The office has sent to correspondents 40,000 pieces of matter, of which there were —
| Of letters, circulars, and inquiries | 16,000 |
| Documents (packages) | 30,000 |
and has received from its correspondents 30,000 pieces of mail matter, of which
| Letters, circulars, receipts, and replies numbered | 27,000 |
| Documents (packages) | 3,000 |
The printing of the circulars of information has been more than doubled during the year, and yet this work is much behind.
The Commissioner notes a marked advance in the adoption of the most approved methods of teaching.
Not least among the progressive movements of institutions for superior instruction is the extension of their advantages to women, adding to the provisions secured by colleges endowed especially for them, facilities in connection with some of the oldest and wealthiest foundations for young men.
The colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts are making commendable advance in their appointed province. Great industrial interests are beginning to acknowledge the benefits received from their researches and from the trained experts they are sending out. In this work they are ably supplemented by the technical and industrial schools. sustained by private endowments.
The increasing practice by professors in our scientific schools of supplementing ordinary class work with extensive held teaching, he notes as an interesting example of the tendency toward original investigation developing among our educators.
In professional training some efforts are being made to increase preliminary qualifications, to extend the professional course to at least three years in all ordinary cases, and to so grade the studies as to permit term examinations instead of postponing all these severe tests to the end of the entire course.
He notes also the progress made in training in special industries, as wood-carving, industrial drawing, cookery, nursing, &c.
The Commissioner expresses the opinion that population in the Territories has outstripped the number of school-houses and teachers, and that the present Territorial provisions for education are inadequate. He renews his recommendation that greater importance be given to educational office in the Territories.
In the continued embarrassed condition of education in the Territories and in the South he finds reason for earnestly renewing his recommendation of the passage by Congress of some measure of financial aid, which he suggests might, at first, be distributed on the basis of illiteracy.
