ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL.

IN conformity with the regulations of the School Board, the Committee on the English High School respectfully submit their Annual Report.

In a great system of public instruction, consisting of several grades of schools, no grade and no ind vidual school of any grade can be considered as unimportant, and, in a proper sense, no school of any grade can be considered as specially important, or more important than others. A chain is strong, can bear the strain put upon it, and accomplish the purpose for which it is used, only as each separate link is perfect and strong in itself. So each particular school of every grade in a great system of public instruction should be strong and perfect in itself, and contribute its part to the successful working of the whole system, and if through some defect or neglect it fail to do so, the system itself will more or less fail of a full and thorough accomplishment of its object. The Committee on the English High School do not claim that this institution is the most important school in the city, but they do claim that it is essentially dependent upon the other schools, and that its power to enlarge its numbers, to advance its scholarship, to give a broad, generous culture, a thorough English literary

and scientific education, which shall fit its graduates for usefulness and honor in all the higher departments of mechanical and commercial life, rests upon, and is mainly determined by the quantity and quality of the material furnished it by the other grades of schools.

The English High School, it is believed and maintained by your Committee, has in itself, always been well conducted. It has now, for nearly thirty years, been presided over by one of those rare men, who has been constantly adding to, and now combines with the wisdom of age and experience, the energy and enthusiasm of youth,—a man who in every department of learning or science he has had to teach, has always kept himself in advance of the text-books, familiar with every new fact, invention or discovery that has been made, and imparting it by oral instruction to his pupils,- a man who in regard to the discipline and management of a school, modes of instruction, and, in short, the whole subject of Education, has always been "up to the times"-ready to consider, receive, adopt, apply, any new and valuable idea, that from any quarter has been suggested. Under his mastership, supported by able, faithful and devoted assistants, this institution has done an amount of good that cannot easily be measured. Many of the most able, prominent, honored, and useful men, in various departments of business in this city are numbered among its graduates; and if, like all human institutions, it has not been absolutely perfect; if in any manner and to any extent the school, since its establishment in 1821, has failed to accomplish all that its Committee, or its friends, or the friends of public popular education

in this city could have wished, that failure is to be attributed less to any defect in the management of the school itself, or to any want of capacity or fidelity on the part of its teachers, and more to the quality of the material furnished to it by the lower grades of schools.

It is with great satisfaction that your Committee are able to report, that within the last two or three years the quantity of this material has largely increased, and that a good proportion of this increased quantity is of improved quality, so that the English High School may be regarded as now in a better condition and more fully accomplishing its purpose than ever before. It is beginning to reap the benefit of the improvement made in the schools of lower grades. The present Superintendent of Public Schools, whose wisdom and fidelity in his important office have now been tested for many years, when he entered upon his work in this city, felt that the Primary Schools were the base of the pyramid, the foundation of our system of popular education, and that the superstructure that could be reared would depend upon the thoroughness with which the foundation was laid. His first attention, his earliest labors, were therefore directed to the improvement of the Primary Schools; and, consequently, this Board commonly adopting his suggestions and seconding his efforts, these schools are now in excellent condition, with greatly improved methods of instruction and management, so that, as a general statement it is true, a larger proportional number are sent from them to the Grammar Schools, at an earlier age and better prepared. For some years the effect of this has been more or less manifest in the im