Amazon.com description: Product Description: This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1912. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... payers benefit particularly, because they are usually able to support their children through the longer course while the laboring classes are compelled by economic necessity to put their children out at work, at least on the completion of their elementary studies, if not before. An examination of the tables printed in the report of the federal commissioner of education for the year ending June 30, 1911, shows a much larger per capita expenditure for children in high schools than in elementary schools. Of course, the expenses of higher education are naturally greater than for the more elementary work, but this alone will not account for the discrepancy. Louisville spent $24.75 Per pupil in the elementary schools and $83.07 per pupil in the high schools; Seattle, $44.29 for the former and $102.03 for tne latter. In other cities the difference is not so great. In Canton, Ohio, the figures are $25.90 and $41.92 respectively; and in Ithaca, New York, $30.45 and $40.43. Roughly speaking, however, twice as much per capita is spent on the pupils of the high schools as on those of the elementary schools. The willingness of the taxpayers to pay for schools is complemented by the willingness of large numbers of the working class to make every sacrifice possible to enable their children to take advantage of the facilities offered; for education, they think, opens the way for an escape from the drudgery and anxieties which beset the life of the proletariate. For these reasons, democratic and economic, the school systems of our cities present one of the most inspiring aspects of our municipal advance; and recent tendencies seem to show that we are on the eve of a new era, in which the social features of education will be emphasized, the practical needs of industrial ...