public and private, on all hands, in addition to their other labors, an almost herculean task. The day of the Annual Exhibition itself finds the children wearied with the tasks and excitements of the morning, and but half disposed to make the necessary exertions required in the afternoon. And furthermore the regular and long-established routine of exercises, appropriated to this especial occasion, being given in addition to the musical performances, unduly prolongs the session, and has proved the source of much dissatisfaction and complaint. By the proposed alteration, it is suggested that the annual exhibition of the musical department of the schools shall take place in the latter part of the month of May, near the close of the spring session, when both masters and pupils are comparatively at leisure, and the weather is better suited for the occasion itself, as well as for the previous preparations and rehearsals. Many of our citizens, who are usually absent with their families in the summer, and who would gladly be present if they could, will then be offered an opportunity. And if at the Annual Fesitval a portion of these exercises are required to be repeated, to give brilliancy and eclat to the occasion (as it is earnestly hoped in some form they may ever continue to do), it will only be necessary to take from the already thoroughly disciplined and practised choir such force as may be desired, and, with the aid of a single special rehearsal, have ready a trained and efficient chorus. The only consideration that has at all opposed itself, in the minds of the Committee, to the urging of this measure, at the present time, is that of expense. No increase, however, will of course take place, except in the event of the reconstruction of the choir, in whole or in part, for the School Festival, in July; and even then it is believed the additional outlay required will be small, — since the arrangement and publication of the music, and the majority of public rehearsals, which constitute a considerable part of the whole expense, is to be done but once; and the materials of the stage can, for so short a time, be stowed away, and re-erected at a comparatively trifling cost. But these contingent objections, if such they can be called, will, it is believed, be vastly more than counterbalanced in the difficulties avoided and positive advantages gained. It was early the feeling of the Standing Committee on Music that some change in the existing plan of instruction ought to be recommended. They say, in their first printed Report, [City Doc., No. 34, 1858,] "It has been a subject of consideration whether a more centralizing course in regard to the mode of instruction might not render our system more efficient; whether it would not be better to place the whole responsibility of the musical instruction under one person, with a salary sufficient to remunerate him for giving up his whole time to the city, as in the case of the teachers in the Primary and Grammar Schools, than to divide it, as at present is done, at an equal expense among three or four." "But with the limited experience of the past year," the Report goes on to say, your Committee do not propose to recommend any specific action upon this point, at the present time.” Three years of additional observation and experience has convinced the Committee that this suggestion, in a modified form, ought to receive the careful attention of the Board; for a more full and complete consideration of this point they would refer to the papers just alluded to. They do not now however, on the whole, recommend the substitution of a single music teacher, in place of a corps of teachers, as proposed in that report, but they do respectfully suggest the propriety of such alteration of the present provisions for instruction in music as shall provide for the appointment of a head to this department, with a sufficient corps of assistant teachers, all of whom shall be nominated, as now, by the Standing Committee on Music, subject to the ratification and approval of this Board, and amenable, as at present, to the general supervision of this Committee, - such head teacher, or Superintendent of Music in the public schools, as he might perhaps be properly called, to exercise a similar care and responsibility over the whole musical department of our educational system to that now exercised by the master of a Grammar School over every room in the building under his charge. The tendency of such organization would be, in the estimation of your Committee, the more thoroughly to systematize this branch of popular instruction, and to carry order and uniformity, method, unity of purpose, and exactness of results into its operation, which is in music, in the very nature of things, most difficult as it is most desirable to obtain. present may not be the time to carry this change into effect; and your Committee, having called the attention of the Board once more to the subject, are still content to leave it for the present, asking for it the serious The |