SUPPORT OF SCHOOLS.
The munificence of the support given to public education in the United States is as great a source of amazement to foreigners as it is of gratification to Americans. We have already described the generosity of the Federal gov ernment to this activity, but the large sums given by it are small in comparison to the amounts raised for it by local and State taxa tion. The major part of the money devoted to education is raised by local taxation and aver ages from 20 to 25 per cent of the total amount. What this means for the cause of education is made clear when one learns that the appro priation for school purposes by the municipal government of New York city in 1916 was $42,000,000. The State government adds to the local appropriations grants for a variety of purposes provided the localities maintain standards demanded by the State Department of Education. In the case of New York State this amounted in 1912 to over $5,000,000, distrib uted in such a way that poor or small dis tricts receive an advantage over large and wealthy ones, and New York State is no more generous in this respect proportionally than other northern States. What the total amount
spent for public education in any year is would be difficult to say accurately, because uniform standards of estimating costs have not been adopted by all States or localities, e.g., some local areas include interest on bonds and others do not. But according to the reports of the United States Bureau of Education (from which all statistics appearing in this article have been taken) the total estimated cost of educa tion in the United States for 1914 was $794, 459,968. What is undoubtedly true is that there has been a remarkable increase in the cost of education during the past two decades, amount ing according to conservative estimates to 100 per cent. This has been due not only to the high cost of buildings and equipment and to increase in salaries, but to improvements in school organization and equipment to which we must now turn our attention.