district with the largest surplus sometimes had the poorest buildings and furniture. There was complaint also that salaries were very low, and the surplus was pointed to as one of the causes thereof.

The difficulty seems to have been met by the act of 1893, for in 1895 all moneys received from the State were "payable to the party entitled by orders or drafts upon the State treasurer" longer passed through the hands of the local school clerks.

and no

Another cause of complaint and a hindrance to progress was, as the president of the State board points out, the absence of a normal training school-one empowered to grant diplomas. Says the president:

leading us in this matter.

Our sister States are * Many of our brightest young men and women drift to the State normal schools of other States for their training, * * most of these teachers remain in other States after receiving their training, and teach where their diplomas, are recognized as valid without further examination.

This need was felt as strongly by the governors. In 1887 Gov. Stockley recommended the establishment of such a school and in 1895 Gov. Reynolds, after demanding more efficient teaching, thought "a reasonable amount of instruction in school organization, school government, and the art of teaching" should be added to the requirements, and in order to furnish this recommended a training school for teachers. In 1897 Gov. Watson recommended more funds for teachers' institutes.

It was pointed out that while the hostility to the system experienced in earlier days had now disappeared, there was still in some places a lack of interest on the part of teachers and school commissioners and a disposition to leave the matter in the hands of the teacher, who was frequently neither guided nor upheld by the local authorities. There is much sameness in the reports from year to year, as is to be expected, but the general direction was upward and Gov. Reynolds said in 1895 that "great progress" had been made in the last four years.

One law of the period met with universal commendation. This was the act of 1891 providing free textbooks for all pupils. State uniformity had been secured and before 1887 books had been sold at cost, but between 1887 and 1891 the State held aloof from supplying textbooks. Popular demand, in addition to gubernatorial recommendation, brought a new law in 1891 and the increased surplus furnished the means.

1 Governor's message, 1895. See ch. 602, laws of 1893.

The first cost for the year ending August, 1892, was:

This law produced the "most gratifying results." It removed many obstacles and made for improvement by helping to better attendance and better grading as well as a considerable reduction in

expense.

All of this progress was "encouraging, but not satisfying," nor was it uniform. Some schools had fine houses and excellent furniture, while others were kept in houses that were not worth $10; and the institutes were cramped and injured for lack of money. Gov. Reynolds complained in 1893 that the progress of the negro children was not "commensurate with the advantages offered," but added that this failure was due in part at least to "crude and imperfect" laws. One superintendent boldly declared that the incorporated districts were harmful because they lowered the standard, since their teachers were not subject to examination by the county superintendent, and in 1897 Gov. Watson recommended the repeal of these special charters of incorporation, for the schools so favored had not kept pace with others.1

The State report for 1889-90, while pointing to progress, declared the system had by no means attained to a position where it might rest satisfied with its attainments:

There has been a steady improvement during the last two years in the general condition of the free schools of the State, but neither the State school system nor the administration of it has reached anything yet like perfection. The district system is necessarily weak. The adoption of what in other States is known as the township system, and what might here be properly called the hundred system, would greatly simplify our present school machinery and * greatly increase the efficiency of the schools.2

* *

Of the county superintendents the president says:

The county superintendency has now had a four years' trial in Delaware and the work of the superintendents has, in the main, been of such a satisfactory character that it would be unwise to think of adopting any other system. Indeed, if any change is needed for the better, it is that of still closer supervision. This is especially true in the county of Sussex, where the schools are most numerous and the school term shortest.

To increase the efficiency of the county superintendents it was suggested that the term of service be increased from one to two or from one to four years; that qualifications as to scholarship and successful experience in teaching be fixed by law, and that the salary

1 Wilmington was excepted from this proposed law.

2 Report for 1889-90, p. 5.

be increased. The county institutes "have been doing good work," says the president of the board, and two recommendations of the governor are worthy of notice. In 1895 Gov. Reynolds proposed that advanced pupils be given the advantages of the town high schools and that "these central high schools should receive a reasonable compensation out of the general school fund to defray the additional expense of the pupils thus admitted." By this arrangement it was expected to relieve the pressure of congestion in the lower schools and at the same time make the town schools the centers of higher instruction. In 1897 Gov. Watson points out that certain schools had not extended their term as long as the funds received from the State would justify, and therefore recommends that the aid given by the State be made to depend on the length of the school term, inaugurating a per diem distribution.

Some efforts, not very successful, had been made to collect statistics. It was found in 1891-92 that approximately the school population 6 to 21 was, white, 33,589; colored, 5,542; that 80 per cent of the white and 84 per cent of the colored was enrolled; 51 per cent of the white were in daily attendance for 8 months, and 51 per cent of the colored for 5 months, including the city of Wilmington. It was reported that the State then had $56,000 of surplus school money and that the new license law would be likely to add $50,000 a year to this fund.

The president of the State board points out the difficulties in the matter of reports:

There has been some difficulty in gathering and arranging statistics under the operations of the new law. This is due partly to the meager requirements of the law and partly to the fact that the incorporated boards are under no legal obligation to furnish any statistics to the county superintendents. It would be well if the provisions of the law could be made general, so that there might be a uniform method of gathering statistics, comparing facts, and reaching results. The statistics here given are the best that can be offered considering the difficulties under which they have been gathered.

The report for 1887-88 represents the high-water mark for that period. The next one repeats and emphasizes its suggestions, often in the very same language. The third (1891-92) marks the ebbing of the tide, for in 1891 the composition of the State board of education was changed. The president of Delaware college, a professional educator, then ceased to be president of that board and the governor of the State was put in his place. The first biennial report after this change in the law was that for 1891-92 and the disastrous effects of the law appear at once. The general summary and review, the attempt at correlation made by the former president of the board now disappear, for the governor, who now signed as the ex officio. president of the State board of education, contented himself with a half-page letter of transmittal. He refers to his message to the as

sembly in 1891, for the reforms recommended by him and transmits without further comment the reports of the county superintendents. The statistics for the period-those dealing with the school fund, its increase and its expenditures-are to be had from the reports of the State treasurer and State auditor, but neither of those documents analyzes or even reports in particular such funds as were local in both origin and destination. It is impossible, therefore, to learn from any available printed reports how much was raised in the counties by contribution and how much by taxation. We must content ourselves with the general statements contained in the auditor's reports. But we have evidence that the amount then raised by taxes was in general much larger, in many cases several times larger, than the legal requirements. The statistics given at the end of this study, Table 3, are all that are available on the phases considered. They give us the enrollment, but not the average attendance; they do not differentiate between whites and blacks. They are printed as they are given.

Value of school grounds, buildings, and furniture.

Chapter VII.

THE STATE SYSTEM: REORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT, 1898-1913.

The decade treated in the last chapter is one of increasing dissatisfaction and growing realization of the deficiencies of the school system then in use. The period of self-satisfied content was gone; the thinking men in the State were now beginning to realize the shortcomings of their system and to demand something better. Matters could hardly be worse. There was a State board of education with little or no supervisory power. There were three county superintendents and one city superintendent, practically equal in authority. Each of these four administered what were to a large extent two parallel and rival systems, one for whites and the other for blacks. There were practically no coordinating forces above them, and nowhere does this lack of coordinating authority make itself more keenly felt than in the reports, statistical and other, which were printed from time to time. In these there is so little uniformity when one is compared with another or year with year that it is almost impossible from a study of the same to reach any conclusion except that of confusion worse confounded. The system was without system. Some schools had more money than they could use; some had fine houses and good furniture; some had good teachers, kept them, and paid them a fair wage. In other districts the schoolhouses were disreputable, the salaries disgracefully low. The percentage of the school population enrolled seems to have been a fair one as enrollment goes in the States, but the figures of attendance are too imperfect for even a guess at its relative proportion. A majority of the districts levied and raised by taxation much more money than the letter of the law demanded. The law would order that $25 be raised by taxation; the district would raise $100 or more; in some cases it was 5 times as much, in others 10 times, and in at least one instance more than 100 times as much. These figures demonstrate that hostility to the school tax had practically disappeared.

Then, if there was little hostility, if there was a willingness to be taxed and a resultant sufficiency of money, why did the schools show such relative inefficiency and failure? The answer seems to lie in the one word which has characterized these schools from the day of

1 See reports of New Castle County and school district in auditor's report for 1897 (Appendix V), p. 3,