One of the most significant features of American education as compared with foreign systems is the immense sums of money given for educational purposes by private benefactors. Because of the splendid public support of ele mentary education, practically none of this money goes to that form and only a compara tively small per cent to secondary education. But in 1915 almost 25 per cent of the entire income of the 550 institutions deserving the name of college or university came from private benefaction. What is still more remarkable is that for the past 20 years the average annual gifts to education amounted to 50 per cent of the gifts to all forms of philanthropy in the United States. These gifts vary in size from a few hundred dollars to the many millions necessary to establish a fully equipped univer sity like Chicago, founded by John D. Rocke feller, and Leland Stanford, founded by Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford. The amount contributed during 1914 was $31,357,398, the largest in our history. Not all this money has been given to teaching institutions. In some instances new education agencies have been established, like the General Education Board organized in 1903 by Mr. Rockefeller with an endowment of $32,000,000 for its work in helping education in the South and assisting higher education gen erally; the Carnegie Institute (1902) with an endowment of $12,000,000 to encourage research and discovery; the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1905) with an en dowment of $15,000,000 to pay retiring pensions to college professors; the Russell Sage Foun dation (1905) with an endowment of $10,000,000, a large portion of which is devoted to educa tional purposes. These and similar organiza tions have had an incalculable influence in fostering education in the United States.
It may seem very strange after reading this story of public and private mu nificence to education to learn that according to the Federal census of 1910, the percentage of il literacy in the whole United States is 7.7 per cent considerably higher than the percentage of illit eracy in the countries of northern and western Europe with which the United States is usually compared in matters educational. Two things, however, should be remembered in connection with this matter, viz., that whereas the illiteracy among native-born whites is but 3 per cent, among foreign-born whites it was 12.8 per cent and among negroes it was 30.5 per cent. The South is working heroically to reduce illiteracy among negroes, and the North is spending im mense sums of money for the same purpose with the newly arrived immigrants. The latter bur den can readily be appreciated when one con siders that of the 838,172 immigrants who came to the United States in 1912, over 177,000, or 20 per cent, were unable to read or write any language and very few were well educated. Fortunately the immigrants have so far shown a great desire to have their children go to school and the statistics of 1910 show that the per centage of illiteracy among the children of native-born parents is greater than among the native-born children of foreign-born parents.
The fear of an ignorant citizenship which has been one of the great impelling forces to the generous support of education in the United States will continue to be a necessary incentive, now that our hordes of immigrants come almost exclusively from the ignorant population of southern and eastern Europe.
The no country is education so active and vital an element in the life of the people as in the United States. Nowhere else do teachers show so strong a desire for self improvement, parents so great a determination that their children shall take advantage of the opportunities offered, or citizens so great a willingness to bear the necessary expense. Edu cation is everywhere marked by experiment: to determine the best system of organization, as the Gary System, or the best method of teach ing, as the Montessori Method. And these ex periments are not without philosophical justifi cation, for in no other country is so much attention being given to the reorganization of educational theory as in the United States by such thinkers as John Dewey, G. Stanley Hall, E. L. Thorndike, C. H. Judd and others. Not only has astonishing progress been made in providing proper education for those who differ widely from the normal such as the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the crippled, and the feeble minded, but the experiments of to-day have as their object the discovery of the best methods and organization to meet the different needs of individual normal children. In other words, real progress is being made toward the realiza tion of the American educational ideal, viz., so to organize education that the capacities of every child shall be discovered and the neces sary training given to develop those capacities to the utmost, to the end that every individual shall be doing that in life for which his native abilities fit him.
Brown, E. E., 'The Making of Our Middle Schools' (New York 1902); Chancellor, W. E., 'Our Schools; Their Direc tion and Management' (Boston 1908) • Cub berley, E. P., 'Changing Conceptions of Educa tion' (Boston 1909) ; Cubberley, E. P., 'Public School Administration' (Boston 1916) ; Dewey, John, 'The School and Society' (Chicago 1899) ; Draper, A. S., 'American Education' (Boston 1909) ; Dutton, St. and Snedden, D., 'Administration of Public Education in the United States' (New York 1908) ; Eliot, Charles W., 'University Administration> (Bos ton 1908) ; Monroe, Paul (Editor), 'Cyclopedia of Education' (New York 1911) ; Pritchett, H. S., 'Reports and Bulletins of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching' (1905 to date) ; 'Annual Reports,' National Education Association; 'Annual Reports' and Special Bulletins, United States Bureau of Education.