COMPULSORY EDUCATION IN NEW YORK CITY.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.1 SIR,—Dtuing a visit to the United States, from which I have just returned, I have obtained the Report of the Board of Education for the City and County of New York for the last year, ending December 31, 1875. In this report is contained some account of the working thus far for the City of New York of the law of New York State passed May 11, 1874, and entitled, " Ad Act to Secure to Children the Benefits of Elementary Education." I ask per- mission to state in your columns what has been the operation of the Act, so far as the Report may enable and your limits allow me to do so.

The Act in question required all parents or guardians to take care that their children of school age (eight to fourteen) should be under instruction not less than fourteen weeks in each year, either at school or at home, and that during not less than eight weeks out of the fourteen such instruction should be "consecu- tive." It also required the Board of Education in each place to send to school all children " wandering about the streets and public places without any lawful occupation, and growing up in ignorance." -So far as respects the former of the two lines of operation thus marked out under the Act, nothing has been done during the year. The City Superintendent of Schools thus reports on the subject :—" The provisions with regard to vagrancy and truancy have been to some extent enforced, but those which have in view the compelling of parents and guardians to send their children to school, or to have them instructed at home, do not appear to have been enforced at all."

One can hardly help surmising that the passage in the Report of the Board which I am about to quote was intended to suggest an apology for the inactivity of the Board in this respect. The statement made is one, at any rate, which will challenge attention in some quarters.

" When a compulsory act," says the New York Report, " was lust introduced in Prussia, it met with decided opposition, and great difficulty was experienced in obtaining from the new pro- vinces, and particularly those on the Rhine, the execution of that article of the law which imposes on parents, under severe penal-

-ties, the obligation of sending their children to school. The

Ministry had the wisdom to suspend this part of the law in these provinces, and to labour to bring about the same results by per- suasion and zeal. When a desire for instruction had been thus gradually encouraged, and the population of those provinces appeared sufficiently prepared for such a measure, the law was rendered obligatory. This took place in 1875, and from that moment to the present, it has been steadily and vigorously -enforced." .

The last is a curious sentence, and suggests that " 1875 " may possibly be a misprint. The date of the Report is December 31, 1875, and " from that moment to the present " cannot, if the reading is correct, mean more than a year. It is no wonder, however, that no attempt has, as yet, been made to enforce the law in its incidence on parents and guardians It is evident that coming into operation only in 1875 (March 1 was the actual date), no such attempt could be made until it had been in operation something like a year. The law takes account of twelve months

at a time, so far as regards the children's schooling and the parents' responsibility. It proceeds upon the supposition that—

as respects the State generally—the children will be sent to school -chiefly—many of them only—during the winter months, and it seeks to ensure at least two months of consecutive winter in- struction.

Let me now proceed to recount what has been done in regard to the other line of operation under the Act,—that which relates to children found "wandering about the streets and public places without any lawful occupation, and growing up in ignorance."

The City Superintendent of Schools reports, as to this point, and the President of the Board of Education endorses and adopts his report, that "no other effect has been produced by the en- forcement of the law, necessarily incomplete as it has been this .year, except, perhaps, an indirect influence exerted upon the 'minds of parents and guardians to induce them to send their • children to the schools with greater frequency and regularity."

"An indirect influence, perhaps, on the minds of parents and guardians." This language is noteworthy. The direct operation -of this part of the Act is on the children, and only on the children, who are dealt with as violating the law, and are placed :under "arrest."

The Report describes the machinery for carrying out the law upon the children, and gives a summary of the results.

At the head of this department is a " Superintendent of Truancy" —the title is a little odd—and under this officer eleven " Agents of Truancy "—this title is decidedly more odd—are employed.

These agents meet twice a week, at the office of the superintendent, and "present a written report of their transactions." Their duty is to ascertain from the school-teachers what children absent themselves from school without known reasonable cause or sxcuse, to look them up, also to look generally after vagrant -children, and act or report according to circumstances. In what Americana call " hard cases," the direct action of the police is called in. The following passage from the Report is very suggestive, and shows, in particular, how greatly the scope and -operation of this Compulsory Act in the city of New York differ from the aim and working of the compulsory provisions under the English Education Act, whether in London or elsewhere During the month of June," the Superintendent of Truancy reports, "sit police officers were detailed to this department, to act as agents of truancy. Five were placed in the Seventh Dis- trict, and one, Roundsman Sherwood, was attached to the office of the Superintendent, for special duty. This arrangement continued only during the month, Use Police Commissioners refusing to furnish the men after that time, with the exception of Roundaman Sher- wood. The duties performed by this officer are making arrests where warrants are issued, and conveying children under sentence of the Court to Randall's Island. The great delay that arose in having warrants served by the Court officers, as well as that occurring in taking the children to Randall's Island, made it necessary that there should be some officer entrusted with the duty. I found that they were sent to the lock-up in the court-house after con- viction, and from thence were taken to the Tombs, where they were frequently kept several days. The Police Commissioners, at my request, issued an order requiring every police officer, while on duty, to take the names and residences of children be- tween the ages of eight and fourteen found wandering about the streets without any lawful occupation, and to disperse all crowds of boys over fourteen years of age found loitering."

Children engaged in any " lawful occupation " are exempted from the jurisdiction of these officers or agents. Among such occupations are recognised those of " boot-blacks, newsboys, and vendors of wares in the streets." " Since the enforcement of the Compulsory Education Law," the Report informs us, " the number following these occupations has increased very greatly." They " loiter in the streets, and congregate about the corners, engaged in ' pitching' or matching' pennies, and other de- moralising practices, to the great detriment of many children, who, by their example, are induced to absent themselves from school." In this way such " occupations " as have been named " are used as a subterfuge to evade the law, and it is found iin- possible," says the Report, " to compel the attendance at school of children professing to be so occupied, it being held that they are engaged in a lawful occupation.' " In the ten months during which the Act has been in operation, it is " claimed " that 10,189 cases of " absenteeism " have been investigated. Of these, however, 5,995 were not, after inquiry, "classed as truants," or in any way dealt with, viz., 2,279 "kept home by parents" (being about 21 per cent. of the total number of cases), 1,520 detained by sickness, 506 by poverty, and 1,690 who could not be found. The number of "truants" sent back to- school was 2,602, being about one-fourth of the number inquired into. The number of non-attendants sent to school is reported as 1,121, of destitute children supplied with clothing and sent to school, 26, of children committed to places of correction, 60. There are returned, as " withdrawn from school," 385. Of these 100 had left the city, not much less than one-half had gone to work, 65 had been placed in reformatory institutions by their parents, and three or four had been committed to a juvenile prison or " house of refuge " for theft or criminal misconduct.

Nothing thorough or systematic, however, can be done in New York in the way of compulsion, nothing commensurate with the population or the necessities of the case, for want of a proper census of the school population and of regular house-to-house visitation. The agents can visit absentees, of which a list is given from the schools, and can casually pick up children in the streets, but more than this they cannot do. Year after year, the Board of Education has insisted in vain on the necessity of a school census. In the present Report, the Board, I need hardly say, again insists on the necessity of such a census. The following are the words used in the Report in regard to this point :— "First, we must, by an annual census of school children, learn how many children come within the law, where they reside, and who are their parents and custodians. Second, for the purposes of this law, if for no other, the city should be divided into school districts, and each child be required to be accounted for at the school of his district. No census of the children within the school ages has ever been taken in this city. A census in this matter is as essential to success and to a knowledge of how we stand in the great matter of education, as in mercantile business is the annual taking of an account of stock."

There can be no doubt, indeed, that the total number of children at school in New York is a good deal smaller than it ought to be.

The ages of children in the primary and grammar schools vary from under six to over sixteen, the "grammar-school" course being exclusive of classics, and of all but the most elementary mathematics. In fact, primary and grammar schools together in New York cover precisely the ground of our primary schools in England, the highest arithmetic in the primary schools being simple addition. These schools include, more or less, all classes

of the population, except those which are rated as the very- highest and most exclusive. And yet the largest total number on the register in these schools of New York, with its million of population, reached in any month last year was 115,129,• with an average attendance of 104,544, being less than one- ninth of the population. What the coloured population of New York numbers is not known, but it is certainly con- siderable, and is not alleged to be diminishing. The total number of children at any time on the register in the "coloured schools" was, however, during the last year only 1,958, whereas, in 1874 it was 2,045; in 1873 2,363. The average attendance, notwithstanding, seems to be improving. It was 813 in 1873, 870 in 1874, and 872 in 1875. As coloured children are not admitted into the same schools with other children in New York, separate schools are provided for them. These, however, are but four in number for the whole city. The great distances which have, consequently, to be travelled by many of the scholars in going to these schools is assigned as one reason of the poor attendance.

In studying the statistics of American schools, however, of whatever class, it must always be remembered that there is a very wide disparity between the total number who have been on the register during the year, and the number in attendance at any given time. In the coloured schools we have seen that, while the number enrolled during the year was 1,958, the average attend- ant* was 872. In the grammar and primary schools and depart- ments, we have seen that the highest average attendance during any:month of the year was 104,544, and the highest number on the register for the same month, 115,129. The total number of scholars, however, in these schools who had stood on the school registers at any time during the year was 203,151.

The average attendance during the time the children are reckoned as attendants at school may be considered good. They are many of them taken awayat particular seasons, and sent again to school, with considerable regularity, at other seasons. The teachers, also, re- move the names of absentees very speedily from their registers. From all I have observed, and been able to learn, I conclude that the aotual provision of schools in New York is below the needs of the city, so that, notwithstanding the irregularity of attendance, and the number of children who go nowhere, there is a pressure on the schools for the admission of scholars. Hence the speedy disappearance of the name of an absentee scholar, and the good general average of attendance, which I make to be for the whole year 89 per cent. of the number who are on the register at the same time.

I have taken as much of your space as I dare think of occupying at one time. Perhaps I may be allowed to add to this communi- cation in a subsequent letter some other results of inquiry and observation at New York and elsewhere in the States.—I am, /cc., Sir,