An understanding of the development of education in the territories and insular possessions of the United States and the relations which the Federal Government has established and maintained to education in each, necessitates keeping in mind the historical background of their acquisition, the objectives involved and manner of their acquirement, the social and economic conditions of the people concerned, and the general policy of the Federal Government, in so far as there is such a policy, with respect to their ultimate political destiny. With the acquisition of Alaska in 1867 the United States ventured into new fields, new so far as the idea of adding non-adjacent territory is concerned; new, too, in that it assumed responsibility for the political assimilation of peoples alien in race and culture to the prevailing population, at that time chiefly of Northern European stock. To be sure, acquiring new territory was no departure from established procedure. Heretofore, however, the acquisition of territory was more or less in the interests of expansion due to normal increase in, or acquisition of population under traditional circumstances, i.e., migration from Europe, almost entirely. Alaska was not acquired because of the need for more territory nor was there any definite intention of colonizing the territory with people from the United States, at least not at the time of its acquisition. There was no sentiment in the United States at the time, either for an extensive empire or for jurisdiction over people with an established political and cultural status. It is not surprising, then, that the purchase of Alaska failed to meet the approval of a large part of the people of the United States. Indeed, it was for many years considered an extravagance on the part of Secretary of State Seward, the man whose statesmanship was primarily responsible. The acquisition of Alaska was followed by years of practically entire neglect of the territory and of the people living in it, due primarily to its remoteness, the difficulties involved in reaching it, and the hardships connected with living there, but due also to the lack of interest of the American people, already in possession of a vast frontier stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean then awaiting development, in new territory. Not until the Spanish War period when both world sentiment and the turn of fortune pointed in the direction of territorial expansion, was the precedent set by the acquisition of Alaska again followed. As an immediate result of the Spanish American War, the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico and Guam came under the jurisdiction of the American Government. The annexation of Hawaii occurred almost simultaneously as an indirect if not an immediate effect of the war itself and of the changed sentiment toward the acquisition of territory, at least for