School, increasing its capacity from thirty to one hundred and ten. The Spring Valley School has been enlarged so as to accommodate fifty more. A one-story brick building sixty feet square, has been rented on Mission Street, near Second, and will be opened as a Primary School to-morrow. It contains four rooms, has a fine play ground, and will accommodate two hundred and forty pupils. Two rooms have been rented corner of Third and Harrison streets. They will seat one hundred and twenty pupils, and will be opened next week. A splendid Grammar School building has just been completed, corner of Bush and Taylor Streets, at a cost of about $47,000. The fifty-vara lot on which it stands cost $11,500. The structure is of brick ninety-two feet front by sixty-eight feet deep, and three stories high. It contains fourteen recitation rooms, each twenty-eight by thirty-four feet in dimensions, and one large assembly hall which is capable of holding the entire school. Its sitting capacity is not less than eight hundred, and it will be dedicated and opened in a few days hence. It is modeled after several Boston Grammar School buildings which have stood the test of years of experience and comparison with other styles, and its cost is considerably below that of several Boston buildings of no greater capacity. It will be seen from the foregoing statements that the public school accommodations of San Francisco have been increased already to the extent of 1,670 seats. In addition to the new rooms and houses thus procured and completed, the Board of Education has lately let a contract for the erection of a frame house on the San Bruno Road (Utah Street), which will accommodate one hundred and twenty pupils in its two rooms, and cost $2,770. The Board has also let a contract for another fine Grammar building, corner of Fifth and Market streets. It will be of brick, two stories high, with basement and frame attic. The ground plan shows a cross-shaped edifice, with a frontage of one hundred and forty-one feet six inches, and a depth of ninety feet. The contract price is $77,402, but a bill of lumber, architect's charges, etc., will increase this to about $85,000. It is to be built forthwith, and will be ready for occupation by the end of this year at farthest, when it will accommodate seven hundred pupils, with an ultimate capacity of 1,000. The question has been agitated whether, with the same money two buildings

might not have been erected, which would have been equally ornamental, and have afforded accommodations for 1,500 pupils. Lots have been donated for the erection of two more frame school-houses in the suburban districts, and the Board has obligated itself to erect them at an early day. One of these will be located

Mission, and in front of the

on the Fairmount Tract, back of the Industrial School grounds. The second will be on the Potrero, near Steamboat Point. Each of these houses will seat sixty pupils. The number of sittings in the houses thus contracted for and contemplated, is nine hundred and forty. Adding this number to that previously given, and we shall have by the end of 1864, a total increase over last year's school accommodations of 2,610. This will nearly supply the deficiency complained of, and leave the Board of Education to enter upon another year's resources for the means necessary to meet the demands for still more school room that will be caused by the young crowd that is coming up. The largest of the new buildings erected and contracted for, are for Grammar School purposes, and have been built with a view to permanence and the future growth of the city, in accordance with the practice in New York, Boston, and other Eastern cities. The private and sectarian school edifices that compete with the free school system in this city are generally large, substantial, and handsome structures, an ornament to the city, a credit to the societies who own them, and destined to prove the most economical buildings that could have been erected. The friends of the public school system will doubtless indorse the policy which prompts the Board of Education to make the Grammar School-houses inferior in none of the above respects. And no private school buildings compete with the best public school-houses already erected. A comparison of the cost of our Grammar School-houses with those erected in the Eastern cities will show that San Francisco has been singularly economical in that respect.

For primary schools, which have to be frequently changed or removed, cheaper buildings or rented rooms will answer well enough. They can be, as in part they have been, furnished in addition to the more permanent and costly buildings, within the limits of the $120,000 available for the procurement of new school accommodations this year, and still leave a considerable balance.

With the means hereafter obtainable, the free school accommodations may be gradually increased far beyond the amount at present contemplated, with a view to keeping rather ahead of than behind the demand, and to lessen the motives that induce many to prefer the private educational system.-S. F. Evening Bulletin.

REPORT OF PRIMARY SCHOOL EXAMINATION.

TO THE HONORABLE BOARD OF EDUCATION-Gentlemen: The last semi-examination of the Primary Schools was begun on the eighteenth of April, from which date it continued without interruption until May 1st. The main object of these examinations is to discover the fitness of each pupil examined for promotion; to test the efficiency of the teachers' labors; and to ascertain, as nearly as possible, the relative merits of the classes of corresponding grade, and compare the attainments and discipline of this department of our schools with its correlative in other cities of the Union. To ascertain the objects in view, your Committee thought it best to adopt the following plan of examination: That one person should examine all the classes in the school of the same grade; that each Examiner should provide himself with a copy of the prescribed course of study, and a blank book properly arranged for taking systematically, in each part of the course, appropriate notes of the examination, which he and the teachers should conduct in strict conformity with the course. The Examiners, who were five in number, after two weeks' labor, performed their work, according to the details provided, and have submitted for your inspection their written reports, in which you will find sufficient facts, disinterestedly stated, from which you can form reliable opinions as to the capability of teachers therein named, and the progress of their pupils in the studies pursued during the last half school year.

The classes examined are known as the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth grades primary, which were classified as follows: Fifth grade, nine classes; sixth grade, seven classes; seventh grade, thirteen classes; eighth grade, twelve classes; ninth grade, thirteen classes; tenth grade, twelve classes. The

number of children in these fifty-eight classes may be estimated at 3,190, allowing fifty-five pupils for each class as prescribed by rule.

Before the examination was begun, your Committee requested the teachers to prepare a written statement, giving the names of their pupils, their ages, the length of time each has been in the class, and the number and names of those recommended for promotion.

These statements were handed to the Examiners, who were enjoined to satisfy themselves as to the propriety and justice of the teacher's recommendation.

In all instances where the opinions of the teachers respecting their classes were corroborated by the reports of the Examiners, the Committee on Classification have ordered promotions to be made; in all other cases this Committee have relied on the reports for their appropriate action.

The plan of primary classification now in use was introduced about one year ago. Where the gradation has been made according to the theory of this plan, each teacher has but one grade of pupils under her charge. When the classes are thus graded, pupils are required to pass from one grade to a higher, at the end of each half-year, and to complete the primary course of study in three years. In all cases when pupils fail of promotion at the stated time, it devolves on the teacher to assign the causes of failure, which are generally irregular attendance, and, occasionally, lack of capacity. To attain fully to the standard established, our schools will have to wait until society here shall have become better regulated and more perfectly assimilated to the steady habits and fixed principles of our oldest American communities. From the data before us, we would estimate the number of promotions made in our primary schools at seventy-five per cent. of the attendance, which is high enough to justify the most sanguine expectations of your Board, if not those of parents.

The reports presented by the Examiners are so voluminous that we cannot submit for your consideration even a synopsis, and we shall therefore have to content ourselves with offering a few gleanings from the mass. Frequent mention is made by the Examiners. of the crowded condition of the class rooms, some of which are gloomy, cold, and badly ventilated. The benches used in a few

classes are too low and contracted to allow the children ease and freedom of movement. The discipline of the classes, whilst, it is on the whole, highly commendable, reflects no credit on certain teachers, and the same remark will apply with equal force to the instruction imparted by certain teachers. The partial success attributable to these must be accounted for by their incompetency for their calling, or the lack of those advantages which some schools enjoy in consequence of their location in particular neighborhoods, prominent for intelligence and the prosperous circumstances of the residents.

There is abundant proof in the reports to show that our primary teachers have devoted proper attention to oral instruction. What with charts, outline maps, tablets, numeral frames, minerals, and other sundry devices, the teachers have imparted to their classes a useful and varied knowledge of form, color, weight, and other properties of bodies. Nor have vocal culture and physical exercise been neglected. The daily exercise of singing, calisthenic drill, object lessons, drawing, individual and simultaneous recitation, to be witnessed in our superior primary schools, would not disparage some of the vaunted Kindergarten Schools of Europe. Although there is much to commend in our primary schools, we feel convinced that in one particular they are susceptible of marked improvement. In the course of study, " manners and morals" are prescribed as topics of instruction. The information given by nearly all the teachers in these topics has been drawn from maxims memorized by the pupils, supplemented by occasional advice and reproof, when called forth by improper deportment in the class. Teachers seem at a loss how to impart systematic instruction in these subjects, deeming them to fall more particularly in the province of the parent.

In conclusion, your Committee give it as their unqualified opinion, that our primary schools have made during the year the most satisfactory progress.

WM. G. BADGER, Chairman.

J. H. WIDBER,

S. B. MASTIC,

D. LUNT,

S. B. THOMPSON,

M. LYNCH.