Subsequent to the Revolution educa tion received a great impulse in the new nation. The New England States, in cluding Vermont and Maine, added, after the Revolution, all adopted systems of public schools. New York at first en couraged private schools, and in 1785 created a Board of Regents of the Uni versity of New York, whose chief func tion for many years was to encourage academies and colleges; but in 1795 com mon schools of the New England type were greatly encouraged. Pennsylvania and New Jersey both adopted similar sys tems. The new States of the Northwest were anxious to attract emigrants and to provide for the future good by similar systems, and flourishing common schools became the rule throughout these States.
Most of the States have educational funds for the aid of the public schools which are distributed to the schools on compliance with certain conditions, which usually require the existence of a State supervisor under the direction of State Boards of Education, with some execu tive officer, or State Superintendent of Education. The various school funds, so called, have had different origins, though most of them have come from the grant of lands by the States for this purpose, or by the Federal grant of one thirty sixth of all the lands in the States ad mitted to the Union since 1785. In 1848 the United States granted another thirty-sixth of the land for schools, so that since then all the States admitted have had one-eighteenth of the land thus appropriated. In some instances each
county has been permitted to collect and expend the result of the sale of these school sections of land. Usually the State has borne the expense of selling and collecting the money for these lands, and has charged itself with the proceeds, the result of which is called a State edu cational fund, the annual interest of which is expended by the State for public schools. These funds for public schools in the several States will soon exceed $100,000,000. In addition to the income of these funds, so collected, State school taxes are raised, and in some instances local county, city, village, and township taxes.
The practice is rapidly growing of maintaining a large public union school in every considerable village, in which several teachers are employed and the pupils are graded in classes through which they advance on examination. In some cases a separate high school is maintained. Graduates from the high school are admitted to the State univer sities and to some of the private or Church universities on certificate of graduation. In the State universities the education is nearly if not quite free for the students who reside in the State. See COLLEGES; also AGRI