EDUCATION.
The number of persons in the State of School age, viz., between the age of six and twenty-one years, is 709,424. The number admitted to the schools was, in 1882, 498,792. The average daily attendance of pupils last year was 30,513. The number of school teachers is 13,259. The number of school houses in the State is 9,556, of which forty-eight are log, eighty-three are stone, 2,481 are brick, and 6,944 are frame.
The amount of Public Fund is $9,138,408.31. The addition made to it annually taking as a basis an average of the pest five years, exceeds $54,000. This sum does not include the large sum-about $260,000 a year-received from particular licenses and other sources, and applied each year to tuition.
The amount of tuition money derived from interest on the school funds in 1882 was $650,173.41. The whole amount received from State and local tuition taxes was $2,059,616.44. The proportion of the entire expense of tuition paid from taxes, State and local, was 75 per cent.
It will thus be seen that, ample as our school fund is, three-fourths of the expenses of tuition are derived from public taxes. The fact that these taxes are paid without complaint, is the highest evidence of the esteem in which the Public School system is held.
The report of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction is replete with interesting facts and suggestions.
The State Normal School is shown, by the report of the Trustees and Superintendent, to be in a highly flourishing condition. The average number of students during last year was 302. The need for a moderate appropriation for the purchase of apparatus for the instruction in the sciences is urgent.
The important suggestions contained in the reports of the Trustees of the State University and of the Trustees and Presdent of Purdue University will properly engage your most considerate attention.
