come to-day to shake hands with the teachers of Maryland on behalf of the teachers of Pennsylvania. He gave an account of the recent rapid increase in the prosperity of the school-system of Pennsylvania in all respects and also spoke of what they intended to do in that State in the future to remedy the defects that still exist.

THE JOHNS HOPKINS INSTITUTIONS.

Among the many noble benefactions for educational and benevolent purposes bestowed in the past year, those of the late Johns Hopkins, of Baltimore, stand grandly prominent. The donor of these, formerly a prosperous merchant in the city and more recently a noted bank- and railroad-manager, having accumulated a great fortune, which there was no immediate family to claim, determined to bestow the larger portion of it on the foundation of a university, a hospital, and an orphans'-home, which should bear his name and be his monument.

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

Accordingly, some years before his death, he secured from the legislature of Mary land a charter for the first of three institutions, the Johns Hopkins University, with liberal provisions, the government to be vested in a board of twelve trustees selected by himself and empowered to fill all vacancies occurring in their number. To this first object of his cherished plans he dedicated his beautiful country-seat of Clifton, in the neighborhood of Baltimore, containing 330 acres, with park, conservatory, gardens, and extensive buildings, bestowing on it, in addition, an endowment-fund of more than $3,000,000, invested in the most profitable form of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad stock. Upon this Clifton property he desired that the buildings for the university should be erected, the park and gardens to be preserved as far as possible, affording it, perhaps, the finest college-domain in America. To the privileges of the university thus founded, colored as well as white youths are to have equally free admission. A liberal provision is to be made for a chair of botany; the other branches of a generous education are to have their proper place; and it is made a matter of special request that the influences of religion may be impressed on the whole management, but without sectarian peculiarity of any kind.

This provided for, his attention was next turned to the maturing of wise plans for the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

THE JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL.

These plans appeared March 10, 1873, in a letter to the trustees whom he had selected to administer the charity. Substantially, they were as follows: on a lot of thirteen acres, in the city, bounded by Wolfe, Monument, Broadway, and Jefferson streets, the needful buildings for a hospital were to be erected, one part to be devoted to the reception and care of sick, poor white persons, another to that of sick, poor colored persons, and still another to that of a limited number of patients able to make compensation for the care and attention they require, the moneys received from these pay-patients to go to the enlargement of the relief afforded to the other classes. The plan adopted for the main building was to be one that would admit of symmetrical additions till accommodations for 400 patients should be reached, while in construction and arrangement it must compare favorably with any other institution of like character in America or Europe. For the service of the hospital, physicians and surgeons of the highest character and greatest skill were to be secured, and a training-school for female nurses was to be established in connection with it, that women competent to care for the sick in the hospital and be of service to the community at large might be constantly in course of preparation. The grounds surrounding the hospital, it was directed, should be inclosed with iron railings and be so laid out and planted with trees and flowers as to afford solace to the sick and be an ornament to the section of the city in which the institution was located.

THE JOHNS HOPKINS ORPHANS' HOME.

On other ground, and entirely separate from the hospital, the same trustees were charged with the duty of erecting suitable buildings for the reception, maintenance, and education of from three to four hundred orphan-children of the colored race, including among these, at their discretion, those who have lost one parent only, or even such as, though not orphans, may be in circumstances requiring the aid of the instituted charity.

In addition to the gift of thirteen acres for a site, Mr. Hopkins dedicated to the hospital and home an amount of real estate and bank-stock estimated by him to be worth $2,000,000 at the moment, with a productive income of at least $120,000. This income he directed the trustees to apply, first, to the erection and completion of the buildings and, afterward, to the maintenance of the two institutions, in the proportion of $100,000 for the hospital to $20,000 for the home. In the management of both he wished to have the same rule hold as in the university, respecting the prevalence of a religious influence devoid of sectarian disturbance or control.

Having made these provisions deliberately and wisely and taken means to have them fully executed, the good man watched for a few months the progress of his plans, and then, December 23, 1873, passed quietly to the heavenly reward of such beneficence. The hospital is to form ultimately a part of the medical school of the Johns Hopkins University, and will, at the death of a surviving sister, come into possession of about $200,000, in addition to the $2,000,000 given it. Nor did his judicious liberality stop here, for after providing generously for his relations, friends, and servants, he left, at his decease, to the Baltimore Manual-Labor School for Indigent Boys, the sum of $20,000; to the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, for the use of its school of design, $10,000; to the Home of the Friendless, $10,000, and to the Baltimore Orphan Asylum, $10,000; all which, with his gifts to the university and hospital, including the value of the grounds bestowed, may be held to make his contributions for these noble objects nearly or quite $6,000,000, Monumentum ære perennius.

OBITUARY.

Prof. Thomas D. Baird, LL. D., principal, and also professor of moral and mental philosophy in Baltimore City College, died July 9, 1873.

He was born in 1819, at Newark, Ohio; was educated at Jefferson College, in Washington County, Pennsylvania, at that time the largest institution of the kind west of the Alleghanies, receiving successively the degrees of A. B. and A. M. He came from the college to Baltimore in 1839, and was elected, though only in his twenty-first year, a professor in the chartered high school, of which the late Rev. Dr. R. J. Breckenridge and William McDonald, with Rev. Dr. Bacchus, still living, were among the trustees. In 1847 he was elected professor of mathematics in Marshall College, Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Resigning this in 1850, he conducted a private school in Baltimore three years, when he removed to the West, accepting a professorship in Westminster College, Missouri. Remaining there three years, he returned to Baltimore and was elected principal of the Baltimore College, a position which he filled up to the time of his decease. He had received the honorary degree of Ph. D. from Concordia College, Missouri, and that of LL. D. from Centre College, Kentucky.

Professor Baird was a close student and laborious worker. He was, for a number of years, a member and secretary of the Maryland Historical Society; he was also an active member of the Children's Aid Society and of the Prisoners' Aid Society; also of the Evangelical Alliance, of the Maryland State Bible Society, and of the city and State Teachers' Associations.

LIST OF SCHOOL-OFFICIALS IN MARYLAND.

STATE-BOARD OF EDUCATION, (formerly State-school-commissioners.)

Hon. M. A. NEWELL, Baltimore, president; P. A. Witmer, George M. Lloyd, General F. Beaven; Samuel Kepler, secretary.

Respecting these the president of the State-board writes, under date of January 19, 1874, "I send you a list of examiners corrected according to my latest information. The new organization of the various county-boards having taken place only last week, I am without official information with regard to several counties. This must be my apology for omittting the Christian name in two cases." He justly holds that the fact of most of the examiners going on into another term of office is a good sign. The examiners are required by law to give their whole time to their public-school-duties.

MASSACHUSETTS.

[From the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh annual reports of the board of education, Hon. Joseph White, secretary.]

SUMMARY OF STATISTICS.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

Total amount of school-fund

1871-72.

1872-73.

Amount of local school-funds, the income of which can be applied only for schools and academies

Income of local funds appropriated for schools and academies.

Donations to prolong public schools or to purchase apparatus.

Income from dog-tax, surplus-revenue-fund, &c., appropriated at the option of the town....

87,651 93

93, 360 39

Raised by taxes for the education of each child 5 to 15 years of age, exclusive of taxes for school-edifices and superintendence

13,335 01

128 63

Amount paid to maintain public schools.

132

44

176

Number of pupils over 15 years of age.

Number of high schools in towns required by law to maintain them.
Number of high schools in towns not required by law to maintain them.
Total number of high schools

SCHOOLS IN STATE-INSTITUTIONS.

Number of schools in State charitable and reformatory institutions..
Number of teachers in State charitable and reformatory institutions..
Whole number of different pupils..

Average attendance

Number of pupils 5 to 15 years of age

18

25

1,148

735

475

348

*Included in total expense of supervizion.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS.

The total amount of taxes for public schools, in 1871-72 including wages, fuel, care of fires and school-rooms, repairing and erecting school-houses, superintending schools, printing school-reports, providing apparatus and instruction of children in re- . formatory institutions and almshouses, was $5,476,927.65; being for each person in the State between 5 and 15 years of age $19.39; for each man, woman, and child in the State, $3.76. The aggregate amount of money from all sources expended during the year for popular education, in private schools and academies, as well as in public schools, but not including the cost of books or the expense of professional and scientific schools and colleges, was $6,350,000, or $22.85 for each person between 5 and 15 years of age and $4.36 for each person of the entire population."

In comparing the above items with those of a like summary for the year 1864-'65, it appears that in the period of six years there has been an increase of 444 schools; of 35,210 persons between 5 and 15; of scholars of all ages in the public schools, 50,197; of teachers employed, 1,076; of the average length of public schools, eleven days; of the wages of male teachers, $30.32 and of female teachers, $10.57; and of the average expenditures for the education of each person between 5 and 15, exclusive of cost of school-edifices, $5.63. But the most striking evidence of progress is found in the increase within the period above named in the amount raised by taxes for the support of schools, exclusive of the cost of erecting and repairing school-houses, namely, $1,812,061.96, which is an increase of 100 per cent. The increase in the amount raised last year over that of the preceding year was greater than the increase of any previous year, with a single exception.

POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE BOARD.

The doings of the board of education during the past year have not been different, in any important particular, from those of previous years. Being invested by the statutes with but limited authority, it has no specific powers to undertake measures for the improvement of the public schools or for the regulation of their management or methods of instruction. It is. however, intrusted with the care and control of the State normal schools. The officers of the board are in like manner limited in the range of the powers conferred on them by law. At the time of the establishment of the board the school-system of the State was excessively decentralized: its management was mainly in the hands of the school-districts and the opposition to the exercise of any central authority in educational matters was quite general and decided. Hence, in establishing the form of a system of State-supervision, it was clothed with almost no attributes of authority. Its functions were strictly limited to the collection and dissemination of information respecting educational matters and the recommendation of measures for the advancement of the interests of the schools. The system still remains substantially the same in respect to the scope of its duties.

IMPROVEMENTS SUGGESTED BY THE BOARD.

While the members of the board, from their knowledge of the workings of the system of public schools, entertain a conviction that, in its essential features, it is sound and efficient, they are equally decided in their opinion that the time has come for undertaking the introduction of several important improvements in its provisions, in order to meet the wants of an advancing civilization and maintain the rank hitherto held by Massachusetts as a leading educating State.

EQUALIZATION OF SCHOOL-BURdens.

The most important of the improvements referred to is that of supplementing the revenues derived from local taxation for the support of schools by a general State-tax. The principle that underlies the American system of popular education-that it is the duty of the State to provide for the education of all the children of the State by taxing every man in proportion to his property-is nowhere more generally accepted than among the citizens of the Commonwealth; and yet the State has never voted a dollar from the general State-revenues for the direct maintenance of her common schools, the towns being required to attend to this. While the effect of this policy has been satisfactory in the past and has doubtless tended greatly to develop the local interest in schools, it is not so well adapted to the present circumstances of the people as it was when agriculture was almost the sole occupation of the people and the taxable property quite equally distributed. This condition of things has entirely changed since the development of manufacturing-interests and the consequent rapid accumulations of wealth in cities and towns. Two-fifths, if not half, of the property of the State is now embraced in the limited territory which lies within five miles of the State-house. The consequence is that, while in certain portions of the State a tax sufficient to maintain good schools during the period required by law is a serious burden, in other portions

it is comparatively light. Hence a change is demanded in the mode of providing for the support of schools such as will restore, to some extent at least, the ancient equality of educational burdens.

The proposed plan does not contemplate any increase in the aggregate of the taxes for schools; it does not propose to shift the responsibility from the municipalities to the State, but simply to appropriate a small share of the means of the whole State for the benefit of the whole State, the specific recommendation being that provision be made for raising a half-mill State-school-tax, to be distributed to the cities and towns, a part in proportion to the number of children of school-age and a part in proportion to the school-attendance, a fraction being reserved for the education of teachers and for other general educational purposes.

HOW TO SECURE PROFESSIONAL TRAINING FOR TEACHERS.

Another important improvement needed to perfect the system of schools is that of providing for giving the mass of teachers a better preparation for their work through the instrumentality of a course of professional training. No matter how much money may be raised and expended for schools, unless care is taken to provide competent and professionally-skilled teachers, the outlay will not yield its legitimate benefits. The teachers of the State, as a body, deserve great credit for what they accomplish, considering the inadequate means of special preparation provided for them, but it ought to be adopted as a rule that all teachers should have some degree of normal training before receiving a certificate of qualification. It is, however, impracticable at present to educate teachers enough in normal schools of the existing type, and, then, the comparatively few graduates of such schools gravitate to the cities and large towns, leaving the rural population, comparatively destitute of direct benefit from them. It is therefore proposed to provide another class of training-schools as supplementary to those now in operation, schools where a short and comparatively cheap course of strictly professional instruction may be imparted. A plan has also been suggested looking to the introduction of normal training into high schools and academies.

The importance of the subject requires that it should receive early and serious attention and that some course be speedily adopted by which all the schools in the State may be supplied with professionally-trained teachers.

ATTENDANCE.

Another improvement, regarded by the board as of vital importance, is that which has for its object the securing of a more complete attendance at school of the children of school-age, for it is of no avail to build and equip commodious school-houses and employ accomplished teachers if the children, through inability or perverseness on their own part or on the part of their parents or guardians, are prevented from attending the schools. Two ways are suggested by which the desired improvement may be promoted: the one is a more stringent system of compulsion, with the necessary agencies for its efficient administration, the other the employment of an additional force of moral agencies. This latter, it is thought, could be effected largely by the fourth improvement suggested by the board, namely, the establishment of

COUNTY-SUPERVISION.

In nearly all the States of the Union there has been provided a class of educational officers, occupying an intermediate position between the town-committees on the one hand and the State-system of supervision on the other, such supervisors or superintendents being, in most of these States, county-officers. With the existing evidence of the utility and importance of this agency of progress and improvement coming from a score of States, it would be presumptuous to assume that Massachusetts can maintain her former prestige in educational matters without the adoption of this or some analogous instrumentality for increased efficiency in the management of her schools.

CITY-SUPERINTENDENTS.

At the date of the secretary's last report 46 cities and towns were employing superintendents of schools; others have since followed their example, while still others are discussing the question.

The progress of public opinion in this direction is seen in the fact that the number of towns employing superintendents has increased from three or four in 1861 to more than 50 at the present time. It is also mentioned that striking evidences of progress in educational matters already appear in these towns as the fruit of labor thus bestowed. Springing up as if by magic, are seen improved school-houses, with improved methods of heating and ventilation and better furnishing for the health and comfort of teachers and pupils; a more systematic grading of the schools; more carefully devised and arranged courses of study; teachers selected with greater care and better judgment, and