Part 233

"The letter announcing and creating the Peabody endowment was dated February 7, 1867. In that letter, after referring to the ravages of he late war, the founder of the Trust said: 'I feel most deeply that it is the duty and privilege of the more favoured and wealthy portions of our nation to assist those who are less fortunate.' He then added: 'I give one million of dollars for the encouragement and promotion of intellectual, moral, and industrial education among the young of the more destitute portions of the Southern and Southwestern States of the Union.' On the day following, ten of the Trustees selected by him held a preliminary meeting in Washington. Their first business meeting was held in the city of New York, the 19th of March following, at which a general plan was adopted and an agent appointed. Mr. Peabody returned to his native country again in 1869, and on the 1st day of July, at a special meeting of the Trustees held at Newport, added a second million to the cash capital of the fund. … According to the donor's directions, the principal must remain intact for thirty years. The Trustees are not authorized to expend any part of it, nor yet to add to it any part of the accruing interest. The manner of using the interest, as well as the final distribution of the principal, was left entirely to the discretion of a self-perpetuating body of Trustees. Those first appointed had, however, the rare advantage of full consultation with the founder of the Trust while he still lived, and their plans received his cordial and emphatic approbation. … The pressing need of the present seemed to be in the department of primary education for the masses, and so they determined to make appropriations only for the assistance of public free schools. The money is not given as a charity to the poor. It would be entirely inadequate to furnish any effectual relief if distributed equally among all those who need it, and would, moreover, if thus widely dissipated, produce no permanent results. But the establishment of good public schools provides for the education of all children, whether rich or poor, and initiates a system which no State has ever abandoned after a fair trial. So it seemed to the donor as well as to his Trustees, that the greatest good of the greatest number would be more effectually and more certainly attained by this mode of distribution than by any other. No effort is made to distribute according to population. It was Mr. Peabody's wish that those States which had suffered most from the ravages of war should be assisted first."

_American Educational Cyclopædia, 1875, pages 224-225._

The report made by the treasurer of the Fund in 1890, showed a principal sum invested to the amount of $2,075,175.22, yielding an income that year of $97,818. In the annual report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education made February 1, 1891, he says: "It would appear to the student of education in the Southern States that the practical wisdom in the administration of the Peabody Fund and the fruitful results that have followed it could not be surpassed in the history of endowments."

_Proceedings of the Trustees of the Peabody Education Fund, 1887-1892._

EDUCATION: A. D. 1884-1891. California. Leland Stanford Junior University.

"The founding at Palo Alto of 'a university for both sexes, with the colleges, schools, seminaries of learning, mechanical institutes, museums, galleries of art, and all other things necessary and appropriate to a university of high degree,' was determined upon by the Honorable Leland Stanford and Jane Lathrop Stanford in 1884. In March of the year following the Legislature of California passed an Act providing for the administration of trust funds in connection with institutions of learning. November 14, 1885, the Grant of Endowment was publicly made, in accordance with this Act, and on the same day the Board of Trustees held its first meeting in San Francisco. The work of construction was at once begun, and the cornerstone laid May 14, 1887. The University was formally opened to students October 1, 1891. The idea of the university, in the words of its founders, 'came directly and largely from our son and only child, Leland, and in the belief that had he been spared to advise as to the disposition of our estate, he would have desired the devotion of a large portion thereof to this purpose, we will that for all time to come the institution hereby founded shall bear his name, and shall be known as The Leland Stanford Junior University.' The object of the University, as stated in its Charter, is 'to qualify students for personal success and direct usefulness in life'; and its purposes, 'to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization, teaching the blessings of liberty regulated by law, and inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government as derived from the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' The University is located on the Palo Alto estate in the Santa Clara valley, thirty-three miles southeast of San Francisco, on the Coast Division of the Southern Pacific Railway. The estate consists of over eight thousand acres, partly lowland and partly rising into the foothills of the Santa Cruz range. On the grounds is the residence of the Founders, and an extensive and beautiful arboretum containing a very great variety of shrubs and trees. The property conveyed to the University, in addition to the Palo Alto estate, consists of the Vina estate, in Tehama County, of fifty-five thousand acres, of which about four thousand acres are planted in vines, and the Gridley estate, in Butte County, of twenty-two thousand acres, devoted mainly to the raising of wheat. … The founders of the Leland Stanford Junior University say: 'As a further assurance that the endowment will be ample to establish and maintain a university of the highest grade, we have, by last will and testament, devised to you and your successors additional property. We have done this as a security against the uncertainty of life and in the hope that during our lives the full endowment may go to you. The aggregate of the domain thus dedicated to the founding of the University, is over eighty-five thousand acres, or more than one hundred and thirty-three square miles, among the best improved and most valuable lands in the State."

_Leland Stanford Junior University, Circulars of Information, numbers 6 and 1-2._

{738}

EDUCATION: A. D. 1887-1889. Massachusetts. Clark University.

"Clark University was founded [at Worcester] by … a native of Worcester County, Massachusetts. It was 'not the outcome of a freak of impulse, or of a sudden wave of generosity, or of the natural desire to perpetuate in a worthy way one's ancestral name. To comprehend the genesis of the enterprise we must go back along the track of Mr. Clark's personal history 20 years at least. For as long ago as that, the idea came home with force to his mind that all civilized communities are in the hands of experts. … Looking around at the facilities obtainable in this country for the prosecution of original research, he was struck with the meagerness and the inadequacy. Colleges and professional schools we have in abundance, but there appeared to be no one grand inclusive institution, unsaddled by an academic department, where students might pursue as far as possible their investigation of any and every branch of science. … Mr. Clark went abroad and spent eight years visiting the institutions of learning in almost every country of Europe. He studied into their history and observed their present working.' … It is his strong and expressed desire that the highest possible academic standards be here forever maintained; that special opportunities and inducements be offered to research; that to this end the instructors be not overburdened with teaching or examinations. … A charter was granted early in 1887. Land and other property that had been before secured by the founder was transferred to the board, and the erection of a central building was begun. In the spring of 1888 G. Stanley Hall, then a professor at the Johns Hopkins University, was invited to the presidency. … The plans of the university had so far progressed that work was begun in October, 1889, in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology."

_G. G. Bush, History of Higher Education in Massachusetts (United States Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 1891, number 6), chapter 18._

EDUCATION: A. D. 1889-1892. Illinois. Chicago University.

"At its Annual Meeting in May, 1889, the Board of the American Baptist Education Society resolved to take immediate steps toward the founding of a well-equipped college in the city of Chicago. At the same time John D. Rockefeller made a subscription of $600,000 and this sum was increased during the succeeding year by about $600,000 more in subscriptions representing more than two thousand persons. Three months after the completion of this subscription, Mr. Rockefeller made an additional proffer of $1,000,000. The site of the University consists of three blocks of ground—about two thousand feet long and three hundred and sixty-two feet wide, lying between the two South Parks of Chicago, and fronting on the Midway Plaisance, which is itself a park connecting the other two. One-half of this site is a gift of Marshall Field of Chicago, and the other half has been purchased at a cost of $132,500. At the first meeting of the Board after it had become an incorporated body, Professor William R. Harper, of Yale University, was unanimously elected President of the University. … It has been decided that the University will begin the work of instruction on the first day of October, 1892. … The work of the University shall be arranged under three general divisions, viz., The University Proper, The University-Extension Work, The University Publication Work."

_University of Chicago, Official Bulletin no. 1, January, 1891._

EDUCATION: A. D. 1890. United States. Census Statistics.

The following statistics of education in the United States are from the returns gathered for the Eleventh Census, 1890. In these statistics the states and territories are classed in five great geographical divisions, defined as follows: North Atlantic Division, embracing the New England States, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; South Atlantic Division, embracing the States of the eastern coast, from Delaware to Florida, together with the District of Columbia; North Central Division, embracing Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas; South Central Division, embracing Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma; Western Division, embracing all the remaining States and Territories. The total taxation for public schools in the United States, as reported by this census, was $102,164,796; of which $37,619,786 was raised in the North Atlantic Division, $5,678,474 in the South Atlantic Division, $47,033,142 in the North Central Division, $5,698.562 in the South Central Division, and $6,134,832 in the Western Division. From funds and rents there were raised for school purposes a total of $25,694,449 in the United States at large, of which $8,273,147 was raised in the North Atlantic Division, $2,307,051 in the South Atlantic Division, $8,432,593 in the North Central Division, $3,720,158 in the South Central Division, and $2,961,500 in the Western Division. The total of all "ordinary" receipts for school support in the United States, was $139,619,440, of which $49,201,216 were in the North Atlantic Division, $8,685,223 in the South Atlantic Division. $61,108,263 in the North Central Division, $10,294,621 in the South Central Division, and $10,330,117 in the Western Division. The total "ordinary expenditures" were $138,786,393 in the whole United States; being $47,625,548 in the North Atlantic Division, $8,630,711 in the South Atlantic Division, $62,815.531 in the North Central Division, $9,860,050 in the South Central Division, and $9,854,544 in the Western Division. For teachers' wages there was a total expenditure of $88,705,992, $28,067,821 being in the North Atlantic Division, $6,400,063 in the South Atlantic Division, $39,866,831 in the North Central Division, $8,209,509 in the South Central Division, and $6,161,768 in the Western Division. The total expenditure for Libraries and Apparatus was $1,667,787, three-fourths of which was in the North Atlantic and North Central Divisions. The expenditure reported for construction and care of buildings, was $24,224,793, of which $10,687,114 was in the North Atlantic Division, $884,277 was in the South Atlantic Division, $9,869,489 in the North Central Division, $770,257 in the South Central Division, and $2,013,656 in the Western Division. Reported estimates of the value of buildings and other school property are incomplete, but $27,892,831 are given for Massachusetts, $41,626,735 for New York, $35,435,412 for Pennsylvania, $32,631,549 for Ohio, $26,814,480 for Illinois, and these are the States that stand highest in the column. {739} The apparent enrollment in Public Schools for the census year, reported to July, 1891, was as follows: North Atlantic Division, 3,124,417; South Atlantic Division, 1,758,285; North Central Division, 5,032,182; South Central Division, 2,334,694; Western Division, 520,286; Total for the United States, 12,769,864 being 20.39 per cent. of the population, against 19.84 per cent. in 1880. The reported enrollment in Private Schools at the same time was: North Atlantic Division, 196,173; South Atlantic Division, 165,253; North Central Division, 187,827; South Central Division, 200,202; Western Division, 54,749; Total for the United States, 804,204. The reported enrollment in Parochial Schools was: North Atlantic Division, 311,684; South Atlantic Division, 30,869; North Central Division, 398,585; South Central Division, 41,115; Western Division, 17,349; Total for the United States, 799,602. Of this total, 626,496 were enrolled in Catholic and 151,651 in Lutheran Parochial Schools; leaving only 21,455 in the schools of all other denominations. Total enrollment reported in all schools 14,373,670. The colored public school enrollment in the Southern States was 1,288,229 in 1890, against 797,286 in 1880,—an increase of more than 61 per cent. The enrollment of whites was 3,358,527, against 2,301,804,—an increase of nearly 46 per cent. The approximate number of Public School-houses in the United States, for the census year 1890 is given at 219,992, being 42,949 in the North Atlantic Division, 32,142 in the South Atlantic Division, 97,166 in the North Central Division, 38,962 in the South Central Division, 8,773 in the Western Division. The largest number reported is 14,214 in Pennsylvania. Of 6,408 school-houses in Virginia 4,568 are for white, and 1,840 for colored children; in North Carolina, 3,973 white and 1,820 colored. The above statistics are taken in part from the Compendium of the Eleventh Census, published in 1894, and partly from tables courteously furnished from the Census Bureau in advance of their publication.

EDUCATION: Modern: Reforms and Movements.

EDUCATION: A. D. 1638-1671. Comenius.

"To know Comenius [born in Moravia, 1592] and the part he played in the seventeenth century, to appreciate this grand educational character, it would be necessary to begin by relating his life; his misfortunes; his journeys to England [1638], where Parliament invoked his aid; to Sweden [1642], where the Chancellor Oxenstiern employed him to write manuals of instruction; especially his relentless industry, his courage through exile, and the long persecutions he suffered as a member of the sect of dissenters, the Moravian Brethren; and the schools he founded at Fulneck, in Bohemia, at Lissa and at Patak, in Poland."

_G. Compayré, The History of Pedagogy, chapter 6 (section 137)._

"Comenius's inspiring motive, like that of all leading educationalists, was social regeneration. He believed that this could be accomplished through the school. He lived under the hallucination that by a proper arrangement of the subject-matter of instruction, and by a sound method, a certain community of thought and interests would be established among the young, which would result in social harmony and political settlement. He believed that men could be manufactured. … The educational spirit of the Reformers, the conviction that all—even the humblest—must be taught to know God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, was inherited by Comenius in its completeness. In this way, and in this way only, could the ills of Europe be remedied, and the progress of humanity assured. While, therefore, he sums up the educational aim under the threefold heads of Knowledge, Virtue, and Piety or Godliness, he in truth has mainly in view the last two. Knowledge is of value only in so far as it forms the only sound basis, in the eyes of a Protestant theologian, of virtue and godliness. We have to train for a hereafter. … By knowledge Comenius meant knowledge of nature and of man's relation to nature. It is this important characteristic of Comenius's educational system that reveals the direct influence of Bacon and his school. … It is in the department of Method, however, that we recognise the chief contribution of Comenius to education. The mere attempt to systematise was a great advance. In seeking, however, for foundations on which to erect a coherent system, he had to content himself with first principles which were vague and unscientific. … In the department of knowledge, that is to say, knowledge of the outer world, Comenius rested his method on the scholastic maxim, 'Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu.' This maxim he enriched with the Baconian induction, comprehended by him only in a general way. … From the simple to the complex, from the particular to the general, the concrete before the abstract, and all, step by step, and even by insensible degrees,—these were among his leading principles of method. But the most important of all his principles was derived from the scholastic maxim quoted above. As all is from sense, let the thing to be known be itself presented to the senses, and let every sense be engaged in the perception of it. When it is impossible, from the nature of the case, to present the object itself, place a vivid picture of it before the pupil. The mere enumeration of these few principles, even if we drop out of view all his other contributions to method and school-management, will satisfy any man familiar with all the more recent treatises on Education, that Comenius, even after giving his precursors their due, is to be regarded as the true founder of modern Method, and that he anticipates Pestalozzi and all of the same school. … Finally, Comenius's views as to the inner organisation of a school were original, and have proved themselves in all essential respects correct. The same may be said of his scheme for the organisation of a State-system—a scheme which is substantially, mutatis mutandis, at this moment embodied in the highly-developed system of Germany. When we consider, then, that Comenius first formally and fully developed educational method, that he introduced important reforms into the teaching of languages, that he introduced into schools the study of Nature, that he advocated with intelligence, and not on purely sentimental grounds, a milder discipline, we are justified in assigning to him a high, if not the highest, place among modern educational writers."

_S. S. Laurie, John Amos Comenius, pages 217-226._

{740}

EDUCATION: A. D. 1681-1878. The Christian Brothers.