length of service. Men teachers contribute three pounds annually and
women two pounds to this fund, while the State appropriates the balance
needed.

When one considers the traditions that have controlled English education
for centuries, and recalls the conservatism that rules English life, one
can only marvel at the tremendous strides taken by England during the
last third of a century. Victor Hugo says: "The English patrician order
is patrician in the absolute sense of the word. No feudal system was
ever more illustrious, more terrible, and more tenacious of life."
England has had to overcome her patrician ideas in regard to education,
and her growth in the last thirty years has been more rapid and more
effectual than for a thousand years before. Although she still has many
problems to solve, her recent educational enterprise places her in the
front rank among the nations of the world in school matters. The law of
1903 consisted of many compromises which satisfy neither party. It will
doubtless be followed by still further changes in the near future.

FOOTNOTES:

[179] The total enrollment in 1902 was 5,881,278, or 18.08 per cent of
the population.

[180] Report of the United States Commissioner of Education for
1896-1897, Vol. I, p. 12.

CHAPTER XLV

THE SCHOOL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES

=Literature.=--_Boone_, Education in the United States; _Williams_,
History of Modern Education; _Barnard_, _American Journal of Education_;
_Horace Mann_, Annual Reports; United States Commissioners Reports,
especially the more recent ones.

Each state in the United States has its own independent system of
education; there is no national system. In 1867 Congress established a
National Bureau of Education, the function of which is "to collect
statistics and facts showing the condition and progress of education in
the several states and territories, and diffuse such information
respecting the organization and management of schools and school systems
and methods of teaching as shall aid the people of the United States in
the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and
otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country." The
bureau issues an annual report, which is replete with information
concerning the educational interests of our own and other lands.

The United States government has given vast tracts of the public domain,
as well as large sums of money, to the various states, out