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I was taken over some of the Schools of Chicago by the Superintendent of Schools for the City. Those I saw were chiefly used by the children of German & Irish Parents. They did not appear so quick as the children of native Americans. The variety also of feature, & more general fullness of face observable among them, indicated their foreign extraction. Americanization in these particulars takes place in the second or third generation. They were cleanly? clearly? & orderly, & looked well clothed & well fed. In the Illinois system there are ten grades, the tenth is the lowest in the primary school, unclear & the first the highest in the Grammar School. No copy slips are used in these schools. They write at first from something set before them on the Black board. When sufficiently advanced they write each day from memory something they were taught on the previous day. In Chicago the number of children attending school falls very far short indeed of the number of those who are of an age to attend. This is what might have been expected in a town that has grown to such dimensions in a single generation. Great efforts however are being made to overtake the work. The difficulty just at present is to get School buildings quickly enough. It is certain that neither the city itself, nor their zealous & able Superintendent, will fall short of the occasion.

The Americans are in the habit of speaking very disparagingly of their Official class. I never heard on speak in any other tone on this subject. If the canon? that whatever all men, at all times, & in all places,