Educational Documents provides a valuable introduction for students of education and others to some of the leading passages from reports which run to many thousands of pages. The main theme is the creation of an administrative framework - a genuine national education system. This in turn leads to the subsidiary themes - the relations between Church and State in public education, the training of teachers, the progressive development from elementary to primary and secondary education for all, the growth of technical education from a private to a public activity. This book was first published in 1965 and is a reissue of the fifth edition published in 1986.

Vol. 25 is the report of the commissioner of education for 1880; v. 29, report for 1877.