Year reported. Public high schools.. Public normal schools. CHAPTER XXXVII. STATISTICS OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS. For the scholastic year ending June, 1896, there were 559,003 students receiving secondary instruction in institutions reporting to the Bureau of Education. This was an increase of 19,291 over the number reported for the year ending June, 1895. The number of students pursuing secondary studies in the elementary schools and not reported separately probably does not exceed 50,000. A fair estimate of the total number of secondary students in the United States would be 600,000. The 559,003 secondary students reported for 1896 were distributed among eight classes of institutions, as follows: Institutions. Males. Females. Total. The above table does not take into account students of secondary grade in business colleges. The total number of students reported by 398 business colleges was 80,662, and of these 37,630 were in regular commercial courses and may be regarded as secondary students. These added to the total of the above table would swell the total number of secondary students reported to 596,633. The purpose of this chapter is to review the statistics of public and private high schools, these two classes of institutions having nearly seven-eighths of all the secondary students in the United States. The following table shows the growth of public and private high schools for the past seven years: The increase in the total number of secondary students in seven years has been nearly 64 per cent, the increase in the number of public secondary students being 87 per cent, while the private secondary students increased only 12 per cent. The relative progress of public and private high schools for the past seven years Teachers. Students. is graphically illustrated by the diagram on the next page. The private schools reached their highest enrollment in 1893-94, when they had 118,645 students. Since then the number has decreased nearly 12,000. The statistics for 1892-93 were incomplete, but the number of public secondary students for that year is estimated at 260,000 and the number of private secondary students at 103,000. The following table of percentages shows the proportion of students in public high schools as compared with private high schools for each year since 1890: Proportion of secondary schools, teachers, and students for seven years. In 1890 the public high schools comprised less than 61 per cent of the number of secondary schools, while in 1896 they had increased to over 70 per cent. In 1890 the public high schools had nearly 56 per cent of the teachers, while in 1896 they had over 64 per cent. In 1890 the public high schools had 68 per cent of the secondary students, and in 1896 they had 78 per cent. PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS. It is found convenient to examine separately the statistics of public high schools and private high schools and academies and finally to combine the results in a statistical review of secondary education. In this chapter Tables 1 to 10, inclusive, are summaries of the statistics of public high schools, Tables 11 to 22 relate exclusively to private high schools and academies, while Tables 23 to 29 combine the statistics of public and private high schools. Tables 29 and 30 show the distribution of secondary students in the various classes of institutions. The number of public high schools reporting to this office for the year ending June, 1896, was 4,974, as may be seen from Table 1. Of the total number 1,814 were reported as independent high schools, and 3,160 as high school departments of city or village systems. Here was an increase of 262 public high schools over the number reported for the previous year. The number of teachers employed in instructing secondary students in the public high schools was 15,700, the number of men being 7,226 and the number of women 8,474. This does not include the teachers whose time was wholly employed in instructing pupils in elementary grades attached to many high schools. The number of secondary students in the 4,974 schools was 380,493, the number of boys being 157,942, and the girls numbering 222,551, or 58.49 per cent of the whole number. More than half the secondary students, or 195,634, were in the North Central Division, composed of 12 States. The North Atlantic Division, composed of 9 States, had 114,731, while the remaining 29 States and Territories included in the two Southern divisions and the Western Division had only 70,128 secondary students in public high schools. In the public high schools of the North Atlantic, North Central, and Western divisions and in colored high schools of the two Southern divisions were 4,708 colored secondary students. The last column of Table 1 shows that there were 253,980 pupils receiving instruction in elementary departments attached to public high schools. These elementary pupils belonged largely to the independent high schools. STUDENTS AND COURSES OF STUDY. Of the 380,493 secondary students in the public high schools, only 52,597, or less than 14 per cent, were preparing for college. Table 2 shows that 29,222 were preparing for the college classical course and 23,375 for college scientific courses. The number of students preparing for college was 13.82 per cent of the whole |