Under the constitution of 1867, and the school law of 1870, a new system is now being administered by W. H. Ruffner, whose second annual report, dated Nov. 1, 1872, is an admirable document, in two parts. Part I. is devoted to a statistical and expository record of the work; Part II. is an exposition of the general principles and methods of the system and institutions established by the earlier and later legislation of Virginia. Both documents should have a wide circulation and find thoughtful readers, and henceforth many 'doers of the word.' The results of 1872, compared with those of 1871, and especially with any year of the former system are very encouraging; 3,695 public schools, with 166,337 pupils, under 3,853 teachers, examined and visited by 91 city and county superintendents, and maintained at an expense of $993,318, is a hopeful exhibition of two years work under such difficulties as exist in this as in the other Southern States.

In the statistical summary of the Superintendent, and Auditor's Report, appear the following items: Capital of Literary Fund, $1,596,069; pay of public school teachers and treasurers, £643,066; county superintendents, $45,295; central office, $6,490; district expenses, $289,467; University of Virginia, $15,000; Military Institute, $15,000; Deaf, Mute, and Blind School, $40,000. Aid ($28,900) from the Peabody Fund was given to Normal Schools, &c. The appeal of Gov. Wise to all classes of citizens in 1856, to aid in the work of universal education should be heeded now:

Icall upon the learned professors of William and Mary, and of the academies and schools-I call upon the reverend clergy, of every denomination-I call upon my brethren of the bar-I call upon the humane faculty of medie ne-I call upon our most excellent farmers and mechanics-I call upon parents and guardians-I call upon women who would be the mother of scholar, philosophers, sages and great men-I call upon a 1 ages and sexes-I call upon the rich man and the poor man, and upon men of all conditions-to stir, to live, move, and have their being' in this vital subject. Knowledge is power; it is the greatest of all power. It is the power which overcomes all social obstacles; it is the power which prostrates all political inequities; it is the power which overcomes all phy ical obstructions in the way of man; castes and ranks and grad s bow before it; wealth is impotent against it; it subdues the earth; and it humbles tyrants!! And if kao vldys is power, ignorance is w akness-utter, impo'ed weakness. We say we were all born free and equal-that may be so. But, if we were born so, the state of freedom and equality does not last long in life if one man is to be cultivated in his mind, whilst the other is permitted to grow up in ignorance. How is the man who can not read and write, the equal in power of any sort, except muscular power, of the man of letters? No; ignorance among the people destroys the liberty and equality of the people; it makes inequalities in the social state; it gives one man a pre-eminence and preference among men over another in the political state; it makes the very weeds of the earth too strong for man's physical might to earn his bread; it makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer-the strong stron rer, and the weak weak r; it is the sycophant and slave of tyrants, and the foundation of despotism; it enslaves the citizen, and enervates the State.

WEST VIRGINIA.

West Virginia was detached from the territory of 'Old Virginia,' the people refusing to be put out of the United States by the war of secession, and was admitted as a State in December, 1862, with an area of 23,000 square miles and a population in 1860 of 393,224, which had increased to 442,014 in 1870, with taxable property to the amount of $140,538,273.

The Constitution, as amended in 1863, creates a school fund out of the State's proportion of the literary fund' of Virginia and other sources, for the support of free schools throughout the State and for no other purpose whatever.' The legislature is directed to 'provide as soon as practicable for the establishment of a thorough and efficient system of free schools,' for the election of a State Superintendent, for township taxation for free schools, for the proper care of the blind, deaf mutes, and insane; and the organization of such institutions of learning as the best interests of general educa- tion in the State may demand.

The system of free schools established in 1865, provides for: (1,) a general superintendent of free schools; (2,) county superintendents, elected by the people, for two years; (3,) township commissioners, three for each township, one elected each year for a term of three years; (4,) district trustees, appointed by the township board, from the residents of the district for which the school is provided; (5) State Board of the School Fund, for the management of any fund set apart for the support of free schools.

In 1871, there were 2,357 public schools, with 87,330 pupils enrolled under 2,303 teachers in 2,113 school-houses, estimated to have cost $2,257,744. The total expenditure for the year, for all objects, exceeded $565,000.

Institutes were held at twenty different points with manifest advantage to teachers, and to the school interest of the localities where held.

The support of schools falls mainly on a capitation tax of one dollar on each male inhabitant, over twenty-one years, and a tax of ten cents on every one hundred dollars of taxable property.

In the auditor's report for 1870 we notice the following items charged to the State treasury, $20,000 for the construction of West Virginia University $8,000 for the deaf mutes; $3,000 for Normal schools, &c.

Dr. Sears applied $18,000 in aid of normal instruction in the State University, State Normal School at Fairmount, and the teachers' department in Marshall College, as well as to the establishment of the graded schools, and to the Teachers' Institutes.

WISCONSIN.

Wisconsin was detached from the Territory of Michigan, and organized an independent Territory in 1836, and admitted a State in 1848, with a population in 1850, on an area of 53,954 square miles, of 305,391, which had increased in 1870 to 1,054,670, with $333,447,568 taxable property.

By the constitution of 1848, the supervision of public instruction is invested in a State Superintendent, to be chosen by the qualified electors of the State; the proceeds of all lands donated by the United States to the State for educational purposes are secured inviolably, (1,) for the maintenance of common schools in each school district, and the purchase of suitable libraries and apparatus; (2,) for the maintenance of academies and normal schools, and (3,) for a state university; each town and city is required to raise by a tax, annually, for the support of free common schools therein, a sum not less than one-half the amount received by each town or city for school purposes, from the income of the school fund.

The first school law dates from 1849, by which all the territory in the organized towns is divided into school districts, the affairs of which are managed by three district officers, subject to the general supervision of the town school superintendent.

In 1857, twenty-five per cent. of the income of all swamp and overflowed lands granted to the State were constituted a normal school fund, the avails of which was first applied to colleges and academies which supported normal classes; but in 1865, the entire sales were constituted a special fund for the support of Normal Schools, of which five are now located. The capital of the Normal Fund is now about $1,000,000; and the Common School Fund, $2,500,000. The settled and liberal policy of the State towards institutions for the education and practical training of teachers of public schools, is drawing a good supply of candidates.

According to the last official report (of Samuel Fallows) for 1872, there were 5,103 districts (excluding cities), with 423,717 persons of the school age (4 to 20), and the whole number of all ages attending public schools, 270,292; private schools, 18,020; academies and colleges, 2,831; benevolent institutions, 1,200; or an aggregate attendance for 1872, of 292,343.

The number of school-houses returned was 4,920, with accommodations for 312,612, valued at $3,295,268. The productive capital of the school fund was $2,482,771, and the aggregate expenditure for schools, $2,174,154. The number of graded schools in the cities and villages was 340.

From this brief but comprehensive survey of the historical development of public instruction, and especially of common schools in the different States, it appears that:

1. The universal education of the people is now regarded among the primary objects of legislation, and a system of common or public schools is now ordained in the constitution or fundamental law, and organized and administered by legally constituted authorities in every State and Territory.

2. In every State there is a department of public instruction, under either a board or a single officer, charged with the supervision of this great interest, and in communication with the subor dinate officers in the remotest and smallest corporation into which the territory may be divided.

3. For the establishment and support of public schools, permanent funds, amounting in the aggregate to over $100,000,000 are set apart; and all property, real and personal, is subject to State and local taxation, and was assessed in 1871 to the amount of over $75,000,000 for public school purposes.

4. To provide local accommodations and material facilities for public schools, within the last twenty-five years, upwards of $100,000,000 have been invested in school-houses and their equipment.

5. To realize an adequate return from this immense expenditure, more than 100 State and City normal and training schools have been established, and a system of examination and inspection instituted, more or less efficient, to exclude incompetent teachers; and to improve the qualifications of persons actually engaged in the work of instruction, more than 400 institutes are now held annually, in which over 50,000 teachers spend from three to five days in professional studies and exercises.

6. Notwithstanding this legislation and these expenditures, the non-school attendance and the adult illiteracy of the country is alarming, the national census of 1870 returning 4,528,084 persons, ten years of age and over, who can not read, and 5,658,144 who can not write; and of the last number 4,880,371 are native born.

7. The national census of 1870 returns 125,056 public schools of different grades, with 183,198 (109.024 females) teachers; 6,228,060 pupils (about equally divided as to sex); and a total expenditure of $64,030,673, of which sum $58,855,507 was raised by property taxation.

SCHOOLS TEACHERS AND SUPERINTENDENTS.

CONVENTION OF TEACHERS AND SUPERINTENDENTS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS, Held at Philadelphia, October 17, 18, and 19, 1849.

A National Convention of Teachers, Superintendents of Public Schools, and Friends of Education generally, assembled at Philadelphia, in the Hall of the Comptroller of Public Schools, on the 17th of October, 1849, and continued in daily and evening sessions until the close of the evening of the 19th-under the presidency of Hon. Horace Mann, member of Congress, and late Secretary of the Board of Education for the State of Massachusetts.

OPENING ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT.

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:-The duty of setting forth the specific purposes of this meeting does not devolve upon me; but there are some benefits to be derived from it, so signal and prominent, as to deserve a passing notice.

I suppose the great proportion of the gentlemen whom I see around me, and whose presence on this occasion I most cordially welcome, to be practical teachers,men whose daily occupation is in the school-room. But from the fifteen States which are represented here, there are men of another class,— men who fill high and responsible offices in the great work of public instruction, Secretaries of State, who are charged with the interest of public education in their respective States, superintendents of schools, secretaries of boards of education, and others, to whose hands vast and precious interests have been confided, upon whom the most weighty responsibilities have been cast; and from whose administration, the matured fruits of wisdom are expected. Now all teachers have felt the genial and upholding influences of sympathy, in discharging the duties of the school-room. All have grown wiser while listening to the counsels of experience. The teacher who has met a hundred of his fellow-teachers in a public assembly, and communed with them for days, enlightening his own judgment by the results of their experience, and kindling his own enthusiasm by their fires, goes back to his schoolroom with the light of a hundred minds in his head, and with the zeal of a hundred bosoms burning in his heart.

Now, if school teachers need this encouragement and assistance in their labors, and can be profited by them, how much more do those high officers need encouragement and assistance upon whom rests the responsibility, not of one school only, but of all the schools in a State. If the vision of the one, in his narrow sphere, needs enlightenment, how much illumination ought to be poured over the vast fields of the other. I see those around me who have been engaged in the great work of organizing systems of education for a State; I see those on whom has devolved the statesman-like duty of projecting plans