cation in three important
directions: (1) by its publications; (2) by its maintenance of a
pedagogical library, the most extensive in the country; and (3) by its
pedagogical museum, in which every feature of educational enterprise is
exhibited.

The most valuable service rendered, however, is through its
publications. It issues an annual report which has grown to two large
volumes of more than twenty-four hundred pages, in which are found
statistics concerning all kinds of schools and educational enterprises
throughout the United States. Nor are its investigations limited to our
own country and its territories. Educational movements in other
countries are described from time to time by experts with a view to
furnish complete information concerning current educational history
throughout the world. These reports are recognized as by far the best
furnished by any country.

In addition to the annual report the bureau issues many pamphlets
bearing upon special topics and furnishing valuable information.

In view of the fact that such vast interests are involved,--the
instruction of over twenty million pupils, requiring the service of more
than half a million teachers, involving the expenditure of nearly three
hundred million dollars per annum, and of vital interest to the whole
population,--many educators believe that the bureau should be elevated
to the dignity of a department of the government with a cabinet officer
at its head.

THE QUINCY MOVEMENT

In 1873 the School Board of Quincy, Massachusetts, took a new and very
important departure, namely, that of calling an educational expert to
take charge of their schools. They realized that the office of a school
board is to administer the external matters, but trained experts should
have entire direction of the internal affairs of the schools, such as
discipline, methods of instruction, course of study, etc. They called
Colonel Francis W. Parker (1837-1902) to the superintendency and said to
him practically: "We will furnish the equipment and the teachers, and it
is your business to run the schools. We will not interfere with your
methods or your plans, but will hold you responsible for results."
Colonel Parker, who had just returned from a careful study of European
schools, accepted this responsibility and at once began reforms in
primary education not second in importance to those of Horace Mann a
generation earlier. The "New Education" and "Quincy Methods" began to