The Commissioner of Education's introduction in volume 1 provides data and discussion on school and college total enrollment, common schools, average schooling amount per U.S. inhabitant, British India's public schools, truant schools, Puerto Rican schools, U.S. educational extension, sociology and education at the Paris Exposition, introduction of reindeer into Alaska, city school systems, higher education, law student increase, land-grant colleges, secondary schools, education of the colored race, and education in Central Europe, Great Britain, the Philippines, Cuba, Hawaii, and Samoa. The introduction lists letter topics received by the office in 1900.Subsequent chapters cover British India's public schools; boys' secondary schools in England; general information on truant schools, statements on truant schools in various cities, laws on the disposition of truants and incorrigibles in 17 states, discussion of British reformatories and allied institutions and expanded coverage of Puerto Rican education. Chapter V, on U.S. educational extension, addresses lyceums, university extension, Chautauqua, summer schools, cities and popular education, arts and music for the people, travel and pilgrimage as educational extension, the idea of a national university, the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, museum extension, higher commercial schools, and newspapers as popular educators. A chapter on common school organization and development from 1830 to 1860 covers the South Central and South Atlantic states. Papers from the 1900 Department of Superintendence meeting in Chicago are presented in chapter VII, including papers on education status at the turn of the century, and on alcohol physiology and superintendence with a discussion paper on that subject. The next chapter covers schoolteachers' role in the struggle against alcoholism, while chapter XXI, the last chapter, discusses temperance physiology. Chapters X, XI, and XII concern college students' adjustment to professional courses, justification for public high schools, and free rural high schools. The National Educational Association committee report on relationship between public libraries and public schools is found in chapter XIII. This includes sections on establishing village libraries, rural and small village libraries, small-library cataloging hints, the librarian's spirit and methods working with schools, certain typical libraries, and schoolroom libraries. Final chapters cover Central European education; public playgrounds and vacation schools; the Old South lectures and leaflets; statistics on public, society, and school libraries; British and Irish education; U.S. education periodicals, and a directory of chief state school officers, city superintendents, college presidents, and normal school principals. [For volume 2, see ED622192.]