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V. 16:9

EDUCATION IN UTAH.

The illiteracy in Utah is 21⁄2 per cent and the state stands third in literacy.

Utah teachers, of whom there are 703 males and 1,934 females, received $1,564,522 in wages for the year 1912.

Utah has seven hundred public schools, with 2,637 teachers; and 111,331 children of school age of whom 95,000 receive instruction in the schools.

The valuation of school property in Utah has increased from $1,386,851, in 1906, to $8,000,000, in 1913; and the school popuIation, from 79,339 to 111,331. The amount expended annually for the support of common schools during the same period increased from $900,995 to $4,000,000.

Utah has four public high schools with at least three hundred boys attending, among whom there isn't one boy who uses tobacco or strong drink in any form. It is the ambition of every high school in the state, under the direction of the state officers, to reach this standard.

The public high schools of Utah have increased from five, in 1900, when 1,088 students enrolled, to forty in 1913, with an enrollment of more than 6,000 students. The enrollment in the high schools of the United States increased from half a million, in 1900, to nearly a million, in 1910; during the past ten years the increase in Utah has much more than kept pace with that of the nation at large.

The standard of qualification of teachers in Utah is as high as that of any other state in the Union. State Superintendent, A. C. Nelson is authority for the statement that there are only three other states requiring the same standard,-New York, Indiana and California. Andrew S. Draper, who died recently, erected a lasting invisible monument to his educational career by raising the standard of efficiency of the public school teachers of his state, New York; and the requirement of certification of teachers in Utah, in operation since 1911, ranks with the new reg-. ulations in New York.

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HON. P. P. CLAXTON, UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION

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Salt Lake City and Utah have for their guests this month the largest education association in the world-the National Education Association, which meets July 5 to 11. While it is the largest organization of the kind in the world, some of the readers of the ERA may not have an adequate conception of its purpose and mission or the great volume of business done by its officials, nor of the great number of people who are interested permanently and temporarily in the association. Secretary Durand W. Springer reports that his postage bill amounts to something over $2,000 a year and that since last September over 20,000 letters have been deposited in the local postoffice at Ann Arbor, Michigan, the present residence city of the secretary. The permanent fund of the association amounts to $190,000, and yields. an income in interest of $7,000 a year. For the year 1912 the association received from various sources nearly $50,000, and the total expenses for the year, including nearly $10,000 which was transferred to the permanent fund, approximated $45,000, leaving still a balance of $4,000 in the treasury.

HISTORY AND GROWTH OF THE ASSOCIATION

It is difficult to determine the question of priority of organization among several educational associations of a national or semi-national character that arose in the early history of the United States. It appears that the earliest activity in the direction of a national organization for the advancement of educational interests in the United States took place in 1830 and the following

*The writer is indebted to Secretary Durand W. Springer for reports, bulletins, and historical documents from which the facts in this article are culled; also for the portraits accompanying.

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