in said city as now 
 support, or hereafter shall establish, charity schools 
 within the said city, who may apply for the same." The 
 distribution was to be limited strictly to the payment 
 of teachers' wages. In 1824 the common council was 
 authorized to designate the societies and schools which 
 should receive the school moneys, and thereafter nearly 
 nine-tenths of the amount thereof was dispensed to and 
 expended by the Public School Society which, at the 
 time, had six schools, with an attendance of over 5,000 
 pupils. 
 The de- In the initial appeal of that society for means with 
 
 the «ie- which to prosecute its work, it was stated that it would 
 «onai a " be " a primary object, without observing the peculiar 
 ■chooia forms of any religious society, to inculcate the divine 
 truths of religion and morality contained in the Holy 
 Scriptures," and the reading of the King James version 
 of the Bible and lessons thence drawn were prescribed 
 In the curriculum. By many, this was construed as 
 rendering the schools denominational and the demand, 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 28 
 
 as a claim in equity, for a portion of the school moneys 
 was pressed by pronounced sectarian schools and the 
 objection was also urged that it was undemocratic and 
 inimical to the spirit of our free institutions that a 
 private corporation should have the management of 
 schools sustained almost wholly by appropriations from 
 the public treasury. The agitation thus engendered 
 waxed fast and furious for many years, extending 
 beyond the metropolis through the state, eliciting in 
 behalf of the distribution of school moneys among the 
 sects the voice of Archbishop Hughes and the pen of 
 McMaster of the Freeman's Journal and the mes- 
 sages of Governor Seward, and against it the speeches 
 of Theodore Sedgwick, Hiram Ketchum, Gardiner 
 Spring and other distinguished protagonists of the 
 Public Society in its favor, while John C. Spencer, secre- 
 tary of state, wrote a notable weighty and luminous 
 report against the policy of an educational system in 
 the hands of a private corporation, rather than in those 
 of the people, describing it as foreign to the feelings, 
 habits and usages of our citizens, and proposing the 
 organization of a board, by the popular suffrage, that 
 should have charge of all school interests, the public 
 moneys to be paid to and by it disbursed. 
 
 The result was the passage of a law on the 9th of Yoru" *Tty 
 April, 1842, entitled "An act to extend to the city and {^u«itto H 
 county of New York the provisions of the general act 
 in relation to common schools." It provided for the 
 election of commissioners, inspectors and trustees by 
 wards, the resolution of the commissioners into the 
 board of education, the raising by general tax of funds 
 for the maintenance of the schools, the placing of the 
 Public School Society and several charitable educa- 
 tional institutions under the jurisdiction of the board, 
 they to be classed, in the distribution of school moneys, 
 as district schools of the city, and it was ordained 
 that no school in which any sectarian doctrine or tenet 
 was taught or practiced should receive any part of the 
 school moneys. Eleven years later the Public School 
 Society surrendered to the Board of Education all its 
 property, real and personal, valued at $454,421.85, in- 
 cluding seventy-eight schools, and with the introduc- 
 tion into that board of fifteen commissioners of its 
 selection, its efficient, and, in many respects, commend- 
 able and honorable service of forty-eight years ended. 
 
24 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 The secre- when Gideon Hawley was retired, he had laid 
 sfate °be- broadly and deeply the foundations of a symmetrical 
 perintend- educational structure; had secured ju . n • 
 
 common ments to the educational statutes ; b 
 schools stantially shaped the codification of 1819, which u 
 
 no essential changes in the machinery of the school.-. 
 and had accompanied its publication with an exposi- 
 tion of its provisions and forms for proceedings 
 under it; had seen the proportion of children 
 attending school increase from 4-5 to 24-25 of 
 those of school age; the average time the schools 
 were kept open lengthen in about the same ratio, 
 and the principal of the common school fund appreci- 
 ate from $822,064.74 to $1,185,641.98. Welcome E 
 was appointed successor to Mr. Hawley. but his term 
 w T as brief. Within less than throe months, the super- 
 intendency, as a separate department of the govern- 
 ment was abolished and its duties were relegated to the 
 secretary of state, who was elected for a term of three 
 years by joint ballot of the senate and assembly. John 
 tration^of VanXess Yates was the first incumbent. Coincident 
 Ness' Ya a t"s with the new order, was the article in the constitution 
 to the effect that all lands thereafter sold should con- 
 stitute a perpetual fund, the interest of which should 
 be inviolably appropriated and applied to the sn 
 of the common schools throu state — a solemn 
 
 pledge in the organic low which, renewed in 1846 and 
 1894, has been observed faithfully. In 1S22, the secre- 
 tary was invested with appellate jurisdiction over all 
 controversies arising under the school laws and his 
 decision thereon made final, a power which since uni- 
 formly inhering in the head of the school department 
 has been of signal advantage to its coherence, efficiency 
 and authority and has relieved the courts of litiga- 
 tion much of which would have been annoying and 
 burdensome. On the 12th of January, 1825, Mr. Yates 
 transmitted his last annual report to the legislature, 
 from which it appears that 402,940 children had been 
 taught, for an average period of nine months, during 
 the preceding year, the number of districts was 7,<>42 
 from 6,936 of which reports had been received, and the 
 aggregate amount of teachers' wages in the reporting 
 districts was $182,741.61. 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION - 
 
 Azariah C. Flagg was appointed secretary of state f r * 1 t n i *," ,s „"f 
 February 14, 1826, and served until February 1, 1833. Azariah c 
 The annual message of Governor DeWitt Clinton, in 
 1826, was remarkable for its intelligent discussion of 
 educational subjects and its liberal recommendations 
 in behalf of the common schools, and especially in that 
 it proposed a seminary for the preparation of teachers 
 and state visitation of the schools, which was reiterated 
 in 1827 and 1828, both of which, subsequently embraced 
 in our educational system, have been among its most 
 effective agencies for good. The message of the gover- 
 nor elicited from the literature committee of the senate 
 a report, of which John C. Spencer was the author, that 
 urged the adoption of the scheme of county supervision, 
 inspection and licensing of teachers, but concluded that, 
 for the time being, owing to economical considerations, 
 the colleges and academies must suffice as nurseries of 
 teachers, advising, however, that the income of the 
 literature fund should be divided among these, by the 
 regents, in proportion to the number of scholars pursu- 
 ing English, as well as that of those engaged in classi- 
 cal studies; and the committee was unable to discover 
 why, upon principles of justice and public policy, insti- 
 tutions for females should not participate equally with 
 those for males in the public bounty. In 1S27, Mr. 
 Spencer made a second report of similar tenor to the 
 first, and framed a bill, which became a law, entitled 
 "An act to provide permanent funds for the annual ap- 
 
 ool and 
 rature 
 
 ture fund, and to promote the education of teachers," "^Ji* 
 which, after transferring certain state moneys to the 
 common school and literature funds respectively, di- 
 rected that the income of the latter should be dis- 
 tributed among the incorporated academies and semi- 
 naries, other than colleges, subject to the visitation of 
 the regents, in proportion to the number of pupils in- 
 structed in each academy or seminary for six months 
 during the preceding year, who shall have pursued 
 either classical studies, or the higher branches of Eng- 
 lish education, or both. 
 
 Secretary Flagg advocated consistently the founding The i>e S -i»- 
 of distinct institutions for the instruction of teachers, normal 
 In his report of 1830, he alludes approvingly to a aclxoal 
 memorial presented to the legislature at its preceding 
 session, from a committee of the citizens of Rochester, 
 asking for the establishment of a state seminary for 
 
•JG Department of Public Instruction 
 
 teachers and a central school in each town. The de- 
 mand for such a seminary had already become pro- 
 nounced in several northern states. So early as 1789, it 
 had been intimated in an essay in the Massachusetts 
 Magazine. Professor Denison Olmstead, of Yale col- 
 lege, in an address at New Haven, in 1816, had advo- 
 cated it eloquently. Professor Kingsley, of Yale college, 
 favored it in an article in the Xorth American Review 
 in 1828. James G. Carter, who is called the " father of 
 the normal schools" in the United States, described its 
 principal features in a series of papers in the Boston 
 Patriot in 1825; it was emphasized by the Rev. Thomas 
 H. Gallaudet in 1825, and, in the same year, Walter R. 
 Johnson, of Germantown, Pa., issued a pamphlet, philo- 
 sophical in its affirmance of the proposition, that at- 
 tracted wide assent from educators, while, in 1833, 
 President Junkin, of Lafayette, and President Golton, 
 of Bristol college, pressed it upon the Pennsylvania 
 legislature. In 183G Professor Calvin E. Stowe, at the 
 request of the legislature of Ohio, visited the Prussian 
 normal schools and, in his report to that body, advised 
 it to incorporate similar schools — a report which was 
 republished by order of the legislatures of Massachu- 
 setts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, and North 
 Carolina respectively. Honor to whom honor is due. If 
 Massachusetts, impelled by the enthusiasm of Horace 
 Mann, did erect, in 1839, the first normal school in the 
 country, neither the thought of DeWitt Clinton, in 1826, ) 
 nor the plea of Azariah C. Flagg, in 1830, should be for- 
 gotten. When Secretary Flagg left his office, in 1833, to 
 become comptroller, the number of districts was 9,600 
 and of children taught therein 491,459, being an in- 
 crease of 195S and 91,519 respectively over those last re- 
 ported by Secretary Yates. The amount of public 
 money expended for payment of teachers' wages had 
 risen* to $305,572.78 of which $100,000 came from the 
 common school fund. 
 A.iminis- John A. Dix, who filled many state and national posi- 
 joni"^.. tions, including those of United States senator, secre- 
 tary of the treasury, minister to France, governor and 
 major-general during the civil war, with eminent credit 
 and usefulness, was appointed secretary of state Febru- 
 ary 1, 1833, and served until February 4, 1839. As such, 
 not less than in his other public capacities, he displayed 
 his civic worth. He was loyal to the cause of education 
 and, under him, school affairs were prudently and 
 
 Dix 
 
A REVTEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 27 
 
 wisely ordered, salutary reforms were accomplished and 
 decided progress was made. In 1835, the foundations 
 of the district school library were laid by an act au- 
 thorizing the taxable inhabitants of the several school 
 districts to levy a tax, not exceeding twenty dollars for 
 the first year and ten dollars for each succeeding year, 
 "for the purchase of a district library, consisting of 
 such books as they shall in their district meeting 
 direct." 
 
 The first step taken by New York for the profes j£SS 
 sional education of teachers was the Act of May 2, ™% n J; ci j£. 
 1834. This act provided for a "normal department" in emie. 
 one academy, in each of the eight judicial districts, ap- 
 propriating to each $500 for the purchase of apparatus, 
 maps, charts and globes, and $400 annually for teachers. 
 Each of these schools was to have a local "board of visi- 
 tors" who were to report the results of their inspection 
 to the secretary of state. 
 
 Secretary Dix was not in accord with the effort in 
 behalf of seminaries exclusively for teachers and, on the 
 5th of January. 183G, as chairman of the committee of 
 the regents to prepare a. plan for the better education 
 of teachers, held that the organization of a teachers' 
 department in one academy in each of the eight sena- 
 torial districts would supply the existing need, and that 
 each such academy should receive annually from the 
 literature fund $400 to that end. His report was 
 adopted and the academies were designated by the re- 
 gents. 
 
 On the 0th of May of the same year, Prosper M. ft • r "*"" 1 " 
 Wetmore, chairman of the literature committee of unification 
 the assembly, and then and for many years there- 
 after a regent of the university, made to the assembly 
 an exhaustive report in favor of the establishment 
 of a separate "Department of Public Instruction" 
 in charge of an officer to be known as "Secretary of 
 Public Instruction," who should possess all the func- 
 tions of the Superintendent of Common Schools and 
 also be ex officio Chancellor of the University, with the 
 colleges and academies, as well as common schools, sub- 
 ject to his visitation. Nothing practical came of this 
 program of unification, but it may not be, even at this 
 day, unworthy of consideration. In his annual message 
 for 1837, Governor Marey recommended the transfer of 
 the general superintendence and supervision of the 
 academies frorn the regents to the secretary of state, as 
 
28 Department of I'jjijuc Instruction 
 
 superintendent. No legislative action was had upon 
 this proposition, but it is in evidence as the revelation 
 that one of the ablest statesmen and executives that 
 New York has produced believed that the conduct of 
 secondary education inheres properly in the superin- 
 tendent of public instruction rather than in the regents. 
 The governor in his message, a year later, maintained 
 that the designated academies were inadequate to sup- 
 ply the needed teachers and suggested the institution of 
 county normal schools. In 1838, the sum of $100,000 
 was added, from the revenue of the United States de- 
 posit fund, to that of the common school fund, making 
 a total of f275,000 of which $55,000 was set apart for 
 the purchase of books annually for district libraries 
 and the remainder for teachers' wages. An equal 
 amount was also to be levied upon the people for the 
 same purpose. In his last annual report, in 1839, the 
 secretary stated that there were 10,583 organized school 
 districts and 528.913 children were taught therein — an 
 increase of 983 and 31.051 respectively during his 
 tenure. The amount paid for teachers' wages had 
 reached $335,882.92. 
 Atiminis- Another of the great men of New York, John C. 
 jo^mVc. Spencer, who served the commonwealth in both 
 spencer branches of the legislature and the nation in the house 
 of representatives and in two seats in the cabinet, suc- 
 ceeded John A. Dix as secretary, in 1839, and remained 
 until October 12, 1811, when, upon his becoming secre- 
 tary of war, the duties of superintendent devolved upon 
 the General Deputy, Samuel S. Randall, who discharged 
 them until February 7, 1S12. Mr. Spencer was a man of 
 acute intellect and disciplined faculties, exact in 
 thought and vigorous in expression, tenacious of his 
 views, and his administration was marked not less by 
 the discussion of policies than by real reforms effected. 
 As already indicated, he was deeply interested in the 
 determination of the management of and appropria- 
 tions for schools in New York city and was strenuously 
 opposed to the introduction of normal schools, but as 
 strenuously urged the increase of the number of acade- 
 mies in which teachers should be instructed. 
 county an- i n 1S40 the "board of visitors" at Mount Morris, in 
 ents their report, recommended a "state seminary devoted 
 
 exclusively to the training of teachers." By an ordi- 
 nance of the regents, of the 4th of May, 1811, apportion- 
 ments were made to two academies in each senatorial 
 
A i;i:yii:\y of its administration 20 
 
 district, and, in addition, seven oilier academies were 
 given $700 each from the literature fund for that pur- 
 pose. On the 26th of May, the legislature passed an act, 
 drafted by Mr. Spencer, providing for the appointment, 
 biennially, by each board of supervisors, of a superin- 
 tendent charged, as the title implies, with general cure 
 of the schools within his county and the hearing of ap- 
 peals. This office, the propriety of which was in issue 
 from first to last, existed less than seven years, being 
 abolished on the 13th of November, 1847. It had its 
 ardent champions, as it still has, being sanctioned in 
 several states, and its severe critics who constantly 
 labored for its overthrow. By its friends, it was re- 
 garded as a necessary link between the town and dis- 
 trict officials and the state bureau, as relieving the 
 latter of much of petty details and trivial disputes, and 
 as promoting the unity of the school system and an 
 esprit de corps among its servants. Its foes objected to 
 the method of appointment, by boards of supervisors not 
 conversant with school mailers and more or less actu- 
 ated in their choice by political motives and expedien- 
 cies, and they also exaggerated the pecuniary burden 
 imposed upon the localities which were constrained to 
 pay one-half of the salary of the county superintendent. 
 Continual assaults finally prevailed against it, notwith- 
 standing the adherence to it of the state department and 
 a large majority of prominent educators. Upon the 
 whole, it worked well, especially as an intermediary be- 
 tween the town commissioners and the secretary, and, 
 save in rare cases, it did not lack faithful and enlight- 
 ened administration. On the 5th of January, 1842, 
 Vcting Superintendent Randall transmitted to the legis- 
 lature his annual report, from which it appears that, 
 exclusive of the city of New York, 603,583 children Avere 
 taught in 10,886 districts reporting, an increase of 303 
 and 74,670 respectively since the retirement of Secre- 
 tary Dix. The amount received from the state by the 
 schools, including the revenue from the United States 
 deposit fund was $65S,954.70. 
 
 Samuel Young became secretary of state and head Adminis- 
 of the common school system, February 7, 1842. Dm- sVnmJi ° 
 ing a long political career, he held many offices of dig Youns 
 nity and trust — judge of Saratoga county, delegate to 
 the constitutional convention of 1821, assemblyman 
 three years and speaker one, canal commissioner, regent 
 of the university from 1817 until 1825, and state sen- 
 
SO Dotaktmbnt of Public Instruction 
 
 ator for twelve years. He was also an unsuccessful 
 candidate for governor, by a narrow margin of votes, 
 against DeWitt Clinton in 1S24. He was not, when 
 chosen secretary, regarded as especially well versed in 
 common srhool matters, but he brought to their con- 
 sideration habits of close investigation, eminent clarity 
 and rectitude of judgment, and an earnest resolution 
 to guard and advance their interests. No reports of 
 any superintendent are characterized by a more lucid 
 perception of educational needs, a more catholic recep- 
 tion of new ideas, in several instances reversing his pre- 
 conceived notions, a more intimate acquaintance with 
 the details of management, or a more candid and forc- 
 ible style of presenting his conclusions ; and the normal 
 school and teachers' institute are greatly indebted to 
 him — the one for its establishment and the other for the 
 encouragement given to its inception. The persuasive 
 impetus to the being of the normal school in this state 
 seems to have emanated from a convention of county 
 superintendents at Utica, in 1842, before which the Rev. 
 Alonzo Potter, D.D., then professor of mathematics in 
 Union college and later the Protestant Episcopal 
 bishop of Pennsylvania, Horace Mann and others 
 advocated the project and the convention, by resolu- 
 tion, approved it cordially. At a like convention, the 
 ensuing year, similar indorsement was made. Secre- 
 tary Young, in his report in 1843, declared that the 
 teachers' departments in the academies were not ful- 
 filling their design " because the bounty of the state 
 was diffused over too wide a surface, and recommended 
 their reduction to four and the appropriation of a sum 
 sufficient to establish and maintain a normal school 
 at the state capital." 
 The Hui- In 1844, decisive action was had. The Honorable 
 
 port Jn" Calvin T. Hulburd, chairman of the assembly coin- 
 ■eiloou mittee on colleges, academies and common schools, who 
 had visited the several normal schools of Massachusetts 
 and had familiarized himself with their methods and 
 had also collected statistics concerning the operation of 
 such schools in Prussia and other European countries, 
 made, on the 22d of March, an exhaustive report upon 
 the subject, which remains a monument of patient 
 labor, valuable information and sagacious direction. 
 Few educational papers have excelled it, either in the 
 knowledge it imparts, or the worth of its counsel. It 
 is still frequently referred to. The following passage 
 
A BBVIBW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION il 
 
 will bear quoting, especially as emphasizing the pre- 
 scient spirit that informs it throughout : " It will be 
 noticed that the committee speak of the establishment 
 of one normal school : Did our present means seem to 
 warrant it, the committee would, with confidence, 
 recommend the immediate establishment of at least one 
 in each of the eight senatorial districts. If one is now 
 established, and that is properly endowed and organ- 
 ized, there cannot be a doubt that not only one will 
 be called for in each of the eight senatorial districts, 
 but in a brief period very many of the large counties 
 will insist upon having one established within their 
 limits. The establishment of one is but an experi- 
 ment — if that can be called an experiment, which for 
 more than a century has been in operation, without 
 a known failure, which, if successful, will lead the way 
 for several others. * * * The committee believe 
 the experiment should be tried at the capital; if it can- 
 not be tested in the presence of all the people, it should 
 be before all the representatives of the people. As a 
 government measure, it is untried in this state; the 
 result, therefore, will be of deep interest. Here at each 
 annual session of the legislature, can be seen for what 
 and how the public money is expended ; here can be 
 seen the exhibition of the pupils of the seminary and 
 the model school; here, if unsuccessful, no report of 
 interested officials can cover up its failures, or prevent 
 the abandonment of the experiment ; here citizens from 
 all parts of the state, who resort to the capital during 
 the session of the legislature, the terms of the courts, 
 etc., can have an opportunity of examining the work- 
 ings of the normal school system; of learning the best 
 method of teaching, and all the improvements in the 
 science and practice of the art; those ^vho, in the spring 
 and autumn, pass through the city, and to and from 
 the great metropolis, and those who from all parts of 
 the union make their annual pilgrimage to the fountain 
 of health, will pause here to see what the Empire state 
 is doing to promote the education of her people." 
 
 With the report, Mr. Hulburd introduced a bill which. The Albany 
 earnestly supported by Michael Hoffman and other s<Th™i ana 
 influential legislators, became a law, by which the sum Collejce 
 of |9,000 was appropriated for the first year and $10,000 
 annually for five years thereafter, for the establish- 
 ment and support of a normal school at Albany, 
 under the joint supervision of the superintendent of 
 
32 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 the common schools and the regents of the university, 
 who were required to apportion the pupils from the 
 several counties, according to population, and to ap- 
 point an executive committee of five persons, one of 
 whom should be the superintendent of common schools, 
 and who has uniformly been the chairman, in whose 
 hands the immediate government of the institution was 
 placed. The first committee thus authorized was espe- 
 cially titled to plan the work. It consisted' of Samuel 
 Young, Alonzo Potter, the Rev. William H. Campbell, 
 afterward president of Rutgers college, Gideon Hawley, 
 then secretary of the regents and Francis D wight, 
 admitted. Tuition was free, a small weekly sum was 
 allowed for board, and textbooks were furnished by 
 the state. To equalize the privileges transportation 
 charges were also paid. The school continued for 
 nearly fifty years, along the lines originally laid down 
 and largely in conformity with the Massachusets sys- 
 tem — English, classical and scientific courses, together 
 with psychology, pedagogy, the history of education, 
 methodology, school ecouumy, observation of model les- 
 sons and practice in actual teaching. It had a remark- 
 able succession of able and magnetic principals. — David 
 P. Page, George R. Perkins, Samuel B. Woolworth, 
 David H. Cochran, Oliver Arey, Joseph Alden and 
 Edward P. Waterbury. During these years, nearly 
 3,800 students were graduated, two-thirds being women 
 and one-third men, a very large majority of whom 
 engaged in teaching, for longer or shorter periods, many 
 making it their life-work. On the 29th of October 1S89, 
 William J. Milne, LL.D., who had been, for eighteen 
 years, at the head of the Geneseo normal school was 
 called to the Albany school and accepted with the 
 understanding that it should be made a normal college 
 - — a purely professional institution. On the 13th of 
 March, 1890, it was so chartered by the regents with the 
 power to confer the degrees of bachelor, master and 
 doctor of pedagogy, its corporate name being the New 
 York State Normal College. Doctor Milne was ap- 
 pointed president and so remains. Besides the college, 
 there are now eleven normal schools, their location and 
 dates of foundation being as follows: Oswego, 1863; 
 Cortland, 1866; Fredonia, 1S66; Potsdam, 1866; Gen- 
 eseo, 1867; Brockport, 1867; Buffalo, 1867; New Pakz. 
 1SS5; Oneonta, 1887; Plattsburg, 1890; Jamaica, 1897. 
 
A REVIEW OP ITS ADMINISTRATION 33 
 
 It was during Secretary Young's incumbency that ^f^J 1 *^ 
 teachers' institutes which, for sixty years, have been started 
 a vitalizing influence in inspiring and exalting the 
 teaching profession had conception. Their origin is 
 traced to a resolution, offered before the teachers' asso- 
 ciation of Tompkins county in 1843 by Jacob S. Den- 
 man its superintendent, and by it adopted, to the effect 
 that a county institute should be held in the spring 
 and fall of each year for receiving lessons from efficient 
 instructors, in hearing lectures from scientific men, and 
 in discussing plans for the improvement of the schools. 
 The first institute was opened in Ithaca, on the 4th 
 of April, 1S43, and continued for two weeks, under 
 the direction of Mr. Dennian, in listening to Salem 
 Town, who afterwards became a veritable missionary 
 in his educational labors, and others as instructors and 
 lecturers. The institute, which soon became popular 
 throughout the state, was, at first, a sincere, if inade- 
 quate, effort to supply the lack of normal schools and 
 was wholly voluntary as to attendance, the expenses 
 being born by the teachers themselves. In his report 
 of 1845 the secretary observes: " In no less than seven- 
 teen of the largest counties, teachers' institutes have 
 been established during the past two years, in which 
 upwards of 1,000 teachers have been instructed during 
 periods varing from two to six or eight weeks, imme- 
 diately preceding the commencement of their respec- 
 tive terms of instruct ion, by the most competent and 
 experienced educators whose services could be procured, 
 in conjunction with the county superintendent. The 
 course of instruction consists generally of a critical 
 and thorough review of all the elementary branches 
 required to be taught in the common schools, full 
 expositions and illustrations of the most approved 
 methods of communicating knowledge to the young, and 
 of the proper government and discipline of schools, 
 and a mutual interchange of views and opinions among 
 the teachers, instructors and superintendent. Among 
 the numerous improvements which the experience of 
 past imperfections has introduced into the practical 
 operation of our common schools, there is none which 
 combines so much utility and value as these local and 
 temporary institutions; and in the judgment of the 
 superintendent they are highly deserving of legislative 
 aid." In his report of 1901, the present superintendent 
 
;j-l Department ok Public Instruction 
 
 of public instruction gave a history of the rise, progress 
 ;md purposes of the institute from which the following 
 abstract may be taken : 
 
 1843. First institutes held. Purely voluntary meet- 
 ings. No state aid or state supervision. 
 
 1847. Institutes placed under state control. First 
 state aid, viz. : $00 to each county organizing an insti- 
 tute. 
 
 1859. Increased to $120 per county. 
 
 1860-97. Increased by various increments from 
 $8,000 for the state in the first year to $40,000 in the 
 last. 
 
 1862. Local authorities allowed to pay teachers regu- 
 lar salary during attendance upon institutes. 
 
 1881. Regular corps of state institute conductors or- 
 ganized. 
 
 1885. Attendance of teachers made compulsory, also 
 payment of regular salary to teachers for time spent in 
 attendance. All schools in the institute district closed 
 by law during the session, except in cities. 
 
 1888. County institutes changed to commissioner dis- 
 trict institutes, except in cases of unusually small dis- 
 tricts which held joint institutes. 
 
 1890. Schools in union free school districts of over 
 5,000 population and employing a superintendent of 
 schools exempted from compulsory closing. 
 
 1892. Department bureau of institutes and training 
 classes organized. 
 
 1895. Graded or sectional institutes organized under 
 present plan. 
 
 1896. City institutes began. State summer insti- 
 tutes established. 
 
 1898. Bureau of institutes and training classes reor- 
 ganized into two separate bureaus. 
 Teachers' New York, the pioneer in institute work has had three 
 aTnow* 1 " stages that have been especially prominent: the first, 
 operated w h en the instruction was almost wholly subject matter; 
 the second, when for a time the tendency was to amuse 
 rather than instruct ; the third, when teachers, recogniz- 
 ing the importance of professional training, demanded 
 that institutes should be a medium through which might 
 be disseminated a broader knowledge of the principles 
 of pedagogy and their application to school work. In- 
 stitutes now have a recognized field o<f their own : 1. 
 
A REVIEW OK ITS ADMINISTRATION 35 
 
 To expedite the work of the other bureaus of the De- 
 partment by calling attention to any points that need 
 special elucidation. 2. To bring specially to the teach- 
 ing force instruction in those subjects in which the 
 records of the examination bureau show poor results. 
 3. To continue the work of the normal school and train- 
 ing class by stimulating their graduates to continued 
 effort and investigation, and to draw from every avail- 
 able source the material necessary for success; also to 
 bring the graduates of these schools and classes in con- 
 tact with that large proportion of our teaching force 
 which has not had the advantage of professional train- 
 ing. 4. To bring from the great educational associa- 
 tions, both state and national, the latest discussion of 
 educational needs, methods and equipment, for consid- 
 eration and study. 5. To cultivate and stimulate an 
 active professional spirit in full and intelligent sym- 
 pathy with the educational system of the state. 6. To 
 keep the teaching force in constant touch with the state 
 central authority, advised of its purposes and its 
 changes in regulations affecting either the teachers' 
 status or their work, and acquainted with reasons that 
 have made such changes necessary or have prompted 
 new legislation, in order that the department of public 
 instruction, school commissioners, school boards and 
 teachers may act in unison to secure results that can be 
 secured in no other way. The regularly authorized 
 state institute force now comprises a supervisor, five 
 conductors and four special instructors. Instruction 
 is also given by principals and other members of the 
 faculties of the several normal schools, by superintend- 
 ents, principals and teachers of the district for which 
 the institute is held, and by special instructors employed 
 temporarily. 
 
 Secretary Young retired from office February 7, 1845, 
 but remained upon the executive committee of the 
 Albany normal school until his death an 1847. By his 
 last annual report it was shown that 709,150 children 
 were taught in 10,357 districts reporting — an increase 
 of 95,572 and a decrease of 231 respectively from the last 
 report of his predecessor. The amount paid for 
 teachers' wages was, $992,222 and for library purposes 
 $47,475 exclusive of sums raised locally. The number 
 of volumes in the district libraries was 1,038,396. 
 
36 
 
 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Adminis- 
 tration of 
 Nathaniel 
 S. Benton 
 
 Free 
 
 schools in 
 cities 
 
 He was succeeded by Nathaniel S. Benton, who had 
 held various local and federal positions and had been 
 for four years a state senator. It was under his admin- 
 istration that the movement to make the schools wholly 
 free, throughout the state, became demonstrative. The 
 rate bills, which had risen from $297,048.44 in 1829, 
 to 1447.505.97 in 1844, were being discredited as unre- 
 publican and inequitable, although twenty years were 
 to elapse before they were to be abolished entirely. 
 Some of the cities and larger villages were taking the 
 matter into their own hands and seeming through 
 special statutes, actual free schools for themselves. In 
 New York such a law had been in operation since 1842, 
 the schools being supported by general taxation and 
 required to be kept open nine months of the year in 
 order to receive the public moneys. By January 1, 
 1848, free schools had been established in Brooklyn, 
 Buffalo, Kochester, Williamsburg and Poughkeepsie, 
 and, in 1848, Syracuse, Lansingburg, Flushing. New- 
 town and Bushwick were added to the list, while the 
 schools of Albany, Troy and Utica were substantially 
 free, although not so by force of law. Thus, in 1848, 
 one-fourth of the schools of the state were really free. 
 It Avas by a narrow margin only that free schools failed 
 v"n\ , ion < of~ to rece * ve constitutional sanction in 1S4G. In the con- 
 isVo to act vention of that year. Henry Nicoll, chairman of the 
 committee on education, reported the ninth article, 
 including a proposition to the effect that the legislature 
 should provide for the free education of all children of 
 school age, the expense thereof, after the utilization of 
 the public funds, to be defrayed by taxation, at the 
 same time and in tin same manner, as the liquidation 
 of town and county charges. This proposition was to 
 . be submitted separately to the people. After an earnest 
 debate, the convention adopted it by a vote of 57 to 53, 
 but upon motion of Arphaxad Loomis it was subse- 
 quently striken out, and the convention contented itself 
 with incorporating in the constitution the article, that 
 of the inviolability and appropriation of the common 
 school, literature and United States deposit funds — 
 shorn of the free school sections, as previously indi- 
 cated. What the fate of the proposition would have 
 been, had it been submitted to the people, must, of 
 course, be the subject of conjecture, but, in view of their 
 affirmative action in 1849, there is reason to believe that 
 
 Failnre of 
 const itn- 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION S 
 
 their sentiment was already sufficiently enlightened to 
 have assured its ratification. 
 
 Secretary Benton, however, although a competent 
 official and solicitous for the welfare of the common 
 school system, seems never to have enunciated fully the 
 free school principle. The nearest approach to it is in 
 his last annual report, wherein after stating that the 
 extension of free schools in progressing moderately, 
 laws having been passed for their creation in populous 
 and wealthy communities, Avhile the poorer and less 
 populous districts are left to struggle on, in the best 
 way they can, sustaining a school perhaps only four 
 months in the year, to -secure the next apportionment 
 of the public moneys, he continues : " Is this policy 
 just?. Is it right to discriminate in this manner 
 between the school children residing in particular 
 localities, and others turned over to the naked bounties 
 of the state; which, although munificent in the aggre- 
 gate, are only sufficient to pay a few weeks tuition for 
 each child? This great and essential question turns 
 simply on the mode of taxation; by changing this and 
 requiring the boards of supervisors to raise upon the 
 counties respectively a sum equal to the amount appor- 
 tioned from the treasury to each county for the support 
 of schools, and upon the towns another sum equal to 
 the apportionment of such town from the school fund, 
 which would increase the local taxation upon the 
 counties, not to exceed five-tenths of a mill on the valu- 
 ation in any county, and our schools might be rendered 
 nearly free to every child in this state." 
 
 Among the notable features of Secretary Benton's statistic-* 
 term was the abolition of the office of county super in- closest 
 tendent, which he deplored sincerely, the institution of iam£fis! 
 Indian schools and the support of schools exclusively Nation 
 for colored children, in which, for the year 184G, in 
 seventeen localities, 3,810 of these were taught. In 
 order to draw the comparison further on, it may be 
 interesting to present the statistics of the condition of 
 school buildings and the average amount of teachers' 
 wages for the year just mentioned. The whole number 
 of schoo-houses visited was 9,907, of which 8,231 were 
 of framed wood, 575 of brick, GOI of stone, and 598 of 
 logs. The whole number reported to be in good repair 
 was 3,809; in ordinary repair, 3,2S0; and in bad repair, 
 2,883. There were 9,017 having one room only, and 845 
 containing more than one room ; 3,181 were furnished 
 
38 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTBUWIOM 
 
 Office of 
 secretary 
 of state 
 made 
 elective 
 
 with suitable playgrounds ; 6,655 were destitute of such 
 grounds; 2,254 were furnished with single privies; 
 2,026 with double privies and 5,556 were entirely lack- 
 ing in these conveniences. The whole number fur- 
 nished suitably with seats and desks was 4,558, and the 
 number not so furnished 5,355. The number provided 
 with proper facilities for ventilation was 3,692 and the 
 number not so provided 6,235. The average monthly 
 compensation paid to male teachers was $15.42, and to 
 female $6.69. The number of teachers under eighteen 
 years employed was 2,322, of whom 1,969 were females ; 
 and there were 1,943 over thirty years old, of whom 
 1,434 were males. By Secretary Benton's last annual 
 report it appeared that 742,433 children were taught 
 in 10,494 districts reporting — an increase of 33,277 and 
 137 respectively during his incumbency. The amount 
 expended for teachers' wages was 11,058,814.64, and for 
 libraries and school apparatus, $93,791.29. The num- 
 ber of volumes in the libraries was 1,310,986. 
 
 In 1847, the office of secretary of state, still including 
 the functions of superintendent of common schools, 
 became elective by the people, for a term of two years, 
 and Christopher Morgan, thus chosen, assumed the 
 duties thereof January 1, 1848. He was reelected in 
 1849. Mr Morgan had represented his district in con- 
 gress from 1839 to 1843, and was a man of large 
 capacity and conversant with state affairs. His ad- 
 ministration was distinguished for fidelity to the in- 
 terests of the schools and progressive ideas as to their 
 development. From the first, he insisted upon two 
 things — the rehabilitation of the county superintend- 
 ency and the ordaining of the free school in its full 
 meaning and effect. In his first annual report (1849) 
 he asserts that the abolition of the county superintend- 
 ency was a retrogression and suggests either its restora- 
 tion by popular suffrage, or the election of a superin- 
 tendent in every assembly district, except in the cities, 
 which have a superintendent, or board of education. He 
 reiterates his recommendation, in his ensuing annual 
 report (1850), saying that "it has been found utterly 
 impracticable to keep up that correspondence with 
 nearly 900 town officers, which the exigencies of the 
 department constantly require, and which is absolutely 
 essential to its practical workings." He advises that 
 once in three years a superintendent for each assembly 
 distriot should be elected, " whose duty it should be 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 89 
 
 periodically to visit and examine the several schools 
 in his district; to inspect and license teachers; to hear 
 and pass, in the first instance, upon all appeals originat- 
 ing within his district, subject to the final revision of 
 the state superintendent; to receive, condense and 
 transmit to the department the reports of the several 
 town superintendents in his district, and generally to 
 discharge such duties as may, from time to time, be 
 required of him by the legislature and the Depart- 
 ment;" and in his reports in 1851 and 1852 he con- 
 tinues to urge action in the premises; but it was not 
 until 1856 that town superintendencies were abro- 
 gated and the office of school commissioner was created, 
 with jurisdiction over territory mainly the same as that 
 of an assembly district — cities, with superintendents, 
 or boards of education, being excluded therefrom — and 
 with duties of inspection, visitation, examination and 
 certification of teachers and the adjudication of cases 
 and controversies, in the first instance, similar to those 
 formerly exercised by the county superintendent. 
 The office was made elective by the people, for a term 
 of three years, and so remains. 
 
 In his annual report for 1849, Secretary Morgan pre Rmobi - 
 ferred an earnest plea for the free school, a school whose tions of 
 doors should be open to all who chose to enter — a morgan * 
 school supported by the property of the state, which, 
 in turn would find its security in the education of the 
 people. On the 25th of March of that year, an act The ia™ 
 entitled "An act establishing free schools throughout °* 1849 
 the state" was passed, its validity being conditioned on 
 the approval of the people, which was given at the gen- 
 eral election in November, 249,872 ballots being cast 
 for and 91,951 against it, the majority in its favor being 
 157,921. By this act, common schools were declared 
 free to all between the ages of five and twenty-one; 
 and it was made the duty of supervisors to raise, by 
 town and county taxation, an amount equal to twice 
 that apportioned by the state, and the balance neces- 
 sary to support the schools to be raised by district 
 taxation. Notwithstanding the decisive popular ver- 
 dict in its favor, virulent hostility to the enforcement 
 of the law manifested itself, inequalities in taxation 
 being alleged, and, perhaps, justly, in its administra- 
 tion. The legislature, accordingly, submitted the ques- 
 tion of the repeal of the law to the people, 
 who bv m majority of 25,038 refused to sanction 
 
40 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Jcifo'iiaw sucn repeal; Dll t.< serious objections still obtain- 
 ed isui j n g ? a i aw was enacted in 1851 providing that 
 there should be raised by tax upon property 
 within the state the sum of $800,000 annually, the 
 superintendent to apportion one-third of said sum and 
 one-third of the state appropriation equally to all school 
 districts and the remaining two-thirds of each, of the 
 amount from taxation and of the revenue of the com- 
 mon school fund ($300,000 exclusive of $55,000 set apart 
 for library purposes) ; to districts maintaining a school 
 six months in every year, according to the number of 
 school children, for the payment of teachers' wages, the 
 balance, if any, necessary to support the school to be 
 raised by rate bill, indigents being exempted from the 
 imposition thereof. The law stated expressly that it 
 did not repeal any special school acts for cities or 
 villages. 
 
 Upon the operation of this so-called free school law, 
 Secretary Morgan thus comments in 1S52 : "The aver- 
 age length of time during which the several schools are 
 kept open during each year is eight months, or two 
 terms of four months each. The aggregate amount 
 paid for teachers' wages throughout the state falls a 
 little short of $1,500,000, and is constantly increasing 
 as teachers of a higher grade of qualification are 
 brought in to the schools. For the first term of four 
 months, the school may, therefore, be entirely free; in 
 other words, free for one-third of the year. At the 
 close of the second term, there will be a balance of 
 nearly $400,000 to be collected by rate bill — an amount 
 falling very little short of the sum heretofore con- 
 tributed for this purpose under the act of 1847. This 
 enormous balance will undoubtedly, in the great 
 majority of instances, instead of being collected at the 
 close of the second term, be diffused over the entire 
 year — a portion only of the public money being appro- 
 priated to each term. Thus every child who enters the 
 school, instead of finding it free, will at the end of each 
 term, be charged with a rate bill; and unless exempted 
 on the ground of indigence by the trustees, his parents 
 or guardians will be compelled to pay the amount so as- 
 sessed with fees for collection. Is it not absolute 
 mockery to term such a system free?" 
 is4« a*- I* Diav not b e irrelevant to observe, in passing, that 
 
 ciared nn- ti ie court of appeals in June, 1853 (Barto vs. Himrod, 
 tfo»ai U " S N. Y. 483). declared the law of 1849 to be unconsti 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 41 
 
 tutional and void for the reason that its validity was 
 made to depend upon the result of a popular vote, a 
 legislature not being able to divest itself of its respon- 
 sibility for an enactment by referring it to the people 
 for their determination. As Chief Justice Ruggles 
 says in his opinion : " The immediate practical import- 
 ance of the question has been much diminished by the 
 enactment in the usual form of an act to establish free 
 schools throughout the state passed April 12, 1851. To 
 this statute, the objections made to the act of 1849 do 
 not apply. The question is, however, still highly im- 
 portant in regard to future legislation." According 
 to Secretary Morgan's last annual report (1851), there """St 10 " 
 were 726,291 children taught in 13,842 districts and %™?*\ re " 
 parts of districts reporting, an apparent decrease of secretary 
 10,192 and an increase of 3,318, respectively — these 
 figures doubtless being due to imperfect returns from 
 town superintendents — as compared with Secretary 
 Benton's last report. The amount expended for teachers 
 wages was $1 ,240 ,258.86, of which $130,949.54 was from 
 rate bills. The number of volumes in the libraries was 
 1,507,077. The average number of months in which the 
 schools were open was a few days in excess of seven. 
 |5S,8S5.91 were expended for school sites, $125,913.30 
 in building schoolhouses and $79,183.55 for repairing 
 the same. % 
 
 On the first of January, 1852, Henry S. Randall, a Adminis- 
 scholarly man, with previous educational experience as EenryV 
 county superintendent, and who afterward achieved Randa11 
 enduring reputation as the author of a life of Thomas 
 Jefferson, became secretary of state. His tenure of two 
 years as superintendent of common schools was not one 
 of signal reform or progress, but it w?s one of eminent 
 fidelity to his trust and of scrupulous discharge of its 
 obligations. The issues which the friends of the free 
 school had raised had found compromise, for the time 
 being, in the act of 1851. They were not disposed to 
 aggravate further contention, were willing to see what 
 good might come from the law and the secretary was 
 certainly determined to execute it in its spirit, as well 
 as in its letter. The period was chiefly that of routine 
 labor, but the official reports reveal a clear comprehen- 
 sion of educational problems and are not lacking in 
 wise suggestions. Among Mr. Randall's recommenda- 
 tions, all of which were ultimately adopted, were these: 
 that the normal school should be made more strictly 
 
■I'J. Defartwbwt ok Public Instruction 
 
 professional than it then was, its proper object not 
 being to give teachers education in the elementary 
 branches, but to instruct them in the theory 
 and practice of teaching; that an additional 
 normal school should be built in the western 
 part of the state; that a mill tax on the property 
 of the state should be substituted for the fixed levy 
 of $800.000 ; that the county superintendence 7 should be 
 restored, or its equivalent provided ; and that the office 
 of superintendent of common schools should be made 
 distinct and independent, elective by the legislature 
 for a definite term, experience having shown that, while 
 the secretary, with the aid of a deputy, could transact 
 the "regular office business, he could not add to this 
 the visitation, inspection and intercourse with local 
 executives and teachers, which was necessary to the 
 efficient supervision of the common school system." The 
 legislature having, on the 18th of June, 1853, passed 
 an act which provided that union free schools, then 
 being organized, in considerable numbers, should con- 
 tinue to receive, for five years, the same sum from one- 
 third of the public moneys divided by districts, to which 
 the districts composing them would have been entitled 
 had they remained unconsolidated, the secretary further 
 recommended that this regulation in their favor should 
 be made permanent. 
 
 Upon the expiration, of Mr Randall's term, January 
 1, 1854, the administration of the schools by the secre- 
 tary of state virtually ceased, although his successor, 
 Eitas w. Elias W. Leavenworth, long prominent in civic affairs 
 worthlast in central New York, was in charge thereof until April 
 an°d "saper- ^ when the present Department of Public Instruction 
 intendeni came into being. In the history of the common schools 
 of New York, under the successive secretaries of state, 
 every citizen acquainted with it must take just pride. 
 The incumbents were all men of a high order of intelli- 
 gence, constantly striving to elevate educational stand- 
 ards, to improve methods of instruction and, above all, 
 Estimate to establish the free school, as against the will of re 
 wor'kdone luctant taxpayers and obstructive politicians sub- 
 under the ser vient to them. Effort was earnest and progress was 
 
 secretaries * ° 
 
 of state steady from the beginning to the end. Credit should 
 be accorded to the secretaries, not alone for their gen- 
 eral supervision, for plans proposed and policies pur- 
 sued, but also for the personal attention they bestowed 
 upo« details and minor issues concurrently with the 
 
A REVIEW OK ITS A D Ml N 1 RTR A TI ON 43 
 
 onerous duties pertaining to the place, outside of the 
 school department. Each one evidently appreciated 
 the dignity and responsibility of his educational juris- 
 diction and each uniformly signed all reports and 
 documents relating to the schools as superintendent, 
 rather than as secretary. For the first twenty years, 
 a clerk was sufficient for the routine work of the office, 
 but, at their close, it had assumed such proportions that 
 expert service was demanded for the relief of the secre- 
 tary and he was allowed a general deputy. This posi- 
 tion was filled by the following persons: Samuel S. 
 Randall from July 12, 1841, to October 1, 1846; Samuel 
 L. Holmes to February 1, 1848; Alexander G. Johnson 
 to December 8, 1849 ; Samuel S. Randall to January 1, 
 1852; Henry W. Johnson to January 2, 1854, and 
 Samuel S. Randall for the remainder of the time. All samnei s. 
 seem to have been well qualified for the place, but Mr a^mVy 11 *"- 
 Randall was eminently so. He was a trained statis . perintemi- 
 tician, as well as a competent educator; and it is evi- 
 dent that the secretaries, under whom he was appointed, 
 relied largely upon his industry, knowledge and judg- 
 ment and that much of the matter, if not all of the 
 exact expression, embodied in their reports, was pre- 
 pared by him. In 1851, he was, in very complimentary 
 terms, nominated by Governor Hunt a commissioner 
 " to embody in a single act a common school code for 
 the state of New York," and he was the author of an 
 exhaustive and accurate history of the common school 
 system of the state from 1795 to 1851, which is the 
 accepted authority thereon and to which this review is 
 deeply indebted for many facts and conclusions. He 
 finished his educational career as superintendent of 
 the schools of New York city. 
 
 During the last year of the secretary's administration 
 12,469,248.52 were expended for the schools, of which 
 $1,931,870.18 were for teachers' wages, $98,990.78, 
 including local appropriations, for the libraries 
 and $308,895.65 for purchasing school sites and ™^ Jj"* f 
 buildings, hiring and repairing schoolhouses. The Secretary 
 amount expended was made up from the incomes of 
 the common school and United States deposit funds, 
 from state and local taxes and from rate bills, the 
 last named of which yielded $346,262.60, including 
 taxes for the indigent exempt and deficiencies. The 
 volumes in the libraries were 1,604,210. The principal 
 of the common school fund was $2,383,257.23. The 
 
Department of Publtc Instruction 
 
 Tlie office 
 of state 
 superin- 
 tendent of 
 public in- 
 struction 
 created 
 
 number of school districts and parts of districts was 
 14,780, the average number of months in which the 
 schools were kept open was 7 7-10 and the children 
 taught were 860,935. And so, with a fair measure of 
 efficiency, with much that was worthy of the state 
 wrought out, but with certain important reforms yet 
 to be accomplished — notably, the reinstatement of an 
 official intermediate between the districts and the de- 
 partment, the annulling of rate bills and adequate pro- 
 vision for the education of teachers — the schools passed 
 into the hands of the Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
 tion and a new educational era began. 
 
 The act creating the State Superintendent of Public 
 Instruction was within the compass of a few 
 linos, but it conferred upon him ample powers and 
 endowed the office with a dignity and authority that 
 it could never have obtained as an adjunct of the de- 
 partment of state. It made it an independent bureau 
 of the government, of like rank with that of finan e, 
 law, or public works, as the vital interests of popular 
 education entitled it to be so considered. It, was the 
 solemn, legal affirmation of the commonwealth to that 
 effect. It was a return to the order of 1813, which 
 political resentments had unfortunately overthrown, 
 with a jurisdiction vastly enlarged over that of the 
 earlier time; and it was enacted in the faith that the 
 individuals, who should be called to administer it, 
 would be, if not of greater menial gifts than the secre- 
 taries of state, especially adapted to its requirements by 
 previous training and identification with the reaching 
 profession; and this faith has been justified, nearly all 
 the superintendents either having been teachers or 
 having held an important educational position prior to 
 their election. The act provided that there should be 
 chosen by joint ballot of the senate and assembly a 
 State Superintendent of Public Instruction, for a term 
 of three years, who should be invested with all the 
 powers, perform all the duties and be subject to all 
 the responsibilities previously conferred or imposed 
 upon the secretary of state, in his capacity of superin- 
 tendent of common schools. It was directed that suit- 
 able and convenient rooms should be assigned him in 
 the state hall to which all books, papers and documents 
 then in the office of the secretary of state and pertain- 
 ing to the common school department should be trans- 
 ferred. His salary was fixed at $2,500. subsequently 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 45 
 
 increased to f 5,000, and he was given power to appoint 
 a deputy and three clerks, whose aggregate compensa- 
 tion should not exceed $3,000. He was to devise a seal 
 by which his official acts, orders and decisions should 
 be authenticated. It was made his duty to visit, as 
 often as practicable, such and so many of the common 
 schools, academies and other literary institutions of the 
 state as he might deem expedient; to inquire into the 
 course of instruction, management and discipline of 
 such institutions, and to report the results of his visi- 
 tation and inspection annually to the legislature, with 
 such recommendations and suggestions as he should 
 deem suitable; and he was made ex officio a member of 
 the board of regents and chairman of the executive 
 committee of the state normal school. 
 
 The first superintendent of public instruction, Victor Adinini8 _ 
 M. Rice, who had been in charge of the public schools * r:ttio ." of 
 of Buffalo for several years, was admirably qualified by tendent 
 experience and knowledge of the needs of the schools 
 for inagurating the new regime. He was enthusiastic 
 in his work and of remarkable energy in its prosecu- 
 tion, of which there is no more striking illustration than 
 the vigorous warfare he waged for more than a decade 
 for the abolition of the rate bill and in which, in his 
 third term, he triumphed. His firet annual report, of 
 date December 31, 1854, exhibits, upon the whole, a 
 gratifying condition of the schools private (concerning 
 which he took the pains to collect statistics) and pub- 
 lic. The number of districts reported by the town 
 superintendents was 11,798, an increase over the preced- 
 ing year of 111; the number of children taught in the 
 public schools was 877,201 ; the number attending the 
 1,501 private schools was 34,279 ; the number in the 30 
 schools for colored children was 4,568; add, adding the 
 number attending academies, the total attendance in 
 the state was 953,454. It was estimated that a frac- 
 tion less than 20 per cent, of those of school age at- 
 tended no school. The schools were kept open and 
 taught by qualified teachers for an average period of 
 eight months. There were 109 state beneficiaries in the 
 New York institution for the blind and 204 in that for 
 the deaf and dumb. The following table, incorporated 
 in the report of 1855, presents the financial statement 
 for 1854 : 
 
46 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 The amount of public money received by the trustees 
 of school districts and boards of education was : 
 
 For teachers' wages $1, 173,073 83 
 
 For libraries 55,216 31 
 
 Amount raised by tax for teachers' 
 wages (including board) in city, vil- 
 lage and union free schools which are 
 
 without rate bills 691,687 94 
 
 Raised by rate bills 382,359 08 
 
 Raised by tax for tuition of children 
 exempted from rate bills and for defi- 
 ciencies in collection of rate bills. . . . 41,948 16 
 Paid for teachers' wages in colored 
 
 schools, besides public money 2,393 25 
 
 Raised for purchasing sites for school- 
 houses 86,950 83 
 
 Raised for purchasing or building 
 
 schoolhouses, fences, etc 404,061 63 
 
 Raised for hiring schoolhouses 14,885 14 
 
 Raised for repairing fences and out- 
 buildings 136,219 97 
 
 Raised for insuring 4,548 74 
 
 Raised for purchasing fnel and building 
 
 fires . 110,802 45 
 
 Raised for purchasing bookcases and 
 
 school furniture 16,130 92 
 
 Raised for other incidental expenses. . 96,420 84 
 
 $3,216,669 09 
 
 »"i!oois Pee ^ lie superintendent states that the act for the estab- 
 lishment of union free schools is exerting a very bene- 
 ficial influence and that not only is their general adop- 
 tion probable, as being decidedly preferable to the sys- 
 tem of collection by rate bill, but that universal free 
 schools will result from the application of the law. In- 
 asmuch as his opinion proved to be well founded, and 
 these schools not only fulfilled his predictions but also 
 fortified the sentiment that secondary education was 
 within the purview of the state rather than within that 
 of the voluntary principle solely and because, as means 
 to that end, they gradually but surely supplanted the 
 academies, many of which were resolved into or became 
 departments of them, a recapitulation of the main 
 features of the law of 1853 is here pertinent. It pro- 
 vided that if, at a meeting of a school district, or <ii 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 47 
 
 one of adjoining districts, duly called, where at least 
 one-third of the inhabitants qualified to vole on school 
 matters were present and two-thirds of the same should 
 decide to establish a union free school, that then they 
 should elect not less than three nor more than nine 
 trustees to be divided into three classes, to hold office 
 respectively for one, two and three years, the said trus- 
 tees and their successors to constitute a board of edu- 
 cation; that the corporate authorities of any incor- 
 porated village or city, in which a union free school 
 should be established, should have power to raise from 
 time to time, by tax, such sums as the board of educa- 
 tion should declare necessary for the furtherance of 
 any of the powers vested in them, with the proviso that 
 the said corporate authorities should have power to 
 refuse, for one year, any supplies other than those for 
 the annual support of the teachers of said union free 
 school and the necessary contingent expenses of said 
 schools; that consolidated districts, entitled to public 
 moneys under the law of 1S51, should receive the same 
 amount as would have been apportioned to them, if 
 they had not been consolidated ; that boards of educa- 
 tion should have in all respects the superintendence, 
 management and control of union free schools and 
 establish in the same academical departments, when- 
 ever in their judgment the same should be warranted 
 by the demand for such instruction to receive into them 
 non-resident pupils, regulating the tuition fees of such 
 in all departments and those of resident pupils pur- 
 suing academic courses, to regulate the transfer of 
 scholars from the primary to the academical depart- 
 ments and from class to class; to employ teachers and 
 prescribe textbooks and generally to exercise the func- 
 tions usually pertaining to officers of their character; 
 and that every academical department should be under 
 the visitation of the board of regents and subject to its 
 course of instruction and to the rules made in regard to 
 academies by the said board, but not in reference to the 
 buildings in which the same is held, unless in cases 
 where they should be separate from those of the com- 
 mon school department — the latter provision in its per- 
 missive dual jurisdiction being a grave error of judg- 
 ment by the legislature which has been provocative of 
 considerable friction between the two great educational 
 authorities of the state and more or less detrimental 
 to the schools. The law thus outlined has not been 
 
is 
 
 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Other 
 
 rt'< iiiiph 
 
 tlutions of 
 Sniierin- 
 (enilent 
 Rice 
 
 Tlie prog- 
 ress m:nl<» 
 l>y the 
 schools of 
 the cities 
 
 materially modified since its original passage, the most 
 radical changes being the relief from tuition fees of 
 resident pupils in academical departments and the mak- 
 ing of tuition of nonresident pupils a state charge in 
 1903, 
 
 Among other recommedations embraced in Superin- 
 tendents Rice's first report were these: That district 
 school meetings should be held at a certain fixed and 
 uniform time; that there should , be a reduction of 
 local school officers; and, especially in line with the 
 views of his predecessors, that county superintendents 
 should be replaced in the school system, quoting, in this 
 connection, among those of several prominent educa- 
 tors, the words of Henry Barnard, in 1S45, who said : 
 "I have watched the progressive improvement in the 
 organization and the administration of the school sys- 
 tem of this (New York) great state, with intense in- 
 terest, and I regard it at this time as superior to any 
 other of which I have any knowledge. But the most 
 admirable feature in your school system is the pro- 
 vision for county superintendents. There is nothing to 
 be compared to this in the school system of any other 
 state. There is nothing in all the wise legislation of 
 your state in regard to public instruction unless, per- 
 haps, the liberal appropriation for district libraries, 
 wdiich the friends of public education elsewhere are so 
 anxious to see adopted into the school system of their 
 respective states." 
 
 As indicative of the standing the schools of the cities 
 had attained, the following extracts from Superintend- 
 ent Rice's second annual report, is taken : " The cities 
 have been especially favored by legislation. Their 
 schools are as free to every child as the air he breathes. 
 It is their mission to give a practical education alike 
 to the rich and the poor; and they are fulfilling it in a 
 manner creditable to their particular localities and to 
 the state. Thousands of parents have been induced to 
 remove from the rural districts for the purpose of edu- 
 cating their children in these schools. With one or 
 two exceptions, they are under a complete and thorough 
 supervision, which points out the most approved modes 
 of school architecture, secures competent teachers, and 
 incorporates into their plans of instruction every im- 
 provement of the day. How long the children of the 
 cities shall enjoy privileges so much superior to those 
 in other parts of the state remains for the legislature 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 49 
 
 to determine. I have visited with their superin- 
 tendents some of the principal schools of New York and 
 Brooklyn, and have seen great multitudes of children 
 and youth congregated therein fitting themselves for 
 independence and extensive usefulness; some of whom, 
 were it not for the liberal provision for schools, would 
 be educated in the streets. Tax payers have long since 
 learned that they cannot afford to encourage the edu- 
 cation there acquired. Buffalo, Oswego, Rochester, 
 Syracuse, Auburn, Utica and other cities, are attracting 
 the wealth and intelligence of less favored portions of 
 the state in consequence of their excellent schools." 
 What may be called the beginning of compulsory educa- 
 tion in the state had been made by the law of 1853, by 
 which the municipalities were required to provide 
 industrial schools for children roaming the streets, but 
 its enforcement was attempted only in Rochester. 
 
 The last year of Superintendent Rice's first adminis- school 
 tration was signalized by the passage of two salutary sioneVs" 
 acts. The one, already alluded to, essential to the creMte « l 
 orderly supervision of the schools, was that by which 
 the office of commissioner was ordained, — the outcome 
 of an arduous battle against prejudice and parsimony. 
 The other was that levying a state tax of three-quarters ti.o ti«-ee- 
 of a mill upon the dollar in lieu of the imposition of S'miu *»"* 
 the gross sum of $S00,000— a bridge which the schools 
 traversed to the goal of freedom — resulting in 1857 in 
 the receipt of $1,073,768.97, a gain of $273,768.97, while 
 there was a diminution in rate bills from $161,779.13 
 in 1856 to $127,956.07. From the report of 1856, it is 
 learned that the principal of the common school fund 
 was $2,491,916.14. The total expenditures of the 
 schools for the preceding year were $3,544,587.62. For 
 teachers' wages $1,051,210.47 came from the state tax; 
 the amount from local taxes for city, village and union 
 free schools, where rate bills were dispensed with, was 
 $730,674.2S; the cost of schoolhouse sites was $57,- 
 839.15; of building schoolhouses, fences, etc., $381,- 
 101.88; of hiring schoolhouses $17,568.69; of repairs to 
 houses, fences and out-buildings $169,555.98; of book- 
 cases and furniture $50,781.97; and of libraries $50,- 
 801.50. Among the recommendations of Superintend- 
 ent Rice were the establishment of more normal schools; 
 a more liberal appropriation for teachers' institutes; 
 the naming of a uniform day for the holding of the 
 annual district meetings and the conforming of the 
 4 
 
tendent 
 Van Dyclc 
 
 50 Dbpartment of I'unuc Instruction • 
 
 school year, to which (he additional returns of the dis- 
 trict relate, to the fiscal year of the state, the last two 
 recommendations being incorporated in chapter 151 of 
 the laws of 1858 by which it was enjoined that the 
 school year should begin on the first day of October and 
 end on the thirtieth day of September, and the annual 
 school meeting in each district should be held on the 
 second Tuesday of October. 
 Admits- Henry H. Van Dyck, who became superintendent 
 snperin- ' April 7, 1857, was a man of exact methods, and among 
 the first things he accomplished was a reform in the 
 bookkeeping of the Department. Having found that 
 the amount raised for school purposes, in 1855, was 
 apparently $221,537.64 in excess of that of 1856, and 
 having also noted other discrepancies in the records, he 
 concluded that the blank office forms were so con- 
 structed as to make it probable that some items of 
 expenditure were embraced under different headings, 
 so as to be doubled or trebled. Thus he made a change 
 in the blanks that led to a directness of statement that 
 precluded unintelligible duplications or careless omis- 
 sions; and, so far as he could, he compelled accuracy in 
 the reports of subordinate officers, in which, as he says, 
 he was assisted materially by the new scheme of local 
 supervision — the commissioners. It is well to state 
 here that, in the preparation of this review, difficulty 
 has been experienced in the examination of figures, 
 from the reports of town superintendents, often mani- 
 festly inaccurate and insufficient, and, sometimes, even 
 baffling. The attempt has been made throughout to 
 adjust and reconcile these, with, it is hoped, some 
 measure of success, and with results substantially cor- 
 rect, but, whatever errors have occurred, they are not 
 likely to be repeated in further details, and this largely 
 owing to the forms introduced by Superintendent Van 
 Djck. Otherwise, his administration was not marked 
 by radical departures either in methods or policies. He 
 was not disposed to suggest alterations in the laws 
 beyond certain simple amendments obviously neces- 
 sary to the public convenience, preferring rather to 
 realize the good possible under existing statutes than 
 to experiment with new ones. He contended that the 
 school system was not so much wanting in the facilities 
 for imparting instruction as in the indisposition of a 
 considerable portion of the population to utilize those 
 already available. He did not believe that compulsory 
 
A ItEVlEW or ITS ADMINISTRATION f» 1 
 
 education could be enforced, but be t bought 1be desired 
 end could be promoted by a discrimination in the appli- 
 cation of state funds founded on the proportional num- 
 ber in actual attendance, upon the theory that such a 
 provision would give to each taxpayer a direct 
 pecuniary interest in securing the largest possible at- 
 tendance upon the schools, both as a means of securing 
 a larger share of the state bounty and as reducing local 
 taxation. The distribution of funds, which the super- 
 intendent thus inferentially criticised, was that of two- 
 thirds of the public money to a district, according to 
 the number of persons between the years of four and 
 twenty-one. In his report for 1859 (the last of his La«t re- 
 first term) Superintendent Van Dyck presents the fob van Dyou-. 
 lowing financial summary : *"* term 
 
 Receipts Cities Rural districts 
 
 Balance on hand October 
 
 1, 1858 ^332,314 01 $90,607 53 
 
 Amount received from 
 
 moneys apportioned by 
 
 state "superintendent... 378,416 45 944,266 88 
 
 Proceeds of gospel and 
 
 school lands 177 96 19,206 68 
 
 Amount raised by district 
 
 taxes 1,402,282 56 619,180 49 
 
 Amount raised by rate 
 
 bills 414,062 72 
 
 Amount received from all 
 
 other sources 9,618 59 46,609 21 
 
 Totals $2,122,810 57 $2,033,933 51 
 
 Total in cities 2,122,810 57 
 
 Total in state $4,156,744 08 
 
 Payments. 
 
 For teachers' wages $961,395 14 $1,481,989 66 
 
 Libraries 9,583 58 28,778 00 
 
 School apparatus 111,118 40 6,846 39 
 
 Colored schools 20,766 42 3,597 58 
 
 Expenses of schoolhouses, 
 viz. : sites, buildings, hir- 
 ing, purchasing, repair- 
 ing and insuring, fences, 
 outhouses, furniture, etc 440,961 75 283,330 72 
 
52 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Receipts Cities Rural districts 
 
 All other incidental ex- 
 penses $164,422 27 $152,027 66 
 
 Amount on hand October 
 
 1, 1859 414,563 01 77,563 50 
 
 Totals $2,122,810 57 $2,033,933 51 
 
 Total in cities 2,122,810 57 
 
 Total in state $4,156,744 08 
 
 Subtracting the amount on hand October 1, 1859, the 
 actual payments for school purposes during the twelve 
 months preceding were $3,644,617.57 — a liberality of ex- 
 penditure, as the superintendent observes, that indi- 
 cates unmistakably the deep interest felt by our citizens 
 in the cause of education. 
 \<imiiiis- Superintendent Van Dyck was reelected in 1S60, but 
 su^eri"- * resigned in 1861, being succeeded by Emerson W. Keyes, 
 Keye" f on tne 9tn of April, who served until February 1, 1862. 
 The only report, that for 1861, made by Superintendent 
 Keyes, is a valuable document, setting forth fully the 
 condition of the schools, with suggestions for their 
 betterment. He notes the steady improvement in the 
 character of the schoolhouses, comparing it with those 
 of former years ; thus, in 1857, there were 333 log, 9,747 
 frame, 876 brick and 610 stone houses in a total of 
 11,566; and, in 1S61, 246 log, 9,747 frame, 971 
 brick and 610 stone in a total of 11,697. He lays 
 stress upon the superiority of the city schools, 
 which maintain ample educational facilities of a high 
 order, for all the children within their limits, "with- 
 out money and without price," and in which " oppor- 
 tunity is afforded for a better classification and for a 
 more natural and progressive course of study," and 
 the schools being in session the entire year, except 
 during brief vacations, competent teachers are secured 
 and the evils of frequent changes avoided. Many of 
 the villages, he adds, are nearly upon the same basis 
 as the cities through the agency of special acts, or that 
 of the union free school law; and, in this connec- 
 tion, he strenuously advocates the consolidation of 
 rural districts, wherever possible, as tending to greater 
 efficiency through the classification of pupils. He 
 states that the work of the teachers' institutes for 
 the year has been most gratifying; that they had been 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 53 
 
 held in 47 counties with 7,488 teachers in attendance, 
 being an average per county of 159^ and recommends 
 that the commissioner be empowered to make such a 
 distinction between those who attend the institute and 
 those who do not as to cause attendance to be morally 
 compulsory. It was subsequently made wholly com- 
 pulsory. He eulogizes the existing system of school 
 supervision and says that it is rapidly growing in 
 popular favor and esteem. He calls the attention of 
 the legislature to a number of points in which the 
 department has found the school laws and the power 
 to administer them extremely defective; among these 
 are the option of a sole trustee to engage a teacher, 
 whose labors are to be performed after such trustee 
 shall have vacated his office; the practice of trustees 
 hiring relatives as teachers; the restriction of districts 
 to a tax of only $400 without the consent of the com- 
 missioners and the apportionmeut of school moneys 
 upon the number of resident pupils in the district 
 instead of upon the aggregate attendance for six 
 months. Remedies for most of the evils mentioned by 
 the superintendent were afterward "applied. The finan- 
 cial statement shows that the receipts and expenditures 
 for the year were in cities $2,403,189.79 and in the 
 rural districts $992,197.56, a total of $4,395,387.35; 
 deducting the amount on hand ($554,116.54) October 
 1, 1861, and there remains as the total expenditure 
 for the schools during the year, exclusive of the cost 
 of supervision, the sum of $3,841,270.81, an increase 
 of the cost of the schools over that of the last year of 
 Superintendent Van Dyck's first term of $196,653.24. 
 
 On the first of February, 1862, Victor M. Rice again second 
 
 „ ' ,. . . , to adminis- 
 
 became superintendent of public instruction and, being tration of 
 reelected in 1865, served until April 7, 1868. In his Rice" 
 report, dated January 1, 1863, he refers to certain 
 amendments to the school laws, which he had proposed 
 in 1854, and points, not without just pride, to the sub- 
 sequent adoption of a majority of these. His words 
 may well be quoted, although something of repetition 
 is thereby involved, as a succinct statement of desir- 
 able changes made, mainly at his instigation. He says : Recom- 
 " Of these recommendations, those relating to the time lions"^ 
 of holding the annual meetings, the termination of t he tenallu" 
 school year, the reporting of statistics directly to this Rice 
 department, the change in the basis of the one-third 
 apportionment, the abolition of the office of town super- 
 
54 Dejpabtmbnt or Public Instruction 
 
 intendent and the election of school commissioners, 
 the separation of the financial part of the system from 
 that of supervision by authorizing the supervisors to 
 receive and disburse the school moneys, the increase 
 of the state tax to three-fourths of a mill on each 
 dollar of valuation, the reduction of school district 
 officers by electing one instead of three trustees, the 
 gradation of teachers' certificates, the education of the 
 Indians, and the encouragement and more liberal sup- 
 port of teachers' institutes, have since been approved 
 by successive legislatures and carried into effect. Of 
 the beneficial results of the change in the system of 
 state taxation, of the appointment of the super- 
 visors as intelligent and trustworthy custodians of the 
 school moneys, of the election and compensation of 
 school commissioners, of the provision for the educa- 
 tion of the Indians, and of the encouragement of 
 teachers'" institutes, the undersigned has hereinbefore 
 spoken. It needs only to be added here that in the finan- 
 cial and statistical reports to this department order 
 has been brought out of confusion ; and the number 
 of alterations of school districts, out of which grew 
 innumerable appeals to this department and much 
 costly litigation in the courts, has been greatly reduced 
 since the power to make such alterations was taken from 
 a thousand hands and given to a hundred and twelve. 
 The desired reduction in the number of school officers 
 has not heen fully effected, though a very large number 
 of districts have adopted the policy of one trustee, 
 and the propriety of the reduction from three to one 
 is gaining favor among the people. The changes noted 
 have tended to harmonize, simplify and vitalize the 
 working of the school system." In Mr. Rice's report 
 for 1862, the reports of commissioners are first incor- 
 porated in full, the superintendent having previously 
 published only the bare statistics collated by them. 
 Ninety-one of the 112 commissioners and five of the 13 
 city superintendents made reports thus published, fur- 
 nishing various and valuable information, not alone ser- 
 viceable to the superintendent, but of interest to the 
 public as well. Succeeding superintendents have fol- 
 lowed the practice of Mr. Rice, in this respect. 
 oawetco On the 4th of May, 1863, an act was passed for 
 
 sci™'.." 1 tne 8u PP 01 *t °f a training school for primary teachers, 
 in Oswego, subsequently resolved into a normal school. 
 It appropriated $3,000 annually for two years, for the 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 55 
 
 purpose indicated, if the city should within one year 
 provide the necessary buildings, grounds and other 
 accommodations and appliances for such school as 
 directed by the superintendent of public instruction, 
 and provided further that there should be instructed 
 in said school, for a period of at least 40 weeks in 
 each year, not less than 50 persons designing to teach 
 in the common schools. Each senatorial district was 
 entitled to send annually to said training school two 
 first class teachers, each to be appointed by the super- 
 intendent of public instruction, upon the recommenda- 
 tion of two school commissioners, or by a citv super- 
 intendent, residing in the district from which the 
 appointment was to be made; and all teachers thus 
 appointed were to receive free instruction and train- 
 ing. The school was made subject to the supervision 
 and general jurisdiction of the superintendent of pub- 
 lic instruction, the board of education and its secretary 
 constituting an executive committee for the immediate 
 care, management and government of the school. 
 
 As the second normal school was founded in 1863, J^f,^""" 1 
 and the wisdom of the policy of establishing others, is«:t 
 as outlined in the Hulburd report of 1844, was gener- 
 ally appreciated and was soon to be realized, it is 
 pertinent to note what New York was doing for the 
 education of the teachers in the year indicated. The 
 Albany normal school had been in existence for nearly 
 19 years, and was in a flourishing state. It had in- 
 structed 3,854 pupils, for longer or shorter periods, 
 of whom it had graduated 1,313. During the school 
 year ending in the summer of 1862, there had been in 
 attendance 293, of whom 99 were males and 191 
 females. Its graduates for the year were 22 males and 
 32 females, thirty counties being represented in the 
 class. Connected with the school were experimental 
 and model primary departments under the superin- 
 tendence of excellent teachers. There were 98 acad- 
 emies, designated by the regents, each being allotted 
 f 10 for each scholar, not to exceed 20 to each academy, 
 for instruction in the theory and practice of teaching. 
 The average amount which had thus been expended 
 annually, under authority of various acts — the last act, 
 amendatory of those preceding it, being of date April 13, 
 1855— was $16,68010-13 for a period of 13 academic 
 years, and the average number annually taught, for 
 a period of about 14 weeks, had been 1,595 813. " It 
 
50 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 is conceded " says Superintendent Rice " that this is 
 not the most economical or efficient agency for the 
 preparation of teachers, but so long as the legislature 
 shall fail to increase the number of normal schools 
 and the appropriation for the support of teachers' 
 institutes, and so long as all the agencies in operation 
 for the preparation of teachers shall be so inadequate to 
 the urgent demand of the common schools, as they have 
 heretofore been and are now, this appropriation may 
 be properly continued." The superintendent speaks 
 in the warmest terms of the success of teachers' 
 institutes, both as inspirational and as the means, 
 within their limitations, of imparting practical instruc- 
 tion. He believes, however, that they may be much 
 improved and entertains the opinion that the time of 
 holding them should be so distributed in the several 
 counties that a corps of the ablest and most accom- 
 plished educators might be employed in going from 
 place to place and benefiting all, his opinion, in due 
 time, becoming fact. In 1862, 02 institutes were held 
 in 52 counties, each lasting ten days or more, at an 
 expense to the state of $8,665.16, an average per county 
 of 1160.035. 9,411 teachers, an average per county of 
 181|, were present, the expense per teacher being 
 91f cents. 
 Last an- Salient features of the last annuo 1 report of the 
 
 mini report 
 
 of the second term of Superintendent Rice (1804) are the 
 
 term"of statements that the number of free schools reported 
 tenrten"" is 603, including union free schools and the city and 
 itice other schools made free by special acts; a part of the 
 
 school moneys, in accordance with recent legislation, 
 had been apportioned to the districts upon the basis 
 of average daily attendance, thus largely increasing 
 the number of pupils and the regularity of their pres- 
 ence; the proportion of female teachers now being 
 nine-tenths of the whole had increased; I lie New York 
 Asylum for Idiots had been added to the charitable 
 institutions receiving state pupils; and there was 
 urgent need for more normal and training schools. 
 The consolidated school act of .May 2. 1864, is alluded 
 to as imparting harmony and efficiency to the working 
 of the school system; and the superintendent concludes 
 by expressing his gratification that the evidences of 
 an increasing solicitude for the proper instruction of 
 the young are accumulating in all parts of the state 
 and that the people have not remitted any of their 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 
 
 interest in the schools even amid their efforts to save 
 the life of the republic. Following the plan heretofore 
 pursued, the following statistical and financial reports 
 for the year ending September 30, 1S64, are here 
 tabulated : 
 
 Statistical 
 
 Rural 
 
 Cities districts Total 
 
 Number of districts 285 11,432 11,717 
 
 Number of teachers employed at the same 
 
 time for six months or more 3,408 12,399 15,807 
 
 Number of children between 5 and 21 years 
 
 of age '. 447,469 860.353 1,307,822 
 
 Aggregate number of months' school 132 83,969 SI. 101 
 
 Number of male teachers employed 338 5,569 5.707 
 
 Number of female teachers employed 3.474 17.707 21,181 
 
 Number of children attending- school 293,265 587,919 881,184 
 
 Number of times schools visited by com- 
 missioners 16.67S 16,678 
 
 Number of volumes in district libraries 89,446 1,035,992 1,125,438 
 
 Number of schoolhouses 285 11,427 11,712 
 
 Number of log 226 226 
 
 Number of frame 47 9,S74 9,941 
 
 Number of brick 236 766 1,002 
 
 Number of stone 2 541 543 
 
 Financial 
 
 Rural 
 
 Cities districts Total 
 
 Amount on hand October 1, 1S62. $155,505 51 $81,214 94 $536,711 45 
 
 Apport onment of public moneys 437,690 71 922,426 76 1,360,117 47 
 Proceeds of gospel and school 
 
 lands 123 67 18,28S 90 18.412 57 
 
 Raised by tax 1,993,479 67 674,599 62 2,668,079 29 
 
 Raised by rate bill 429.812 52 429.S92 52 
 
 From all other sources 14.5S6 12 41,445 87 56.03199 
 
 Totals $2,901,38168 $2,107,863 61 $5,063,250 29 
 
 Expenditures 
 
 Rural 
 
 Cities districts Total 
 
 For teachers' wages $1,554,212 18 $1,539,248 28 $3,093,460 46 
 
 For libraries 5,40)25 21,48126 .26,890 51 
 
 For school apparatus 129.417 79 S, 165 70 137,613 49 
 
 For colored schools 24,60188 5,866 45 30,468 33 
 
 For schoolhouses. sites, etc 370,815 34 276.4S5 S9 647.3J1 23 
 
 For all other incidental expenses 392.959 92 221,076 72 614,036 64 
 
 Amount on hand October 1, 1864. 423.935 32 95,544 31 519,479 63 
 
 Totals $2,901,381 6S $2,167,868 61 $5,069,250 29 
 
 Deducting from this total the amount on hand Octo- 
 ber 1, 1S64, the actual expense of maintaining the 
 schools during the year was $4,549,870.06. The amount 
 expended in 1853, the last year of the secretary of 
 state's administration was $2*469,248.52. The schools, 
 therefore, were costing $2,140,622.14 more, or nearly 
 twice as much as they cost eleven years previously. 
 Measured merely by the money standard they were a 
 great institution. The third term of Superintendent 
 Rice was a season of planting, from which the harvest 
 was soon gathered. His reports contained many recom- 
 mendations, nearly all of which were approved by the 
 
 Reeom- 
 m e ml a - 
 tions by 
 Superin- 
 tendent 
 Rice 
 
58 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 legislature, that body seeming to have obeyed his 
 prompting almost implicitly. Some of these recom- 
 mendations, with the action had thereon, are herewith 
 cited : 
 
 I. That the general state tax for the support of 
 schools be increased by the addition of one-half of a mill 
 on every dollar, for the purpose of diminishing local or 
 school district taxation for the same purpose (18G7). 
 The tax was increased precisely by the percentage pro- 
 posed — to one and a quarter mills — by chapter 406 of 
 the laws of 1867. 
 
 II. That a commission be appointed to locate three 
 or more normal and training schools for the special 
 preparation of teachers, in such eligible places as shall 
 offer the greatest inducements by way of building, 
 school apparatus, etc., and that an appropriation be 
 made for their efficient support (1866) ; that the com- 
 mission created by chapter 466 of the laws of 1866 
 be continued and authorized in their discretion to 
 locate six additional normal schools, upon the terms 
 and conditions prescribed in that act (1867). In 1866 
 such a commission was constituted and, under its 
 auspices, the schools at Cortland, Fredonia and Pots- 
 dam were, as already stated, founded in 1866 and those 
 at Geneseo, Brockport and Buffalo in 1867, local con- 
 tributions being freely made for sites, buildings, etc., 
 in each case. They were opened in the following order : 
 Brockport, 1867; Fredonia, 1868; Cortland and Pots- 
 dam, 1869 ; Buffalo and Geneseo, 1871. 
 
 III. That provision be made by which the salary 
 attached to the office of school commissioner shall be 
 increased (1866 and 1867). In 1867, this salary was 
 raised to $800 a year payable out of the United States 
 deposit fund, " an act of simple justice," as Superin- 
 tendent Rice says, " to a class of officers wbo, with 
 very few exceptions, have proved themselves capable, 
 industrious and conscientious in the discharge of im- 
 portant public duties." 
 
 Abolition jy That the general school laws be so amended that 
 
 of toe ruic ° 
 
 i>iii the odious rate bill shall no longer prevent children 
 
 from going to school; that the schools shall be as free 
 to all of proper age and condition as the air and sun- 
 light. ( Inferentially in all the Rice reports and speci- 
 fically in 1865, '66 and* '67.) This too came to pass 
 and that during the official life of its author. By the 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADM INISTKATION 59 
 
 same law, taking effect October 1, 1867, that increased 
 state taxation for the schools, they became free in fact, 
 as well as in name, throughout the state, as they had 
 been, for years, in the cities. The rate bill was abol- 
 ished. This was a glorious consummation. The blot 
 upon the 'scutcheon was effaced. The principle that 
 the property of the state should educate the children 
 of the state was vindicated. The doors of the common 
 school were opened wide; all could enter upon equal 
 terms; there would be no further exemptions as the 
 stigma of the indigent and no further burdens to make 
 up deficiencies for the well-to-do to bear. The schools 
 were democratized. The free school was, above all else, 
 the affirmation of a principle of republican government, 
 a basal principal of a commonwealth, long apprehended 
 by statesmanship and expressed by the municipalities, 
 yet long waiting for full legal recognition. As such, 
 the statute of 1867 is to be commemorated in educa- 
 tional annals, and, credit is to be accorded to those 
 who were instrumental in securing it, and conspicu- 
 ously to Victor M. Rice who, as the head of the common 
 school system, was its consistent champion and tireless 
 promoter. But, aside from the principle, the law 
 immediately proved its utility. Within four months 
 from the time it became operative, Superintendent 
 Rice was able to say that it was meeting the most 
 sanguine hopes of its advocates ; "Already " he adds 
 " the local school officers report an average daily 
 attendance of pupils at the schools twenty to thirty- 
 five per cent greater than it was during the same 
 period of the year previous. In many districts, and 
 particularly w r here there is a large proportion of foreign 
 born population, it has been found necessary to in- 
 crease the accommodations, from this cause." He also 
 refers to the continued beneficial effects of the union 
 free school act of 1853 in contributing to the establish- 
 ment and maintenance of a superior class of graded 
 schools, claiming that in range and quality of in- 
 struction they compare favorably with the best acad- 
 emies which, in many localities, they are supplanting. 
 About eighty of some 300 chartered academies had at 
 this time been absorbed in the union free schools. The 
 following table — a comparison of the condition of these 
 schools at the time they were made free with that at 
 the time report* therefrom were collected by the super- 
 
(50 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 intendent — shows something of the progress they bad 
 
 made: 
 
 Average increase of the time of main- 
 taining schools per year 9.4 per cent 
 
 Aggregate increase of the number of 
 teachers employed 2S weeks or longer 
 per year 88 " 
 
 Aggregate increase of the amount paid 
 
 for teachers' wages per year 141 " " 
 
 Aggregate increase of compensation to 
 
 each teacher per year 28 " " 
 
 Aggregate increase of the number of 
 
 children of school age 32 " " 
 
 Aggregate increase of the daily attend- 
 ance of pupils at school 74 " " 
 
 Aggregate increase of values of school- 
 houses and sites 178 " " 
 
 Prior to their organization as union free school dis- 
 tricts, there was an absence of comfortable housings, 
 qualified teachers were hard to obtain because it was 
 hard to pay them, the schools were not graded aud rate 
 bills repelled the children of the poor and parsimo- 
 nious; but, as organized, the children crowded the 
 schools and, the interest of the inhabitants being- 
 quickened, ampler provision for schoolhouses and com- 
 petent teachers was made. Inasmuch as the new free 
 school law had but just gone into effect, full statistics 
 are here omitted and comparisons will be made further 
 cost ot on. Let it suffice to state that at the close of the last 
 lios£ot* school year of Superintendent Rice's third term, the 
 Sinistra, schools were costing $7,683,201.22 as against $4,549,- 
 tion 870.76 at the close of that of his second term — an 
 
 increase of $3,133,330.56. 
 a n minis- On the 7th of April, 1868, Abram B. Weaver, a 
 V'uranrB* graduate of Hamilton college, who had been a school 
 weaver commissioner in Oneida county and a member of 
 assembly, became superintendent of public instruction. 
 He brought to the place experience in the schools and 
 was especially intelligent in devising measures for their 
 improvement. His reports were able and luminous 
 and his capacity for administration was manifest 
 throughout. It was his privilege to be the first execu- 
 tive of the free school law, for Superintendent Rice 
 was but permitted to start the machinery, which his 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION Gl 
 
 successors operated. Mr. Weaver's first annual report 
 (1869) revealed the satisfaction he felt in his work 
 and his reflections thereon fitly supplement the antici- 
 pations of his predecessors. He says : " The cause of 
 public instruction, during the last fiscal year, has operation 
 
 * of tlio t"re<? 
 
 wrought results unequaled in all the past, and which, school 
 if they correctly denote a corresponding growth in the 
 popular estimate of the value and advantages of our 
 public schools, mark the beginning of a new and more 
 auspicious era in the department of the educational 
 system of the state. The effect of this amendment lias 
 not been confined to the financial policy thereby inaugu- 
 rated. It is distinctly traceable in lengthened terms 
 of school, in a larger and more uniform attendance, 
 and in more liberal expenditures for school buildings 
 and appliances. We are now enabled to study the 
 influence of this measure for the first year of its opera- 
 tion, and to judge of its merits in the light of a limited 
 experience. The liberal and progressive spirit that 
 authorized it will not fail to watch its workings with 
 unabated interest. The state is fully committed to the 
 policy of providing for all the children within its limits 
 the opportunity to acquire at least a sound elementary 
 education, sufficient for the duties of good citizenship 
 and for personal usefulness. This comprehensive plan 
 is not entirely new. It is the natural outgrowth and 
 development of the original enterprise initiated by 
 establishing common schools in 1812. With the excep- 
 tion of a brief period under the operation of the free 
 school law of 18-19, which was declared unconstitu- 
 tional by the courts on account of its conditional enact- 
 ment, the system as organized and conducted prior to 
 the late change, though efficient as could well be ex- 
 pected under conditions then existing, and entitled to 
 lasting gratitude and respect for the good it has 
 accomplished, never completely compassed the prin- 
 ciples upon which it rested." The following compara- 
 tive figures will show the impulse the schools received 
 in a single year: 
 
 Statistical 
 
 1867 1868 
 
 Number of districts 11,722 11,736 
 
 Number of male teachers 5,271 5,918 
 
 Number of female teachers 21.218 21,S65 
 
 Number of children attending 
 school 949,203 970,84-2 
 
62 DiEFA&TM£NT OF PUBLJC INSTRUCTION 
 
 1867 1868 
 
 Average daily attendance 419,957 445,868 
 
 Visitations by commissioners 16,685 18,963 
 
 Aggregate number of schoolhouses. 11,556 11,674 
 
 Financial 
 
 1S67 1868 
 Apportionment of public 
 
 moneys $1,403,321 64 $2,302,515 Til 
 
 Raised by tax 5,101,754 53 6,338,801 77 
 
 Raised by rate bill 743,047 73 
 
 Proceeds of gospel and 
 
 school lands 26,009 24 23,134 62 
 
 Paid for teachers' wages.. 4,826,471 64 5,597,506 94 
 
 Paid for libraries 24,439 25 26,632 34 
 
 Paid for school apparatus. 211,665 47 234,52S 09 
 
 Paid for colored schools.. 56,413 23 64.807 54 
 Paid for schoolhouses, 
 
 sites, etc 1,713,107 01 2,184,064 95 
 
 Paid for incidental ex- 
 penses 850,766, 8l ( 933.187 60 
 
 Actual expenses of schools. 7,683,201 22 9,040,942 02 
 
 a second An episode of the earlier years u* Superintendent 
 
 iiiii e fU'ntion Weaver's tenure here interposes, to which reference is 
 due, not because it had eventful issue, but because it 
 is of interest now as the story of an attempt, almost 
 successful, at unifying the two great educational de- 
 partments of the government. During the ses- 
 sion of the legislature of 1869, a bill was in- 
 troduced in the assembly proposing " to abolish the 
 board of regents of the university, and to establish a 
 state board of education," charged with the general 
 supervision of all the public schools, academies and 
 colleges and with the administration of the laws relat- 
 ing to them. The bill was referred to the committee 
 on public education reported from that committee and 
 occasioned considerable discussion in the house, but it 
 was not pressed to a vote. Late in the session, how- 
 ever, a resolution was adopted directing the superin 
 tendent to report to the next legislature as to the pro- 
 priety of abolishing the board of regents and to propose 
 such legislation, if any, as might be necessary to place 
 the colleges, academies and free schools under a more 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION t»3 
 
 efficient management. In accordance with the reso- 
 lution, Mr Weaver prepared an exhaustive report, in 
 his usually clear and incisive phrase, giving in outline 
 a description of the several systems of education ob- 
 taining in the state, pointing out defects in each, but 
 insisting that the h§ad of the department of education 
 should be a single officer, acting, not as the secretary 
 or agent of a board, but upon his own responsibility, 
 being directly accountable to the legislature. The fol- 
 lowing passage is pertinent now. " The state itself 
 has but one system of education, which it maintains 
 and enforces, and that is organically a unit. It is the 
 system of public instruction, embracing 11,750 schools, 
 organized and supported upon one general plan. To 
 unite with these schools the academies as now organ- 
 ized would not produce uniformity. The association 
 of chartered academies, charging for tuition, with free 
 public schools, would constitute not a homogeneous 
 system, but an incongruous combination;" and further: 
 " It is no more essential that the regents remaki an 
 independent body in order to carry out faithfully the 
 duties imposed upon them respecting colleges and 
 academies, than that the school commissioners, who 
 perform similar duties in respect to common schools 
 should have an organization independent of the De- 
 partment.'' He concludes with recommending the pas- 
 sage of an act containing two leading propositions, (1) 
 that the duration of the office of any regent, hereafter 
 elected, be limited to a definite term of years; and (2) 
 that the board of regents be made part of the depart- 
 ment of education having specific duties the same as 
 those then performed by them and, in addition, that 
 they be required to visit and inspect the several normal 
 schools; and that their report be made to the head of 
 the Department, to be incorporated in his annual re- 
 port, so that one document might present a complete 
 view of the working of the entire system of education 
 in the state. A bill was accordingly introduced in the 
 assembly, April 12, 1870, by John L. Flagg, of Rens- 
 selaer county, which provided for the election of a super- 
 intendent of public education for a term of three years 
 by joint ballot of the senate and assembly who should 
 possess all the powers and be charged with all the 
 duties previously vested in or imposed upon the super- 
 intendent of public instruction with certain enlarged 
 
04 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 powers specified; his salary was to be $5,000; the 
 regents of the university were to be nineteen in num- 
 ber, including those then in office, but as deaths or 
 resignations occurred new regents were to be elected 
 for terms of ten years ; all annual reports of the regents 
 in relation to colleges and acaden^es were to be made 
 to the superintendent of education; the regents were 
 required to visit and inspect the several state normal 
 schools and report thereon to the superintendent the 
 names of the several institutions entitled to participate 
 in the distribution of the literature fund and other 
 appropriations and the number of pupils upon which 
 the distribution was based and the superintendent was 
 to thereafter make and deliver to the comptroller a 
 schedule of the distribution of such moneys, the same 
 to be paid by the treasurer upon the warrant of the 
 comptroller. This bill was passed by the legislature 
 of 1S70, but failed to meet the approval of Governor 
 Hoffman and so ended the attempt at unification over 
 thirty years ago. It is not, however, amiss to say that 
 Superintendent Weaver entertained very sensible views 
 upon the subject and that his plan is quite similar to 
 that which has now become law. 
 Last re- The annual report of Mr Weaver, for the school year 
 
 first term ending September 30, 1870 — the last report of his first 
 temienT 111 " term — records better results than the common school 
 weaver S y S tem had before produced. Among the evidences of 
 progress are the continued improvement in the material 
 of school buildings, log houses decreasing 136 and 
 frame and brick structures increasing 3S and 200 
 respectively during the year; the value of schoolhouses 
 and sites increasing from $18,449,048 to $20,426,421; 
 the aggregate school attendance increasing from 998,664 
 to 1,026,447 and the average attendance from 468,421 
 to 484,705 ; the whole number of teachers employed de- 
 creasing from 28,310 to 2S.217, the decrease accounted 
 for by the increase from 17,140 to 17,437 of those em- 
 ployed for 28 weeks or more ; the average weekly wages 
 of teachers in cities increasing from $15.16 to $16.12 
 and in the rural districts from $7.S6 to $8.13, the 
 average annual salaries, inclusive of both city and rural 
 districts, having increased from $309.23 in 1867 to 
 $372.58 in 1870; 90 academies had been absorbed in 
 union free schools and the number of graded schools 
 had risen to 694; teachers' institutes had been held in 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION G5 
 
 rural districts in attendance; six normal schools were 
 in successful operation, and teachers' classes were 
 maintained in ST academies. The actual cost of the 
 schools for 1870 was, in the cities 15,074,809.31 and, in 
 the rural districts $4,830,644.91, a total of. $9,905,574.22. 
 The only criticism, in which the superintendent in- 
 dulges, is that relating to the decadence of the libraries, 
 which had been occurring for years, the number of 
 volumes having diminished since 1853 more than 
 600,000— from 1,604,210 to 986,697— while $935,000 had 
 been appropriated to them, this being explained by the 
 permission to districts, upon certain conditions, some- 
 times complied with, but more frequently disregarded, 
 to use the money for apparatus and teachers' wages. 
 
 The annual report of Superintendent Weaver for the Tas * an_ 
 
 r ' mini re- 
 
 SCllOOl year ending September 30, 1873, bristles with port <*t 
 
 statistics, and states that the aggregate and average tendent 
 
 attendance at the schools is unprecedented, exceeding 
 
 that of any previous year by several thousands, this 
 
 not being a fortuitous increase, but the product of an 
 
 interrupted growth characterizing the returns each 
 
 year since the inauguration of the free school system. 
 
 Some of these statistics are here transcribed. 
 
 Normal schools 
 
 Location 
 
 Albany 
 
 Brockport 
 
 Buffalo 
 
 Cortland 
 
 Fredonia 
 
 Geneseo 
 
 Oswego , 
 
 I'otsdam 
 
 When 
 opened 
 
 1844 
 1867 
 1871 
 1869 
 
 1868 
 1871 
 1S63 
 
 No. of 
 graduates 
 
 1,976 
 85 
 22 
 98 
 
 111 
 14 
 
 549 
 40 
 
 Expenses 
 for 1st:: 
 
 $23,034 79 
 21,820 59 
 
 19.716 40 
 18,395 01 
 20.6S2 57 
 21,186 74 
 18,000 00 
 19,075 05 
 
 Received for 
 
 tuition, 1873 
 
 $3,537 50 
 
 2,560 1<> 
 
 600 00 
 
 269 75 
 
 611 70 
 
 1,130 20 
 
 1869 
 
 1,678 75 
 
 These schools were amply justifying their being, 
 although, owing to contracts with localities for 
 academic and other departments they were not and 
 are not yet as strictly professional as their name im- 
 plies. The following are statistical and financial tables 
 for 1873 : 
 
 Statistical Rural 
 
 Cities districts Total 
 
 Number of districts 66S 11.327 11,995 
 
 Number of teachers employed at the same 
 
 time for 28 weeks or more 4,940 13.355 IS, 295 
 
 Number of male teachers employed 592 6,505 7.097 
 
 Number of.female teachers employed 5.166 17,201 22,367 
 
 Number of children in attendance 416.063 614.716 1,030,779 
 
 Average daily attendance..: 203,697 295,772 499,469 
 
B6 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Financial 
 
 Rural 
 
 Receipts Cities districts Total 
 
 Amount on hand October 1, 1872. $878,905 96 $255,651 37 $1,134,557 33 
 
 Apportionment of public moneys 1,028,714 35 1,665,627 56 2,694,341 91 
 
 Proceeds of gospel and school 
 
 lands 36 44 35,626 17 35,662 61 
 
 Raised by tax 4,600,019 05 3,043,345 47 7,643,364 52 
 
 Estimated value of teachers' 
 
 board 225,93168 225,93168 
 
 From all other sources 105,103 71 249,80122 354,904 93 
 
 $6,612,779 51 $5,475,9S3 47 $12,088,762 98 
 
 Rural 
 
 Payments Cities districts Total 
 
 For teachers' wages $3,693,641 64 $3,721,539 75 $7,415,181 39 
 
 For libraries 11,985 65 15,218 14 27,203 79 
 
 For school apparatus 234.SS9 92 59,255 76 294,145 68 
 
 For colored schools 66,54S 03 8,063 46 74,61149 
 
 For schoolhouses, sites, etc 1,050,926 50 943,206 39 1,994,132 89 
 
 For incidental expenses 663,714 59 476.S6S 13 1,140, 5S0 72 
 
 Forfeited, in hands of super- 
 visors 15125 15125 
 
 Amount on hand October 1, 1S73. 891,073 IS 251,682 59 1,142,755 77 
 
 Totals $6,612,779 51 $5,475,983 47 $12,088,762 98 
 
 Deducting from the totals, under the head of pay- 
 ments, the sums remaining on hand October 1, 1873, it 
 appears that the actual expense of maintaining the 
 common schools during the year was $10,946,007.21. 
 Comparing some of these figures with those of the year 
 (1867) preceding Superintendent Weavers accession to 
 office, and the operation of the free school act, the fol- 
 lowing increases will be noted: Number of districts 
 223; number of teachers employed 2,975; children in 
 attendance 81,756 ; average daily attendance 79.512 and 
 in the actual expenses of the schools of $3,262,S05.99. 
 The average time each pupil in the cities attended 
 school was 19 weeks and in the rural districts 16 2-10 
 weeks. The average length of school terms in the cities 
 was 41 weeks, and, in the state, 35 weeks. Super- 
 intendent Weaver's administration was eminently 
 sound and practical. He thoroughly believed in the 
 democratic principle upon which the common schools 
 are based and his courage was displayed in his care 
 for their concerns, in his proposal that the head of 
 the department of education should be the head of all 
 the educational affairs of the state, in his resolute 
 opposition to the appropriation of any moneys raised 
 by taxation to institutions belonging either to private 
 corporations or religious denominations, and in his con- 
 sistent fealty to the cause of elementary education. In 
 this, there was with him " neither variation nor shadow 
 of turning." 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION <>1 
 
 On the 7th of April, 1874, Neil Gilmour, who was a £*&£J'if 
 graduate of Union college, and had been a teacher and superin- 
 
 o ■ o ? tendent 
 
 school commissioner in Saratoga county, became super- Giimonr 
 intendent.of public instruction. He was reelected in 
 1877 and again in 1S80. In his first annual report 
 (1S75) he refers to the statistics of the year as exhibit- 
 ing a steady growth in the existing system, which 
 amply vindicates the wisdom of the legislation 
 of 1867. He notes that the number of school 
 districts in the towns bad decreased from 11,327, 
 in 1873, to 11,299, in 1874, caused chiefly by the con- 
 solidation of small districts, and the formation of 
 union graded schools in the more populous towns and 
 villages. Slight decreases are noted in succeeding 
 years, due to the same causes and to the settled policy 
 of the Department to encourage the organization of 
 such schools. The superintendent calls attention, as 
 had his immediate predecessor, to the continuous decay 
 of the district libraries, and is satisfied that their use- 
 fulness is ended. He distinctly favors the establish- 
 ment of town, in lieu of district, libraries. He renews 
 the same suggestion in 1870, in which year, he also 
 alludes to an issue, that has vexed the Department more 
 or less, for many years — the actual or attempted 
 evasion of the law and the constitution by denomina- 
 tional schools obtaining public moneys. With the con- 
 nivance of local authorities, against plain legal pro- 
 hibitions. This issue may again be referred to, but 
 Superintendent Gilmour's words may here be quoted 
 as declaratory of his resolute attitude thereon : " There 
 are reports" he writes "that propositions have 
 already been made, and in some cases accepted, that 
 certain parochial schools, not under the control of the 
 state, should be used by the trustees or boards of edu- 
 cation of the districts in which they are located, on 
 condition that the teachers be appointed by those 
 having the control of such schools, or that the course 
 of instruction be subject to their approval. The 
 adoption of such a policy would be a step towards the 
 destruction of our system .of public instruction. I 
 earnestly recommend that the legislature take such 
 steps as will securely imbed in the constitution of the 
 state our common schools; as will place them beyond 
 the power of any man or set of men, party or sect, to 
 interfere with their admirable working, or in any man- 
 
68 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 ner impair their usefulness or tend to their destruc- 
 tion." According to the report for the school year end- 
 ing September 30, 187G, the last year of Superintendent 
 Gilmour's first term, the schools had cost $11,439.- 
 038.78; the number of school districts in the towns was 
 11,285; the number of schoolhouses in the cities was 
 430 and the rural districts 11.824; the male teachers 
 were 7,687 and the female, 22,522; the aggregate attend- 
 ance was 1,067,199 and the average daily attendance 
 was 541,610. 
 Aaitation During Superintendent Gilmour's second term, pub- 
 the normal he attention was called to the work oi the normal 
 lct°<m"o« schools, inquiry being especially directed to two points, 
 Sntendent" yxz - '■ as to whether the graduates of these institutions 
 were keeping faith with the state by engaging in teach- 
 ing, and whether the academic and primary branches 
 were being maintained to the detriment of the purely 
 profession;; 1 department, in accordance with real or 
 implied engagements with the localities. Agitation 
 was precipitated by the recommendation of Governor 
 Robinson, in his message of 1877, that investigation be 
 had as to whether these schools were really worth what 
 they cost, he Inning been told that a very large portion 
 of the pupils instructed in them did not follow the pro- 
 fession of teaching for any length of rime. The schools 
 passed through a severe ordeal, for powerful influences 
 were arrayed against them, but from it they issued 
 more secure in public favor than before. Tin 1 superin- 
 tendent made diligent examination of the charges pre- 
 ferred, addressing a circular to the principals request- 
 ing information upon the matters specified. Upon the 
 first point, he received most satisfactory replies, and 
 found that over 77',' of the graduates had engaged in 
 teaching, many intending to make it their vocation for 
 life. The second point was not so (dearly settled. Mr 
 Gilmour himself did not think that the highest effi- 
 ciency of the schools could be attained, while other 
 than normal courses were permitted in them, and he 
 issued an order, dune 11, 1877, discontinuing the 
 academic departments in the institutions at Buffalo, 
 Brockport, Cortland, Geneseo, Oswego and Potsdam, 
 that at Fredonia being upheld by the express warrant 
 of its enabling act. He subsequently suspended the 
 operation of his order at Brockport and Potsdam, these 
 localities having equities that could not be disregarded; 
 
A REVIEW OP ITS ADMINISTRATION 69 
 
 and he also recommended that the legislature should 
 appoint a committee to report upon this and other 
 matters relative to those schools, with a view to per- 
 fecting permanent arrangements concerning their con- 
 duct. Such a committee was duly appointed and made 
 a partial report upon the academic departments; and 
 the legislature by resolution requested the superintend- 
 ent to revoke his order discontinuing such departments 
 in the schools mentioned, which he accordingly did, 
 dune 4, 1878, without, however, it appears, reversing 
 his own opinion in the premises. In the last annual 
 report of his second term (1880) Superintendent Gil- 
 nioiir regards the schools as, in the main, fulfilling their 
 mission, although conceding the superiority of the city 
 schools over those in the rural districts ; he advises an 
 increase of the state tax for the benefit of the latter; 
 he speaks of the normal schools as, upon the whole, 
 doing valuable service and recommends the usual appro- 
 priations in their behalf; he suggests legislation 
 making it optional with localities to change from the 
 district to the township system, and closes with an 
 allusion to the movement for unification, even then pro- 
 nounced, which he deems unadvisable, as he cannot 
 perceive that any good would result from a consoli- 
 dation of the two great educational departments of the 
 state. The statistics for the year ending September 30, 
 1ST!), show that the schools' had cost f 10,348.918.08 ; 
 the number of school districts in the towns was 11,280 ; 
 the number of schoolhouses in the cities was 410 aud in 
 the rural districts 11,442; the male teachers were 8,164 
 and the female 22,505; the aggregate attendance was 
 1,030,041 and the average daily attendance 570,382. 
 
 During the third term of Superintendent Gilmour, a The oort- 
 case arose concerning his jurisdiction over the normal J"*'i l ^iiooi 
 schools, that evoked much of controversy and even of ^°"* ro ~ 
 bitterness. It was finally determined against him by 
 the court of appeals. As settling an important issue, 
 a reference to it is in order. Chapter 466 of the laws 
 of 1866, under which a majority of the normal schools 
 were organized, provided, among other things, that the 
 superintendent should appoint for each of these schools 
 a local board consisting of not less than three persons, 
 who should respectively hold their offices until removed 
 by the concurrent action of the chancellor of the uni- 
 versity and the superintendent, who should have the 
 
70 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 immediate management of such school, subject, how 
 ever, to the general supervision and direction of the 
 superintendent. It was made his duty to determine 
 the number of teachers that should be employed in 
 such school and their wages, and their employment 
 was to be by the local board subject to his approval. 
 By chapter 18 of the laws of 1869, it was furl her pro- 
 vided that " during such time as any local hoard shall 
 omit to discharge its duties, the said superintendent 
 (of public instruction) is authorized to discharge the 
 duties of such local boards or any of its officers ; and 
 the acts of said superintendent in the premises shall 
 be as valid and binding as if done by a competent local 
 board or its officers, or with their cooperation." 
 Assuming that he was warranted by the law, and hold- 
 ing that its interests would be served by a change in 
 the principalship of the Cortland normal school the 
 superintendent, on the 28th of June, 18S0, requested 
 the resignation of Principal James H. Hoose. On the 
 8th of July, Doctor Hoose responded, declining to 
 resign. On the 12th of July, the superintendent, forti- 
 fied by the opinion of the attorney -general, Hamilton 
 Ward, notified Doctor Hoose of the withdrawal of his 
 approval of said House's employment as principal and 
 also notified the local board of his action, giving his 
 reasons therefor in full, anil asked that some competent 
 person should be recommended to him as principal. 
 This the board declined to do; and. on the 4th day of 
 August, the superintendent appointed Doctor James 
 M. Cassety acting principal, sustained in this proceed- 
 ing also by the attorney-general. Doctor Cassety pre- 
 sented himself at the school prepared to take charge 
 thereof, but the local board, being in possession of the 
 building, refused to admit him and continued Doctor 
 Hoose as principal. Thereupon the attorney-general 
 applied for a peremptory writ of mandamus before 
 .Judge .Marl in. hearing being had at a special term held 
 at Binghamton, on the 20th of October, to compel the 
 local board to terminate the employment of Doctor 
 Hoose and to recognize Doctor Cassety. Judge Martin 
 granted the writ and Doctor Cassety became prin- 
 cipal in February, L881, acting as such until April, 
 1S82. Meanwhile the local board appealed from Judge 
 Martin's decision to the general term of the supreme 
 court, which affirmed the judgment of the court below, 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 
 
 71 
 
 but, upon appeal to the court of the last resort, Judge 
 Tracy writing the opinion, this judgment was reversed 
 and Doctor Hoose was reinstated. This decision was 
 upon the grounds that " the supervision and manage- 
 ment of the board is immediate; the supervision and 
 management of the superintendent is general," and 
 that the power to remove a teacher, without the con- 
 currence of the local board was not comprehended 
 within his general jurisdiction. The following are the Last an _ 
 
 statistical and financial reports for the last year of »« a ' report 
 
 1 ^ of super- 
 
 Superintendent Gilmour's administration: intendent 
 
 Gilmour 
 
 Statistical 
 
 Cities Towns State 
 
 Number of districts 11,257 11,257 
 
 Number of teachers employed at the same 
 
 time for 28 weeks or more 6,562 14,340 20,902 
 
 Number of children between 5 and 21 years 
 
 of age 857.560 S23.601 1.6S1.161 
 
 Number of male teachers employed 681 6,442 7,123 
 
 Number of female teachers employed 6,741 17,369 24.110 
 
 Number of children in attendance. 146.385 594,683 1,011,068 
 
 Average daily attendance 202. S73 3m;.. -.98 569 471 
 
 Visitations by commissioners 16,199 16.199 
 
 Number of volumes in libraries 169,17* 536,456 705,634 
 
 Number of log schoolhouses IS 76 
 
 Number of frame schoolhouses 4. 10.053 10.100 
 
 Number of brick scboolhouses 39] 952 1,343 
 
 Number of stone schoolhouses 387 395 
 
 Whole number of schoolhouses 446 11.468 11,914 
 
 Financial 
 
 Receipts Cities Towns State 
 
 Amount on hand October 1,1881. $859,443 02 $324,09:3 70 $1,183 ,.539 72 
 
 Apportionment of public moneys 1,278,537 79 1,693,035 48 2,971,593 27 
 Proceeds of gospel and school 
 
 lands 19.143 16 19.143 16 
 
 Raised by tax 5,144,032 53 2,688,602 11 7,S32,694 64 
 
 Estimated yaiue of teachers' 
 
 board 102,472 81 102,472 81 
 
 From other sources 155,153 90 279,612 79 434.766 69 
 
 Totals $7,437.227 24 $5,106,983 05 $12,544,210 29 
 
 Payments Cities Towns State 
 
 For teachers' wages $1,502.289 07 $3,453,972 24 $7,986,26131 
 
 For libraries 19,004 95 16,800 80 35,805 75 
 
 For school apparatus 160,52113 30,26169 190.782 S2 
 
 For colored schools 37,427 62 6.424 31 43.85193 
 
 For schoolhouses. sites, etc 795,055 88 730,370 31 1,525,420 19 
 
 For incidental expenses 913,416 10 487,044 36 1,400,460 46 
 
 Forfeited, in supervisors' hands 43S 96 438 96 
 
 Amount on hand September 30, 
 
 1882 ." 1,009,512 49 351,670 38 1,361,182 87 
 
 Totals $7,437,227 24 $5,103.983 05 $12,544,210 29 
 
 Deducting from the totals, under the heads of pay- 
 ments, the sums remaining on hand September 30, 1882, 
 it appears that the adual expenses of maintaining the 
 common schools during the year were in the cities 
 $0,427,714.75 and in the towns $4,755,312.67— a total 
 
72 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 of 111,183,027.42. A few comparisons may be made 
 with 1874, the first year of the Gilmour tenure, from 
 which it appears that few material changes had 
 occurred either in the cost or conduct of the common 
 schools. In that year, the expense of their maintenance 
 was |11,08S,981.70; teachers' wages were $7,601,518.79; 
 the number of teachers was 29,622, and the aggregate 
 number of children in attendance was 1,044,360. 
 tVatioIi iS of William B. Ruggles, a graduate of Hamilton college. 
 temient" who had been a journalist and a lawyer and had repre- 
 Rnseies sen ted Steuben county in the assembly, for two terms, 
 became superintendent of public instruction, April 7, 
 1883, and served until January 1, 1886, when he re- 
 signed, and his deputy, James E. Morrison, filled the 
 office for the balance of the term. As a member of the 
 ("mient" judiciary committee of the assembly in 1877, Mr 
 normal* 01 ' Ruggles had been a severe critic of the normal schools, 
 sci.oo s k u ^ j n h^ fi rs t annual report he comes to the confes- 
 sional in the following words : " When I took charge of 
 the Department of Public Instruction on the 7th of 
 April last, I came to that trust prepossessed with the 
 belief that the normal schools were not, in fact, accom- 
 plishing the purpose designed and expected upon their 
 organization, and that, measured by their results, they 
 were too costly an experiment. .^ Wider opportunities 
 for observation and the facilities for closer inspection 
 of their actual operation, which a somewhat intimate 
 official relation with them has afforded, have tended to 
 modify my views considerably in respect to their prac- 
 tical utility and to inspire me with, what seems a 
 reasonable hope, that the anticipations of their friends 
 may in time be substantially realized. Normal schools 
 in this state, as a part of the free school system, may 
 be considered to be permanently established." He 
 thinks that the relative proportion of strictly normal 
 school instruction should be enlarged and the merely 
 elementary and academic diminished, but he finds that, 
 for ten years past, the number of teachers in the com- 
 mon schools holding normal school diplomas had in- 
 creased each year; that, in 1873, the whole number of 
 teachers with such diplomas was 632, and 1,280 in 1883, 
 and that the number in the towns was 337 and 911 
 respectively; or, in other words, that such teachers, 
 during the decade, had more than doubled in the one 
 case and nearly trebled in the other. 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 73 
 
 The first report of Superintendent Ruggies is a JJ55*,J?" 
 valuable contribution to the work of the schools, superin- 
 
 ' teiulent 
 
 intelligent in treatment, comprehensive in scope, Ruggies 
 and helpful in suggestion. It records improve- 
 ment in several important particulars over the 
 preceding year — in the increase of union free schools, 
 then numbering 365 organized under the general 
 law and 65 under special acts, in larger interest in and 
 attendance upon the institutes, in greater expenditure 
 for school buildings and their appurtenances, depend- 
 ent upon local taxation, in the number of visitations 
 by commissioners, in attendance and weeks taught, in 
 teachers employed and their advanced wages and con- 
 cludes that the system is steadily advancing and ex- 
 panding. It regards the salary of a school commis- 
 sioner as inadequate and proposes an increase thereof 
 to f 1 ,000, and approves the changes effected by the law 
 of the previous year by which the school year was ended 
 on the 20th of August, instead of the 30th of September 
 and the annual district meetings were directed to be 
 held the last Tuesday in August, instead of the second 
 Tuesday in October. It does not draw a glowing pic- 
 ture of the sanitary condition of the schools, esteeming 
 this a matter for grave inquiry, and citing a report 
 made by the state board of health to the Governor 
 in 1882, in relation thereto, in which very serious de- 
 fects in ventilation, cleanliness, water supply, seating 
 accommodations, etc., in a majority of cases, are 
 enumerated. The superintendent recommends an 
 appropriation, one of like character having been made 
 in 1863, to enable him to prepare and distribute designs 
 and specifications for school buildings, with appro- 
 priate explanations and instructions as to ventilation, 
 heating, seating, arrangement of closets and out- 
 houses and sanitary provisions generally. 
 
 Salient features of the second annual report (1885) 
 of Superintendent Ruggies are his statement of the 
 deplorable state of the district libraries, with the 
 recommendation that the law as it stood prior to 1S51, 
 making the district quota therefor dependent upon the 
 raising of an equal amount locally, should be substan- 
 tially revived, the experiment being worth trying to 
 avoid absolute extinction; the tribute to the normal 
 college of the city of New York, the graduates of which 
 were supplying about one-half of the teachers thereof; 
 
74 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 the repetition of the recommendation for the increase 
 of the salary of the school commissioner to $1,000 
 (happily accomplished by chapter 340 of the laws of 
 1885) ; and a lengthly opinion, in conformity with the 
 uniform decisions of the Department, to the effect that 
 religious instruction and exercises must be excluded 
 from the public schools during school hours. 
 of a func e - nt In the course of this review, the functions of the 
 thTsnper- superintendent of public instruction have more or less 
 intendent clearly, although perhaps, disjointedly, appeared, but 
 in the last annual report (188G) of Superintendent 
 Ruggles, transmitted to the legislature by Mr Morrison, 
 there is a statement of the same so definite and con- 
 secutive that it cannot be impertinent to here make an 
 abstract thereof as showing how ample are the powers 
 vested in him and the supremacy of his office in the 
 educational history of the state, premising that no 
 material modification of the same has since occurred. 
 He has the appointment of all office subordinates, insti- 
 tute conductors and instructors, superintendents of 
 Indian schools, the local boards of the state normal 
 schools and the teachers in the same (except Albany I 
 on the nomination of local boards, the pupils in the 
 normal departments of these schools, on the recom- 
 mendation of commissioners, subject to entrance ex- 
 aminations by the faculties, and the state pupils in the 
 institutions for the deaf and dumb and the blind on 
 certificates of supervisors and local officers having 
 charge of the poor in the several counties. In connec- 
 tion with the trustees of the American Museum of 
 Natural History in the city of New York, he appoints 
 and employs the instructor and his assistants in the 
 department of free instruction to the teachers of that 
 city on scientific subjects. He apportions and dis- 
 tributes to the several counties, cities and school dis- 
 tricts, the moneys annually appropriated from the com- 
 mon school, the United States deposit and the free 
 school funds. He pays, through warrant on the stale 
 treasurer, countersigned by the comptroller, the salaries 
 of the various officials heretofore specified and those of 
 the commissioners, and examines all accounts and 
 vouchers connected therewith, as well as those for 
 maintaining examinations, issuing certificates and all 
 necessary office expenses. He designates the times and 
 places for holding teachers' institutes and assigns con- 
 
A. REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 75 
 
 ductors and instructors to the same, and also appoints 
 times and places for holding examinations. He has 
 general supervision over the state normal schools, and 
 the eleemosynary institutions, in which the state has 
 pupils are subject to his visitation; and, in the words 
 of Superintendent Ruggles, " of all the duties imposed 
 by law upon the State Superintendent, the most 
 arduous and exacting — the one, more than any other, 
 calling for the exercise of patience and a sound and 
 discreet judgment — which occupies in its performance 
 a larger portion of the time of the superintendent and 
 his deputy and the clerical force in the office, than all 
 others combined, is the duty of adjusting and settling, 
 whenever his intervention is called for, by official 
 direction, advice or opinion, or by adjudications on 
 appeal, the innumerable misunderstandings and con- 
 troversies arising out of the execution of the school 
 laws in the cities, villages and thousands of school dis- 
 tricts throughout the state." " I am not aware," he 
 adds, " of the existence of any other judicial tribunal 
 in this state which is entrusted with such absolute 
 judicial power over matters within the scope of its 
 jurisdiction. Even the decisions of our highest state 
 appellate court — the court of appeals — in a large 
 class of cases, are subject to be reviewed and reversed 
 by another court." The following are the statistical 
 and financial reports for the year ending August 20, i-ast an- 
 1885, the last year of the Ruggles administration: """i.e*" 1 ' 01 
 
 RnSSles 
 adminis- 
 Statistical tration 
 
 Cities Towns State 
 
 Number of districts 11.254 11.254 
 
 Number of teachers employed at the same 
 
 time for 2S weeks or more 7,211 14,613 21,284 
 
 Number of children between 5 and 21 years 
 
 of age 913,269 807,857 1,721,126 
 
 Number of male teachers employed 716 5.305 6,021 
 
 Number of female teachers employed 7.514 17,864 25,378 
 
 Number of children in attendance 449.879 574,966 1,024,845 
 
 Average daily attendance 296,152 314,867 6 11^ 19 
 
 Visitations of commissioners 15.342 15,342 
 
 Number of volumes in libraries 199,126 533,750 732,876 
 
 Number of log schoolhouses 70 70 
 
 Number of frame schoolhouses 41 10,042 10.0S3 
 
 Number of brick schoolhouses 426 960 1.3S6 
 
 Number of stone schoolhouses 9 364 373 
 
 Whole number of schoolhouses 476 11,436 11,912 
 
 Financial 
 
 Receipts Cities Towns State 
 
 Amount on hand August 21. 18S4. $1,453,014 72 $509,721 60 $1,962,736 32 
 
 Apportionment of public moneys 1,322,161 03 1,678,979 13 3,001,140 16 
 Proceeds of gospel and school 
 
 lands f.... 28,939 48 28,939 48 
 
76 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 Receipts Cities Towns State 
 
 Raised by tax $G, 557, 846 78 $3, 154, 4 17 43 $9, 712, 324 21 
 
 Estimated value of teachers' 
 
 board 80.225 33 SO, 2^3 33 
 
 From other sources 213.826 61 450,92171 770,748 32 
 
 Total 59,552,849 14 $5,903,264 68 
 
 Payments Cities Towns 
 
 For teachers - wages $1,923,521 68 $3. 831. 128 55 
 
 For libraries 2O.04S 36 21.32138 
 
 For school apparatus 277.103 31 39,053 80 
 
 For colored schools 13,679 88 8,616 97 
 
 For sehoolhouses, sites, etc 1.S3S.102 19 986.29114 
 
 For incidental expenses 908,400 42 590,706 51 
 
 Forfeited, in hands of super- 
 visors 90 ra 
 
 Amount on hand August 20, 18S5. 1.571,849 14 41S.052 55 
 
 Total $3,552,849 14 $5,903,264 6S 
 
 $15,456,113 82 
 
 State 
 
 $? ,762,950 23 
 
 41.369 74 
 316, liO 11 
 
 22,296 85 
 2,824,393 33 
 1,499,106 93 
 
 TO 78 
 1,989,745 85 
 
 $15,456,113 82 
 
 Deducting from the totals, under the head of pay- 
 ments, the sums remaining on hand August 20, 1885, 
 the actual expenses of the common schools during the 
 year were in the cities $7,981,155.84 and in the towns 
 $5,185,212.13— a total of $13.400.307.97— an increase of 
 $1,283,340.55 during Superintendent Buggles's incum- 
 bency. 
 AdminiB- Andrew S. Draper, a lawyer, a graduate of the 
 Andrew s. Albany Academy, who had been a teacher, a member 
 Draper ^ ^ Albany board of education and an assemblyman, 
 became Superintendent of Public Instruction, April 6, 
 1886. He was reelected in 1889. His administration 
 was distinguished for activity, executive capacity and 
 for the accomplishment of many valuable reforms, the 
 most notable of which was that of the uniform examina- 
 History oi tion <>f teachers. The history of professional examina- 
 examina- tions in this state is an interesting one, already referred 
 
 lions CT 
 
 to incidentally, but which now calls for a somewhat ex- 
 tended review. From the first, the state insisted that 
 teachers should possess proper qualifications for their 
 calling. The act of 1795 specified, among the other 
 duties of town commissioners, that they slum Id deter- 
 mine the qualifications of teachers. It also provided 
 that the inhabitants residing within different parts of 
 any town might form associations for the purpose of 
 maintaining schools and might appoint two or more 
 persons to act in their behalf as trustees, who should 
 employ teachers and consult with the commissioners 
 concerning their qualifications, and the associations 
 were debarred from the apportionment of public 
 moneys, unless the trustees employed teachers who met 
 the approval of the commissioners. This method ob- 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 77 
 
 tained until 1812. The act of that year, which fixed 
 the number of commissioners of a town at three, pro- 
 vided, also, as has been stated, for three inspectors who, 
 with the commissioners, were made a board to examine 
 and license teachers. This plan was continued until 
 1841, when the number of inspectors for a town was 
 fixed at two, who were still associated with the com- 
 missioners as an examining and licensing board. 
 Power was also given to deputy superintendents in the 
 same respect. In 1813, when the offices of town com- 
 missioners and inspectors were abolished, their func- 
 tions were vested in town superintendents, and the 
 name of deputy was changed to that of county superin- 
 tendent, each with territorial jurisdiction defined by 
 his title. The acts also conferred upon the superin- 
 tendent of common schools, on the recommendation of 
 county superintendents, or such other evidence as 
 might be satisfactory to him, the power to issue cer- 
 tificates entitling their holders to teach in any public 
 school within the state. After the abolition of the 
 office of county superintendent in 1847, there remained 
 but two authorities to issue teachers certificates — the 
 state superintendent and the town superintendents, 
 those of the latter having validity only within their 
 own towns. In 185G, the office of town superintendent 
 being vacated, school commissioners succeeded, with 
 authority to examine teachers and issue certificates 
 for their respective districts, with the Superintendent 
 of Public Instruction empowered to prescribe the rules 
 under which such certificates might be issued. State 
 superintendents never, however, exercised this power 
 until 1888, when Superintendent Draper promulgated 
 the uniform system of examination for the guidance of 
 commissioners. For many years there had been a 
 demand for a change in the method of certification of 
 teachers. Certificates in many cases were issued to 
 unqualified persons, because of political pressure and 
 sometimes because of corrupt appliances. The wisdom 
 of placing this important work under the immediate 
 direction of the State Superintendent and establishing 
 a uniform basis for examining and licensing the 
 teachers of the entire state had been a subject for dis- 
 cussion at many of the state educational associations 
 and was generally conceded. Superintendent Draper 
 at once understood that the absence of a definite 
 
78 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 scheme to determine the qualifications of teachers was 
 one of the weakest things in the school system, and he 
 sought to remedy it with all the energy and resources 
 at his command. The opinion prevailed that legisla- 
 tion was necessary to centralize this work under the 
 superintendent and he prepared a bill to this end, 
 which passed the legislature, in 1887, but was vetoed by 
 Governor Hill, upon the ground, as the Governor 
 claimed, that it discriminated in favor of New York 
 and Brooklyn, which were excepted from its operation. 
 The failure to obtain legislation did not discourage the 
 superintendent. He was resolved to raise the teaching- 
 force to a higher standard and he thought it could be 
 done in no more effectual way than by instituting a 
 definite uniform method for the examination of 
 teachers. Seventy-five per cent, of the commissioners 
 in their reports had favored such a scheme under 
 the direction of the superintendent. It was suggested 
 that commissioners might request the superintendent 
 to provide uniform rules and prepare questions 
 to be used by them in their examinations. Every 
 educational association in the state and every 
 educational journal therein gave this movement their 
 cordial support. By September 1, 1887, sixty commis- 
 sioners had expressed their willingness to adopt rules 
 formulated by the superintendent and to use examina- 
 tion papers provided by him. The first examinaiion 
 was held in September, 1887, and monthly examina- 
 tions were held during the remainder of the year. By 
 July 1. 1888, every commissioner in the state had volun- 
 examina- tarily adopted the uniform system. Superintendent 
 eompiisiied Draper held that, under certain provisions of the school 
 laws, he already possessed the power to ordain a uni- 
 form system of examinations and to compel the com- 
 missioners to adopt it. In this view, he was sustained 
 by Attorney-General Charles F. Tabor. He, therefore, 
 issued an order that, in the future, all commissioners 
 should comply with the requirements of the uniform 
 system. Whatever doubt may have existed as to the 
 authority of the superintendent was removed in 1801, 
 when the revised ronsolidated school law was enacted 
 which, by subdivision 5, title 5, section 13, of that 
 act directs that the school commissioners shall ; " ex- 
 amine, under such rules and regulations as have been 
 or may be prescribed by the Superintendent of Public 
 
A REVIEW OP ITS ADMINISTRATION 79 
 
 Instruction, persons proposing to teach common schools 
 within his district * * * an d ? jf he finds them 
 qualified, to grant them certificates of qualification in 
 the forms which are or may be prescribed by the super- 
 intendent." The Department now prepares all papers Examina- 
 used in examinations and forwards them to commis- generally 
 sioners. The papers submitted by candidates were 
 marked by commissioners until June, 1894. The legis- 
 lature of that year made provision for the appointment 
 of a board of examiners in the State Department. 
 This board was organized in June, 1894, and since then 
 all examination papers have not only been prepared 
 by the Department, but the answer papers submitted 
 by candidates have also been marked in that Depart- 
 ment by a permanent board of examiners. This places 
 the certification of teachers upon an absolutely honest 
 and uniform basis and renders it impossible for a per- 
 son to obtain a certificate who does not possess the 
 requisite scholarship. The same evils and abuses that 
 existed in commissioner districts before the uniform 
 system was adopted prevailed to some extent in the 
 cities of the state. While the State Superintendent 
 had the authority to prescribe the regulations under 
 which teachers should be examined in commissioner 
 districts, he did not possess authority to prescribe such 
 rules for the cities. The charter of each, or special 
 educational acts therefor, determine in what manner 
 the teachers of such cities shall be examined and 
 licensed. In some of the cities, the uniform system of 
 examinations governs by statute. In most, however, 
 teachers are examined and licensed under such regu- 
 lations as the local school board, or superintendent pre- 
 scribes, and the authorities of nearly all the cities have 
 adopted the uniform system, Albany, Buffalo, James- 
 town and New York being the exceptions. Under the 
 uniform system of examinations thus adopted three 
 classes of teachers' certificates were issued, as follows : 
 A third grade certificate valid for six months, renew- 
 able only upon examination and to be issued to the 
 same person but twice. A second grade certificate 
 valid for two years and renewable only upon examina- 
 tion. A first grade certificate valid for five years and 
 renewable in the discretion of a commissioner without 
 examination. This system with various modifications 
 and amendments is still in force. Temporary permits 
 
80 
 
 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Reforms 
 instituted 
 by Super- 
 intendent 
 Draper 
 
 Supervi- 
 sion of 
 training' 
 classes 
 vested in 
 superin- 
 tendent 
 
 are issued, to bridge over an emergency, and continue 
 only long enough to carry the candidate to the next 
 examination. Uniform and grade examinations are 
 now held at appropriate times and places, in the dis- 
 tricts, and for life state certificates, in August, in 
 various cities. There are also examinations for kinder- 
 garten teachers. A certificate is issued by the superin- 
 tendent, without examination, to any graduate of a 
 college or university, who has had three years experi- 
 ence as a teacher in the public schools of the state sub- 
 sequent to graduation; and the holder of a normal 
 school diploma is thereby accredited as a teacher. 
 
 Superintendent Draper was famous, as he still is, 
 for his capacity for organization. He did things. In 
 addition to his signal reform in the conduct of exam- 
 inations — the crowning glory of his administration — 
 many other of his achievements might be recorded. 
 To a few, attention must certainly be drawn ; and, first 
 of these, is the transfer of the control of teachers' 
 classes from the regents to the department of public 
 instruction. Shortly after Superintendent Draper 
 assumed office, he found that there were, under the 
 management of the regents, 195 teachers' classes in 
 142 academies and union schools, with 2,676 students, 
 for whom tuition was allowed from the state appro- 
 priation for that purpose to the amount of $33,091. 
 Educators were generally apprehending the incongruity 
 of the control of these classes by the regents — an 
 agency really foreign to the common schools — super- 
 vising the preparation of their teachers, and the 
 thought was dominant in their minds that all the 
 instrumentalities tor such preparation, the normal 
 schools, the uniform examinations, the teachers' insti- 
 tutes and the teachers' classes should be related to 
 each other, each accommodating itself to and supple- 
 menting the work of the other. It was seen that three 
 of these were so related, while the fourth was acting 
 separately and independently. At the annual holiliav 
 conference of the associated academic principals, in 
 1888, at Syracuse, this sentiment took shape not, as 
 is to be suspected, without the inspiration of the super- 
 intendent, in a resolution adopted unanimously to 
 the effect that, as the licensing of teachers was in 
 the hands of the superintendent and as it was desir- 
 able that the teachers' classes should be part of a 
 symmetrical system for the education of teachers, the 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 81 
 
 management of such classes should be trans- 
 ferred to the department of public instruction. This 
 resolution, accompanied by a coherent and convinc- 
 ing statement of the situation, was presented by Super- 
 intendent Draper to the board of regents and met with 
 the prompt and cordial acquiescence of that body; and 
 by chapter 137 of the laws of 1889, the supervision 
 of the teachers' classes passed from the regents to the 
 department, with the best results, as the concurrent 
 evidence of principals, commissioners and educators 
 generally, abundantly attests. Still other features of 
 Superintendent Draper's administration, some of statu- 
 tory and others of his individual sanction, were these: 
 The changing of district school meetings from the last 
 to the first Tuesday in August and the closing of the 
 school year on the 25th of July instead of the 20th 
 of August; the changing of county to district institutes, 
 in the hope that they would be less mass meetings 
 and more schools of instruction (although as now 
 graded the institutes are frequently joint ones of two 
 or more districts) ; the publication of a new code of 
 public instruction; contracts with teachers to be in 
 writing and monthly payment of their wages made 
 mandatory; competitive examinations for the free 
 scholarships from assembly districts in Cornell uni- 
 versity; the extention of the minimum time, in which 
 schools were to be kept open, from 20 to 32 weeks; 
 the obtaining of designs and specifications for the build- 
 ing of schoolhouses to cost from $600 to $10,000 and 
 their wide dissemination; the health and decency act; 
 the increase of general state appropriations for free 
 schools by $1,000,000; admission to normal schools, the 
 courses of study and the condition of graduation reg- 
 ulated with a view to making them more completely 
 training schools for teachers; the chartering of three 
 new normal schools — New Paltz, Oneonta and Platts- ^ast an- 
 burg; and the designation of the Friday following the port of 
 first day of May in each year as Arbor day. Very tend"."" 
 properly could the superintendent say, in surrendering Draper 
 his trust : " Careful students of American systems of 
 education must admit that New York holds deservedly 
 a most prominent position among her sister states as 
 regards provisions for popular instruction. Although 
 she has never received her full share of credit for the 
 part she played in the past, which entitled her to a 
 
82 
 
 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 most conspicuous position in the history of popular 
 education in this country, yet she is now attracting 
 universal attention by the tremendous efforts of the 
 present. We are now realizing that the first and most 
 important duty of the sin te is to provide a good ele- 
 mentary education for the masses, on whose intelli- 
 gence and patriotism the safety of the commonwealth 
 depends, and to see that every child receives such an 
 education. It only remains to agree on the details of 
 the measures and then the feeling would be ripe and 
 the circumstances opportune for decisive legislation, 
 which would soon enable New York, with her boundless 
 wealth and her great liberality, to distance all com- 
 petitors, and to make her elementary schools the best 
 in the world." The following are statistical and finan- 
 cial tables for the year ending July 25, 1891 : 
 
 Statistical 
 
 Number of districts 
 
 Number of teachers emplovei.1 at the same 
 
 time for legal term of school 9,126 
 
 Number of male teachers employed 970 
 
 Number of female teachers employed 9,512 
 
 Number of children in attendance 513,066 
 
 Average daily attendance 344,609 
 
 Number of times visited by commissioners 
 
 Number volumes in district, libraries 244,333 
 
 Number schoolhouses, log 
 
 Number schoolhouses, frame 56 
 
 Number school houses, brick 533 
 
 Number schoolhouses, stone 6 
 
 Total number schoolhouses 595 
 
 Financial 
 
 Receipts Cities 
 
 Amount on hand at beginning of 
 
 school year $2,393,739 99 
 
 Apportionment of public moneys 1,649,900 74 
 Proceeds of gospel and school 
 
 lands 1,062 94 
 
 Raised by tax 8,460,756 44 
 
 Estimated value of teachers' 
 
 bti.'inl 
 
 From all other sources 636,972 41 
 
 Rural 
 
 districts 
 11,196 
 
 15,231 
 
 17! Ill 
 540,978 
 305,408 
 
 13-.939 
 
 584,820 
 
 45 
 
 10,070 
 
 1,040 
 
 322 
 
 11,477 
 
 Rural 
 districts 
 
 $704,112 75 
 2,115,355 76 
 
 29.3S3 31 
 3,692,593 47 
 
 46,794 24 
 538,446 24 
 
 Total 
 11,196 
 
 24,357 
 5,359 
 
 ui;.i;-:; 
 
 1,054,044 
 
 650.017 
 
 13.939 
 
 829,153 
 
 45 
 
 10,126 
 
 1,573 
 
 328 
 
 12,072 
 
 $3,097,852 74 
 3,765,256 50 
 
 30.446 25 
 12, 153, 349 91 
 
 46,794 24 
 1,175,418 65 
 
 Total $13,142,432 52 $7,126,685 77 $20,269,118 29 
 
 Payments 
 
 For teachers' wages 
 
 For libraries 
 
 For school apparatus 
 
 For schoolhouses. siles. etC 
 
 For incidental expenses 
 
 Forfeited, with supervisors 
 
 Amount on hand at end of yeai 
 
 Total 
 
 Cities 
 56,564,365 94 
 
 24.620 41 
 
 340,236 L0 
 
 2,707,165 70 
 
 1,213,205 64 
 
 2,292,838 73 
 
 Rural 
 districts 
 
 $4,443,620 49 
 27,588 94 
 53,926 85 
 998,798 11 
 795,440 18 
 916 63 
 SOI, 444 27 
 
 Total 
 ,012,986 43 
 
 52,159 35 
 394,162 95 
 ,705,964 11 
 ,008,645 82 
 916 63 
 ,094.283 00 
 
 $13,142.132 52 $7,126,6S5 77 $20,269,118 29 
 
 Deducting from this total, the amount on hand at 
 the end of the school year, the actual expense of main- 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 83 
 
 taining the schools, for the year ending July 25, 1891, 
 was $17,174,835.29 or $3,708,-407.32 more than they cost 
 for the year immediately preceding Superintendent 
 Draper's accession. Meanwhile, the aggregate value of 
 schoolhouses and sites increased from $35,662,084 to 
 -150,013,491, the average daily attendance from 625,813 
 to 650,017, the average length of school term in the 
 towns from 33.3 to 35.3 weeks, the number of teachers 
 employed for the legal term, from 22,240 to 24,357 ; the 
 amount paid for teachers' wages from $9,102,268.77 to 
 $11,012,986.43; their average annual earnings from 
 $409.27 to $452.16, and their average weekly wages 
 from $11.46 to 12.18. 
 
 James F. Crooker, who had been a teacher and ^"^J^f 
 superintendent of the schools of Buffalo, became superin- 
 superintendent of public instruction, April 7, 1892, crooker 
 and served one term. The prevailing tone of his 
 first annual report (1893) is that of satisfaction 
 with the condition of the schools. There is, he 
 discovers, a spirit of improvement manifest in the 
 character and capacity of the buildings, the rude 
 structures in the rural districts having given place 
 to modern and comfortable ones. The primitive 
 log housings had substantially disappeared, only 41 
 of that kind remaining. " Within the last two 
 decades," he says, " vast advance strides have been 
 made in school architecture and schoolhouses are now 
 constructed upon sound scientific principles and with 
 a view of obeying the laws of health." He accompanies 
 his statement with specimen drawings of both the ex- 
 terior and interior of a number of the recently erected 
 houses, creditable in appearance and convenient in 
 appointments, in the likeness of which there are, to day, 
 thousands in the state — in the towns, as well as in the 
 cities and villages, our school architecture certainly 
 not being excelled by that of any other state. Upon 
 this development, in which every citizen of New York 
 may take just pride, the later superintendents have 
 bestowed great pains. The superintendent is gratified 
 in that the number of normal school graduates em- 
 ployed for the past exceeds that of the preceding year 
 by 426 and concludes that the normal courses, the 
 training classes and the uniform examinations are, in 
 concert, doing much to elevate the standards of the 
 public schools and to render them more and more 
 
84 
 
 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Superin- 
 tendent 
 
 Crooker's 
 views on 
 elemen- 
 tary and 
 secondary 
 education 
 
 efficient; the salaries of teachers have appreciated but 
 he still thinks that they are disgracefully meager in 
 the country schools. In common with nearly all his 
 predecessors he advocates the adoption of the town- 
 ship, and the doing away with the district, system, but 
 his recommendation to that end was unheeded by the 
 legislature, as has been that of his successor, although 
 sustained by the leading educators of the state and by 
 the unvarying experience of other states in its favor, 
 which means of course town trustees, with the com- 
 missioners intermediary between them and the state 
 superintendent. 
 
 Superintendent Crooker had certain positive ideas 
 concerning the obligation of the state to stimulate and 
 support elementary, as compared with and even prefer- 
 ential to, higher and secondary, education, and he did 
 not hesitate to express them. In die report, now under 
 consideration, he somewhat bluntly, thus phrases his 
 thought: "Too much attention is given to higher edu- 
 cation at the expense of a thorough, practical ground- 
 ing in a knowledge of the subjects with which the 
 great masses have to deal in ordinary business trans- 
 actions. * * * If the state deems it wise that 
 greater expenditure for school purposes should be made, 
 instead of appropriating increased sums for academic 
 education, examinations in law and medicine, univer- 
 sity extension, and all such schemes which are of 
 doubtful propriety for the state to meddle with, it were 
 a thousand fold better to appropriate money for the 
 establishment of kindergarten schools in the large 
 cities. Better appropriate $50,000 for such schools in 
 the cities than $1,000 for university extension, so 
 called." The superintendent repeats the same views 
 in his second annual report (1894) and enlarges 
 upon them in his third (1895). From this the 
 following passages are quoted : " The common schools 
 are the special wards of the Department of Public 
 Instruction, and every dollar of state school moneys 
 withheld from them by being diverted to other and 
 more fortunate schools, means inexcusable injustice 
 and tends to weaken and injure them materially. In 
 my previous annual reports. I have alluded to the 
 injustice and deleterious effects of the clashing 
 dual-headed system which exists in the management 
 of public education. A large amount of the public 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 85 
 
 school moneys, which rightly belongs to the common 
 school funds for general apportionment, is with- 
 drawn yearly and devoted to a purpose entirely at 
 variance with the spirit of free public education. This 
 diversion is wrong in principle, wrong in application, 
 and vicious in its tendencies and results. This double- 
 headed educational management is the most peculiar 
 feature in this state or in any other. No other depart- 
 ment in the state has two heads for the management 
 of its affiairs. It is an anomaly! One branch dis- 
 tributes a portion of the school funds in its own way, 
 according to its own peculiar and independent rules, 
 while the other apportions another part in accordance 
 with the statutory laws governing it. * * * 
 The state appropriation yearly, for the support of the 
 regents, is over $1S5,500. This I consider an useless 
 expense so far as the interest of a great majority of 
 the public schools is concerned, although it may be of 
 financial benefit to these few; I must, therefore, 
 earnestly protest once more against the dual system 
 and plan of taking away any portion of the state 
 moneys from the common school fund for the purpose 
 of sustaining two educational departments and prac- 
 ticing favoritism toward one branch of the school sys- 
 tem at the expense of another. It is radically and 
 inexcusably wrong. * * * The recently amended 
 constitution, in an article, provides against the pay- 
 ment of any public school moneys toward the main- 
 tenance of any private schools or parochial institutions, 
 and now the legislature ought to provide, by an enact- 
 ment of law, against the use of any money by the 
 regents, if only to prohibit the paying of premiums 
 to schools on examinations, and it would thereby save 
 to the state a large amount of money that could be 
 used for general educational purposes." These views 
 of Superintendent Crooker are reproduced, not specially 
 with the purpose of endorsing them, but as due to 
 him as an affirmation of his fidelity to the common 
 school system and his sensitiveness to what he con- 
 sidered encroachments upon its democratic adminis- 
 tration, as well as his contribution to the vexed ques- 
 tion of the unification of the educational departments 
 of the state, the discussion of which, in late years, 
 has engaged so much of the attention of educators 
 and statesmen, with so many and so diverse proposi- 
 tions for departure and adjustment. 
 
86 
 
 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Changes 
 in the ex- 
 amination 
 depart- 
 ment 
 
 Consoli- 
 dated 
 school act 
 of 1894 
 
 Superin- 
 tendent 
 CrooUer's 
 last :• ■ i — 
 annual 
 report 
 
 Important changes were made in the examination 
 department during 1894. In accordance with the 
 recommendation of the superintendent, the legislature 
 made an appropriation enabling him to appoint a board 
 of examiners to pass upon the answer papers submitted 
 by candidates for commissioners' certificates to teach 
 in the state. Such board was duly constituted and 
 has since done admirable work. Under it, a certificate 
 of any grade issued in any county is of the same value 
 as a certificate of a corresponding grade issued in 
 any other count};, and the commissioners are relieved 
 of a large amount of clerical work previously devolv- 
 ing upon them. The legislature of 1894 passed the 
 " consolidated school act," the same taking effect 
 June 30. This was the first revision, or consolidation, 
 since 18G4. No radical changes were made by it, but, 
 under it, the school year begins August 1 and ends 
 July 31; schools must be taught, at least 100 days in- 
 clusive of legal holidays and exclusive of Saturdays; 
 all school district officers must be elected by ballot; all 
 propositions for the expenditure of money, or authoriz- 
 ing the levy of a tax, must be determined by ballot, 
 or by the ayes and noes of qualified voters ; and where 
 a tax is voted to be raised for the building of a school- 
 house, or an addition thereto, said tax to be raised by 
 installments, the payment, or collection, of the last 
 installment cannot be extended beyond twenty years. 
 The following are statistical and financial tables for 
 the year ending July 31, 1894 : 
 
 Statistical 
 
 Rural 
 
 Cities districts Total 
 
 Number of districts 11,121 11,121 
 
 Number of teachers employed at I lie same 
 
 time for 1G0 days or more in. 264 15.632 25.vn; 
 
 Number of male teachers employed 1,022 4.074 5.036 
 
 Number of female teachers empioyed 10.729 17,104 27,833 
 
 Number of children in attendance r,s:i.::t;:: :,?,:.. G35 1,124,998 
 
 Average daily attendance 407,955 313. 10S 721,<i;:i 
 
 Number of commissioners' yisitations 11.9(15 11,906 
 
 Number of volumes in district libraries.... 321..515 477,551 799,096 
 
 Number of schoolhouses, log 31 31 
 
 Number of schoolhouses, frame 67 10,008 10,075 
 
 Number of schoolhouses, brick 583 1,003 1,589 
 
 Number of schoolhouses, stone 8 302 310 
 
 Total number schoolhouses 658 11,347 , 12,005 
 
 Financial 
 
 Receipts Cities 
 
 Amount on hand August 1, 1S93. $2,196,499 14 
 Apportionment of public moneys 1,718,504 83 
 Proceeds of gospel and school 
 
 lands 988 97 
 
 Received from regents 20,3S5 06 
 
 Rural 
 districts 
 
 $799,475 14 
 
 2,022,701 38 
 
 30,139 57 
 
 59,438 28 
 
 31,128 54 
 79,823 34 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 87 
 
 Rural 
 
 Payments Cities districts Total 
 
 Raised by tax $S, 841, 425 12 $4, 270, 034 64 $l. n ,, 117, 459 7b 
 
 Estimated value of teachers' 
 
 board 37,499 51 37.499 51 
 
 From all other sources 1,769.394 60 803.S67 72 2,573,262 32 
 
 Total $14,547,197 72 $5,029,159 24 $22,576,356 96 
 
 For teachers - wanes $7,264,613 25 $4,78S.404 01 $12,053,017 26 
 
 For libraries 59,626 S2 58,554 87 US, 181 69 
 
 For school apparatus 379,974 35 75,179 75 455,154 10 
 
 For schoolhouses, sii.s, etc 2.:il6.9:.o 21 1,222.345 66 4,139,295 87 
 
 For incidental expenses 1,480,580 89 1,055,458 15 2,536,039 04 
 
 Forfeited, with supervisors 6,883 13 6.883 13 
 
 Amount on hand at end of year. 2,445,452 20 822,333 67 3,267,785 87 
 
 Total $14,547,197 72 $8,029,159 24 $22,576,356 96 
 
 Deducting from the total the amount on hand, July 
 31, 1894, the actual expense of maintaining- the schools, 
 for that year was $19,308,571.09 or $2,133,735.80 more 
 than they cost for the year immediately preceding 
 Superintendent Crooker's accession. The following 
 tabic shows the receipts and payments on account of 
 the state school tax, otherwise known as the free school 
 fund, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1894 : 
 
 Receipts 
 
 Balance on hand October 1, 1893 f 409,093 82 
 
 Interest on deposits 8,713 82 
 
 State tax 3,957,297 78 
 
 Allegany county 10 
 
 Hamilton county 100 00 
 
 Total |4,375,805 82 
 
 Payments 
 
 Apportionment to count ies $3,192,351 47 
 
 Supplemental apportionment 4,205 00 
 
 Teachers' institutes 35,222 74 
 
 Teachers' training classes 52,527 54 
 
 Albany state normal college 2(5,287 62 
 
 Brockport state normal school 2(1,142 55 
 
 Buffalo state normal school 19,000 60 
 
 Cortland state normal school 23,465 36 
 
 Fredonia state normal school 19,500 00 
 
 Geneseo state normal school 21, 12!) 17 
 
 New Paltz state normal school 19,000 00 
 
 Oneonta state normal school 21,969 -*!t 
 
 Oswego state normal school 21,000 00 
 
 Plattsburg state normal school 20,768 18 
 
Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Potsdam state normal school $23,336 55 
 
 Indian schools 4,263 28 
 
 Indian youth at normal schools 750 00 
 
 County treasurers' fees 6,496 52 
 
 School commissioners' salaries 114,000 00 
 
 Printing and binding school registers 
 
 and trustees' reports. 5,200 00 
 
 Printing consolidated school law 2,000 00 
 
 American Museum of Natural History. 14,316 39 
 
 Uniform examiners 4,059 02 
 
 Balance on hand September 30, L894. . . 401,814 49 
 
 Total $4,375,805 82 
 
 The library law of 1892 required each district to 
 raise a certain amount as a condition precedent to 
 receiving an equal amount from the state for the pur- 
 chase of books, the beneficial effects of which were seen 
 in the resurrection of an interest in the school libraries, 
 appreciable additions to their shelves and a revival 
 of their usefulness. In 1893, the legislature authorized 
 the erection of an additional normal school at Jamaica, 
 which was opened in 1897. 
 tra'tioit'of ^ n this rey i ew * "the administration of the present 
 snuerin- superintendent, Charles R. Skinner, has now been 
 
 tendon* 
 
 skinner reached. He assumed office April 7, 1895, with an 
 acquaintance with the common school system, acquired 
 from a previous service of nine years in the depart- 
 ment. He had been deeply interested in its historical 
 development and, he trusts, appreciated the labors of 
 his predecessors, all of whom had been capable, and 
 some of them distinguished promoters of the educational 
 progress that New York had made from the time of 
 Gideon Hawley to the closing years of the nineteenth 
 century. He was also aware, however, that there were 
 still weaknesses to be remedied, as well as powers to 
 be strengthened. To some of these he called attention 
 in his first annual report (1896). He held that while 
 the teaching force had steadily advanced in efficiency, 
 the principal defect in the system was along the lines 
 of supervision — that while the main body of commis- 
 sioners was composed of earnest, conscientious and 
 fairly W(»ll-equipped officers, there were some who could 
 not, as the result of an examination, secure the higher 
 grades of certificates issued by the department. He, 
 
A REVIEW OP ITS ADMINISTRATION 89 
 
 therefore, proposed an educational qualification on the Jj£™*," 
 part of candidates for that office, and that a higher jmaiiflca- 
 salary should be attached to it. These recommenda- commis- 
 tions were incorporated in a bill introduced in the pVopo'sed 
 legislature of 1895, but which was not acted upon; 
 like recommendations have since been made and like 
 hills have since been drafted, but the reform has not 
 yet eventuated. He also earnestly advocated the adop- 
 tion of the township, or some unit larger than the 
 present system, as the only means by which the greatly 
 desirable consolidation of weak districts could be 
 effected, and the decline in the efficiency of the rural 
 schools arrested. This too is still a hope and not a 
 fact, although, as has been said, it has long had the 
 support of the best educational thought, and the present 
 superintendent, in unison with his predecessors, has 
 constantly and consistently urged legislative action in 
 its behalf. 
 
 In 1895, the statutory school age, for good and suf centennial 
 ficient reasons, was fixed at from five to eighteen years, common 
 This year commemorated the 100th anniversary of the SCMOOls 
 passage of the law establishing the common schools 
 of the state, at the instance of Governor George Clin- 
 ton. Of this, the chief magistrate was mindful. Gov- 
 ernor Morton alluded to it in his annual message, and, 
 early in April, issued the following proclamation: 
 "A century of magnificent achievement in public educa- 
 tion in this state will be completed on April 9, the 
 anniversary of the signing, by Governor George Clinton 
 of chapter 75 of the laws of 1795, entitled 'An act 
 for the encouragement of schools,' passed by the legis- 
 lature of that year, upon the governor's recommenda- 
 tion. The commanding position held by our state in 
 commerce, manufactures, science, the arts, agriculture 
 and in educational progress, is largely the result of 
 the wise and liberal policy of our successive state 
 administrations toward the common schools. One hun- 
 dred years of energetic and successful educational 
 effort has followed that important measure, and bears 
 abundant testimony to the wise discernment of the 
 first governor of the commonwealth and to the loyalty 
 of the people who supported his purpose in making 
 the first generous provision for carrying his views into 
 effect. If we, of today, emulate that devotion to the 
 instruction of our youth which characterized the 
 
90 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 founders of the system and makes this anniversary con- 
 spicuous in our annals, those who follow in the century 
 to come will write our names, as we now write those 
 of 1795, with grateful remembrance in the history of 
 education in the state of New York. It will increase 
 the regard in which those who laid the foundations 
 of our educational system are held if, on Tuesday next, 
 we commemorate in some fitting manner, their services 
 and recount the blessings reaped from their labors. 
 I, therefore, recommend to all principals, teachers and 
 others in authority in the schools, academies and col- 
 leges throughout the state, that they devote some por- 
 tion, at least, of that day, to appropriate exercises by 
 the pupils, their officers and friends, in recognition of 
 this important anniversary." Coincident with the 
 proclamation of the governor, the superintendent issued 
 an appeal for the observance of the day in the schools, 
 which was generally responded to in exercises indi- 
 cative of its significance. The department also pub- 
 lished a centennial educational chart, a copy of which 
 was furnished to every school which would properly 
 display the same in the school building. Thus atten- 
 tion was directed to what had been done in the 100 
 years, for popular education, and pride in the past 
 could but incite effort to perfect that which so 
 devotedly begun had been so intelligently conducted. 
 The fla»? Eighteen hundred and ninetv-five is also memorable 
 
 for the passage of an act ordaining that the authorities 
 of every public school in the several cities and districts 
 of the state shall purchase a United States flag, flag- 
 staff and the necessary appliances therefor and display 
 such flag upon or near the school building during school 
 hours and at such other times as the said authorities 
 may direct. This law was reenacted and amplified in 
 189S ; and it was made the duty of the state superinten- 
 dent to prepare, for the use of the schools, a program, 
 embracing a salute to the flag at the opening of each 
 day of school, and such other patriotic exercises, as 
 may by him be deemed expedient in connection there- 
 with, and to arrange for the observance in the schools 
 of the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln, of decora- 
 tion and flag days and of such other legal holidays of 
 like character as may be designated by law. The super 
 intendent is bound to say that nothing within the range 
 of his administration has given him higher satisfaction 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 91 
 
 than the operation and enforcement of this law. He 
 believes that patriotism should be impressed upon the 
 children of the schools equally with its assertion by 
 adults in the assemblies of the people, or on the battle 
 fields of the republic ; that not only should the love of 
 country, which, if not inherent in human nature, has 
 such early manifestation as to be tantamount to it — - 
 in barbaric as well as in civilized races — be cultivated 
 and strengthened, but that the rising generations 
 should learn why they ought to love their country — ■ 
 what there is in its history to admire, in its institu- 
 tions to cherish, in its heroes and statesmen to emulate, 
 that they afford training in manhood and citizenship, 
 as well as in grammar and arithmetic. In so far as 
 his influence could avail, the superintendent has 
 exerted it to have American history, civics and cognate 
 subjects given greater scope and prominence in the 
 curriculum of the schools Hum they formerly had with, 
 he is assured, a constantly increasing diligence and 
 interest in their pursuit by pupils. The flag law has, 
 upon the whole, been obeyed by the local school officers 
 and the various patriotic anniversaries have been 
 cheerfully observed, in accordance with programs fur- 
 nished by the department. There is inspiration to 
 patriotism in the flag. No child can behold it, as it 
 floats above the schoolhouse, without wanting to know 
 its meaning; and Decoration day and the birthdays 
 of the founder and of the savior of the nation each 
 convey persuasive lessons, are educating forces. No 
 more beneficent law than this has recently been placed 
 upon the statute books, and the superintendent rejoices 
 that it has been permitted him to be instrumental in 
 its execution. 
 
 The superintendent also in his first report had occa- JjJ^JJ^ 
 sion to allude to the general and ardent observance of 
 Arbor day, saying Unit, since 1S88, there had been 
 145,241 trees planted in and about school grounds, that 
 the annual attention to the day will prove potent in 
 bringing out the many elements of beauty and utility 
 in tree and flower, and that it will be a powerful factor 
 in the educational history of the state. He is pleased 
 to add that his prediction has been justified. Appro- 
 priate exercises for the day have uniformly been out- 
 lined by the department, the planting of trees, usually 
 with names of national, state or local significance 
 
<J2 
 
 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 Centennial 
 of the 
 birth of 
 Horace 
 
 Mann 
 
 Women 
 commis- 
 sioners 
 
 liicensinf? 
 of teach- 
 ers in 
 cities 
 
 affixed to them, has steadily gone on, and the tendency 
 to beantifv school surroundings is still growing, while, 
 incidental t» the celebration, is the encouragement to 
 the study of nature by the pupils. 
 
 On the 14th of May, 1896, Hie one hundredth anniver- 
 sary of the birth of Horace Mann was fittingly observed 
 by schools and friends of education throughout the 
 state, at the suggestion of the department. This great 
 educator, who revolutionized the school system of 
 Massachusetts, and was especially active in founding 
 normal schools, did much unselfish work for education 
 in New York, frequently delivering addresses, replete 
 with valuable thought, at our educational gatherings, 
 and never failing in his commendation of our system, 
 in advice to those officially charged with its care, or 
 in helpfulness to our teaching force. It was peculiarly 
 appropriate that his life and services should thus be 
 acknowledged by the state that is so deeply indebted 
 to him. 
 
 Among the topics treated by the superintendent in 
 his second annual report 1 1897) are two, upon which he 
 has since seen no reason to change his mind. They 
 are those relative to women commissioners and city 
 teachers. He found, as he still finds it, a pleasure to 
 praise the faithful and excellent work done by women 
 as commissioners. They are usually exact and con- 
 scientious, and, as a great majority of teachers are 
 women, a woman's sympathy with them is cordially 
 appreciated. There was no mistake in the law, when 
 it made women eligible to the position, and it is to 
 be regretted that they are constitutionally debarred 
 from voting for candidates therefor. In 1895, a law 
 was passed providing that, after January 1, 1.897, no 
 person should be licensed or employed to teach in the 
 primary or grammar schools of the cities, who had not 
 had throe years successful experience in teaching, or, 
 in lieu thereof, had not had a three years course in 
 and been graduated from a high school or academy 
 having a course of study of not less than three years, 
 approved by the superintendent of public instruction, 
 or from some institution of learning of equal or higher 
 rank, approved by the same authority, and who, sub- 
 sequently to such graduation took a course in a school 
 or class for the professional training of teachers, hav- 
 ing a course of study of not less than 3S weeks, ap- 
 
A REVIEW OE ITS ADMINISTRATION 93 
 
 proved also by the superintendent. Nothing, however, 
 in the act was to be construed as restricting any city 
 board of education from requiring such additional 
 qualifications for teachers (as some have so required) 
 as said board might determine or precluding it from 
 accepting the diploma of any normal and training 
 school in the state, or a state certificate, as an equiv- 
 alent for the preparation indicated. This act was 
 deemed by educational experts to be one of the most 
 progressive measures adopted, in many years, and its 
 operation, at once confirmed their estimate. Incom- 
 petent teachers arc thus excluded from service in the 
 cities, and a premium is put upon thorough prepara- 
 tion therefor. In conformity with the provisions of 
 the law, the superintendent draft< d a minimum course 
 of study to which secondary institutions, as well as 
 boards of education, have adapted themselves. 
 
 The superintendent opens his third annual report Las * an - 
 
 x l 11 ii a 1 re- 
 
 (1898), the last of his first term, with the financial port <>f su- 
 exhibit that the amount expended upon the schools eniTsictn- " 
 had reached vast proportions, illustrative of the great- "/^ fil " st 
 ness and liberality of the commonwealth. The total 
 cost of the schools for the year ending July 31, 1897, 
 was |2G,689,85C, an increase in one year of $3,516,026 
 and in 12 years of $13,401,870. The cities spent 
 $19,152,014, an increase in one year of $3,610,573, and 
 in 12 years of $11,274,047, the towns spent $7,537,212, 
 a decrease in one year of $94,547, but an increase in 
 12 years of $2,130,823. The cost had thus increased 
 more than 100 per cent in 12 years. During this 
 period, the number of teachers employed for the legal 
 term increased 2S^ per cent; the amount of teachers' 
 salaries 55^ per cent ; the number of children of school 
 age had decreased nearly four per cent, due entirely 
 to the change in school age; the average daily attend- 
 ance had increased 31 per cent, and the amount ex- 
 pended for schoolhouses, sites, furniture and repairs 
 had increased 270 per cent. The invested common 
 school fund was $4,473,140.77. 
 
 During the year 1897, a judicial decision was ren The school 
 dered, so important in its bearings, as to make a some-Mta^ai 
 what extended reference to it proper. It was the affir- ln " 41tutlon 
 mation of the power of the state to compel a municipal- 
 ity, or school district, to provide and maintain adequate 
 educational facilities, or, otherwise put, that the school 
 is a state and not a local institution. The issue arose 
 
94 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 in the city of Watervliet, where a bi-partisan board 
 of education of four members, owing to a deadlock, 
 neglected and refused to appoint teachers, janitors and 
 other officers, at the opening of the school year, Sep 
 tember 7, and the children were forced to seek instruc- 
 tion elsewhere, or roam the streets. An appeal Mas 
 made to the state superintendent by two members of 
 the board to effect the removal of the two other mem- 
 bers. This petition the superintendent did not feel at 
 liberty to grant, but he ordered the board to open the 
 schools on or before the 4th day of October and that the 
 necessary teachers, etc., should be appointed. The day 
 passed, without compliance with the order, and the 
 superintendent, concluding that, under the mandate of 
 the constitution and the provisions of the consolidated 
 school law, he was clothed with the requisite authority, 
 directed an employee of the department to proceed to 
 Watervliet and there act temporarily as superintendent 
 of schools, at the same time appointing a full corps 
 of teachers, attendance officers, janitors and a 
 librarian. The schcols were thus opened October 5, 
 about 1,400 pupils being present. Two residents of the 
 city made application to the Supreme Court for an 
 injunction restricting the state superintendent from 
 interfering with their local school system. The case 
 was heard before Justice Alden Chester, at a special 
 term at Albany, in November, the Honorable Danforth 
 E. Ainsworth, deputy superintendent of public instruc- 
 tion appearing for the department, and the Honorable 
 Edwin Countryman for the applicants. Justice Ches- 
 ter denied the application in an elaborate opinion, up- 
 holding the action of the superintendent in all particu- 
 lars, upon the ground that he had jurisdiction in the 
 matter, which he rightfully exercised for the benefit of 
 the schools, that " the mandate of the constitution can- 
 not be nullified at the will of an} r local board, failing 
 to discharge the duties imposed upon it by law, but 
 that the power exists to compel obedience to this re- 
 quirement, and this power is lodged in the state super- 
 intendent of public instruction." No appeal was taken 
 from Justice Chester's ruling, and it stands as law and 
 precedent, not probably to be again questioned. Con- 
 nected with school affairs in Watervliet was a decision 
 L , i, e oo e i cnlar of the superintendent, dated .May 15, 1897, to the effect 
 that the wearing of an unusual garb, used exclusively 
 
A REVIEW OP ITS ADMINISTRATION 9E 
 
 by members of one religious sect, as indicating affilia- 
 tion with that sect, -by the teachers in a public school, 
 constitutes a sectarian influence, which cannot be 
 tolerated and must be prohibited. Superintendent, 
 Draper had made a like decision, ten years previously, 
 and it had not been modified or disapproved by bis 
 successors. It has the force and effect of a statute, 
 and is based upon the secular character of the schools 
 which must be maintained alike against technical 
 evasion and open assault. 
 
 In his annual report (1899) the superintendent says 
 that compulsory education in this state is no longer 
 a mere pretence, but an accomplished fact. The neces- compnt- 
 sity and propriety of compelling the attendance of cation, 
 children upon the schools had long engaged the atten- 
 tion of the department and had by degrees been 
 resolved into law. The first act was that of 1853, which 
 provided that any vagrant child, in any city or incor- 
 porated village, between the ages of five and 14 years, 
 upon complaint of any citizen on oath, should be 
 brought before a magistrate for examination, and 
 the parent, guardian or master of such child should 
 be notified to attend such examination, and if the com- 
 plaint should be established, the magistrate was to 
 require from such parent, guardian or master a 
 contract in writing with the corporate authorities 
 that such child should be sent to some school 
 at least four mouths in each year, until he or 
 she should become 11 years old. The law also 
 imposed pecuniary penalties for nonfulfillment of the 
 contract, directed the commitment of a vagrant child, 
 who had no parent, guardian or master, to an institu- 
 tion for instruction, and authorized the corporate 
 authorities to provide suitable places for the reception 
 of such. New York was thus the first state, except 
 Massachusetts, to enact a compulsory education law. 
 It was, however, enforced spasmodically and irration- 
 ally, if, it may be said, that it was enforced at all. 
 Public sentiment was adverse or had not been educated 
 up to it. The statistics of school attendance, from 
 18GG to 1873, show that from 55 to 60 per cent of the 
 children over six and under 17 years old, were out of 
 school every day— a grievous condition, perilous to the 
 state. 
 
96 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 In 1874, the second compulsory act was ordained and 
 became operative, January 1, 1875. Although an im- 
 provement upon the statute of 1853, it was defectively 
 and carelessly drawn, and inadequate in its sanctions. 
 It required all children, between 8 and 11 years 
 of age, of sufficient physical and mental strength, 
 to attend school at "least fourteen weeks in each year, 
 eight of which should be consecutive. Local school 
 authorities were empowered to enforce attendance and 
 to furnish suitable places for the instruction, dis- 
 cipline and confinement of truant children. It was a 
 species of local option and depended entirely upon pub- 
 lic sentiment for its validity. Amended in 1S76, it 
 still failed of its object. In his annual report (1888) 
 Superintendent Draper said: "There is a large 
 uneducated class in this state, and our statistics show 
 that it is growing larger. * * * To be sure, we 
 have a compulsory education law upon our statute 
 books, but it is a compulsory education law that does 
 not compel. It has never been acted under to any con- 
 siderable extent, and this being so after fourteen years 
 of trial, it is fair to presume that it never will be. In 
 my opinion, there are good reasons why it has never 
 accomplished what was desired of it. In the first place, 
 it requires members of boards of education to look after 
 and apprehend delinquent children, and it is un- 
 reasonable to expect that officials elected only to 
 manage the schools, and who serve without pay, will 
 devote the necessary time, or that they will engage in 
 work which should devolve upon a policeman or con- 
 stable, or some other officer specially charged with and 
 paid for such service. Again, the penalties provided 
 for in the act run mainly against children, and no peo- 
 ple will be swift to enforce penalties against children 
 for delinquency, not amounting to crime, for which 
 they are not properly so answerable as are their parents 
 or guardians. The penalties in the act which go 
 against parents are mere fines, so inconsiderable as to 
 be ridiculous, and the machinery for collecting them is 
 too cumbersome and expensive to be commonly made 
 use of. Moreover, the act requires that children under 
 11 years of age should attend for at least fourteen 
 weeks in the year. Attendance for so small a part of 
 the year is hardly of enough importance to justify any 
 serious effort to insure it. Again, the law does not re- 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 97 
 
 quire communities to act in the matter, nor does it pro- 
 vide any adequate school facilities for the accommoda- 
 tion of delinquents if brought in. There are other diffi- 
 culties in the way of the enforcement of the compulsory 
 education act, but it is unnecessary to occupy space in 
 referring to them. Indeed, the fact that the act has 
 remained a dead letter so long is. of itself, sufficient 
 reason for looking for some more practical way for 
 enforcing attendance upon the schools." 
 
 Superintendent Draper requested Sherman Williams, 
 then Superintendent of Schools at Glens Falls, to in- 
 vestigate the subject of compulsory education. Dr. 
 Williams, in conformity with this request, did so and 
 in an able report, of date December 2, 1887, concluded 
 that New York should at once take comprehensive, de- 
 cisive and mandatory action upon the matter, but it 
 was not until 1S94 that the present law was enacted. 
 It has since received some modifications and, as thus 
 modified, is incorporated in the consolidated school law 
 of 1902. It is greatly to the credit of Dr. Williams that 
 his recommendations are substantially embraced in the 
 law, the main provisions of which are as follows: All 
 children between S and 12 years of age. in physical and 
 mental well being, must attend public school for the 
 full yearly period; all children between 12 and 14 years, 
 at least SO days, and the entire time, if not regularly 
 and lawfully engaged in some useful employment; and 
 all between II and 1G years, for the full school period, 
 unless in employment as aforesaid; parents must cause 
 their children to attend school unless they can prove 
 their inability to compel such attendance, violation of 
 this requirement being made a misdemeanor punishable 
 by fine or imprisonment; it isalso made a misdemeanor, 
 with like alternative penalties attached, for any person, 
 firm or corporation to employ any child when, with the 
 foregoing definitions, it is imperative that he or she 
 shall be in school; the local school authorities shall 
 appoint, and may remove at pleasure, one or more 
 attendance officers, fixing their ( ompensation as a local 
 charge, who may arrest truant children and a magis- 
 trate may commit habitual and incorrigible ones to a 
 truant school, to be provided by the school authorities, 
 or such may be remanded to private schools, orphans' 
 homes, or similar institutions, controlled by persons of 
 the same religious faith as that of those in parental 
 7 
 
9S Department of Public Instruction 
 
 relation to such children, to be there held until such 
 time as it may be practicable to assign them to the 
 schools they should lawfully attend ; the state superin- 
 tendent may withhold one-half of all public moneys 
 from any city or district which, in his judgment, will- 
 fully omits and refuses to enforce the provisions of the 
 law ; and he is authorized to employ such assistants as 
 mem^anfl ne ma J deem necessary to administer the law. As the 
 reports un- [ aw f igt)± f 00 ^ effect nearly coincidentlv with the 
 
 der the * ' 
 
 compel- accession of the present superintendent, it became his 
 cation law duty to start its machinery and watch its workings. 
 of 1894 He at ouce a pp i n ted Arthur M. Wright as chief in- 
 spector, with A. Edson Hall and William J. Barr as 
 assistants. Messrs Hall and Barr are still in the 
 service, with John J. N. Byrnes as an additional assist- 
 ant. James D. Sullivan is chief inspector. Beneficent 
 results immediately occurred. From the first annual 
 report of Mr. Wright the following figures are taken : 
 
 Statistics of Towns 
 
 1893-1S94 1894-1895 
 
 Number of children between 5 ami 21 residing; in 
 the districts 723.440 694.917 
 
 Average number of days of school 175 173 
 
 Number of children registered as attending 
 school ~ 535,635 5H.730 
 
 Average daily attendance 313,109 328,580 
 
 Whole number of days attendance at school 55.S60.721 57,xi:\:ui 
 
 Per cent, of registration to number res ding in 
 the districts 74.04 77.95 
 
 Per cent, of average daily af tendance to num- 
 ber registered 58.45 60.65 
 
 Statistics of ('Hies 
 
 1893-1894 1894-1895 
 
 Number of children between 5 and 21 residing in 
 
 the cities 1.20S.SS5 1,251.328 
 
 Average number of days of school 196 1S7 
 
 Number of children registered as attending 
 
 school ' 5S9.333 616,613 
 
 Average daily attendance 407,995 429.114 
 
 Whole number of da.\s aiiei 79.669.04S 81,982,010 
 
 Per cent, of registration to number residing in 
 
 the district 48.75 49.28 
 
 Per cent, of daily attendance to number regis- 
 tered C9.22 69.59 
 
 In 1902 Mr Sullivan was enabled to say : " The 
 tables show for rural districts 13,491 less children, as 
 compared with 1901, and a decline in registration of 
 10,707, while the same tables show a gain in aggregate ( 
 attendance of 517,903 and an increase in average daily 
 attendance of 2,255 ; and we also have a gain in average 
 daily attendance for the entire state of 35,241 giving 
 us the highest average daily attendance ever reached in 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 99 
 
 the history of our schools. Other figures are equally 
 interesting as indicating how the compulsory law is 
 working out its marvelous results with less friction 
 annually ; 26,237 truants were arrested, as against 
 29,171 for the year 1901— a decrease of 2,934. These 
 figures might indicate a questionable relaxation in the 
 enforcement of the law, were it not for the fact that 
 we have an increase in average daily attendance of 
 35,211 for the same period as shown above. The num- 
 ber of parents prosecuted during the year, as compared 
 with 1901, also presents an interesting computation. 
 In 1901, 921 parents were prosecuted for violation of 
 the statute, Avhile but 679 were prosecuted during the 
 past year — a decrease of 245. Do not these figures 
 clearly indicate that parents and those in parental re- 
 lation are coming more and more to understand the re- 
 quirements of the law and cheerfully complying with 
 its mandates?" And the superintendent could say 
 also: " For the year 1S91 the per cent of enrollment to 
 school population was only 64, while for the school 
 year ending July 31, 1902, the per cent of enrollment 
 to school population was nearly 91 — a net gain of 27 
 per cent; and, while in making the computation, some 
 note is to be taken of the reduction of the maximum 
 school age from 21 to 18, yet the marvelous result of 
 27 per cent increase is largely to be credited to a 
 judicious enforcement of the law. Every year has 
 marked the steady ingathering from the streets into our 
 schools of thousands of neglected children, as well as 
 many more who were being illegally employed." The 
 superintendent sugg< sts the urgent need of at least two 
 state truant schools, or truant homes, and also that 
 the present laws should he so amended as to provide 
 that, after careful investigation by an attendance offi- 
 cer, a requisition from the board of education or trustee 
 for books and clothing to enable poor children to attend 
 school should be promptly honored by local poor 
 authorities, and the same be made a legal charge 
 against the town. 
 
 The superintendent has noted, during his term, with Adornment 
 satisfaction, the growing public interest taken, not only g^und^ 1 
 in the improvement in school structures throughout the 
 state, but also in the efforts made and taste displayed 
 in beautifying their surroundings. Something of this 
 is to be attributed to the exercises of Arbor day and the 
 
100 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 trend thus imparted and something to the consecration 
 of generous-hearted citizens, in that behalf. Special 
 acknowledgment, as the superintendent observes in his 
 annual report (1903), is due to Professor John W. 
 Spencer, head of the bureau of nature study in Cornell 
 university, for his incitement to teachers and pupils to 
 adorn school grounds with trees and shrubbery and 
 flowers. In 1902, Prof. Spencer received reports from 
 500 school districts which, through his encouragement, 
 had made their grounds attractive. For several years, 
 by the liberality of the Hon. William A. Wadsworth, 
 of Geneseo, the superintendent has been able to offer 
 cash prizes — $ 100 for the best kept school grounds and 
 $50 for the second. These prizes have been duly 
 awarded and photographs of the grounds thus selected 
 have appeared with the annual reports of the Depart- 
 ment. In 1902 also, the Youth's Companion, of Boston, 
 gave United States flags to the 20 school districts 
 and, in the current year, six sets of historical engrav- 
 ings to the 500, manifesting the most interest and enter- 
 prise in adorning their grounds. These agencies, and 
 such as these, are tokens of a movement which will go 
 on until all our school grounds shall " blossom as the 
 rose." 
 romeii * n * lie barter of Cornell university, it was stipu- 
 
 unfversity hired that in return for the permission to that institu- 
 state " tion to receive the land scrip granted to the state, by 
 shii?s ar " the act of Congress, July 2, 1865, it should " annually 
 receive students from each assembly district, free of 
 any tuition fee." The university was disposed to con- 
 strue the intention of the legislature to be that each 
 district was entitled to but one student, at the same 
 time, but the state authorities insisted that one should 
 be admitted each year. The university yielded the 
 point, and 512 free scholarships were thus provided, 
 upon competitive examination, under the regulation of 
 the superintendent. Until 1887, however, not one-half 
 of these scholarships were filled. In that year a law 
 was passed awarding scholarships left vacant in any 
 district to candidates in other districts. Thereafter 
 the number was kept full, and. if any student left 
 before graduation, the superintendent filled the vacancy 
 from eligible names in the list of contemporaneous can- 
 didates. By the Constitution of 1894, the number of 
 assembly districts was enlarged from 128 to 150; but, 
 
 therein 
 
A REVIEW OF ,"S ADMINISTRATION 101 
 
 at the first, the superintendent ordered the Cornell ap- 
 pointments upon the original basis, believing that the 
 university had equities in the ease which deserved con- 
 sideration. He recommended to the legislature that the 
 free assembly district scholarships should be increased 
 to GOO and that the state should establish at Cornell 
 a state pedagogical department, or school of pedagogy, 
 for the professional training of college graduates, and 
 others of equivalent standing, in the theory and prac- 
 tice of education, thus training them for positions as 
 teachers in high schools, academies and normal schools, 
 or as superintendents of schools. The state took no 
 action, but the superintendent, in 1900, felt constrained 
 to grant 150 scholarships, and the university again 
 yielded, reserving, however, its equities in the premises 
 and claiming that the cost of the tuition of 600 students 
 would be $175,000 a year, while the income of the pro- 
 ceeds ($688,570.12) was but $31,428.80. This is the 
 existing status. The superintendent still believes that 
 in justice to Cornell and for the welfare of education, 
 the state should support a school of pedagogy there. 
 It may be added that there is a department of pedagogy 
 in Cornell, consisting of a professor and a lecturer, both 
 of whom are paid by the university. 
 
 In 1903, the superintendent discusses at some length The^Bibie 
 the question of reading the Bible in the public schools, public 
 He is loath to adhere to the ruling of his predecessors 
 in relation thereto. He alludes to the decision of 
 Superintendent Weaver, supplemented by nearly every 
 superintendent since, that " no teacher has a right to 
 consume any portion of the regular school hours in con- 
 ducting religious exercises, especially when objection 
 is raised;" but says that the Weaver decision, in the 
 specific case, was against religious exercises, according 
 to the usage and practice of a religious sect and that 
 " there is a vast distinction between exercises of that 
 character and the reading of the Bible without note 
 or comment." He finds that a recent decision of the 
 supreme court of Nebraska, often referred to as pro- 
 hibitory of Bible reading in the schools, is precisely 
 in line with that of Superintendent Weaver, and that 
 such reading is either authorized or permitted in nearly 
 every state of the union, California alone constitution- 
 ally prohibiting it, and the attorney-general of Wash- 
 ington having written an opinion adverse to it. The 
 
102 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 reading is not generally practiced in Louisiana, Nevada, 
 Idaho, Oregon or Utah. The school law of New York 
 is silent concerning it, but by special statutes the board 
 of education of the city of New York is forbidden to 
 exclude the reading of the Scriptures, without note or 
 comment, in its schools. He says distinctly that "local 
 authorities are empowered by the school law to estab- 
 lish courses of study to be followed by the schools under 
 their charge. I think this may fairly be construed to 
 include the opening exercises of such schools, subject, 
 of course, to the right of appeal to this Department 
 from an abuse of this power by local authorities. 
 Whenever the practice thus established shall violate 
 the provisions of the Constitution, and the opening 
 exercises or course of study, as prescribed by them, shall 
 include the teaching of any sectarian tenet or doctrine, 
 I should feel impelled, in case of appeal, to prohibit 
 such exercises. But where the Scriptures are read, as 
 the statute provides they shall be in the city of New 
 York, without note or comment, by a public school 
 teacher in a public school of this state, in the presence 
 of Hie pupils thereof, as part of the opening exercises, 
 I shall deem it my duty to rule that such practice is 
 not in violation of Hie Constitution or statutes of this 
 state." He refers approvingly to a volume of " Read- 
 ings from the Bible selected for schools," consisting of 
 selections from the Old and New Testaments, prepared 
 by a committee of four, of whom a member of the 
 Roman Catholic communion was one, and to whivh a 
 Jewish rabbi gave valuable assistance, and suggests 
 that this work might be used in the schools, wherever 
 the reading of the Bible is a cause of contention. 
 "•Sca'uL During nearly the whole period of the service of the 
 present superintendent various plans for the unifica- 
 tion of the two great departments of education have 
 been proposed, and have been prolific of much serious 
 and some acrimonious discussion in educational circles, 
 official and popular assemblies and the press. The late 
 constitutional convention expended much time upon 
 the subject, in the hearing before the committee on edu- 
 cation of proponents of many and diverse schemes, and 
 to debate upon the floor, but was unable to formulate 
 a declaratory article thereon, limiting itself to con- 
 ferring constitutional entity upon the regents, re- 
 affirming the mandate to the legislature to maintain 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 103 
 
 free schools and the inviolability of the school funds 
 and prohibiting state aid to denominational schools. 
 In the agitation of the last decade, the superintendent 
 has been involved necessarily, restricting himself, how- 
 ever, to the vindication of two principles, which he re- 
 gards as cardinal and fundamental, viz.: that, wiih or 
 without unification, the statutory functions of the 
 Department must be preserved intact and public sec- 
 ondary education must be remanded wholly to its super- 
 vision and control. He would draw tin 1 line of 
 demarcation clearly and determinedly between tax- 
 supported and non tax-supported schools. This would 
 be at once a democratic and intelligent definition of 
 the province of each department and an allaying of 
 friction between the two arising, and that only, from 
 the dual jurisdiction of tax-supported secondary educa- 
 tion that has heretofore obtained. Regarding the ad- 
 ministration of his department ;;s a sacred trust, he can 
 do no less than uphold it in its integrity, and ho seeks 
 to do no more. His attitude is that of defense and not 
 of aggression. Thus he says, in 1899 : " The legislation 
 of 1853 permitting the organization of academic depart- 
 ments in certain public schools is primarily responsible 
 for this anomalous condition of our school system. 
 * * * The public school, maintained by public 
 taxation, no matter where it is situated, ought to be 
 under the supervision and control of a single depart- 
 ment of the state government. To maintain two 
 departments to perform the work, which could better 
 be done by one, with greater economy to the stale and 
 more efficiency, is so plainly unwise and against all 
 principles of government, that it is surprising, not only 
 that the state ever entered upon the system in 1853, 
 but that it has continued it so long, and that too, when 
 there is plainly a. natural line of demarcation between 
 the work to be done by these two departments." 
 
 Since 1898, a number of bills of various tenor, pro- 
 viding either for demarcation or for unification, have 
 been introduced in the legislature, one proposed by the 
 state statutory revision and one emanating from a com- 
 mission appointed by Governor Roosevelt. To both 
 these, the superintendent accorded his assent, inasmuch 
 as they recognized the line of demarcation upon which 
 he has, from the first, insisted. Bills under the 
 auspices of the regents, and others under those of the 
 
104 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 superintendent, have also been before the legislature, 
 but none has reached a vote in either house. Dur- 
 ing the year 1903 the superintendent, upon con- 
 sultation with and the approval of leading educators, 
 including college presidents, normal school principals 
 and city superintendents, matured a plan embodying 
 the following features : the creation of a state board of 
 education consisting, at the beginning, of nine members 
 of the board of regents, to be selected by lot, with 
 respective terms of from one to nine years, also deter- 
 mined by lot, with future members to be chosen by the 
 legislature, each for nine years, with each judicial dis- 
 trict of the state finally to be represented; such board 
 to elect a commissioner of education, to serve during 
 its pleasure, choice not to be limited to any present 
 citizen of the state, who shall be its executive officer, 
 having general supervision of primary, secondary and 
 higher education, with power to create such depart- 
 ments as, in his judgment, shall be necessary, and to 
 appoint deputies, subject to the approval of the board; 
 neither the State Superintendent, any member of the 
 present board of regents, nor any person holding an 
 appointment under either to he eligible as I he first 
 commissioner; the first commissioner (the board 
 appointing his successors, as indicated) to be either 
 named in the bill or elected by I he legislature; and the 
 board of education, which shall also be the board of 
 regeuts, reserving to itself the right to adopt regula- 
 tions, confer degrees, guard the entrance to the legal, 
 medical and all oilier professions, (he granting of char- 
 ters to higher educational institutions, with such other 
 powers as it now possesses, nut specially vested in the 
 commissioner. The main features of this plan were 
 incorporated in a bill introduced in the assembly by 
 Mr. L. L. Davis and referred to the committee on pub- 
 lic education. Meanwhile the legislature of 1903 had 
 appointed a joint committee to investigate the subject 
 of educational unification and report to the legislature 
 of 1904. Of this committee Senator Merton E. Lewis 
 was chairman. That committee made an elaborate re- 
 port which was transmitted to the legislature Febru- 
 ary 3, 1904, and a bill, subsequently amended in certain 
 details, was introduced in both houses of the legisla- 
 ture and is now a law. Its principal provisions are. as 
 follows: The corporation designated by the constitu- 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 105 
 
 tion as " the University of the State of New York " 
 shall be governed and its corporate powers exercised by 
 eleven regents, the same to be elected by the legisla- 
 ture from those previously holding such offices, and so 
 far as may be one from each judicial district, for terms 
 respectively of one, two, Ihree, four, five, six, seven, 
 eight, nine, ten and eleven years, from the first day of 
 April, 190-1, the terms of regents, previously in office, 
 terminating on said first day of April except as before 
 provided. Successors to the regents thus elected are 
 to be chosen by the legislature in the second week of 
 February in each year. Within ten days after the 
 passage of this act, the legislature shall elect a com- 
 missioner of education, who may or may not be a 
 resident of the state of New York. He shall receive 
 an annual salary of $7,500 and $1,500 in lieu of travel- 
 ing and other expenses. He shall enter upon the per- 
 formance of his duties April 1, 1901. He shall serve 
 for the term of six years, unless sooner removed for 
 cause by the board of regents, and the legislature shall 
 fill any vacancy that may occur during such period of 
 six years, and all successors in office after such term 
 of six years, shall serve during the pleasure of the board 
 of regents. The offices of Superintendent of Public 
 Instruction and secretary of the regents are abolished 
 from April 1, 1901, and their powers and duties shall 
 be exercised and performed by the commissioner of 
 education. All the powers and duties of the board of 
 regents in relation to the supervision of elementary and 
 secondary schools, including all schools except colleges, 
 technical and professional schools, are devolved upon 
 the commissioner of education, who shall also act as 
 the executive officer of the regents. 
 
 It has, of course, been noted that in the statistics defectives' "* 
 that have been herein tabulated, appropriations to 
 schools for defectives and for Indians have been in- 
 cluded. This review would be incomplete if some addi- 
 tional facts concerning these were not presented. The 
 formal connection between the public school system of 
 the state and institutions for the education of defec- 
 tives dates from the establishment of the Department 
 of Public Instruction. In 1818, private benevolence 
 opened a school in New York city for the instruction 
 of deaf-mutes according to methods recently developed 
 in Europe. In 1833, a school for educating the blind 
 
106 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 was similarly established in the same city. In both 
 these institutions certain pupils had been maintained 
 at public expense, but, previously to 1853, there had 
 been but liltle systematic utilization of their advan- 
 tages. Among the powers and duties, devolved upon 
 the Superintendent of Public Instruction, were the 
 appointment to these two institutions of pupils to be 
 supported by the state, and a general oversight of their 
 care and education. These appointments, however, 
 were restricted to those who had been residents of the 
 state for three years, and who were between the ages 
 of 12 and 25. The institutions are first mentioned in 
 the report of the superintendent for 1855, when there 
 were 10!) pupils in the school for the blind and 204 in 
 that for deaf-mutes. In response to successive recom- 
 mendations of state superintendents, the minimum 
 age limit was reduced to eight years and finally to five, 
 while the maximum for deaf-mutes was abolished, but 
 the three years' residence 1 requirement remained, until, 
 in 1903, it was reduced to one year. In .March, 1807, 
 a school was opened in New York city, chiefly through 
 Hebrew benevolence for "the improved instruction of 
 deaf-mutes according to the articulate methods of 
 Germany." Tn 1870, the city leased to the institution 
 a site at the corner of Lexington avenue and Sixty- 
 seventh street for !>!> years, at an annual rental 
 of one dollar. Buildings were erected and it was 
 authorized to receive state 1 and county pupils. In 1870, 
 the Le Couteulx St Mary's school for the deaf was 
 opened at Buffalo, and in 1S72 was allowed to receive 
 public pupils. In L875, a school for deaf-mutes was 
 established at Rome, chiefly at state expense, and, in 
 1876, another was opened at Rochester by private 
 benevolence. In 1870, also, St Joseph's institution for 
 the instruction of deaf-mutes was founded at Fordham 
 by a society of Roman Catholic women. All these 
 schools were authorized to receive state and county 
 pupils. The same year, St Joseph's institute at Ford- 
 ham occupied new buildings which it had erected upon 
 a farm at Westchester, exclusively for hoys. For the 
 school year of 1002-3 there were reported in attendance 
 at all the schools for deaf-mutes 1,41)5 pupils, and at 
 the schools for the blind, 321. This increase from 204 
 of the former and 109 of the latter, since 1854, is due 
 not only to the growth of population, but to the removal 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 107 
 
 of age restrictions, and the growing popular interest 
 in the education of these unfortunates. In methods of 
 instruction, (he New York schools have been among 
 the foremost to devise or adopt the best. The Kochester 
 school has acquired a national reputation for discard- 
 ing all sign language, and depending upon the oral and 
 manual methods of expression, together with reading 
 and writing. The Department of Public Instruction 
 has not usually interfered with the technical methods 
 of the different schools, yet it did once enforce a change 
 in the New York institution and the present superin- 
 tendent has demanded that prominence should be given 
 to the teaching of English, with which compliance has 
 in every instance been prompt and cordial. Industrial 
 education is a part of the work in every school. The 
 children are prepared to earn their living, and very 
 few of those taught in these institutions become 
 paupers. With the increase of population and the 
 greater care for the unfortunate, the calls upon the 
 institution for tin 1 blind steadily increased, at length 
 exceeding its capacity; and, in 1868, a state institution 
 was located at Batavia for children north of the 
 Harlem river. Appointment to this school was vested 
 in local authorities and its special supervision en- 
 trusted to the State Board of Charities. Hence, 
 although the law imposed upon the superintendent the 
 same oversight, as in respect to the other schools for 
 defectives, it was not exercised by the superintendent 
 until the last year when the inspector of the Depart- 
 ment visited the institution and found it in excellent 
 condition, its working being substantially along the 
 same lines as that of the New York school. 
 
 Previous to 1846, the state made no special provision schools for 
 for the education of Indian children. There were a Imlians 
 few mission schools and the children were permitted 
 to attend the public schools of the towns embracing the 
 reservations. The school authorities of these towns 
 were also allowed to enumerate the Indian children in 
 drawing public money. The schools, being located for 
 the convenience of the whites, were accessible to but 
 few of the Indians. The injustice of granting public 
 money, on the basis of children who could nor reach 
 the schools, led to an act in 1846, restricting the 
 enumeration of Indian children to those who had 
 actually attended school three months in the preceding 
 
108 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 school year. Another law, enacted in 1846, marks the 
 beginning of educational care of the Indians. It pro- 
 vides for building schoolhouses and appropriates an 
 annual sum for the support of schools for five years on 
 four reservations, as follows : Allegany $300, St Regis 
 |200, Cattaraugus $350, Onondaga $250. It was con- 
 templated that the Indians should contribute both to 
 the erection of the buildings and to the support of the 
 schools. It is stated that they manifested much 
 gratitude for the promised aid. By the census of 1845, 
 there were 3,753 Indians in the state, of whom 984 
 were between the ages of six and sixteen years. By the 
 census of 1900, there were more than 5,000. In 1847, 
 a house was built and furnished at St Regis at a cost 
 of 1250, and one at Onondaga for $337.50. Schools 
 were opened in both, the following year, the one at St 
 Regis attaining an. average attendance of 50 out of 
 81 children in the district. In 1848, the Indians con- 
 tributing $300, a $000 schoolhouse was erected at 
 Cattaraugus, and one built by the state on the Allegany 
 reservation. The same year $240 was appropriated 
 and the town of Southampton, L. I., was required to 
 contribute $80 annually for two years, for the support 
 of a school for the Shinnecocks. In 1849, this school 
 was carried on for six months, with a teacher employed 
 at $12 a mouth, and a later report tells of a teacher in 
 the same school at $2 a week. In 1855, two schools 
 were opened on the Tonawanda reservation and one 
 among the Tuscaroras, the Indians contributing liber- 
 ally toward the buildings. In 1857, two schools were 
 established for the remnant of the Oneidas, who, though 
 their lands had been allotted in severalty, were too 
 poor to sustain schools of their own. These schools 
 were supported until 1889, when they were discontinued 
 on recommendation of Superintendent Draper. The 
 first schc/ol for the Poospatucks Avas not established 
 until 1875. 
 
 The act of 1856 placed the Indian schools under the 
 direct charge of the Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
 tion. The number of districts has gradually increased 
 to meet the necessity of accommodating the children. 
 In 1866, there were, exclusive of the two for the 
 Oneidas, 23 schools each with one teacher. As more 
 and more children were brought into the schools, other 
 teachers were added at Onondaga, and new districts 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 109 
 
 formed on the other reservations. The latest of these 
 districts are the fifth in 1889, and the sixth in 1899, at 
 St Regis, the fourth at Tonawanda in 1900, and the 
 seventh at Allegany in 1903. The building for the last 
 will be completed so as to open a school in the spring 
 of 1901. There is also a necessity for two new dis- 
 tricts on the St Regis reservation. In the Indian, as 
 in the white schools, careful supervision is of the 
 utmost importance. At first, the schools were in the 
 hands of the state agents and special commissioners 
 for building the houses who acted concurrently with 
 representative Indians. Later, local superintendents 
 were appointed with powers analogous to those of 
 boards of education, but subject to the direct approval 
 or veto of the State Superintendent by whom they were 
 appointed. Some of these local authorities were, from 
 the first, intelligent, conscientious men, but others 
 studied only their own interests, and " graft " was 
 practiced at the expense of the Indians. The present 
 local superintendents are all practical educators, 
 honest and capable. Their powers, however, have been 
 limited by lack of funds and the impossibility of keep- 
 ing the central authority in touch with the actual con- 
 ditions. The same difficulty was found in dealing with 
 other state schools where support was had directly 
 from Albany. The Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
 tion therefore, in January, 1900, appointed an inspector 
 of normal schools, giving him also charge of the Indian 
 schools and schools for defectives. Results of his over- 
 sight have been given in the annual reports of the 
 Department. He found most, of the Indian school- 
 houses out of repair and meanly furnished. Sen is were 
 uncomfortable, blackboards, charts, globes and maps 
 lacking, and the books entirely unadapted to the wants 
 of the children. The grounds were uninviting and the 
 outhouses dilapidated and untidy. So rapidly as funds 
 would permit these evils have been remedied. Two 
 new schoolhouses have been built and three more are 
 approaching completion. The out-buildings are clean 
 and neat. Charts and kindergarten material have been 
 supplied and the old textbooks replaced by modern 
 ones. 
 
 As early as 1852, the state appropriated f 1,000 for 
 the support of Indian children to be educated at the 
 normal schools. They came gladly and made fair 
 
110 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 progress, but it was reported that they " flocked 
 together," and the next year, a similar appropriation 
 was made for their education at academies, not more 
 than two being allowed at the same institution. In 
 1854, another experiment was made appropriating 
 $1,000 for the education of Indian youth at farms and 
 in country schools. None of these later experiments 
 were successful and the state returned to the normal 
 school plan, and has most of the time supported one or 
 more Indian youths who were taking the regular course 
 in these schools preparatory to teaching. Siuce the 
 establishment of Government schools for Indians at 
 Hampton. Carlisle and Philadelphia they have been 
 quite extensively patronized by New York Indians. 
 So also have the Quaker boarding school at Tunessasa 
 and the Thomas Orphan Asylum near Versailles. A 
 few children also at lend the public schools near the 
 reservations, or in places where the parents are tem- 
 porarily located. There are reported, for the past year, 
 in these various schools, aside from the district or state 
 schools, 363 pupils. It may be added that many of the 
 Indian normal graduates have made excellent teachers 
 for their own people. 
 
 The following are the statistical and financial reports 
 for the year ending July 31, 1003, the close of the ninth 
 year of the present administration : 
 
 Statistical 
 
 Cities Towns State 
 
 Statistics Number of districts 1,043 10,683 11,726 
 
 for tne last Number of teachers employed for 160 (lavs 
 
 year of or more 16 633 15 g 20 34450 
 
 Superin- Number of children of school aire 1.264.431 476.329 1,740,760 
 
 temleiit Number of male teachers em]. loved 1.937 2,972 4,909 
 
 Skinners Number of female teachers employed 2n.7u0 14,216 34.916 
 
 adminii- Number of children in attendance 827.541 429.333 1.256.874 
 
 • ration Average daily attendance 630,855 297,480 9_s.33.". 
 
 Visitations of commissioners 11,815 11,815 
 
 Number of volumes in libraries 719,691 998. 2;0 1,717,951 
 
 Number of log schoolhouses 15 IS 
 
 Number of frame schoolhotises 176 9,553 9,729 
 
 Number of brick schoolhouses S61 997 1,838 
 
 Number of stone schoolhouses 6 290 296 
 
 Whole number of schoolhouses 1,043 10,835 11.878 
 
 Financial 
 
 Receipts Cities Towns State 
 
 Amount on hand August 1, 1902. $17, 334, 554 93 $640,293 54 $17,974,S48 47 
 
 Amount apportioned to districts 1,943.326 60 2,044,730 31 3,938,056 91 
 Proceeds of gospel and school 
 
 lands 6,016 60 32.819 19 38.S35 79 
 
 Received from board of regents. 131.760 91 154.9138 63 2S6.679 57 
 
 Raised by tax 23,804.549 87 5,211.37) ■»! 29,075,920 51 
 
 Teachers' board 7.09S 89 7.098 89 
 
 Tuition 44,050 44 186.612 62 230.663 06 
 
 Other sources 7,651.72326 610.678 71 8.262,40197 
 
 Total $50,975,9S2 61 $8,8SS,522 56 $59,864,505 17 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 111 
 
 Tayments Cities Towns State 
 
 For teachers' wages $18,509,203 19 $5,461,963 50 $23,971,166 G9 
 
 Tuition to districts under con- 
 tract 38.46175 38,46175 
 
 Transportation to districts un- 
 der contract 24,818 84 24,818 84 
 
 Libraries 69,997 00 ns.-'.is us 158,295 08 
 
 For school apparatus 1,133,528 01 61,210 46 1,194,738 47 
 
 For school houses, sites. re- 
 pairs, etc 8.926.964 17 984,959 26 9,911,923 43 
 
 Forfeited in supervisors' hands 880 26 880 26 
 
 For free textbooks 115,449 50 115,449 50 
 
 For all other expenditures 4,479,444 62 1,522,917 21 6,002.361 S3 
 
 Amount on hand July 31, 1903... 17,741,396 12 703,013 20 18,446,409 32 
 
 Total $50,975,982 61 $8,888,522 56 $59,864,505 17 
 
 Deducting' from the total under the head of pay- 
 ments the amount on hand it appears that the actual 
 expense of the common schools of the state for the year 
 ending July 31, 1903 was $41,418,095.85. The average 
 annual salaries of teachers in the cities, for the last 
 school year was $992.08, in the towns $345.26 and in 
 the state $695.76; the average weekly salaries in the 
 cities was $25.44, in the towns $10.10 and in the state 
 $19.65. The average annual cost per pupil, based on 
 average daily attendance was, in the cities $52.68, in 
 the towns $27.51 and in the state $14.62; the average 
 annual cost per pupil, based on number of children 
 attending school was in the cities $40.16, in the towns 
 $19.06 and in the state $32.95; the average annual cost 
 per pupil based on total population, census of 1900, 
 was in the cities $6.78, in the towns $3.46 and in the 
 state $5.70. The value of schoolhouses and sites was 
 in the cities $82,174,215, in the towns $17,491,026 and 
 in the state $99,668,241. The total cost of maintain- 
 ing the normal schools was $406,675.92, and the average 
 cost per graduate of these schools (for 1902) was 
 $356.21. The average cost of each graduate from train- 
 ing class and school was $68.71. The cost of main- 
 taining teachers institutes was $11,416.14, and for each 
 teacher in attendance $2.28. The expenses of Indian 
 schools were $14,198.78, of schools for defectives $269,- 
 154.65, of pictorial instruction $38,000, and of enforcing 
 the compulsory education law $15,473.89. The 
 teachers' licenses held were state 1,187, college graduate 
 751, normal diplomas 7.317, training class or school 
 8,459, local and commissioners' 19,867. The average 
 length of the school term was in the cities 195 days, 
 in the towns 171 and in the state 177. The districts 
 observing Arbor day were in the cities 45, and in the 
 
112 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 towns 9.74X ; the number of trees planted was in the 
 cities 729 and in the towns 14,370. The number of 
 children committed to truant schools was, in the cities, 
 1,260, and in the towns 96; the number of truants 
 arrested by attendance officers was in the cities 27,671) 
 and in the towns 778 ; the number of parents prosecuted 
 was 613 in the cities and 37S in the towns. The total 
 number of pupils registered in all departments of nor- 
 mal schools (for 1902) was 9,284, the number in normal 
 departments only, 4,341, and the number graduating 
 was 1 ,046. The number of training classes and schools 
 (1903) was 118 j the number attending the same 2,559, 
 and the number of certificates issued 1,494. The num- 
 ber of teachers institutes was 111 and the number of 
 teachers in attendance 8,099. The number of private 
 schools in the state was 867, with an attendance of 
 188,484. 
 ti"™ P s a ta*tis- The tremendous growth, during the existence of the 
 ties and Department of Public Instruction is seen in two items 
 
 cuncla- x 
 
 sions alone— in that the schools, in 1853, cost but $2,469,- 
 
 248.52 and $1,931,870.18 were expended for teacher's 
 wages, as against $41,418,095.85 and $23,971,166.19 
 respectively in 1903. With these latest data of the 
 Department, this review nears its end. The history of 
 the common schools of New York has been traced from 
 their beginning in 1633, in the humble domicile of 
 Adam Roelandson, in New Amsterdam to their present 
 magnificent development. While, it is believed, that 
 nearly every phase of that development has been 
 touched upon, if not fully described — with the excep- 
 tion of the curriculums to which an expert treatise 
 should be devoted — particular stress has been laid upon 
 the financial aspects, as they have revealed themselves 
 successively, from the slender stipend allotted to the 
 first schoolmaster by the Dutch West India Company 
 to the two score million dollars and more now expended 
 for popular education by this imperial commonwealth ; 
 and, as a measure of progress, there is none more 
 accurate than that of money. What the schools were 
 doing at any given date may be fairly discerned by what 
 they were costing. Are the children being gathered in 
 the schools; is the number of illiterates decreasing; are 
 sightly buildings being erected, and do they improve 
 in design, appointments and utility; are teachers re- 
 ceiving due compensation ; are they more and more 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 113 
 
 dedicated to their calling; are standards of education 
 exalted, and are the facilities the system affords com- 
 mensurate with its constantly expending needs? All 
 these questions and others that might be asked are 
 answered in the statistical and financial tables that the 
 superintendents have collated, a considerable number of 
 which have here been reproduced, and which record the 
 onward course of education as precisely as the ther- 
 mometer marks the degrees of temperature. 
 
 In conclusion, it is submitted that the claim of the 
 educational supremacy of New York, preferred at the 
 outset, has been sustained by the facts adduced. First, 
 in population, in manufactures, in commerce, in wealth 
 and in the arts of civilization, she is also first in the 
 training of her youth for the vocations of life and the 
 obligations of citizenship. She founded the common 
 school in the land; she unified its government in a 
 headship, with powers from and responsibility to her 
 alone; she has employed the most effective agencies 
 f'or its betterment; if she has not originated all meas- 
 ures for its advancement, she has been prompt in 
 adopting those elsewhere initiated, enlarging their 
 scope and perfecting their application; and she has 
 been open-handed in its support until throughout her 
 borders, the school bell rings for all her children, with- 
 out distinction of sex, color, or condition, her latest 
 mandate being that the doors of the high schools shall 
 open " without money and without price " to all, who, 
 irrespective of their residence within the state, desire 
 to enter them. From this review, the commanding 
 position which the Department of Public Instruction 
 has had in the educational progress of the state is 
 clearly apparent. That which has been wrought in this 
 regard, within the last fifty years, far exceeds all that 
 had been accomplished in the two hundred and twenty 
 years preceding. Much of this progress is to be 
 ascribed to the larger enlightenment that came with the 
 advancing years of the nineteenth century and much 
 t'o the abundant means that the state has provided, 
 but much also is due to the fact that the common school 
 system has been under a separate department of the 
 government, invested with large, and even extraordi- 
 nary executive, administrative and judicial functions, 
 for the exercise of which it has been amenable only 
 to the sovereign state. At the close of these fifty 
 S 
 
114 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 memorable years of organization and achievement the 
 Department of Public Instruction ceases to exist, but 
 it is believed that under the Commissioner of Education 
 its jurisdiction will not be restricted nor its powers 
 abridged, and that he will be true to its inspiration 
 and historic leading. 
 
 VICTOR M. RICE 
 
 Victor Moreau Kice, the first and fourth Superin- 
 tendent of Public Instruction, the son of the Honorable 
 William Rice, originally from Washington county, but 
 one of the early settlers in Chautauqua, was born at 
 Mayville in the latter county, April 5, 1818. Having ob- 
 tained his preliminary education in the schools of his 
 native town, he entered Allegheny college, at Meadville, 
 Pennsylvania, and was graduated from that institution 
 in the class of 1841. In 1842, he studied law in May- 
 ville, and continued it at intervals, being admitted to 
 the bar in 1815. In 1813, he removed to Buffalo and was 
 employed as teacher of Latin, language, penmanship, 
 and bookkeeping in a private school which subse- 
 quently became the Buffalo high school. In 1815, he 
 opened an evening commercial school for clerks and 
 young men with daily occupat ions. From 1816 to 1818, 
 he was the editor of the Cataract afterward the 
 Western Temperance Standard, but resumed teach- 
 ing in the latter year. In L852, he was elected city 
 superintendent of schools. In 1853, he was president 
 of the New York teachers' association, with which, for 
 several years, he had been prominently identified. In 
 1851, he became the first State Superintendent of Pub- 
 lic Instruction, and the work of organizing the depart- 
 ment devolved upon him. Features of his first 
 administration were the creation of the office of school 
 commissioner and the compilation of the Code of 
 Public Instruction. Returning to Buffalo, he was 
 elected, as a Republican to the assembly of 1801, in 
 which he was chairman of the committee on college:'., 
 academies and common schools. In 18G2, he was 
 again elected Superintendent of Public Instruction and 
 was reelected in 1865. He was especially interested 
 in the establishment of Indian schools, and was form- 
 ally adopted by the Seneca tribe and named Sagowada 
 (the big tree). The conspicuous achievement of his 
 
VICTOR M. RICE 
 
 Superintendent 1854-1857, 1862-1868 
 
HENRY II. VAN DYCK 
 
 Superintendent 1857-1861 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 115 
 
 later service was that of the abolition of the rate bill — 
 the making of the common schools of the state abso- 
 lutely free. Upon retiring from the superintendency in 
 1868, he became president of the American Popular Life 
 Insurance Company and was afterward president of 
 the Metropolitan Bank of New York City until his 
 death which occurred October 18, 1869. 
 
 HENRY H. VAN DYCK 
 
 Henry Herbert Van Dyck, the second Superintendent 
 of Public Instruction, was born in Kinderhook, Colum- 
 bia county, N. Y., in 1809. He received his education in 
 the schools of Kinderhook and, at an early age, was 
 apprenticed to the printers' trade, which he acquired 
 before he was twenty-one years old. Upon attaining 
 his majority, he became the editor of the Goshen 
 Independent Republican. He was subsequently one 
 of the owners of the Albany Argus. His early politi- 
 cal affiliations were with the Free Soil wing of the 
 Democratic party. He was prominent in the revolt of 
 that element, under the lead of Martin Van Buren, 
 in 1848. against the regular nominations of the party, 
 which contributed to the election of President Taylor, 
 but joined the Republican party upon its organization, 
 and was a candidate for presidential elector on the 
 Fremont ticket in 1856. He was elected Superin- 
 tendent of Public Instruction in 1857 and reelected 
 in 1860 serving until April 9, 1861, when he resigned 
 to accept the appointment of State Superintendent of 
 the Banking Department, in which capacity he re- 
 mained until August 9, 1865, when he was made assist- 
 ant United States Treasurer, in New York, by President 
 Johnson. This position he resigned in 1869 on account 
 of failing health. His health being restored he became 
 president of the American Safe Deposit Company and 
 was acting as such at the time of his death January 
 22, 1888, at the age of 79 years. He was also for a time 
 president of the Erie Transportation Company. In the 
 various financial trusts, which he discharged, he was 
 highly esteemed and useful. 
 
116 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 EMERSON W. KEYES 
 
 Emerson W. Keyes, the third Superintendent of Pub- 
 lic Instruction, in the eighth generation of the Keyes 
 family in America, was born in Jamestown, Chautau- 
 qua county, where his father had settled in 1S20, on 
 the 80th of June 1828. At the age of 16, he began 
 his teaching career in a district school in his native 
 county. He was graduated from the Albany normal 
 school in 1818, meanwhile supporting himself by teach- 
 ing in various places. Immediately after graduation, 
 he taught at Castleton-on-the-Hudson and in 1849 he 
 taught in the Genesee and Wyoming seminary, Alex- 
 ander, N. Y., of which Norman F. Wright, father of 
 the present second Deputy Superintendent A. M. 
 Wright, was then principal. In 1850 he took charge 
 of the department in English in Homer academy. In 
 1856, he was engaged in the public schools of New York 
 city. In 1857, he was appointed by Superintendent 
 Van Dyck, Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
 tion and served as such until April 9, 1861, when, 
 upon the resignation of Mr. Van Dyck he became acting 
 superintendent and filled out the term, retiring in 
 April, 1862. He was a candidate for the succession 
 in 1862, but was defeated in the caucus of his party 
 by a majority of three votes. He was deputy superin- 
 tendent under his successful competitor, Victor M. 
 Rice, for the ensuing two years. In 1865, he was 
 appointed Deputy Superintendent of the Banking 
 Department of the state, in which he remained eight 
 years, being acting superintendent for several months 
 toward the close of the period. He was admitted to 
 the bar in 1868, and, upon leaving the Banking Depart- 
 ment, practiced his profession in New York, until he 
 was, in 1883, appointed chief clerk in the office of the 
 Superintendent of Schools in Brooklyn, which position 
 he retained until his death, October 17, 1897, at the 
 age of 69 years. Mr. Keyes was an author of wide 
 repute upon educational, banking and legal subjects, 
 and a public speaker upon various themes. Among his 
 publications are the " History of Savings Banks in the 
 United States," "A Special Report on Savings Banks," 
 " The Code of Public Instruction in the State of New 
 York," and " Principles of Civil Government, Exempli- 
 fied in the State of New York." He also edited 
 
I§#p fig* 
 
 EMERSON W. KEYES 
 Superintendent 1861-1862 
 
ABRAM B. WEAVER 
 
 Superintendent 1808-1874 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 117 
 
 " Keyes's Court of Appeals Kecord," in four volumes, 
 and prepared and revised the article on " Savings 
 Banks," in Johnson's Cyclopedia. His last public 
 address was that on the occasion of the fiftieth anni- 
 versary of the founding of the State normal college 
 in Albany, June, 1891. 
 
 ABRAM B. WEAVER 
 
 Abram B. Weaver, the fifth Superintendent of Public 
 Instruction, was born in Deerfield, Oneida county, 
 which has always been his legal residence, on the 18th 
 of December, 1830. He was the son of George M. 
 Weaver and Delia Bellinger, both of whom were 
 descendants of the German stock which first settled 
 the Mohawk valley. His father is reputed to have 
 been the first white child born in Oneida county. His 
 preliminary education was in the common school of 
 his town and in Utica academy, in the latter under a 
 most excellent classical teacher, George Spencer. In 
 September, 1847, he entered Hamilton college and was 
 graduated with the class of 1851. He pursued some 
 legal studies in college, under that distinguished in- 
 structor, Professor Theodore W. Dwight, and, after 
 graduation, resumed his preparation for the bar in the 
 office of Spencer and Kernan in Utica. He was ad- 
 mitted to the profession in 1853, but was engaged in 
 active practice for only a few years. When the present 
 system of school supervision was introduced, he was 
 appointed school commissioner for the first district of 
 Oneida county by the board of supervisors, in 1856, 
 and, in the fall of 1857, was elected to the same office, 
 by popular vote, for the further term of three years. 
 He accepted the nomination of the Democratic party 
 for the assembly, in the first district of Oneida county, 
 in 1861, and was defeated by the rejection of a few 
 clipped ballots, but was returned to that body, the 
 ensuing year, and served therein during the sessions 
 of 1863, '64 and '65. In the latter year, he was the 
 candidate of his party for speaker. He was made a 
 trustee of Cornell university in 1865, and assisted in 
 organizing that institution, serving until 1874. He 
 practiced law in the city of New York from 1865 to 
 1868, in partnership with Judge James Matthews and 
 was appointed by the court an examiner of candidates 
 
118 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 for admission to the bar. In 1868, he was elected 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction and was re- 
 elected in 1871. While superintendent, it devolved 
 upon him to organize six of the eight normal schools 
 then authorized by law. Since his retirement, he has 
 lived on his ancestral home in Deerfleld, frequently, 
 however, being requested to accept political preferment. 
 He was the candidate of his party for representative 
 in congress in 1870, for state senator in 1885, and for 
 presidential elector in 1900. In 1902, he was again 
 nominated for congress, but declined to make the 
 canvass. 
 
 NEIL GILMOUR 
 
 Neil Gilmour, the sixth Superintendent of Public 
 Instruction, was born at Paisley, Scotland, on the 18th 
 of January, 1810. He was prepared for college in his 
 native land, came to this country in 1856 and, enter- 
 ing Union college, was graduated from that institution 
 with the class of 1860. He worked his way through 
 college and for a year after graduation, taught in the 
 academy at Corning. He then went to Ballston 
 Springs, which was thereafter his home, and taught 
 for several years in the academy in that place, of which 
 his brother, the Rev. James Gilmour was the principal. 
 He early became interested in politics and was in 
 frequent demand as a speaker at the meetings of the 
 Republican party, with which he was identified. In 
 1866, he was elected school commissioner for the first 
 district of Saratoga county, and was again elected in 
 1872. Before the expiration of his latter term, he was 
 chosen Superintendent of Public Instruction and 
 resigned as commissioner to accept the higher prefer- 
 ment. He was reelected superintendent in 1877 and 
 in 1880, being the first superintendent to hold for three 
 consecutive terms. Shortly after his retirement and, 
 under the administration of President Arthur, he was 
 appointed registrar of the land office at Bismarck, 
 N. D., and discharged the duties of that office, until 
 his resignation upon the incoming of President Cleve- 
 land. Returning to Ballston, he accepted the position 
 of general manager of the Aetna Life Insurance Com- 
 pany for the state of New York and acted as such 
 until 1896, after which he engaged in the practice of 
 
NEIL GILMOUR 
 
 Superintendent 1874-1883 
 
WILLIAM B. RUGGLES 
 
 Superintendent 1883-1886 
 
A REVIEW OP ITS ADMINISTRATION 119 
 
 law until his death March 31, 1901. He was an attrac- 
 tive public speaker and Mas closely associated with 
 the life of his community, being, at the time of his 
 death a director of the First National Bank, a trustee 
 of the Cemetery Association and also of the Ballston 
 Springs Improvement Association. 
 
 WILLIAM B. RUGGLES 
 
 William Benjamin Buggies, the seventh Superinten- 
 dent of Public Instruction, the son of William and 
 Mary Buggies, was born in Bath, Steuben county, May 
 11, 1827. He attended the public school in Bath, but 
 at the age of thirteen was in a printing office in his 
 native village, trying lo work his way up from the 
 case to the higher education. In 1816 he entered 
 Hamilton college at the beginning of the sophomore 
 year, and was graduated with high honors in the class 
 of 1819. Soon after graduation he went to Atlanta, 
 Georgia, and became the editor and publisher of the 
 Atlanta Intelligencer a leading Democratic journal 
 of the south. In 1851 he was elected and in 1855 re- 
 elected an alderman of the city of Atlanta, and thus 
 began his long and varied political career. Disposing 
 of his paper, four years before the outbreak of the 
 civil war, he came north, and in 1857 began the study 
 of law in the school connected with Hamilton col- 
 lege, under the direction of Theodore W. Dwight. He 
 was admitted to practice in the summer of 185S, contin- 
 ued his legal studies in the office of Judge Charles 11. 
 Doolittle, in Utica, for about a year, and, in 1859, com- 
 menced the practice of his profession in Bath, in which 
 he rapidly gained distinction. In 1X07 he was chosen a 
 trustee of Bath, and in 1876 and 1877 was a member of 
 assembly from Steuben county. In that body he was 
 a member of the judiciary committee and was especially 
 prominent in the discussion of educational topics, 
 taking ground in favor of the abolition of the normal 
 schools. 
 
 In 1878 he was appointed first deputy attorney- 
 general under the Hon. Augustus Schoonmaker, and 
 was continued in the place by the Hon. Hamilton Ward, 
 who was not of the same political faith as himself. 
 In 1883 he was elected Superintendent of Public 
 
120 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 Instruction and served nearly through the term, 
 resigning, however, January 1, 1886, to accept the posi- 
 tion of deputy superintendent and legal counselor of 
 the New York State Insurance Department under 
 Superintendent Maxwell, and remained in that capac- 
 ity until 1891, when he resigned. 
 
 He continued to reside in Albany until his death, 
 January 1, 1902. He had published official reports to 
 the legislature, opinions under the school laws, and 
 addresses delivered before various educational institu- 
 tions. He was a delegate to the Democratic National 
 Convention at St. Louis in 1876, which nominated 
 Samuel J. Tilden for the presidency. 
 
 JAMES E. MORRISON 
 
 James Edward Morrison, the eighth Superintendent 
 of Public Instruction, was born in the city of New 
 York in 1843 of parents of Irish ancestry. His pre- 
 liminary education was obtained in the public schools 
 of the metropolis and he was graduated from the col- 
 lege of the City of New York in 1861, and from the 
 Columbia university law school in 1869. He taught 
 in Christ's Church academy at Oyster Bay; in gram- 
 mar school 19, New York city and was subse- 
 quently and until January, 1879, professor of history 
 and belles-lettres in the college of the City of New 
 York, when he resigned to become private secretary 
 to Mayor Cooper, which position he held for two years. 
 He then served a short time as member of the board 
 of police commissioners of the City of New York, and, 
 in 1882, represented the sixteenth district of New York 
 county in the assembly. He served as Deputy State 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction under the Hon. 
 William B. Ruggles, from April 7, 1883, until January 
 1, 1886, when he became State Superintendent, upon the 
 resignation of Mr. Ruggles, and acted as such until the 
 expiration of the term, April 7, 1886, on which date 
 he was appointed Chief Examiner in the State Civil 
 Service Commission and continued as such until his 
 sudden death in Buffalo, whither he had gone to con- 
 duct examinations, June 14, 1887, at the age of 44 
 years. A meeting of his friends was held at the 
 capitol, in Albany, over which the Hon. Charles R. 
 Skinner presided, and suitable resolutions commemora- 
 
JAMES E. MORRISON 
 Superintendent 1886 
 
ANDREW S. DRAPER 
 Superintendent 1886-1892 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 121 
 
 tive of his work were adopted, and a committee was 
 appointed to attend his funeral. In addition to his 
 political and educational preferments, Mr. Morrison 
 was known as an orator and writer upon various 
 subjects and as a scholar of more than ordinary 
 attainments. He was highly esteemed in the Masonic 
 Fraternity and for a time, was at the head of the New 
 York Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons. He con- 
 tributed to the press many articles and editorials on 
 Masonic Law, in which he was regarded an authority. 
 He was a member of the Democratic State Committee 
 for many years and was reading clerk of the Demo- 
 cratic National Conventions of 1880 and 1884. 
 
 ANDREW S. DRAPER 
 
 Andrew Sloan Draper, of Puritan and Scotch-Irish 
 lineage, the son of Sylvester Bigelow and Jane Sloan 
 Draper, was born in Westford, Otsego county, N. Y., 
 June 21, 1848. When seven years old, the family 
 moved to Albany. His early education was in the 
 common schools of Westford and Albany. He entered 
 the Albany academy in 18G3 and was graduated there- 
 from in 18GG. The year after graduation, he was a 
 teacher of mathematics, bookkeeping, etc., in the West- 
 ford Literary Institute. In the winter of 1867-68 he 
 taught mathematics in the Albany academy, and, the 
 next year was principal of the graded school in East 
 Worcester, Otsego county. He was engaged for four 
 summers in the Albany office of C. & D. Whitney, 
 a large lumber firm, and traveled extensively for it 
 through the Atlantic coast states. This was followed 
 by a course of study in the Albany Law School (Union 
 university) from which he received the degree of LL.B. 
 and was admitted to the bar in 1871. He formed a 
 partnership with his cousin, Alden Chester, now a jus- 
 tice of the New York Supreme Court, the firm becom- 
 ing later Paddock, Draper and Chester, and again 
 Draper and Chester. He was also deeply interested in 
 politics, having begun to make Republican speeches ns 
 early as 1868. In 1876 he was president of a uni- 
 formed political club of 600 members called th* 
 " Minute Men," from 1880 until 1883 president of th« 
 Albany Grant club of 3,000 members and was ire 
 quently a delegate to local and state conventions of his 
 
122 Department of Public Instruction 
 
 party. In 1880 he became a member of the Albany 
 county Republican committee and was its chairman for 
 three years. In 1883 he was elected to the Republican 
 state committee and was the chairman of its executive 
 committee in 1S84, and was also a delegate to the 
 Republican National Convention of 1884. In 1878, he 
 was chosen a member of the Albany board of educa- 
 tion and served therein for three years, and was for 
 a time a trustee of the State normal college. He was 
 a member of the New York assembly in 1881, serving 
 on the committees of Ways and Means, Judiciary, Pub- 
 lic Printing and Public Education. In 1884, he was ap- 
 pointed by President Arthur a member of the court 
 of Alabama claims — a court to hear and determine the 
 individual claims against the $15,500,000 awarded by 
 the High Tribunal at Geneva under the treaty of Wash- 
 ington with Great Britain. He was elected State 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction in 18S6 and was 
 reelected in 1889. During his tenure he accomplished 
 a number of educational reforms and had national 
 reputation as an educator. He was superintendent of 
 instruction in Cleveland, Ohio, 1802-94, and has been 
 president of the University of Illinois since 1894. The 
 University advanced from a faculty of 90 and a student 
 body of 750 in 1894 to a faculty of 420 and a student 
 body of 3,800 in 1904. In March, 1S9S, he was elected 
 superintendent of schools of the Greater City of New 
 York, but declined the position. In 1904, he was 
 elected commissioner of education for the State of New 
 York, entering upon his duties April 1. He was 
 awarded the silver medal at the Paris Exposition for 
 his monograph on the " Organization and Administra- 
 tion of the American School System," and is the author 
 of a book on the war with Spain, entitled " The Rescue 
 of Cuba.' 5 He received the degree of LL.D. from 
 Colgate in 1889 and from Columbia in 1903. He is 
 widely known as a speaker and writer, especially upon 
 educational topics. 
 
JAMES F. CROOKER 
 Superintendent 1 892-1 895 
 
A REVIEW OF ITS ADMINISTRATION 123 
 
 JAMES F. CROOKER 
 James F. Crooker, the tenth Superintendent of Pub- 
 lic Instruction, was born in the hamlet of Christian 
 Hollow, in the town of Onondaga, in the county of 
 the same name, August 12, 1834. He is of New Eng- 
 land origin, his family being among the settlers of 
 Stratford, Conn. His father was a farmer, nearly all 
 his life, dying at a good old age in 1890. His mother's 
 maiden name was Elizabeth Yates, a descendant of 
 Governor Joseph C. Yates, of this state. She died in 
 L838. In 1830, the parents of James F. Crooker re- 
 moved to Erie county, where nearly all his life has 
 been passed. His early education was acquired in the 
 schools of his neighborhood and, at the age of sixteen, 
 he taught a district school in the same vicinity. He 
 subsequently studied in the Springville academy, from 
 which he was graduated in 1853. He then accepted 
 a position in a mercantile house in New York city, 
 which he was compelled by ill health to resign, after 
 a service of about three years. He returned to Erie 
 county and, after recuperating his health at the pater- 
 nal homestead, became the principal of one of the 
 smaller schools of Buffalo and as the principal of 
 a number of the schools in that city remained a teacher 
 for about twenty years. In the fall of 1881, and while 
 principal of No. 31, the largest school in the city, he 
 was elected superintendent of education of Buffalo for 
 a term of two years, and was reelected four time3, 
 more than once receiving majorities considerably in 
 f excess of other candidates upon the same ticket — the 
 Democratic. In the eleventh year of his local super- 
 intendency he was chosen by the legislature State 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction, in February, 
 1892, and served until the end of the term in April, 
 1895. Since retiring from the superintendency, he has 
 filled a number of local offices in Buffalo, and was once 
 the candidate of his party for the city superintendency 
 of schools. 
 
 CHARLES R. SKINNER 
 
 Charles Rufus Skinner, the eleventh Superintendent 
 of Public Instruction, son of Avery and Charlotte 
 Stcbbins Skinner, was born in Union Square, Oswego 
 county, August 4, 1844. He was educated in the com- 
 
1.24 Department op Public Instruction 
 
 nion schools of his native town, the Mexico academy 
 and the Clinton Liberal Institute. From 18G7 until 
 1870, he was engaged in business in New York city. 
 He then settled in Watertown, Jefferson county, and 
 from 1870 until 1874 was the business manager of the 
 Watertown Daily Times. He was elected, as a Kepub- 
 lican, to the assembly of the state of New York, for 
 the years 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880 and 1881 ; was a mem- 
 ber of several important committees and frequently 
 participated in the debates of that body. In 1881, the 
 Honorable Warner Miller having resigned his seat in 
 the house of representatives, upon being chosen a 
 United States senator, Mr. Skinner was elected to fill 
 the vacancy thus created in the forty-seventh congress, 
 and was reelected to the forty-eighth, in 1883. In 1886, 
 he was appointed by the Honorable Andrew S. Draper 
 Deputy State Superintendent of Public Instruction 
 and served as such until 1892; in that year he became 
 supervisor of teachers' institutes and teachers' training 
 classes, under Superintendent Crooker; in 1S95, he was 
 chosen by the legislature State Superintendent of Pub- 
 lic Instruction and was reelected to the same office in 
 1898 and 1901. He was president of the National 
 Educational Association in 1896. He has delivered 
 many addresses at political, patriotic and educational 
 gatherings and is the author of " Commercial Advant- 
 ages of Watertown, N. Y." (1876) ; New York Ques- 
 tion Book" (1S90) ; "Arbor Day Manual" (1891) and 
 " Manual for Patriotism for the Schools of New York " 
 (1900) . He received the degree of Master of Arts from 
 Hamilton college in 1889, that of Doctor of Laws from 
 Colgate university in 1895, and that of Doctor of 
 Letters from Tufts college, Massachusetts,, in 1901. 
 
CHARLES R. SKINNER 
 Superintendent 1895 1904 
 
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