There is no general or national system of common-school instruction in Switzerland. Each canton regulates its own schools. There, as in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, attendance upon schools is made compulsory. In 1870 the attendance of children between six and thirteen years of age was between 95 and 96 per cent. of the whole school population. Now, what kind of a school system have we in the United States? Here, as in Switzerland, there is no general or national system of school instruction. Each State regulates its own schools in all details. In 1870 the total school population, excluding the Territories, in the United States was 14,093,778; the number actually enrolled in the public schools was 8,881,848, or 63 per cent. of the whole; and the average daily attendance upon the public schools was 4,886,289, or a little over 34-1/2 per cent. of the school population. An inclusion of the Territories in the computation does not vary the percentage in any appreciable degree. In the Northern States only, excluding the Territories, and excluding also Minnesota and Wisconsin, whose returns I have not at hand, there were 8,364,841 school population, while the average daily attendance was only 3,720,133, a trifle over 44 per cent. In the United States there is practically no compulsory attendance upon school. Schools are provided by the State, and the children attend or refrain from attendance as suits the convenience or wish of the pupils or their parents. That compulsory attendance upon school is productive of a wider and more thorough diffusion of knowledge is probably conceded by all. At least, educators so urge. What would Professor March have? Does he expect to find education as thorough and general among a people of whose school population less than one-half are in usual attendance at school, and less than two-thirds even enrolled as occasional attendants at school, as among a people with whom over 95 per cent. of the school population are in constant and habitual attendance? When we consider the published school statistics of this nation, it is no wonder that about one-seventh of the whole are unable to read and write. Shall we give no credit to compulsory systems of education, and still insist that the illiteracy of the United States is caused in any appreciable degree by the "difficulties of English spelling"?