This balance of income is carried forward to meet the payment of salaries due to the Normal School teachers, January 1, 1872, which

will quite absorb that sum.

BOSTON, January 20, 1872.

JOSEPH WHITE,
CHARLES ADAMS, Jr.,

Commissioners.

In my last report I gave a succinct account of the origin and history of this fund,-pointing out from the reports made at various times to the legislature, and the Acts passed thereupon, the purposes intended to be subserved in the creation of the fund, and the subsequent additions made to it; and showing that the whole course of legislation from the beginning up to a recent period was in harmony with, and in furtherance of, the broad and liberal views which guided in its original creation.

And that course of legislation which had produced the most beneficent results, was reversed in 1864, when a law was passed which diverted the net proceeds of the Back Bay enterprise from the school fund when it should reach the sum of $2,000,000, to which said proceeds had been sacredly devoted, and using them for the extinction of debts contracted in the war, thereby and to the extent of the sums thus diverted, relieving from taxation the rich and rapidly growing sections of the Commonwealth at the expense of the poorer and less thrifty districts.

When the law was enacted, providing for the increase of the School Fund from the avails of the Back Bay enterprise, and it was also provided that one moiety of the income of the fund should be paid to the towns for the support of schools, the opinion prevailed that the increase of the fund would so keep pace with that of population that the amount to be divided would, for a long time to come, be a substantial aid, especially to those towns which greatly need it. It was in like manner believed that the moiety devoted to general educational purposes would not only be amply sufficient for all such purposes, but also leave a considerable annual surplus to be added to the principal of the fund.

But the repeal of this law has brought us face to face with another condition of things.

The principal of the fund has reached its maximum, having passed the limit contemplated by the legislation of 1864, only by the receipt of stock dividends issued by the Boston and Albany Railroad, which are not likely to be repeated.

The income, which was for the past year $177,496.46, will not be greater in future years. The moiety to be divided among the towns is sufficient to give to each child, between five and fifteen years, thirty-two cents. This small pittance will, from the present year, be annually diminished, as population increases, until at no very distant day it will become so small as to render no appre

ciable aid to the towns, while in a large number of them, from other causes than the increase of their school population, the necessity for such aid is constantly becoming more and more pressing.

On the other hand, the reasonable requirements of the present year for the support of the existing Normal Schools, for the limited system of agencies of which I have already spoken, and for those ordinary operations of the Board and its Secretary which are required by law, more than equal in the aggregate the other moiety of income which is set apart for these and similar uses, reduced as that moiety is by the payment of interest on the sums expended and to be expended in the erection of Normal School buildings. Also, the new Normal School, at Worcester, will present its claims to the legislature of 1873, for an equal provision with the others.

Moreover, public opinion is unmistakably looking toward the adoption of a far more comprehensive system of means for the better education of teachers and more thorough supervision of the schools. It is seen that in these respects we are drifting behind the younger and vigorous States, and that there is serious danger that we shall rest satisfied with past achievements, until the contrast between our own progress and theirs will be an unpleasant subject to contemplate.

The demand, therefore, for larger means and a more perfect organization must soon be met. And can it be doubted that the people and their representatives will meet it with that wise liberality which has hitherto characterized the legislation of the Commonwealth?

With an educational system which embraces our five thousand schools, eight thousand teachers and two hundred and eighty thousand pupils, which is supported by an annual taxation of nearly $3,500,000, and in whose successful working the long life of the Commonwealth is bound up, there need be no apprehension that any reasonable expenditures will be withheld which are necessary to keep a machinery so vast and so beneficent in vigorous and healthful play. The people will not be much longer restricted to the use of instrumentalities, which answered the demands of the time when they were called into being, thirty years ago; and which were then regarded only as the first steps towards a complete system.

While, with a generous hand, they open the doors of the public treasury, to the demands of our higher institutions, of science and liberal culture, they will not fail to make an equally generous provision for the just demands of the Public Schools, in which alone the vast majority of the children receive their only education.

HALF-MILL SCHOOL FUND.

I desire to invite your attention to a phase of our school system to which I have once or twice alluded briefly; but which, in my judgment, assumes such a degree of importance as to demand a more extended and careful consideration. I refer to the marked disparity in the burdens which it imposes upon the different cities and towns for its support, and the unequal benefits which it confers.

Through all the periods of our history, we have held fast to the maxim enunciated by the founders of the colony, in 1642, "that the good education of children is of singular behoof and benefit to any Commonwealth." This was the corner-stone of the great enactment, five years later, which founded the system of free schools.

The free school exists not solely, nor chiefly, for the individual persons, or separate members which compose it, but through these for the whole "body politic," the Commonwealth. Hence the right of the State, than which none is more sacred, and the duty of the State, than which none is more urgent, to provide free public instruction.

This may be done in three ways:

1. By a general tax, levied equally upon the entire property of the State; as is the case in Indiana and one or two other States of the Union.

2. By taxation of the several towns and districts, to be determined as to the amount by the legal voters thereof; as is substantially the case with ourselves.

3. By the combined taxation of the State and the towns or districts, as in New York and the larger number of the States of the Union.

Ours is the second method mentioned. The attitude of the Commonwealth is that of command,-of force. She utters her

commands, with penalties annexed, to every city and town within her borders, to maintain schools, of such grades, in such number, and for such times as she deems best; determines the qualifications of the teachers; prescribes the branches of study to be taught, the mode of administration, and the means of securing attendance; and all this that she may secure the prevalence of intelligence throughout her borders, without which she could not exist an hour as a free and prosperous Commonwealth.

Obviously, this method of supporting a State system of schools is equitable only when the several municipalities occupy such a position in respect to population and wealth that the burden thus thrown upon one will press equally upon all.

Such was substantially the condition of things when our school system was originally established. In the homogeneous character of the people; in the similarity of their tastes, habits, modes of domestic life, and in the similarity of occupations (agriculture and the fisheries being the principal industries), were found the conditions of a substantial uniformity of "worldly fortune" throughout the several towns of the new and growing colony most favorable for the great experiment.

During the periods of our colonial, provincial and constitutional history until the close of the first quarter of the present century, these favorable conditions remained substantially the

same.

But these conditions no longer exist; and the old method of supporting our schools has ceased to be equitable, and in many cases it has well nigh ceased to be practicable.

The introduction of the great branches of manufacturing industry which draw large masses of people to convenient centres; the vast increase of internal trade and of external commerce by means of our railroad system spreading like network over our territory, and all converging to a few central points, have silently, yet wonderfully, changed the old order and relations of our municipalities to each other. The population and wealth, once diffused with comparative equality, have in a large degree left the rural districts for the great centres of trade and industry.

In illustration and proof of this change, and to a certain degree of its extent, I invite attention to the following table, which gives, first, the names of the counties, alphabetically arranged;