in the erection of costly structures. In a few exceptional cases this may be true, and the aggregate amount expended for these purposes during the last four years, which is nearly three times greater than in any equal period preceding, would seem to countenance such a complaint. But the moderate average value of schoolhouses in the rural districts, as indicated by the last preceding table, shows nothing in this particular beyond a judicious disposition on the part of the people to provide houses adapted to the use, and fit for the occupancy, of their children. CHILDREN AND ATTENDANCE. The whole number of children between the ages of five and twenty-one years, as reported, was : The number who attended the public free-schools, some portion of the school year, was 1,026,447. The whole number in attendance, in each of the last ten years, was as follows: The aggregate number of days of attendance, for each of the last four years, was as follows: The average daily attendance of pupils, for the same period, was as follows: The attendance in the rural districts in 1867, the last and most successful year of the rate-bill system, was for an average term of only thirty weeks and three days, while that of each of the three years following was for an average term of thirty-two weeks and four days. The average length of time each pupil attended school, in the rural districts, was more than sixteen per cent greater in 1870, than in 1867. The average number of pupils, for the whole State, in attendance each day of the entire term in 1870, was 16,284 more than that in 1869, and 64,748 more than that for the shorter term in 1867. Including the number reported in attendance upon private schools and academies, more than eighty per cent of all children in the State, between five and twenty-one years of age, attended school some portion of the last year-a number larger than the entire population between the ages of six and seventeen years. The average length of school terms in the cities was forty-two weeks and one day; in the whole State, thirtyfive weeks and one day. The following table shows the average length of time the schools were in session in the rural districts, in the years mentioned: The number of pupils instructed in the several common schools, normal schools, academies, colleges and private schools, during the year, was as follows: For the information of those interested in comparative educational statistics, the following tables, based upon returns received at this department, are submitted. The whole number of teachers employed in the common ... Males. Females. Total. The number reported as "employed at the same |