=Education.=--The Constitution requires that "the legislature shall
provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient
system of free public schools for the instruction" of the children of
the state. It is because of this requirement and the desire of the
people to enforce it that the state has such excellent schools.
The principal officers of the state department of public instruction
are the members of the state board of education, the commissioner
of education, and four assistant commissioners. Each county has a
county superintendent of schools, and each city and large town has its
own board of education and superintendent of schools or supervising
principal.
[Illustration: Nassua Hall, Princeton University]
In the school year 1919-1920 the number of pupils who attended the
public schools was 591,798. The number of teachers was 18,873. Because
of good schools and of compulsory school attendance, there were in
1910, only 113,502 illiterates, or persons of ten years of age and over
who could not read or write, or 5.6 per cent of the total population.
Of these illiterates, 93,000 were of foreign birth and less than one
per cent were of native white parentage.
State normal schools for the training of teachers are located at
Trenton, Montclair, Newark, and Glassboro. City normal schools are
maintained for the same purpose by Jersey City, Paterson, Trenton,
and Camden. The state maintains summer schools for the preparation of
teachers and makes appropriations to the State Agricultural College,
a department of Rutgers College at New Brunswick. Special schools
maintained by the state are: Farnum School, at Beverly, which is
associated with the Trenton Normal School; the School for the Deaf at
Trenton; and the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored
Youths at Bordentown. Higher institutions of learning which are located
in New Jersey are: Princeton University at Princeton, Rutgers College
at New Brunswick, Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, St.
Peter's College at Jersey City, College of St. Elizabeth at Convent
Station, Mount St. Mary's College at Plainfield, Drew Theological
Seminary at Madison, Seton Hall College at South Orange, Upsala College
at Kenilworth, Bloomfield Theological Seminary at Bloomfield, and
College of Jersey City.
[Illustration: The metropolitan district including northeastern New
Jersey and southeastern New York]