Читать книгу Introduction to the scientific study of education - Charles Hubbard Judd - Страница 45

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Another method of presenting the facts is to deal with totals. The figures which represent the expenditure for public education in the United States are so large that the individual who reads them usually passes them over with little comprehension unless he is given some background for comparison. Perhaps this background can be furnished by recalling the statement quoted in the last chapter, where it was pointed out that a century ago there was practically no conception of the principle of free public schools. Schools were supported in large measure by charity or by tuition. Most communities provided only a very short term and collected a rate bill, or personal tuition, from the pupils to supplement the small fund secured from taxation. During the quarter of a century before 1850 there was a widespread movement in the Northern states which gradually secured in the face of much opposition full public support for schools. Rate bills did not disappear entirely until 1871, the last state to abolish them being New Jersey, but at that date the principle of support through general taxation was completely established.

In 1870, as we are told by the Commissioner of Education, the total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools had reached sixty-three million dollars.[16] Nineteen years later, when the population had increased about 60 per cent, expenditures had more than doubled, reaching one hundred and forty millions. Since that time expenditures have increased by leaps and bounds, far surpassing increases in population, as indicated by the following table:

TABLE I. EXPENDITURES FOR PUBLIC ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS COMPARED FOR A PERIOD OF YEARS, INCLUDING ALSO A COMPARISON OF POPULATION FOR THE SAME PERIODS

	1889-1890	1899-1900	1909-1910	1914
Population16	62,622,250	75,602,515	91,972,266	98,741,324
Expenditures17	$140,506,715	$214,964,618	$426,250,434	$555,077,146
Expenditure per capita of population	$2.24	$2.84	$4.64	$5.62
Expenditure per pupil in average attendance	$17.23	$20.21	$33.23	$39.04

These gross figures indicate a growth in schools that has never been paralleled in the history of any country. The doubling of expenditures between 1900 and 1910 is due in part to the rapid evolution of high schools. Elementary schools, however, have shared in the development. Teachers are more highly trained than ever before, new courses have been added to the curriculum, and better hygienic conditions have been provided in school buildings. There can be no mistaking the evidence that American communities are willing to support schools in a program of expansion and improvement.