year and is meeting with marked success. Schools have been opened in different parts of the city proper, South Boston and the Highlands, and are attended by young persons and adults, whose only opportunities for education are found there. The entire number enrolled at the present time is two thousand, and the average attendance, eleven hundred. In these schools the ordinary studies of grammar schools are taught, while two special classes for instruction in mechanical drawing have been formed, and a school for the study of the English language by adults who have recently become citizens, has been established in the Highland district. Besides the schools for elementary instruction, an evening high school is nearly organized, which is intended to meet the wants of persons desiring special and technical instruction. Should the experiment in this direction succeed, it would be well for the city Council to supplement the present excellent opportunities for high school education, by affording the means of scientific and mechanical instruction to large numbers of intelligent young persons who desire such knowledge, and a higher mathematical education for young men in business employments. Believing the necessity and practical advantages of

this branch of public education to be appreciated by our citizens, it is commended to you for a continuance of your favor.

The schools for licensed minors have been productive of very beneficial effects, and the boys, who earn a livelihood by blacking boots, selling newspapers, and by pursuing other callings, receive an education through the privileges of these schools that they could not otherwise obtain.

The school for deaf mutes promises also to be of great advantage to a portion of our community that has as large a claim upon the city for education as any other of the class for which such liberal provisions have been annually made. A comfortable and commodious room for this school has been procured in Pemberton square, and will be used as soon as practicable.

While the city is doing so much to educate the different classes in our community in so many desirable and useful things, it is to be hoped that something will be also done towards instructing girls in industrial pursuits, so that those who may be necessitated to earn a subsistence by their hands, may have something useful to rely upon.

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

The wants of this institution for increased accommodations are earnestly set forth by the trustees in their last report. It will be remembered that the attention of the City Council was called a year since to this subject. Although much

preparatory work has been done, it is to be regretted that no substantial progress has been made in securing the facilities desired. The whole subject, however, has been referred to you by the last city government, and it is hoped you will be able to bestow upon it an early consideration, and such as its importance demands.

The recently amended ordinance has empowered the trustees, under certain judicious limitations, to establish branch libraries of popular books and periodicals in portions of the city remote from the central collection. It is proposed to arrange this new arm of educational service upon a system similar to that which has proved so successful in Liverpool and Manchester. It is not improbable that the trustees may be able to put into operation the first of these during the present year.

It must be most gratifying to our citizens to

witness the steady progress of this useful institution. May it long remain a monument of the foresight of its founders, and of the appreciative support of successive city governments!

STREETS.

The most important of the street improvements that were authorized by the last City Government are the extension of Broadway across Fort Point Channel to Albany street, at an estimated expense, including the necessary structures, of five hundred and fifty thousand dollars; the widening of Hanover street from Blackstone to Commercial street, at an estimated expense of six hundred thousand dollars; the laying out and grading of the streets on Fort Hill, at an estimated expense, including the grading and all other necessary expenditures to complete the streets, of one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; the extension of Zeigler street from Warren street to Guild row in Boston Highlands, at an estimated expense of eighteen thousand four hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty cents.

Several streets and avenues, some of them important thoroughfares, especially Columbus avenue and Dartmouth street, have been laid out on the

Back Bay lands, without expense to the city, the land having been given for that purpose. Numerous other streets have been laid out and widened in various parts of the city during the past year; and these have already proved to be valuable improvements, though of less importance than the above named. Among these should be enumerated the widening and grading of Devonshire street between Milk and State streets, the widening of Federal street between Summer street and South Boston, the widening of Tremont street between Boylston street and the railroad bridge, the widening of High street between Congress and Summer streets, the extension of Columbus avenue from Ferdinand street to Church street, the extension of Avon place to Chauncy street, and the building of the stone work of Atlantic avenue. On the Church street district Melrose, Winchester, Piedmont, Shawmut and Tennyson streets, widened by orders passed in 1868, have been completed and graded.

A resolve for the widening of Eliot street, from Washington to Pleasant street, passed the City Council, and received the approval of the Mayor the last week of the city government of last year, and its provisions for carrying out the same awaits your action.