Besides a botanic or propagating garden at Washington, its organization includes two experiment farms, one maintained in the South, and the other in the West.

4. Special Publications.

Besides these organized services contributed by the national Government to the enlargement of the sphere of natural science, and the general diffusion of its beneficent uses, there are certain incidental and secondary ones, though not the less positive in their educational bearings.

This larger service is shown first in the abundant literature of the departments, the annual and special reports, and the particular and general histories of their respective duties. The decisions of the Supreme Court, for example, number one hundred and twenty volumes and form the standards of law and equity for the bars of the entire country; and the special reports of the Interior Department on the Indians, railroads, public lands, and labor, constitute a fund of valuable information. When Audubon's "Birds of America was ready to publish, the magnitude of the undertaking, both in expense and execution, must have exceeded the possibilities of ordinary means; but the generosity of Astor, and the aid of the Department of State, gave the public one of the rarest works, and immortalized American science. Serviceable in a different way have been the publications by this department of reports on the three great expositions-Paris in 1867 and 1878, and Vienna in 1873. In the publication of Wheaton's "International Law," also, the office rendered timely aid. The decennial census has been shown by Dr. Harris to be full of the most significant educational information to every locality. Three years before the first census, a volume was published containing information on foreign countries; in 1820 another on "Home Industries." The treasury reports on commerce and navigation were made the same year. The first inquiries on education were made in the sixth census (1840), whose answers contributed to the general educational awakening of the period.

The anthropological studies also made by Surgeon Baxter, among civil-war recruits, deserve mention as among the most careful and comprehensive of the kind made in this or any other country. The "Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion," in six volumes, and the general “Official History of the Civil War," in one hundred volumes, will furnish an authoritative statement of the occurrences of an eventful period. It is safe to say that the Government itself, from the administrative side alone, is one of the greatest educational forces of the country.

Bibliography.

"The United States Bureau of Education-Answers to Inquiries about its Work and History," 1883; "Origin and History of the Smithsonian Institution," W. J. Rhees; concerning the Smithsonian bequest and the final organization of the institution, much valuable material is contained in the memoirs of John Quincy Adams, edited by C. F. Adams. "Organization of the Scientific Work of Government," by J. W. Powell, 1885; "Government Geological Surveys," "Nature," vol. xii, p. 265; also "North American Review," vol. cxxi, p. 270; the "United States Coast Survey," ""American Journal of Science," vols. xlix, lv, lix, lxii, and lxxv; "What has the Coast Survey done for Science ?" "Science," December, 1885, p. 558; “Catalogue of Government Publications," by Ben. Perley Poore; and "What has been done for Education by the Gov. ernment of the United States," John Eaton, "Education," vol. iv, p. 276.

PART FOUR.

CURRENT EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS.

CHAPTER XVIII.

COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.

ON the plane of the State, enforced attendance is an attempt to make good citizenship certain, by making education universal. It is not a modern device, though it has its recent applications and new conditions. In its most unyielding and narrow sense, it was authorized and enforced among the Hebrews by Joshua. Under Solon, the Athenians were enjoined to reach every child; and, "with the Spartans," says Mitford, "attendance upon the schools was made every man's concern."*

Among more recent nations, German states had made experiment of compulsory legislation as early as 1732; Bavaria in 1802. The cantons of Switzerland, always forward in promoting the general welfare, have had like provisions for more than half a century, and Denmark since 1814.† The German system was introduced into Greece twenty years after, and into Sweden in 1842. Norway, since 1869, has required even that pupils from private schools attend the public examinations; and, if found deficient, enter the public schools. England authorizes local boards to require the

"History of Greece," vol. i, p. 286.

† Attempted as early as 1793, but ineffectually.

attendance of children between six and thirteen years of age. Following the example of England, Scotland almost immediately revised the "Parochial and Burgh School Act " of 1869, and, while still retaining school fees, inserted a compulsory clause, providing that no child under thirteen may be employed in any labor, except it be shown that he has attended school at least three years, from five to thirteen, and is able to read and write. In more recent years the same principle has been tried with greater or less success in Italy, Japan, France, and other European and Oriental countries.

So much has been given of foreign educational legislation to afford a kind of setting for the numerous recent attempts in the United States to make really general participation in the benefits of a free education. It will be seen that the problem is an old one; most of the applications are both recent and Western; the whole exceedingly complicated by the diffusion of authority, which characterizes our republican institutions. Yet how much simpler is the question in a new community, among a homogeneous people, without fixed institutions and with a high notion of learning and the regenerations of culture, may be seen in the prevalent sentiments of New England under the first administrations.

The Massachusetts law of 1647, and the Connecticut code of 1650, were, both theoretically and practically, coercive, and efficiently administered. They early recognized and formulated the now common sentiment that the permanence of a representative government also demands an education coextensive with its sovereignty; that universal suffrage is meaningless if not wedded to universal education. That the public school is the only agency for securing such citizenship has been sometimes questioned; that it is the most available means is generally accepted. The steps toward compulsory education have been taken, more or fewer of them, in most States.

In the older sections the legalizing of free schools by authorizing localities to tax themselves for the common school

ing was thought to be and was a great advance on the casual instruction which had prevailed. It was an admission of the supremacy of the common need. Still, the law was only permissive. Schools might be established and they might not. Such a statute was on the books in Rhode Island for twenty years, leaving no trace of its existence other than the system in Providence. It was simply inoperative. The history of Pennsylvania is similar, and that of most States South prior to 1870. The more recent provisions of State Constitutions (since 1820), especially those in the Northwest, are mandatory upon school officials, formulating the system, appointing the administration, fixing a minimum time, and regulating the tax, but not at the same time always equally constraining upon children and parents.

Massachusetts requires that in every town there must be kept at the public expense a sufficient number of schools, and for a minimum time, for the instruction of all the children who may legally attend. Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, and other States have somewhat similar provisions. Nineteen States name a minimum school term, in some uniform throughout the State, elsewhere varying with the density of the population. The average required term in these States is nearly four months and a half. Nine of them * withdraw from delinquent communities any sharing in the State school fund. Four States have enacted truant laws, upon the principle that, by establishing separate schools for the offending or truant or disturbing class and enforcing their attendance, that of the majority would be satisfactory. The like general results also have been sought in the effort to accommodate the public, to make attendance easy. Schools and school surroundings have been made both more attractive and more safe. They have been multiplied and so brought to each man's home. Tasks have been modified

* Colorado, Kentucky, Mississippi, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Arizona. In Michigan the offending party is prosecuted as for any other violation of law.