This is Volume 2 of the Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1896-97, containing Parts II and III. Part II contains the chapters: (1) Federal and State Aid to Higher Education; (2) The First Common Schools of New England; (3) The Learned Professions and Social Control; (4) Eskimo Vocabularies; (5) Educational Matters of Interest in Various States; (6) Foreign Universities; (7) The Beginnings of the Common-School System in the South; or, Calvin Henderson Wiley and the Organization of the Common Schools of North Carolina; (8) The Teaching of Geography in Certain Foreign Countries; (9) Consular Reports on Educational Topics; (10) Miscellaneous Educational Topics; (11) Current Questions; (12) The Growth of Toronto Children; and (13) Report on Education in Alaska. Part III contains the chapters: (1) Institutions for Higher Education; (2) Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges; (3) Professional Schools; (4) Normal Schools; (5) Statistics of Secondary Schools; (6) Statistics of City School Systems; (7) Statistics of Commercial and Business Schools; (8) Schools for Manual and Industrial Training; (9) Education of the Colored Race; (10) Statistics of Schools for the Defective Classes; (11) Statistics of Reform Schools; and (12) Statistics of Education in Foreign Countries. [For "Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1896-97. Volume 1. Containing Part I," see ED622096.]