Average wages of female teachers per month, Increase from last year, $35 35 $1.01 Amount raised by taxation for support of Public Schools, including only wages of teachers, fuel, care of fires and school-rooms,. Increase for the year, 4,358,523 59 $105,312.42 Income of funds appropriated for Public Schools at the option of the towns, as of surplus revenue, and tax on dogs, Increase for the year, $1,734.19 Voluntary contributions of board, fuel, apparatus, etc., for 52,050 31 30,787 32 Amount of local school funds, the income of which can be legally appropriated only for the support of schools and academies, Income of local funds appropriated for schools and academies, Sum raised by taxes, including income of funds appropriated at the option of the towns, and the tax on dogs (exclusive of taxes for school edifices and superintendence), for each child in the State between five and fifteen years of age-per child, $0.26.3 Increase for the year, Percentage of the valuation, by assessors' returns of 1874, appropriated for Public Schools, including only wages of teachers, fuel, care of fires and school-rooms (two mills and forty-one hundredths), All the towns and cities have raised by taxation the amount required by law ($3 for each person between five and fifteen), as a condition of receiving a share of the income of the State School Fund. Amount expended in 1874 for erecting school-houses, Decrease for the year,. 88,613 45 66,698 25 4,668,472 09 14 96.6 $0.00.2 Amount expended in 1874 for repairing school-houses, Decrease for the year,. Total expended for school-houses in 1874, Estimated value, as returned by committees, of school-houses, including grounds,. Number of schools returned as High Schools,. Evening Schools,-number, 99; kept in thirty-two cities and towns; number of teachers, 525; whole number attending: males, 12,594; females, 3,774; total, 16,368; average attendance, 6,474; expense, $68,442.35. Schools in State Charitable and Reformatory Institutions,- Number of incorporated academies returned, . $20,856,777 50 208 63 7,594 $161,215.63 369 16,650 Amount paid to maintain Public Schools,-for wages, fuel, care of fires and school-rooms, repairing and erecting school-houses, supervising schools, printing reports of school committees, providing apparatus and instruction of children in reformatory and charitable institutions, $436,938.48 6,201,614 63 21 00 For each person in the State between five and fifteen years of age,. Percentage of valuation of 1874 (three and one-half mills), . 0 00.31 Adding to the amount raised by taxation, the income of local funds, tuition paid in Privato Schools, appropriations by the legislature for the benefit of Public Schools, as for Normal Schools, etc., not including the cost of school-books and the expense of scientific and professional schools and colleges, the aggregate expended during the year in Massachusetts for general school education of the people exceeds seven millions. A more particular notice of some points presented in the foregoing summary, may be both interesting and serviceable; and first I notice the statements relating to ATTENDANCE. It appears that while the increase, over the previous year, of the number between five and fifteen years of age was 2,227, the whole number attending the Public Schools was 5,093 greater, and the average attendance was 6,613 greater than before. It also appears that the number attending over fifteen years of age was 32,986, an increase of 8,299 over previous years. These statements furnish gratifying proofs of progress. It is a cheering indication of some check to the practice of crowding the education of the young into the shortest period, and of a return to the former, and far better, practice of prolonging school life into more mature years. Indeed, it is to the unfortunate disposition, so generally prevalent both in the city and the country, to confine the school age within the narrowest possible limits, that we are to look for the cause of the disparaging comparisons often made between the schools of to-day, with those of forty years ago. The faults and failures are to be looked for, not so much in new methods of organization and teaching, as in the persistent and well-nigh frantic efforts of parents to force their children through the schools into active life, as if by hydrostatic pressure. TEACHERS EMPLOYED. Another phase of the practical working of the schools, as presented by these statistics, furnishes the ground for some apprehension. I refer to the increase of the number of different teachers employed in the schools. The whole number returned is 9,216, and the increase over that of the previous year 501, of which number 91 were male teachers, and 410 females. While a considerable proportion of the excess in the number of teachers over that of the schools is due to the employment of assistant teachers in the High Schools and in large ungraded schools, and of special and supernumerary teachers in the cities and larger towns, and also to the changes which are the result of sickness, death and other natural causes, a larger part must be charged to the unfortunate custom, inherited from the usages of a former age, and which still prevail in many country towns, of changing the teachers with every term of the school. If the school year is divided into three terms, the register will often disclose the names of three different teachers, and where the old plan is still followed of keeping a summer school for the smaller children, and a winter school for the older, different teachers are generally employed. Indeed, I have found it not an un common thing to trace the name of a single teacher in the reports for the same year, of two, and sometimes three, neighboring towns. The demand for young men during the war of the rebellion, and the higher rewards for labor of all kinds after it, did much to change the old custom, and it was hoped to annihilate it. The school committees of some of the towns, from motives of economy, and on account of the difficulty of procuring male teachers as well, cautiously entered upon the plan of hiring female teachers for longer periods. The results were, unexpectedly to many, satisfactory, and other towns followed the lead, until the custom bid fair to become universal. In order to provide for the older and more advanced pupils, the more enterprising towns adopted the happy expedient of maintaining High Schools for such portions of the year as seemed advisable,-in some cases for six months, in others for twelve weeks, in others for fifteen weeks. Several of such schools are reported the present year, of which an account will be given under another head. I have watched the progress of these towns with no ordinary interest, and have looked to the general adoption of the system indicated at no distant day. If the wide-spread stagnation in business affairs shall have the effect to check all this, by filling the winter schools with a class of incompetent young men, having little culture and no professional training,-who, for a few weeks in the winter, exchange the axe, the flail, or the mechanic's bench for the schoolhouse, it will be a sad augury for the future of the country schools, more lasting in its effects, and more to be deprecated, than the revulsions in trade which startle and alarm us continually. TRUANT BY-LAWS. The number of towns which report having made the provisions concerning truants required by law is 130. This is considerably less than one-half of the whole number of towns; and, I respectfully suggest, not a creditable report for the towns of the Commonwealth to make. The original law relating to truancy, enacted in 1850, and incorporated with the General Statutes in 1859, simply authorized the towns to make needful by-laws concerning habitual truants, and required the towns, availing themselves of the provisions of the Act, to appoint truant officers, with power to carry the by-laws into execution. In 1862 the truant laws were amended so as to require the towns to make by-laws concerning truants. And such has been the law to the present day, a period of fourteen years. An important amendment was added in 1873, which requires the school committee, instead of the town or city, to appoint truant officers, and fix their compensation. This duty, it should be remembered, is not contingent upon the action of the town. It is an absolute command, and to be obeyed by the committee, whether the town acts or not, for there are other important laws besides those relating to truancy which only the truant officers can exccute. I respectfully invite the earnest attention of the school committees to the importance of a prompt obedience to this law. NORMAL SCHOOLS. The ample statements made by the Visitors of the several Normal Schools leave little to be said with reference to their present condition and needs. Their origin and history are well known, cach step in their progress having been duly set forth in the annual reports of the Board. Their claims to public favor have been freely discussed, not only in these reports, but largely in the annual reports of city and town committees, and not infrequently by the newspaper press. Adverse criticism, biting sarcasm and contemptuous sneers have repeatedly assailed them; nevertheless, after thirty years of "patient continuance in well doing," they have acquired an honorable and well-assured position in public confidence and esteem, as not only valuable, but indispensable forces in our educational system. Reserving for another report certain statistics of these schools, which I originally intended to give in this, I present simply the following statement, compiled from the returns of the school committees, of the number of Normal teachers employed during the school year 1874-5, with the names of the towns in which they were engaged. |