SIXTH SEMI-ANNUAL REPORT. To the School Committee of Boston. GENTLEMEN: In conformity with the requirements of your Regulations, I respectfully submit the following as my Eighteenth Report, the sixth of the semi-annual series. During the last six months, I have made upwards of two hundred and forty visits to our Primary Schools, an average of nearly one visit to each school, and about one hundred and sixty to the Grammar and High Schools, the whole number of visits amounting to more than four hundred. Of the visits to the Grammar Schools, much the greater number was devoted to the divisions composing the fourth class, nearly every one of these divisions having been visited and inspected, at least once, during the last half-year. As these visits are made without regard to any regular order as respects districts or sections, and without any previous notice, my entrance to the rooms being heralded not even by a rap at the door, they afford the best possible means of ascertaining the true condition and the actual management of the schools. The spirit and manner of the teacher, the deportment and industry of the pupils, the every-day working aspect of the schools, are thus seen at a glance, as they really are, no al lowance being required, for the embellishments of holiday attire, the excitement of expectation, or the pleasing effect of special preparation, which are proper enough on formal occasions, but which are not calculated to help a visitor in making up a just estimate of the actual merit of a school. On entering a school, the temperature and purity of the air, the cleanliness and order of the room, the personal condition of the children, their application to study, their attention while reciting, and the stage of their advancement in the text-books, the tact, skill, and judgment of the teacher, the mode of conducting recitations, the nature of the discipline, and the attendance and punctuality as shown by the records, these things and many others, which make up the character of a school, are observed as carefully as circumstances will permit, while the teacher proceeds for a time without interruption, with whatever work happens to be on hand. Having observed the operations as far as may seem desirable, it is a common practice with me to take a class, or the whole school, and conduct a brief exercise, in order to exhibit some method which the teacher desires to sec illustrated, or to hint some improvement which could not be so well presented in direct terms. By thus going from school to school, at all periods of the year, at every hour of the sessions, in every part of the city, by this laborious but interesting service, I endeavor to obtain as far as practicable a personal knowledge of the condition of the schools, so as to be able to suggest improvements and remedy defects in their management The whole number of my recorded visits, during the past year, amounts to nine hundred, and if to this number were added the casual calls of which no account has been kept, the total sum |