The necessity for making better educational provision for the instruction of children in the rural districts, by consolidation of school districts, the transportation of pupils, and increased money appropriations exists in many of the states. The reports of county and state superintendents show that if effective instruction is to be imparted to all children, more generous provision must be made for the ample compensation of teachers, for permanency in their work, and for centralized schools in the rural districts.

The schools have always been generously supported by the people, and the people may be trusted in the effort to fairly compensate its public officers.

The proposition that the fund for the payment of teachers' salaries be increased by the distribution of a larger amount of money to be raised by general state tax and to be distributed in such a way as to insure the maintenance of rural schools from 100 to 180 days each year, is commended.

Effective administration of a school system can be most easily secured when the teacher can work with the certainty of a compensation on a fixed scale, without radical and violent fluctuations, and when the general principles of civil service prevail, and teachers are retained during efficient service and good behavior. To secure these results in the larger cities, the statutes relating to the raising of taxes for the teachers' salary fund should provide for an adequate and definite rate of income.

DISCUSSION

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, of New York. The two admirable papers in which this subject has been presented to the council deserve most careful study. The subject itself cannot be exhausted at one session. It should be kept before us for a series of meetings until we have examined and analyzed the fundamental principles which are involved.

It is necessary for us to occupy a double point of view. As teachers and school administrators we are naturally anxious that the commonwealth and the several localities shall support education as liberally as possible. As citizens, however, we are concerned in seeing that what has suggestively been called the "breaking point" in taxation be not reached, and also that no essential principle of our political system be violated in raising money for the support of public education.

The question is at bottom an economic and political one. Every educational aim which we have in view must stand or fall according to its economic basis and its economic support. It is clear to me that we cannot secure the sums needed for the proper support and development of public education save by recognizing the fundamental fact that our public education depends primarily upon the sovereignty of the state or commonwealth, and that the duty of the state or commonwealth to support it adequately is immediate and clear. It is for this reason that I believe we should labor to bring about a condition in which the commonwealth, exercising to the full its powers of indirect taxation, should release revenues derived from sources of direct taxation, leaving the latter entirely to the localities. From the indirect taxes so raised the commonwealth should appropriate for the localities the amounts needed to meet the teachers' salaries,

at a minimum scale to be fixed by the legislature. Any locality wishing to pay salaries in advance of this scale would be at liberty to tax itself for that purpose. Inasmuch as the standard of entrance to the teaching profession is or should be fixed by the state, and inasmuch as the state has or should have direct control and supervision of normal schools and training classes, it is entirely appropriate that the sums needed for teachers' salaries should be raised by the state, preferably from indirect sources of taxation, and apportioned to the localities by the proper state authority.

There remains the cost of providing buildings and grounds, that of providing supplies and other necessary incidental expenses. The cost of all these should be met by the locality by direct taxation. In my judgment, however, a scientific system of bonding should be entered upon by which the cost of new sites and buildings is met by bond issues. If this system of bond issues be scientifically adjusted, a low rate of interest can be had and a sinking fund established, which will retire the bonds within a forty-year period. School sites and school buildings are, in my judgment, not a proper charge upon the revenues of a given year. They are permanent investments in tangible property. This property remains at the disposal of the locality and may be levied upon if necessary by the locality's creditors in case of failure to meet just obligations. It is only fitting that the cost of buying sites and erecting buildings should extend over at least a generation. In no other way can a large and rapidly growing community meet its obligations to its children without either unduly burdening its citizens with taxation, or preventing the development of other necessary municipal improvements. In smaller communities it may sometimes be better policy to charge the cost of site and building to current revenues, but where property is dear, and the building itself expensive, this cannot be wisely or justly done.

By such a division between the state and the locality as I have outlined, and by a development of the system of indirect taxation, upon which the states have only recently begun to enter, ample funds could be secured for school purposes. What we need, and need very badly in this country, is not only a more scientific system of taxation, but more adequate and exact information as to what should be the relative cost of various elements in the disbursements of our cities, towns, and villages. For example, no one knows just what ought to be the normal cost of the public-school system of a city of 250,000 people. We know how rapidly such a population increases, and how many children of school age come under the care of the community each year, but we do not know what the school system should normally cost, or what should be the proportion of its cost to the total cost of maintaining the local government. Nor do we know what proportion of a city-school system should be charged to teachers' salaries, what to supplies, what to supervision, and what to the other items which make up the total bill of expense. Here is a field of investigation which is of surpassing interest, not only to school officer and superintendent, but to every intelligent citizen. It cannot be entered upon too soon, for the subject is one which goes to the very bottom of our public life.

JAMES M. GREENWOOD, of Kansas City, Mo.-The different methods in vogue in different states for obtaining revenue for school purposes make the question under discussion a complicated one. It is practically impossible to ascertain with exactness what the cost of education is in different sections of the country. The study of hundreds of school reports and a careful compilation of their statistics fail to give anything like a correct result. Only a few superintendents report what the schools actually cost, and those who attempt such reports differ so widely in their classifications of expenditures as to throw little light upon the question. Some report the cost of running expenses and omit that for permanent improvements. Others set forth the outlay for teachers' salaries, fuel, and other major expenses, and omit entirely items which singly are not noticeable but which aggregate considerable amounts. Now averages and estimates thus obtained are valueless for comparison and, worse than that, they deceive those who have a right to know the truth. We must have fuller facts.

A few years ago a committee was appointed to devise a method of securing uniformity in estimation of school expenditures, but somehow little good has come from the effort. We must know and consider everything that enters into the cost, both temporary and permanent. It is usual to take into consideration only cost of tuition, of fuel, and of janitors, and then to base average cost upon these outlays. This is not enough. Some cities have a large bonded debt incurred for school purposes: we must know the necessary outlay for interest and include this with the other items of cost if our financial statistics are to serve any useful purpose.

Another thing: There is great danger of piling up expenses on the people until the burden becomes unbearable and reaction sets in. In this way great harm has been done by reckless boards and superintendents. It is the superintendent's duty to see that there is no extravagance in the administration of the schools and that the business be so conducted that no backward steps will be necessary. He must stand firm, and, when necessary, hold his board from going too far. When adversity comes it is fortunate for him if he can say truly, "I have done all that could be done to prevent this result." It cannot be too strongly urged that the financial rock is that on which the schools are based.

N. C. DOUGHERTY, of Peoria, Ill.-In Illinois, before the adoption of the constitution of 1872, there were two boards which made assessments—one for local purposes, the other for state purposes. These assessments differed in amount. It was surprising how much more the property of a city was worth when assessed for local purposes than when assessed for state purposes.

In one city in 1868 the value of the real estate and personal property returned by the local assessor was eighteen million dollars, and the value of the same property as determined by the other assessors was not quite five million dollars. The object was to pay as little as possible for the support of the state in matters which were not of local interest. By the constitution of 1872 the assessment made for local purposes was also used for state and county purposes. At once the value of property everywhere decreased. Each locality was willing to pay for local purposes a high rate of taxation on the assessed valuation of the property, if by so doing the amount which it paid for state purposes was decreased. The object in all cases was to avoid taxation, and this desire was by no means confined to corporations.

Finally, the legislature required that all property, real and personal, should be assessed at its actual value, and one-fifth of this value be the assessed value on which taxes should be levied. On this assessed value a tax of 5 per cent. is allowed for school purposes, which is 1 per cent. of the actual value of the property. For a city this yields an abundance of revenue as much as should be used for schools, important as they

are.

We need, however, a greater state appropriation to help out our rural schools. The tax on railroads and on all corporations licensed by the state should be divided among all the people of the state. Pennsylvania has shown us how to do this, and we shall soon follow in her footsteps.

One difficulty which the people of the western states have labored under is the custom of erecting expensive school buildings and issuing bonds for the payment of the same. The interest on these bonds and the accumulation of a sinking fund to meet them at maturity has taken too much of the school revenue. But a wiser method is now followed, and our buildings are now, in most cases, paid for when erected.

In my own city, our motto is to pay as we go; and on the 30th of June each year, the board of education does not owe one dollar. We issue no bonds and shall leave no legacies of debt to succeeding generations.

This may not be a good policy for older cities, but it is for the newer and smaller The school administration which keeps out of debt, issues no bonds, but pays as it goes, will avoid many difficulties, and will receive the warm support of the people.

ones.

AARON GOVE, of Denver, Colo.- I regard the financial conduct of a school district to be so important that even the chief educational interests are limited or modified by a knowledge of the legal receipts. A superintendent of schools, while not in authority, has large control of the limitation of expenses. Many misfortunes in the western states in the career of schools must be traced directly to mismanagement on the financial side; sometimes, not always, however, the misfortune could have been averted by the interference of the superintendent. An intimate knowledge of this phase of the superintendent's duties is an essential part of his business. Not much experience is necessary for a superintendent to appreciate this fact, for frequently he follows an administration that has been lavishly expensive, not so much thru corruption as thru ignorance.

I therefore look upon this movement of the Council as of very great importance, and trust that measures will be taken for such a review of the field as shall give us such counsel as will enable the superintendents of small cities to be efficiently watchful against the unnecessary spending of money. The commercial world employs the brightest and best talent to sell goods. These men are proficient in their work; are able sometimes to sell goods possibly helpful, but often unnecessary to the school district. Then it is that the superintendent should be able to state to the managing board that while the goods about to be purchased are worthy, the condition of the treasury scarcely justifies the expenditure.

THE FUNCTION OF KNOWLEDge in EDUCATION1

CHARLES B. GILBERT, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, ROCHESTER, N. Y.

An American philosopher has said, "Even a proverb may be true." Probably a few are truths; more are half truths, many are individual facts which, stated as general truths, are fit only to mislead Sancho Panzas.

"Knowledge is power" is even less true, it is a mere trope; the conditioning for the thing conditioned. Knowledge is no more power than a steam engine is power.

And yet the acquisition of knowledge is necessarily the great fact, and the most manifest endeavor in organized education and whatever theories may be held, practically all the time in all schools is devoted to this acquisition.

We have countless definitions of education made by teachers and educational philosophers, and innumerable theories as to the purpose and end of the school. Yet none of them mention the acquisition of knowledge in this connection. We speak of the evolution of the individual, the calling out of his powers (false philology), all-around training, symmetrical development, but none of us would venture to rise in such a body as this and say, "the acquisition of knowledge is the purpose of the school."

But when we get beyond the definition and begin to write treatises upon educational methods, most of us fall back upon the acquisition of

The term "knowledge" in this paper is used in the objective sense as covering what is commonly called the "body of knowledge," including both things known and things knowable. This is in contradistinction from the term used in its subjective sense, as the mental process " knowing."

knowledge as the end aimed at, and particularly when we come to administer schools do we conduct them as if the imparting of facts were the only aim.

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Moreover, this is the popular notion. Ask any boy on the way to school what he goes to school for and he will answer to learn." Ask his father, why he sends his children to school, and, unless he be an educational theorist, he will answer, "to learn." The public draw their notions from our practice and from their sense of the children's need.

Surely then, a fact so conspicuous needs careful study. If, in spite of our educational theories and definitions, the acquisition of knowledge is both in popular notion and in pedagogical practice the substantial thing in education, it behooves us to consider what is its function. I am well aware that this discussion will seem to the philosopher as trite and unnecessary, to others as futile and unpractical, yet I am moved to start it, tho with fear and trembling, particularly in view of some recent utterances upon educational topics with regard to isolation and analogy; and I am so moved in particular by this very lack of consistency between our definitions of education on the one side and, on the other, by our practical discussion of educational questions, and especially by our administration of the school itself. When the imparting of fact is not merely regarded as the end of school, but when the very lowest and most unpsychological view of the function of knowledge prevails, it is time for a little bestirring of ourselves by way of review of our position.

It might have been better to use the plural in my title, as there are several recognized functions of knowledge in education.

First is the popular and wholly obvious one of serving as the working basis for all effective activity in life, and hence for all education. Such knowledge is called intelligence, and in the popular mind is confused with skill, learning, with knowing how. This intelligence includes acquaintance with the more usual symbols employed in reading, writing, and computing; is naturally essential to any considerable advance in education, and hence is recognized as a sort of substratum for all theories.

A second function of knowledge is to serve as a gymnastic. Thru the act of acquiring knowledge the mind is disciplined. This function when emphasized tends to the disregard of content and to the consideration of disciplinary value alone.

The educational theory based upon it is mediæval in origin, and largely theological. Its type of efficient reasoning is that acephalous amusement of the schoolmen, the syllogism, thru which a man sitting upon a pedestal may learn the world with his eyes shut.

A third function is an outgrowth and expansion of the first. As stated in the report of the Committee of Fifteen, it is to acquaint the child with the civilization in which he is to live; that is, to give him a larger intelli. gence. This produces a nobler view of the end of education than either