In twenty-one years the people of this State have expended, in the support of their public educational system, almost one hundred millions of dollars!

The following table shows the entire amount expended during the year for the maintenance of public educational institutions, not including appropriations made to orphan asylums and other public charities in which instruction is given:

*Estimated. The school year was changed at this time, and no full report for the part of the year commencing January 1, and ending September 30, 1858, seems to have been made.

For the wages of common school teachers

For district libraries

For school apparatus

For colored schools...

For buildings, sites, furniture, repairs, etc.... For other expenses incident to the support of common schools.

State appropriation for support of academies.. State appropriation for teachers' classes in academies

For teachers' institutes.

For normal schools

$6,510,164 32

30,917 05

179,156 93

67,582 56 1,982,547 29

1,164,142 67 44,646 79

15,345 00

16,171 10

128,723 59

The adaptation of the Union Free School Act, of 1853, to the educational interests of villages and other populous districts, is generally well understood. It enables such communities to unite small districts, and form large graded schools favorable to better classification and greater efficiency in teaching. It served, for years, the additional purpose of making the schools free within the districts adopting that form of organization, and thus operated as a pioneer to the general Free School Act of 1867.

More than ninety academies, included within the

limits of such districts, have been absorbed in the establishment of these schools. At present, the number of graded schools, organized under this and special acts, is six hundred and ninety-four. Their character and influence have given them a high place in the popular estimation. But this number does not include the many large common schools which have been graded without changing the district organization.

The ample facilities already furnished render it inexpedient that special acts should be resorted to, except in the cases of cities, or to perfect some existing statutes.

DISTRICT LIBRARIES.

Since 1853, the rapid decrease in the number of books in the libraries notwithstanding the annual appropriation of $55,000 for their support, and the general lack of public interest in their use or preservation, have been the subject of frequent but unavailing complaint in the reports of this Department.

Each recurring year furnishes additional evidence of the mismanagement and decay of the system. The diminution in the reported number of volumes, the past year, was thirty-nine thousand four hundred and thirty-three.

In exceptional cases, the libraries are properly cared for, the moneys received for their support are judiciously expended, and the benefits which they offer are appreciated and enjoyed. But the system fails generally to fulfill the beneficent purposes for which it was established; and it can never be restored to respectability and usefulness, unless relieved of those later

enactments which have proved so disastrous, and which, if continued, will work its utter ruin.

In the hope of securing from the Legislature that attention which the subject demands, I repeat some of the remarks made in my last report, incorporating a statistical statement completed to the close of the year.

"The management of the system is suicidal. With one hand the State deals out money to the districts for the professed object of supporting the libraries, and at the same time, with the other hand, offers a permit to apply the funds to other uses, with a suggestion, if not an open recommendation, to do so. That practice, as was predicted years ago by Superintendent Morgan, has proved demoralizing and ruinous. From 1838 until 1851, the towns were required to provide an amount equal to that furnished by the State. The people then understood that the enterprise was esteemed worthy the support derived from both these sources; and they correctly judged that books were worth caring for and using. During that period there was such a steady growth that, in 1853, the whole number of volumes amounted to 1,604,210. From that time, the effect of relinquishing the contribution from the towns began to manifest itself, and the decline commenced.

But, in 1858, a more pernicious provision was adopted, allowing districts, upon certain conditions which have been sometimes complied with, but more frequently disregarded, to use the money for apparatus and teachers' wages. The decline was thereby accelerated, and has continued without interruption."

In 1853, the whole number of volumes was 1,604,210

Thus it appears that, since 1853, there has been a decrease of more than six hundred thousand in the number of books reported, although there has been apportioned to the districts $935,000 of library money.

"Such is the lamentable exhibition of the thriftless policy the State is pursuing, and of the disastrous end to which that course is rapidly tending. The system should be promptly and thoroughly reformed, or speedily abolished. I recommend that it be reformed.

"The enlightening influence of sound reading, as a means to keep alive, and improve upon, the elementary instruction obtained in the schools, cannot be questioned. It would be absurd to conclude that a people, who freely expend ten millions of dollars annually for public instruction, would reject or generally neglect such an important supplement to free schools as well regulated district libraries, if they rightly appreciated them. Such a conclusion would be inconsistent with the liberality that characterizes their action upon kindred subjects.

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The first thing, to be done, is to change the too well grounded popular impression, that the State is not in earnest in this matter. It is indispensable that the public mind be firmly impressed with the conviction, that the library money is to be sacredly applied to the purchase