aly is very simple, and the difficulty is one that can be easily obviated, and with it one of the chief objections to a thorough system of classification. It is that so large a number of young children, admitted to school for the first time, join the lower classes, and are permitted to do so at any time throughout the entire term of six months. These scattered admissions destroy the symmetry of the class, and are often a very serious detriment to the whole school. The remedy is at once simple and obvious. In schools thus affected the District Committee should be empowered by a rule of the Board to forbid, except for especial and important reasons, any admission to the sixth grade after a certain fixed time immediately following the March and September promotions, or after the sixth grade had reached its maximum number of fifty-six. In this way the teacher of the sixth grade may be enabled to prepare her entire class for promotion every six months, and the equality of the classes in the grade preserved. If it becomes a matter generally understood that children are not to be admitted into this grade after a certain fixed time, for all the children who are really old enough, applications will be made within that time, and the teacher will be enabled to have one good homogeneous class instead of, as now, a number of broken and fragmentary divisions.

Within the past few years the want of some means of more direct, constant, and responsible supervision over the Primary Schools of this city, has become manifest to many members of the Board. In the Grammar and in the High Schools there is, in the person of the master, responsible for the results of the whole aggregate of classes which constitute his school, ample

provision for this want. The master's supervision covers the entire school, from the lowest class to the highest. For the Primary School there is no corresponding safeguard. Reports of District Committees have, from time to time, alluded to this want. Some District Committees, on their own responsibility, have essayed to partially remedy this defect by regulations requiring more stringent accountability than the rules of the Board prescribe. In March, 1860, one of the District Committees, in their quarterly report, brought the matter more directly before the notice of the Board. Referring to a large group of Primary Schools, in the extreme eastern part of the city, this report says:

“While much has been gained by classification in these Primary Schools, there is still one great want to be supplied, a want so constant and so evident that it may even be called, without exaggeration, a necessity, that of one central, controlling, supervising head. As now constituted, these twelve rooms are not one well-arranged school, but twelve distinct and independent schools. The teachers of each are so many distinct, petty sovereigns, owing no responsibility to any one except to the uncertain, shadowy, and distant authority of their special committee, whose own engagements and occupations rarely permit any very active or constant supervision. These teachers may be, or they may not be, prompt and faithful at all times and seasons. They may comply with the requirements of the Rules, and be present fifteen minutes before the opening of school, or they may constantly neglect this very important provision. They may be attentive or inattentive to all their other duties. But who shall know? What assurances have

we? For the first class we have the never-failing test of the Grammar School examinations; but what means have we of knowing how faithfully the foundations are laid in the sixth, the fifth, the fourth, the third, or the second classes? No teacher will inform against or complain of the shortcomings of her associates when it is no part of her duty to do so, even though their negligence may throw an extra burden upon herself. If they are tardy, indifferent, or negligent; if their classes come up to her imperfectly prepared, the burden of making up for these deficiencies must fall upon the teacher of the advanced class, or upon her will fall, instead, the blame and responsibility for their defects. All this would be remedied if to the senior teacher we give the power to supervise, direct, and give counsel to her associates, subject only to the authority and advice of the District Committee. Not that the teachers in this district are particularly untrustworthy or neglectful; we believe the contrary to be the truth. But they are human, are by nature sociable, and, like all of us, are prone to take advantage of their irresponsible position. Well as these schools now do under these circumstances, there can be no question they would do a great deal better if they were under the constant and ever-present influence of a judicious, experienced, and capable head."

Subsequently this subject was directly referred to the Committee on Rules, who reported an amendment of the Regulations, authorizing the several District Committees to appoint a principal in groups of four or more Primary Schools. This measure was earnestly supported, and as earnestly opposed. It obtained a small majority of the Board, at a full meeting; but

the subject coming up again at a subsequent meeting, this action was reversed, and the measure failed of being finally adopted. Since then the question has been allowed to rest. The manner in which this supposed want in the organization of the Primary School system was then proposed to be met was not, perhaps, as complete or so well matured as a longer experience in the management of these schools would now enable the Board to present. That plan proposed investing the superior teacher, or principal, with greatly increased responsibilities, but without corresponding increase of remuneration. It failed to make adequate provision for the government and instruction of this teacher's own class at such times as her duties of superintending the work of other teachers required her to be absent from her room. These objections to many appeared to be insuperable, and prevented the success of the first movement towards a consolidation and more perfect organization of the Primary Schools. Yet these objections are valid only against the form, and do not by any means necessarily lie against the object sought to be accomplished. Both objections could be very easily obviated. If a more perfect organization of the larger groups of Primary Schools is really an imperative want, it will not, in a city proverbial for its wise liberality, be allowed to fail solely on any ground of false economy or the want of due liberality. The other difficulty is one of apparently more moment, but still is one very far from being insuperable. The pupils in our Normal School, who are preparing to qualify themselves to become teachers, can be made to afford excellent materials wherewith to supply superintending teachers with competent substitutes, during their own necessary absence.

These duties the substitutes can discharge with the gain to themselves of invaluable experience, and without additional expense to the City.

It was contended on the other hand, by the friends of the proposed measure, that the Primary Schools of Boston could never be expected to fulfil their true mission, or to realize all that ought to be rightfully expected of them, until they were thus centralized and consolidated. There need be, they urged, hardly any more systems of consolidated Primary Schools than there are now school districts or Grammar Schools. Over each one of these consolidated groups there should be one competent, responsible principal. Were any one now to propose the breaking up of our Grammar Schools into two hundred, or more, distinct independent schools of fifty or sixty pupils each, permitting each teacher to become sovereign in his or her own room, with no accountability save to his or her own committee, whose supervision was only occasional, how absurd and monstrous would such a proposal appear to every one! Yet such a proposal is in nowise more absurd than it is for us to continue to carry on all our Primary Schools. on precisely this very plan! Look, they urged, at the other great cities! See how very far below us are their schools in respect to buildings, school equipments, the compensation, education, and qualifications of most of their assistant teachers; and yet, in spite of these great disadvantages, how very far superior to ours in their general plan are many of their Primary School systems! Let us not, by any means, imitate these cities in meagre and insufficient salaries, nor in appointing teachers whose education and capacities are in proportion to