l purposes.

The Comptroller's report is substantiated, moreover, by the concurrent
testimony of the State Superintendent of Education, who laments
that:--[14]

[14] Report State Superintendent of Education. Report 1888,
p. 12.

"There is a large, uneducated class in the State, and our
statistics show that it is growing larger. The attendance
upon the schools has not kept pace with the advance of
population. Recent legislation forbids the employment of
children under thirteen years of age in any manufacturing
establishment, but no adequate provision is made for
gathering them into schools, and the number in the streets
grows more rapidly than the number in the schools. Indeed,
nothing practical has ever been done in this State by way of
compelling attendance upon the schools. The result is sadly
apparent and the premonitions are full of warning."

In 1889 (p. 13) the same official, Mr. Andrew S. Draper, says:--[15]

[15] Report State Superintendent of Education. Report 1889,
p. 13.

"The total attendance upon the schools, when compared with
the whole number of school age, has grown less and less with
strange uniformity."

The factory inspectors in their report for 1886, say, p. 15:--

"The ignorance is something alarming. Thousands of children
_born in this country, or who came here in early childhood_,
are unable to write; almost as many are unable to read, and
still other thousands can do little more than write their
own name. Possibly one third of the affidavits of the
parents examined by us in the factory towns were signed with
a crossmark, and it seemed to us that when the children who
now require these affidavits grow up and have children of
their own about whom to make affidavit, the proportion of
crossmarks to the papers will not be decreased."

"Children born in Europe, and who lately came to this
country, are much better informed than the children born and
reared in our own State, and this condition of affairs has
also been remarked by the factory inspectors of other
States. Very few American-born children could tell the year
of their birth, State they lived in, or spell the name of
their native town."

In the midst of his gloom, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics
courageously endeavors to show that wages ha