1842 a penalty was attached to a similar law which forbade "the employment of children under the age of 15 years unless they had been instructed at school at least three months of the 12 preceding."

The efficiency of these early laws has been denied because cases of prosecution have not been recorded. But a lawabiding people does not wait until prosecuted before obeying the law.

The existence of a reasonable law is sufficient to secure its general obedience in most parts of the United States. But in the absence of any law on the subject the parents yield to their cupidity and do not send their children to school. The efficiency of a law is to be found in its results and if twenty parents in a district send their children to school in obedience to the law and would not otherwise have sent them, it follows that the law is very useful though the twenty-first parent is obdurate and refuses to send his children and yet is not prosecuted for it.

This explanation of the working of one compulsory law will throw light on the working of compulsory laws in the twenty-seven states and territories that have passed them. There are exceptional localities in each state where an obnoxious law is openly and frequently violated, but the law is obeyed in all but a few places. In each locality, too, there are individuals who are disposed to violate the law and succeed in doing so, while all the citizens except these few obey the law because they have a law-abiding disposition. Abolish the law and the number who neglect the education. of their children will increase by a large per cent. More and more attention has been given in later years to drafting compulsory laws with provisions that are sure to be efficient. The advocates of these new laws are apt in their pleas for more stringent laws to do injustice to the old laws. The following paragraphs show what states have adopted compulsory laws and the dates of adoption (the earlier dates in Connecticut and Massachusetts being unnoticed):

Statistics of compulsory attendance -Thirty states, one

territory and the District of Columbia have laws making education compulsory, generally at a public or approved private school. Sixteen states and one territory do not make education compulsory, although all of these have fully organized systems of schools free to every child of school age of whatever condition.

The most general period of required attendance at school is from eight to fourteen years of age, as is the case in Vermont, District of Columbia, West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and California. It begins likewise at eight, but is extended to 15 in Maine and Washington, and is from eight to 16 in New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New Mexico.

The child is required to begin attendance at the earlier age of seven, and continue to 12 in New Jersey, to 13 in Wisconsin, to 14 in Massachusetts, Kentucky and Illinois; to 15 in Rhode Island, and to 16 in Wyoming.

This is a general statement of age limits; the required time period is in some states shortened in the case of children employed to labor, or extended in the case of those not so employed, or growing up in idleness, or illiterate.

In Massachusetts and Connecticut the child is required to attend the full time that the schools are in session; in New York and Rhode Island, also, the full term, with certain exceptions in favor of children employed to work. In Pennsylvania the attendance is required for 70 per cent of the full term; in California for 66 2-3 per cent; for 20 weeks annually in Vermont, New Jersey, Ohio and Utah; 16 weeks annually in Maine, West Virginia, Illinois, Michigan and Nevada; 12 weeks annually in New Hampshire, District of Columbia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Idaho, Washington, Oregon; and eight weeks annually in Kentucky.

In the following states habitual truants are sent to some special institution (truant or industrial school, reformatory,

parental home, etc.): Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota and Michigan.

Massachusetts requires counties, and New York requires cities to maintain truant schools, or provide for their truants in the truant schools of neighboring localities. Illinois requires cities of over 100,000 inhabitants to maintain truant schools. In Rhode Island towns and cities must provide suitable places for the confinement and instruction of habitual truants.

Clothing is furnished in case of poverty to enable children to attend school in Vermont, Indiana and Colorado.

Laws absolutely prohibiting the employment of children under a specified minimum age in mercantile or manufacturing establishments are in force in New Hampshire (under 10 years), Rhode Island (under 12), and Massachusetts and Connecticut (under 14). These states, together with Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, North and South Dakota, have laws permitting the employment of children of a certain age only while the schools are not in session, or provided they have already attended school a given number of weeks within the year.

Statistics of supervision - There are county superintendents of schools in all those states where the county is a political unit for the administration of civil affairs other than courts of law. About thirty-five states have this form of organization. But in the six New England states and in Michigan the only supervision is that of the township, and the counties in those states are units almost solely for the administration of justice through county courts. In Arkansas, Texas and North Carolina supervision is only that of the subdivisions of townships described as districts. Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia have a modified township supervision. The county superintendents are elected by the people in only 13 states. In the rest they are appointed by some state or county officers, or chosen by the combined vote of the school boards. (See appendix VIII for an explanation of the local unit of school organization.)

Each state has a superintendent of public instruction. He has this title in 29 states; in the remaining states other designations, as "superintendent of common schools," "of free schools," or "of public schools," "of education" or "commissioner of public schools," are used; he is called "secretary of state board of education" in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Eight hundred and thirty-six (836) cities have superintendents of their public schools.

School boards In cities the local boards which have the management of the schools are generally termed "boards of education;" in towns and districts the designations most generally used are "school directors" and "school trustees."

They are termed "school directors" in Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Washington; "school trustees" in Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina and Texas; "school boards" in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska and New Hampshire; "school committees" in Massachusetts and Rhode Island; "school visitors" in Connecticut; "superintending school committees" in Maine; "boards of education" in Ohio; and "prudential committees" in Vermont.

These boards are similar in their constitution, powers and duties, and are generally chosen by the voters at elections. They are corporate bodies and can make contracts, acquire, hold and dispose of property.

They employ teachers (and superintendents when such are deemed necessary) and fix their salaries. They make the rules and regulations for the government of the schools and fix the course of study and the list of text-books to be used. They hold meetings monthly or oftener.

Women in school administration - There are at present (1899) two women holding the position of state superintendent of schools, 18 that of city superintendent, and 256 that of county superintendent. The last named are divided between California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana,

Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsyl vania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. In all these states, women hold minor school offices also. Ohio, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut have no officers corresponding to county superintendents, but in all those states there are women who are members of county examining boards, township superintendents and the like. They may be district trustees or members of local school boards in still other states, as in New Jersey. Women may hold any school office in Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wyoming, and any office of school management in Minnesota, One of the members of the Iowa educational board of examiners must be a woman.

Women have like suffrage, in all particulars, with men in Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. With certain limitations specified, in some of the states they may vote at school elections in Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. The limitations, when there are any, usually restrict the suffrage of women to widows with children to educate, guardians and taxpayers, or to certain kinds of elections.

Salaries of teachers - The expenditure for salaries in the public schools, teachers and superintendents both included, was $123,809,412, in 1897-98, or 63.8 per cent of the total expenditure for school purposes. The highest average salaries are found in the western division, among the Pacific states and territories, the average per month for men being $58.59, and for women $50.92, in that section of the union. The lowest average salaries and the least variance between the averages for men and women are found in the South Atlantic section. The averages are, for men $31.21, and for women $31.45.