The Commissioner of Education discusses the office's work and needs; education records; records improved by the Centennial celebration; lessons learned from the educational experience; condition of education at the time of the Declaration of Independence; current U.S. education statistics; education in other countries; education representation at the International Centennial Exhibition of 1876; the U.S. educational exhibit at the Vienna Exposition in 1873; health and education; typhoid fever in schools; unpublished statements and other information of interest; and medical jurisprudence. He also makes recommendations and offers concluding remarks. Appendices include abstracted school-officer reports from the states, territories, and cities, plus data and discussion of Indian education; education conventions and associations; and education in Sunday schools and mission schools. Statistical tables cover state and territorial data; normal schools; commercial and business colleges; kindergarten; secondary education; preparatory schools; institutions for the superior instruction of women; universities and colleges; schools of science, theology, law, medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy; degrees conferred; public libraries with upwards of 300 volumes; museums; institutions for the deaf and dumb and for the blind; statistics of orphan asylums; miscellaneous charities and industrial schools; schools and asylums for feeble-minded children; educational benefactions; education and historical publications; and patentees for school furniture and apparatus.