To the Senate and House of Representatives: GENTLEMEN: In submitting the annual report, it is deemed wise to call attention to a few statistics showing the dimensions which our system of public instruction has attained.

During the year which ended June 2, 1902, the number of pupils enrolled was 1,163,509, the number of teachers employed was 30,640, the number of directors in charge of the schools was 15,289, the expenditure for text-books and supplies was $1,285,282.86, or $1.38 per pupil. The cost of maintenance, including text-books and supplies, was $18,665,117.73, which, added to the cost of new buildings and other improvements, aggregates the annual sum of $23,027,678.82. The growth of the system has surpassed the most sanguine expectations of its founders and early friends. Our school population exceeds the entire population of any one of twenty-one states.

It is a matter for congratulation that the favorable financial condition of the State enabled the present State Treasurer, Hon. Frank G. Harris, to break all previous records for early payment of the school appropriation. So rapidly was it paid out that on the 26th day of September the Superintendent of Public Instruction was authorized to draw on the State Treasurer for all unpaid appropriations except that of the first district. This is

the earliest date on which the payment of the appropriation has been completed since it has been above two million dollars, and much earlier than that of any previous year except 1901.

DEADLOCKS IN SCHOOL BOARDS.

The frequent deadlocks in the election of teachers and the selection of text-books has raised the question whether it would not be wise to reduce the number of directors in townships from six to five. The tendency of the age is to concentrate power and responsibility. Provisional and professional certificates are granted by one officer, the superintendent, and this power is seldom abused, because responsibility can be located. The committee on permanent certificates was diminished from five to three. worked well in practice. If the number of directors were reduced from six to five, teachers could be selected promptly, fewer factional contests would arise, the person failing of election could seek a school elsewhere, and the prompt decision of school questions would promote rather than hinder progress. The only thing to be said in favor of six directors is that two are elected every year for a full term and a two-thirds vote is required to constitute a majority on important questions. In favor of school boards of five it can be said that we would thereby avoid the

expense of removing directors by process of law. All school questions should be decided speedily, without expense and with as little rancor as possible.

With this end in view some states have gone far beyond Pennsylvania in the centralization of power in school affairs. In the State of New York, for instance, there is a law officer attached to the Department of Public Instruction. His findings and decisions become those of the school department, and can not be questioned or reversed in any court of law. Whilst it would be contrary to our traditions to go as far as the Empire State, nevertheless the student of our educational history cannot escape the conviction that we might with profit imitate the example of other states in the enactment of legislation to prevent deadlocks in the election of teachers and the selection of text books.

VACCINATION AND COMPULSORY
ATTENDANCE.

The act of July 11, 1901, making attendance at school compulsory, is more efficient than any former compulsory law. Yet it fails whenever the parents neglect or refuse to have their children vaccinated. The law excludes such children from school, and under the ruling of the courts the person in charge of a child cannot be fined if admission has been refused under the act of 1895, which requires from pupils who have not had small-pox a certificate of successful vaccination as a condition of admission to school. In other words, vaccination is not compulsory. During an epidemic it is wise to exclude the unvaccinated child from school. But if the child has a right to know as well as grow, it must be considered a hardship to exclude from all school privileges children who are immune as well as those whose parents refuse to allow them to be vaccinated. Legislation is recommended to relieve the clash between the two statutes. Some

provision should be made for the attendance of the children in whose case vaccination does not take after repeated trials; for there is certainly little, if any, danger that small-pox will spread through their presence at school. And the child whose parents declare, under oath or affirmation, an unwillingness to permit vaccination, should be allowed to attend school during periods when there is no danger of contagion from small-pox.

DOUBLE ENUMERATION OF CHILDREN.

By the act of July 15, 1897, the assessors are required, during the odd years, to make an enumeration of children between six and sixteen years in connection with the assessment. This enumeration is used for the purpose of distributing the State appropriation. The act of July 11, 1901, requires annually the preparation of a careful and correct list of all children, between the ages of six and sixteen years, for the purpose of enforcing attendance at school. If these acts were harmonized so as to require one enumeration instead of two during the odd years, there would be a saving of money in every county.

RECIPROCITY IN TEACHERS' LICENSES.

The last Legislature passed an act looking towards interstate comity in the recognition of teachers' licenses. It has been found very difficult, and in most cases impossible, to carry out the intention of the Legislature. New York refuses to endorse any certificates from Pennsylvania. New Jersey has agreed to accept only the diploma of the three years' Normal School course. County permanent certificates and Normal School diplomas in the elementary course have not found recognition anywhere. Several states refuse to endorse the permanent certificates granted to college graduates, the claim being that these certificates are issued without examination. Our law assumes that if a college graduate can for three years pass the examination for a provisional or professional certificate, he can do so at any subsequent period. College-bred men and women, who have taught successfully for three years in the public schools of Pennsylvania, are the only persons who are certificated to teach without passing an examination before sworn State officials, and then only in the branches upon which they passed the required examination before the proper college authorities. Our method of licensing teachers grew up on our own soil, and it does not seem wise to change the method of granting permanent certificates. Teaching is the only profession in which examinations are a life-long possibility. Ever-recurring examinations degrade the teacher to the level of the animal that is tied to a stake and is not permitted to graze beyond prescribed limits. Like the tethered animal, the teacher in course of time assimilates all within reach; then the process of starva

tion begins. After receiving three, or at most five, provisional certificates, a teacher should get a permanent certificate. Then he or she can afford to forget needless details and to spend time in mastering new fields of knowledge. Under the arrangement for granting county permanent certificates teachers can continue to grow; and this is far better than the recognition of our certificates by the school authorities of other states. No change in policy is, therefore, recommended, even though full reciprocity in teachers' licenses be far distant.

The county permanent certificates can be continued without hindering the movement to advance the scholarship of high school teachers.

SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHERS. Teachers can not impart what they do not know. In this age the schoolmaster should know more than he is required to teach. This principle was recognized from the start by the officers in charge of the common schools. The primary teacher has always been expected to know more than she is required to teach. In the high school it has sometimes been assumed that it is sufficient for teachers

to know the branches they are required to teach. As a consequence, many of our high schools have failed to meet the expectations of their friends. A teacher who lacks college training can scarcely hope to prepare students for college along the best lines and with the least waste of

time and energy. The act of June 28, 1895, prescribes that at least one high

school teacher shall know more than the branches in the curriculum. This should not be regarded a hardship any more. than it is a hardship to expect primary teachers to know English grammar, algebra and civil government. Instruction acquires its best flavor when given by a teacher of culture and scholarship. Teachers of limited education seldom inspire the desire for knowledge which is needed to carry pupils into the institutions of higher learning; still less can they instil the habits of reading and observation which lie at the basis of success in modern civilized life.

NEW NORMAL SCHOOL COURSE.

With the last commencement, the two years' elementary course of the State Normal schools became a thing of the past. The new course covers three years. It increases the amount of science, litera

ture and history, and provides for the study of Cicero and Virgil. The best is not too good for the pupils in our public schools. The new course seeks to prepare teachers for more scholarly work. The standards of all professional schools have been raised; the applications of science to agriculture, as well as to other industries, make new demands upon the school-demands that can not be fully met unless the teachers push their scholarship beyond the branches of an elementary course. The new course will diminish the number of graduates for several years, but in the end it will increase the attendance at our Normal Schools and give the public schools a generation of teachers with better training and broader scholarship.

SUMMER SCHOOLS.

In

The New

Teaching is a growing profession. their zeal for improvement, teachers have been known to spend at summer schools from ten to twenty per cent. of their salaries; in some cases their entire savings. No vocation can boast of greater sacrifices. Very many teachers can not afford to attend summer schools at a great distance from their homes. Hence Pennsylvania should profit by the example of her neighboring States. York Legislature adds ten thousand dollars to the institute fund in order that two schools may be maintained during the summer vacation at places where study can be combined with recreation. The General Assembly of Virginia makes an annual appropriation of twenty five hundred dollars, the Peabody Education Fund contributes from fourteen to sixteen hundred dollars, whilst the teachers who attend the summer school of methods pay a fee ranging from three to five dollars according to the grade of work taken. The board of visitors of the University of Virginia appropriated fifteen hundred dollars last summer for the school of methods, and the southern education board gave five hundred dollars more to the same school. Over a thousand teachers were in attendance, most of whom paid their own board and traveling expenses, though some counties and cities relieved their teachers of this burden.

South Carolina spends each year the sum of nine thousand dollars for summer school purposes. Five thousand dollars are given by the State Legislature, two thousand by the State Board of Educa