10. The number and the ages of the candidates offered and admitted at the High Schools, from each of the Grammar Schools. These reports shall be referred to a special committee of the Board, who shall make from them such selections as they may think important for public information, and shall add thereto such suggestions and remarks as they shall deem expedient; and their report, which shall be presented at the quarterly meeting in December, when accepted by the Board, shall be printed for distribution among the citizens."

A partial fulfilment of the requirements of this rule will be found, accompanying the Report, in the form of valuable and interesting statistical tables. The several reports of the Committees on the Latin, English High, and Girls' High and Normal Schools, are given in full. They present, in substance, all the requisite information relative to the present

condition of their respective schools.

The rule of the Board, which we have quoted above, makes it an important part of the duty of the committee appointed to prepare this report to collect, and to make public, such general facts connected with the present condition of the public schools of Boston as may, in their judgment, appear to be important. They are also expected to combine with these statements of facts such suggestions of their own as may appear to them to be expedient or desirable.

The Committee are thus called upon not only to state how far the condition of our public schools may realize the public expectations and meet the public wants, but also to present, with all candor and freedom, whatever shortcomings or deficiencies may appear of sufficient moment to call for their

In some

notice. This portion of their duty is one of the most important that can devolve upon members of this Board. respects it is hardly less difficult than it is important. Where there is so much in our school system to commend, to approve, and even to take pride in, where we can find so much that is apparently entirely satisfaetory, it is no easy task coolly and dispassionately to stop and inquire wherein are there material defects, imperfections, and deficiencies of sufficient moment to claim deliberate mention, either in the collective whole, or in any part. If we ask wherein we may make advances or how we may improve what, in the eyes of some, is already so admirable, the very question may seem to imply the want of a proper appreciation of so much excellence. Yet, to make these inquiries is clearly a very important, if not the most important part of the duty of the Committee, as well as one of the first that most naturally suggests itself. We can hardly hope yet to have reached, or even to have approximated, that point of perfection in our school system from which we may not expect to be able, from time to time, to make some advances and improvement. And while in view of all that has been done by the wise and good men who have gone before us, when they so acceptably filled the places which we now occupy we approach this portion of our task with some self-distrust, we are none the less required to speak with frankness and candor in regard to all the points which shall appear to us worthy to claim the public ear.

The past year has been one of unexampled prosperity and success in all that relates to the management of our public schools, High, Grammar, and Primary. Never before has

there been such an unvarying unanimity in the reports of District Committees as to their general excellent condition; and other evidences of their progress and improvement are clearly perceptible. While our country has been distracted by an internecine struggle for its very existence as a nation; while the perpetuity and duration of our most cherished institutions of government-social order and civil liberty-have been and still are in the deepest peril, happily our public schools afford no evidence of their having participated in the evil influences of civil strife. Their prosperity and continued progress have not been interrupted. This fruitful fount, from which flows that great stream of life and health to a free people, has here at least remained pure, unsullied, and open. Our children have enjoyed not only without interruption the priceless blessings of free public education, but also with many enhanced advantages. A larger number than ever before, in proportion to our whole population, have partaken of its inestimable privileges. The uninterrupted progress of improvements has been witnessed in new or reconstructed schoolhouses, in enlarged and improved school-yards, in superior classification, in a steady advance in the qualifications of teachers of every grade, and in many others of those all-important items which combine to make up the great aggregate of our complicated and far-reaching system of public instruction.

PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

The Primary Schools of Boston, more perhaps than any other portion of the system, appear to claim the larger share

of our attention, both in regard to what has been done and in regard to what yet remains to be accomplished. It is now not quite ten years since the School Board, as at present organized, became charged with the supervision of the Primary Schools of this city. Previous to that time these schools had been under the charge and control of an independent board, or sub-committee, having no direct responsibility to the people, and acknowledging only a merely nominal accountability to the School Committee itself. With the fullest appreciation of the invaluable services performed by this Board in originating, carrying on, and developing the Primary School system of Boston, no one can now fail to be most clearly of the opinion that the abolition of the irresponsible elements in this Board was both a wise and timely measure. It has been followed by many advances which were not possible under the old system. The Primary School Board nobly accomplished a noble and disinterested work of public good, and terminated its useful existence when that work was done, full of honors, and in the ripe maturity of its perfected mission.

On the second day of January, 1855, the present School Board, for the first time, took charge of the Primary Schools of this city. They then numbered one hundred and nincty-seven. The first step of the General Board was to divide the city into seventeen school districts, or sections, assigning to each district one Grammar School, and its average proportion of Primary Schools. These districts were entrusted to the charge of subcommittees, which varied in number from six to ten. The present number of districts has been increased to twenty. The whole number of Primary Schools in this city, on the 31st

of August, 1863, was two hundred and fifty-four,—an increase of about twenty-seven per cent.

At the time the Primary Schools passed from the charge of the Primary School Board to that of the General School Committee, they were unclassified; that is, no attempt had been made to arrange them in graded schools. There were in each school six grades or classes,—the schools varying in number from forty-five to sixty, and even, in a few instances, to eighty pupils. The teacher in charge of these six classes could obviously give her full attention to but one class at a time. While she was thus occupied with one class the other five classes were necessarily left to do as well as they could by themselves, and the younger classes, who most required her guidance and helping support in their first uncertain steps along the thorny pathway of knowledge, except in the few moments that could be spared for the:n, were learning nothing, or next to nothing. It is true that the advocates of this system then contended, and some of them still contend, that all of this is not entirely lost time, inasmuch as the younger classes may, and do, learn something by listening to the recitations of their elders. There is, however, more apparent than real force in this argument. What they may thus learn is premature, and to a large extent in advance of their present requirements; and, more than this, the practical experience of the past five years has conclusively demonstrated, what, in the nature of things would appear to be almost if not quite inevitable, that whatever pupils may thus imperfectly learn from more advanced classes, in their own idle hours, they can acquire far more readily and to much better purpose from the superior teaching