COMMISSIONER'S REPORT.

screws, and gauges properly adjusted. The working condition. must be narrowly surpervised, to detect defects and to avoid accidents. So with our school system. Parents and guardians must be watchful of its working condition. School meetings must be attended, district strife must be avoided, or if unavoidable, must be speedily quieted; school houses of proper accommodations must be liberally provided; the most approved text books must be supplied; prompt, quietly disposed, and faithful trustees must be chosen; intelligent and zealous school committees must be selected; accomplished and skillful teachers must be insisted. upon, liberally compensated, and cordially sustained; schools must be visited, not once a year only, but often, that the parent may see for himself what the school is doing, or failing to do, for his child, and that his interest in it may be made manifest, both to the teacher and the pupil. This alone will disclose the faults and defects of the system, if it has any, and this will secure from it the largest possible results.

INTEREST IN SCHOOLS.

One evidence of the increasing interest in educational progress, is seen in the greater regard in which schools are held by parents themselves. After a pretty careful survey of the various districts of the State, I am warranted in saying, that in no previous year have there been so many school visits by parents, as during the present. Yet there is great and culpable negligence in this direction still remaining, especially in certain districts. But the community is beginning to move, and I confidently look forward to the time when our school registers shall be filled up with the record of parental visits. Parents are beginning to understand, that all that a State can do towards the establishment of efficient schools, is to place into their hands the power, and in part the means, while the entire character and success of the schools

depend ultimately upon the parents themselves. The State supplies the theory of education; the people must give it its practical solution. Our schools must be fostered and sustained by individual as well as collective influence. Teachers may discipline and instruct, but parents must manifest their sympathy and give their encouragement. The teacher should, indeed, be an example of self-possession, courtesy, and virtue, but a moulding influence upon the morals and manners of the children of a neighborhood, should flow out from the fireside, instilling into their young minds principles of rectitude, aiding and stimulating them in their studies, and helping them to appreciate the value of a good name, and the importance of a thorough education. Parents are beginning to feel this, and the labors of your Commissioner have been, and will continue to be, given in this direction: to impress upon their minds the conviction, that upon them rests the responsibility of elevating the character of our public schools. So immediate and manifest is this, that in all those districts where parents are filled with right sentiments, where they are evincing only a reasonable interest in the well-being of their children, the cause of education is rapidly advancing, and the community is realizing some of the benefits, moral, intellectual, social and physical, which the theory of our school system contemplates. On the other hand, wherever I have found indifference, culpable neglect, and utter apathy, in matters of educational interest, there I have, without an exception, met miserable schools; so that the difference between the best and the poorest schools of our commonwealth, exhibits a chasm which is absolutely appalling. I wish I could take each indifferent parent by the hand, and let him look into it! I can conceive of nothing which would so quickly accomplish the purpose for which we labor.

In my visits through different parts of the State, I have often been surprised at the amount of good, which one or two only, right minded, earnest parents had accomplished in the improvement of the schools of the neighborhood. They were the leaven

in the lump, transforming, little by little, the entire mass. The result was visible in the condition of the school house, its internal and external appearance; in the various appliances for comfort and study; in the cleanliness, demeanor, moral perception and mental activity of the pupils, in the accomplishment, faithfulness and zeal of the teachers, and in a thousand nameless circumstances, suggestive to an experienced eye, and indicative of rapid educational progress. The influence of a single school committee man, of the character indicated, is almost mesmeric over the entire field of his supervision. Were it not invidious, I might name more than one town of our Commonwealth, which may well congratulate itself upon the services of such a man.

Parents and guardians, throughout the State, should emulate the example. I think that very much might be accomplished in each school district, for the purpose of awakening a more general interest in our schools, and of securing a more efficient co-operation in sustaining and improving them, if parents of the district and of the different neighborhoods, would meet occasionally during the winter evenings, exchange opinions, and offer words of counsel and encouragement upon school matters. These meetings need not be organized and formal. Indeed, a fuller attendance and a more lively interest would be likely to be secured, if they partook somewhat largely of the social element. There are very . many parents who can not be reached by educational reports and books. You must meet them face to face, and induce them to come and reason together. It appears to me, that, with only a very little exertion upon the part of those who are already awake, an interest might be excited which might be felt at once, in the rapid elevation of our common schools. The truth must be confessed, that the indifference of very many parents towards them, is the result of a very imperfect conception of their importance. Illustrate to them the value of an education; tell them what the State is doing for their schools, and what the schools are doing, or failing to do, for their children and for themselves, and you

I will soon secure their interest for the accomplishment of your purpose. Show the husbandman that a good school and a well educated community, will add a large percentage to the value of his estate, and you are certain to have the co-operation of his selfinterest. Make it plain to the mechanic that a good education will give to his right arm skill and efficiency, and he will desire that his children should be possessed of its advantage. Demonstrate to them all, that where ignorance abounds, there idleness and vice will much more abound, and you are quite certain to enlist their sympathies and their energies in the cause of popular education and the maintenance of good morals. I trust these suggestions will be kindly received, and that the next succeeding report from this office, will chronical the good results of many neighborhood school meetings.

Another evidence of the increasing interest in our common schools, is found in the enlarged liberality of districts for the construction of school edifices. The old queries, "How small and how cheaply can we build; or, at how trifling an expense can we make the old house answer?" are yielding to the inquiries, What are the most approved plans of construction? What form of seats is most conducive to comfort? What is the best method of warming and ventilating? What external or internal arrangement will combine, in the largest degree, the useful and the beautiful? How can we make the school house the most attractive? What will render it, most effectively, an aid and not a hindrance in the improvement of the morals and the tastes, and in the advancement of the intellectual development of our children? At the present rate of progress, the next generation will look in vain for an absolutely poor school house within the borders of our State.

Another indication of increasing educational interest, is found in the reduced percentage of absenteeism. In some districts this is quite remarkable, it having lessened, within a few years, from thirty-eight to ten or eight per cent. Absenteeism is still, however, the great and obstinate evil in our schools; and may be

attributed, in nearly all cases, to the want of faithfulness on the part of parents and guardians. The connection is quite remarkable. In most instances, where my attention has been arrested by the large amount of absences against individual names, I have, upon inquiry, or by personal observation, found the homes of such children to be abounding in poverty, misery, and vice. How can we expect moral purity, or intellectual life, to come out of such abodes of wretchedness and death?

If

but

I have said that this is a great and grevious evil. It is so; but we must not be mislead by its statistical magnitude. I have found, by observation in our rural districts, after deducting a few vicious cases of truancy, that by far the greater part of absenteeism is recorded against children of a very young age. these are even tolerably cared for at home, the evil of absence from school, either to themselves, or to the community, is quite small. Many of our children are sent to school quite too young. I do not mean to say that they receive instruction too young, that they are subjected to the confinement and discipline of the school room at too early an age. This is the period of life when the foundation of continued physical vigor is to be established. The entire nature rebels against restraint. The blood flows rapidly, and the lungs play quickly-and we must not forget that the body obtains as large a share of its vitality from the free air, as from food. A child will find enough about its home, for the the first six years of its life, to fully employ all his perceptive powers, just opening upon the new world to which he has come. We forget that what are old, familiar, and somewhat uninteresting things to us, are full of freshness and wonder to the child. His infant mind is busy with the investigation of the nature of the objects which crowd around him, both within and without the place of his abode. The clouds which are draped against the sunrise and sunset sky, the sunshine and the shower-the springing grass-the trembling leaf, the opening flower-the pattering of the summer rain-the fleecy dropping of the snow-the play