The burden of educating the children of the nation is a heavy one—a fact perhaps not as fully realized by our rulers and legislators as it ought to be. From the report of the Commissioner of Education, 1882-3, it appears that the estimated real value of sites, buildings, and all other school property in all the states and territories, is $216,562,197. That of course is the existing “school plant” as it may be termed; but to get such a “school plant”—utterly insufficient as it may be—has been more or less burdensome. From the same authority it appears that the amount imposed and expended for common school purposes, in all the states and territories for 1880, was $91,158,039; a large sum, yet after all but little more than half the amount absolutely needed in order to provide adequate school facilities for all entitled thereto. A careful and conservative estimate founded upon all attainable data will show that not less than $160,000,000 annually must be provided to secure the education of all the children of our country of lawful age. Of this amount, provision, as we have seen, is already made in the various states and territories to the extent of over $90,000,000 annually. Of the various measures relating to the subject of national aid to education that have been urged upon the attention of Congress, none has ventured to appropriate a larger annual sum[J] than $50,000,000. Should Congress at any time make an appropriation of that amount, there would still be an annual deficiency of some $20,000,000. It is not at all certain that our national legislators have considered the magnitude of the subject with which they are to deal, nor that they have all investigated it with that degree of care and seriousness which it plainly deserves and even demands at their hands. Every one, without controversy, admits the importance of educating our children; and without doubt, every one of our legislators has not only a warm and friendly feeling for this work, but also a willingness to do something to afford it national aid. But with how many of them is this a willingness without a formed and definite purpose? It were almost better that the importance of such education should be a disputed point—that a storm of controversy should arise and shake them in its throes, forcing them to lay hold of the very horns of the sacred altar of education—rather than that the dead, arid level of inert concession should bring forth nothing save a deceptive mirage. It is time to wake up to the fact that government aid in the line of education means nothing unless it be in the form of an annual appropriation of sufficient amount to produce tangible results.