One retrogressive influence fails to find positive official expression, and is, therefore, the more worthy of notice. This is the collusion among officials to reduce primary school attendance. The Board of Estimate and Apportionment never approves the full appropriation made for the schools. The Board of Education strives to live well within the sum allowed it, and crowds the greatest possible number of children upon each teacher, the regular enrolment being seventy primary pupils per teacher. Then to parry the charge of over-filling schoolrooms, it becomes the duty of the principal to reduce the enrolment per schoolhouse to the lowest point. Therefore, when a zealous Sunday-school teacher finds that one of her little charges has gone to work under age, the offices of the city's solitary factory inspector being out of the question, she hunts up a truant officer, who takes the child before a magistrate, who, in view of the want of school accommodations, promptly discharges the truant. Behind our local municipal administration lies our whole system of capitalistic production, calling for cheap hands and profit, not humane culture. And the school authorities do but seek to supply the demand of that system for lads who can read the papers enough to vote with the machine, and write and cipher enough to be available as clerks. Everything beyond this being unprofitable, the great mass of our city children are turned out of school at the ages of ten, eleven, and twelve years, to furnish "cheap" hands for industrial purposes. The Comptroller's report is substantiated, moreover, by the concurrent testimony of the State Superintendent of Education, who laments that:--[14] [14] Report State Superintendent of Education. Report 1888, p. 12. "There is a large, uneducated class in the State, and our statistics show that it is growing larger. The attendance upon the schools has not kept pace with the advance of population. Recent legislation forbids the employment of children under thirteen years of age in any manufacturing establishment, but no adequate provision is made for gathering them into schools, and the number in the streets grows more rapidly than the number in the schools. Indeed, nothing practical has ever been done in this State by way of compelling attendance upon the schools. The result is sadly apparent and the premonitions are full of warning." In 1889 (p. 13) the same official, Mr. Andrew S. Draper, says:--[15] [15] Report State Superintendent of Education. Report 1889, p. 13. "The total attendance upon the schools, when compared with the whole number of school age, has grown less and less with strange uniformity." The factory inspectors in their report for 1886, say, p. 15:--