for wages of any child under thirteen years of age at any kind of work during school hours (chapter 508, Acts of 1894).

12. Amendment to the laws so as not to require towns to make by-laws concerning truants and the place of commitment.

13. Presentments by truant officers of parents for non-compliance with the compulsory law under a general rule or vote of the School Board of the town.

14. One or more State school attendance officers, to be employed as agents of the Board of Education in securing attendance of children upon the schools, and having all the powers throughout the State, to be exercised in emergencies now conferred or hereafter to be conferred by law upon local truant officers.

15. A change of the name truant school to the name parental school, for all truant schools.

16. Separating truants from children known to be guilty of graver offences, and generally for the separation of children in truant schools into small families.

Assigning to the Board of Education, or to a special bureau, the conduct and supervision of truant schools, with State support. 19. The removal of the direct tax of $2 per week upon towns for the support of children while attending a truant school.

20. A truant school or schools for girls separate from the schools for boys.

21. Some minor changes in wording are needed to make more intelligible to school officers the meaning of the laws; for example, the last paragraph of section 17, chapter 508, Acts of 1894, needs recasting, unless it is intended to accept for illiterate minors 20 weeks' attendance upon an evening school in place of 30 weeks in day schools.

The Board was directed by the last Legislature to make a further study of the subject, and to submit to the Legislature of 1897 a draft of a measure that shall aim to secure the desired results.

THE EDUCATIONAL MUSEUM.

One of the four rooms assigned by the governor and council for the purposes of the museum has been fitted up with shelves by the State House Commissioners at an expense of about $1,000. Among the works and objects placed upon these shelves are the following:

1. The bound volumes of school exercises sent to the

World's Fair at Chicago and to the Atlanta Exposition, 504 volumes.

2. The American Journal of Education, 30 volumes.

3. The reports of the State Board of Education, 59 volumes. The New England Journal of Education, 44 volumes. Other educational serials, 54 volumes.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Recent educational books, 279 volumes.

Written exercises from German schools, several hun

dred sets.

8.

9.

French and German text-books, 621 volumes.

Maps, charts, atlases and allied illustrative material. While this room is now accessible to any specially interested in its contents, upon application to the secretary, it is not yet open to the public.

Most of the Chicago exhibit is still stored in the basement of the Latin school building.

The three remaining rooms assigned to the museum are now used by legislative committees. These committees have been badly cramped for suitable quarters thus far during the construction of the State House. It is hoped that upon the completion of the State House, earlier if possible, the museum rooms will no longer be needed by the Legislature, and that an adequate sum of money will be available to put them in order for their assigned purpose. For an extended account of what the museum should be, see the fifty-ninth report of the Board, pages 124-126.

SPECIAL SCHOOLS.

["Every institution for the instruction of the deaf, dumb and blind, when aided by a grant of money from the State treasury, shall annually make to the Board such a report as is required, by sections sixteen and seventeen of chapter seventy-nine, of other private institutions so aided." (Public Statutes, chapter 41, section 15.)]

The following is a list of the special institutions to which persons may be sent upon recommendation from the Board of Education to the Governor :

1. The American School, at Hartford (Conn.), for the Deaf. 2. The Clarke School for the Deaf, Northampton..

3.

Horace Mann School for the Deaf, Boston.

4. Sarah Fuller Home for Little Children who cannot hear, Medford.

5. Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind, Boston.

6. The Massachusetts School for the Feeble-minded, Waltham.

Blank forms that need to be filled out by applicants for admission to any of the foregoing schools can be obtained from the secretary of the Board.

THE AMERICAN SCHOOL, AT HARTFORD, FOR THE DEAF.
JOB WILLIAMS, L.H.D., Principal.

Number of Massachusetts beneficiaries during the school year 1895-96,
Number admitted from Massachusetts during the year,
Number in school from Massachusetts at the present time,.

The whole number in attendance for the year exceeded that of any other year within a decade, but there are still deaf children whose parents, in unconscious ignorance of the laws of mental growth, keep them at home until they have reached an age when the mind has become so stunted and unpliable that, though naturally possessed of fair ability, they can never attain to good scholarship. Still other parents there are who, strange as it may seem, do not learn of the generous provision made by the State for the education of the deaf until their unfortunate children are men and women grown. The State authorities or the local school officers would gladly furnish the necessary information if those who know of such parents would call the attention of the authorities to them. Many deaf children ought to be at school when they are not. The State would rather educate them now than provide for them by and by as 、undeveloped and burdensome members of the community,— possibly as criminals.

The work of the school year was seriously interrupted by sickness. Of the half dozen cases of scarlet fever, three of diphtheria and thirty-nine of measles, all but one fully recovered.

In the death of Mr. W. G. Jenkins, which occurred in March, 1896, the school was called upon to part with one of its most highly valued and successful instructors. For ten years he had rendered very efficient service here. A born teacher, possessing rare skill gained through long experience, his loss is almost irreparable.

In spite of the prolonged interruption of the school through illness, good progress was made in all the school work of the year. Nearly all the teachers have had many years of experience in teaching the deaf, and have acquired great skill in their instruction. They waste no time on experiments which have proved useless, while holding themselves open to every suggestion which promises better results.

Speech and lip reading-practical and very important elements in the education of the deaf- are thoroughly taught by skilled teachers, and with results substantial and gratifying. Every pupil entering the school receives instruction in these branches until the special teachers are convinced that no satisfactory results can be obtained in them, whereupon such pupils are reluctantly dropped, in order that they may devote their time to those things which will be of greater benefit to them. About seventy per cent. of the pupils continue to have instruction in speech and lip reading to the end of their school course. Twenty-five boys received instruction in shoemaking and twenty-eight boys in cabinet-making during the year.

THE CLARKE SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF (NORTHAMPTON).

Miss CAROLINE A. YALE, Principal.

Number of Massachusetts beneficiaries during the school year 1895-96,
Number admitted from Massachusetts during the year,
Number in school from Massachusetts at the present time,

Franklin Carter, president of the corporation, makes the following report, under date of Oct. 14, 1896:

On Aug. 31, 1896, the Clarke School for the Deaf successfully concluded its twenty-ninth school year. In accordance with the enlarged accommodations reported last year, the number of pupils enrolled reached the largest figure yet known, 150 in all. The number of pupils paying full tuition was 13. The State of Massachusetts was represented by 118 pupils; New Hampshire and Vermont had the next largest representation, -12 and 8 respectively.

The health conditions were so unusually good that the hospital was not opened during the entire year. The only case of illness among the pupils was a single mild case of pneumonia.

In accordance with a petition from the corporation, the name of the school was changed by action of the General Court from "The

Clarke Institution for Deaf Mutes" to "The Clarke School for the Deaf."

The school has met with an inestimable loss during the past year, in the death of one of its oldest and most faithful friends, Mr. Lewis J. Dudley.

In connection with the death of Mr. Dudley, whose relation to the Clarke School covered almost the whole period during which the oral method of teaching the deaf was under discussion in America, it may be well to point out the present state of that question. When Mr. Dudley abandoned the sign language as the chief means of instructing deaf children, in which, indeed, his own child had been partly educated, it was the prevailing method in France, in Italy and other European countries, which have since abandoned it, and it was nearly universal in this country. This was in 1867. The coming winter will complete a period of thirty years during which a great change has been in progress, which has now resulted in a reversal of their then existing situation. Not only has the pure oral method of instruction supplanted the manual method for thousands of children in this country and for still larger numbers in Europe, but what is now called the manual method or the combined method is almost wholly different from the system in use in 1867. Then, in the sign language schools oral instruction was given to few, was but slightly regarded and had little effect; now, in the same schools instruction by signs is almost as much out of favor as oral teaching was at that time. Nominally, oral training is now tried with a majority of pupils, and where it is not continued the manual alphabet takes the place. In one great State school that of Philadelphia oral instruction and teaching by the manual alphabet are carried on in separate departments, distinct from each other, while the sign language is rejected as a means of education. This seems to us the only form of the combined method which can prudently be adopted, for the mixture of the two methods in one school injures the best effect of both.

A recent publication by that useful agency, the "Volta Bureau," at Washington, gives a great number of facts, carefully collected by Mr. Hitz, in regard to schools for the deaf in all parts of the world. Some of these facts can be cited here with propriety.

It seems there are in all some 520 special schools for deaf children, with nearly 4,000 teachers and 33,000 pupils; of these, about 100 schools, with 1,120 teachers and 10,000 pupils, are in North America, -chiefly in the United States. Of the United States pupils, more than 5,000 receive instruction in articulation, and 2,500 of these by methods purely oral; while 4,200 are taught wholly by the manual method and 2,400 by a combined method. In Europe about 22,000 children are in special schools for the deaf, as against some 17,000