school-room; and especially, if spent in such school-rooms, and under such teachers as are now in too many districts in this and other states provided.

Every child should attend the best school, be it public or private; but other things being equal, a public school of the same grade will be found to be the best school; and if it is the best school, in all the essential features of a school, the social and indirect benefits resulting to the individual and to the community, from the early school association of all the children from the families of the poor and the rich, the more and the less favored in occupation and outward circumstances, are such, that as far as practicable, all the children of a neighborhood should attend the public school. While connected with a school, every scholar should attend regularly and punctually, from the commencement of the term to the close, and during the school hours of each day. If the children of either sex are to be withdrawn early from school, this deprivation should fall on the boys, rather than the girls; for the former can more easily supply the deficiencies of school education by improving the opportunities of self and mutual instruction which their occupation, and access to books, lectures, and the daily intercourse with educated men, afford; and the latter, by improving for a longer period the privilege of good schools, will, in the relations of mothers and teachers, do more to improve and bless society, and determine the civilization of the next and all future generations, than the male sex, can do, however well educated, without the co operation of women.

With these views as to the desirable standard of school attendance, let us see how far the state fell below it in 1844, and what are some of the means by which a nearer approach can be made in future years.

The whole number of persons over four and under sixteen years of age, the ordinary but not exclusive subjects of school education, in the different towns of the state, including the city of Providence, was about 30,000.

The whole number of persons of all ages who attended any school, public or private, any portion of the year, was 24,000. Of this number 21,000 were enrolled as attending the public schools, and 3,000 as receiving instruction at home, or in private schools, of different grades, at periods of the year when the public schools were open. At other periods of the year the number attending private schools, taught by teachers of public schools, was much larger.

Of the 21,000 connected with the public schools during the year, 18,000 only were between the ages of four and sixteen years. One-third of the whole number enrolled, attended school so irregularly, that the average attendance of children

of all ages in the public schools, did not exceed 13,500, or less than one-half of all the children of a proper school age. The number who attended school during the whole year, allowing for vacations of ordinary length, did not exceed 5,000, including scholars in primary schools, while more than 6,000 on an average did not attend a public school three months in the year. Less than half of the whole number of scholars were girls. Of the scholars over sixteen years of age, the proportion of boys to the girls was as five to one. Of the scholars over ten years of age, the number of boys were to the girls as four to one.

These results, although obtained from different sources of information, agree substantially with those presented in the annual returns made by school committees to the Secretary of State, for the same period, and are sufficiently accurate to sustain the following conclusions.

1. Many children of a proper age did not attend any school, public or private, or receive suitable instruction at home during the year.

The whole number thus absent from any regular or systematic means of education, cannot have been less than six thousand. Of this number two thousand were under the age of eight years, and three thousand over the age of twelve. It would have been better for the health, manners and morals of most of those under eight years of age, to have been in good primary schools, such as should be engrafted upon the system of public instruction, in every large neighborhood. Of those over twelve years of age, two-thirds at least were girls, and a large proportion of the whole number, both male and female, were employed in the field, the mill, or the workshop, for the pecuniary value of their labor. Many of them have attended school in former years, but so irregularly that their school education does not amount to any useful acquaintance with even the elementary branches of reading, writing and arithmetic, as ordinarily taught. A portion of this number would have attended the public school of their district, had it not been open for only a few weeks or months, and, during that time, crowded with scholars, of every age. The necessities of some families, and the business arrangements of employers will not allow of the withdrawal of all those employed in the mills at the same time. So if the public school in the agricultural district is open in the summer only, the older boys and girls cannot attend; and if in the winter only, the younger children who live at a distance, are virtually excluded. The remedy for this part of the evil, is to keep the public school open throughout the year. For those who cannot under any circumstances attend the day school, (although it is to be regretted that they should not attend a good school for even a few months in the year, at a

period of life when they would make the most valuable acquisition in knowledge, and master effectually its difficulties,) eve-. ning schools should be established. By means of such schools, the defective education of many of the youth of our manufacturing population would be remedied, and their various trades and employments be converted into the most efficient instruments of self-culture.

Although a much larger school attendance, both of children. under eight and over twelve years, would undoubtedly be secured by the opening of permanent schools, both for children under eight and ten years, and for those over twelve, still this would not wholly cure the evil, which lies down deep in the cupidity and negligence of parents, and the change which has been wrought in the habits of society by the substitution of the cheaper labor of children and females, for the more expensive labor of able bodied men. The consciences of parents must be touched, a public conscience on this subject must be created,a wise forethought, as to the retribution which will one day visit society for the crime of neglected childhood, and the early and extensive withdrawal of females from schools, and their employment in large masses away from home and home occnpations, must be awakened among capitalists, patriots and Christians. We have not yet begun to see the beginning of the end. A large number of the females heretofore employed in mills, have had an early, New England, domestic training, before engaging in their present occupation. But where can those who have spent their lives, from the age of eight or ten to twenty-one, in the routine of a cotton mill, be trained to those intellectual and moral habits, which are essential to the management of a household, however small and humble, and upon which the happiness of every home, however poor, depends?

2. Many children, who should, and would under some circumstances, be sent to the public schools, attended exclusively, private schools of different grades.

Most of the private schools in this state have their origin in the real or supposed deficiencies of the common schools, and four-fifths of them would disappear in six months, if the public schools were thoroughly organized, and liberally sustained throughout the year. The peculiar views entertained by some parents in reference to the education of children, will always call for the establishment of a few private schools. In these, the accomplishments of education, which the great mass of society will not care to see provided for in a course of public instruction, can be given; and here too, those teachers who have new views as to methods of instruction and discipline, which cannot be carried out in schools subject to certain gen

eral regulations, as public schools must be, will find scope for the exercise of their talents. Improvements in education would be retarded, and the standard of education would be • lowered by the utter abandonment of private schools. This view of the necessity and usefulness of private schools, does not preclude my regarding the extent to which they are now patronized by the wealthy and educated families of the state, as at once the evidence of the low condition of the public schools, and the most formidable obstacle in the way of their rapid and permanent improvement. It draws off the means and the parental and public interest, which are requisite to make good public schools, and converts them, in some places, avowedly, into schools for the poor. It classifies society at the root, by assorting children according to the wealth, education and outward circumstances of their parents, into different schools; and educates children of the same neighborhood differently and unequally. These differences of culture as to manners, morals, and intellectual tastes and habits, begun in childhood, and strengthened by differences in occupation, which are determined mainly by education, open a real chasm between members of the same society, broad and deep, which equal laws and political theories cannot close. The only way to prevent the continuance, or at least to diminish the amount of this social and political evil in future, is to do away with its cause--the necessity which now exists for so many private schools, and to equalize the opportunities of education. To accomplish this to the extent which is practicable and desirable, the public schools here, must be made at once cheap and good, by the same or more efficient steps which have made them cheap and good elsewhere.

3. Many children who were enrolled as scholars in public schools, attended for so few months in the year, and will have attended for so short a period of their lives, that their school education must necessarily be very limited, superficial and incomplete.

Many children do not commence going to school for the first time, until they are six, seven or eight years of age, and not a few of this number, after attending school two, three and four months in the year, for three or four years of their lives, leave it for active employment in the field and workshop. The average length of the public schools in twenty-seven towns, in 1844, was about four months. In 255 school districts, there was but one session of less than four months in the year, leaving a vacation of eight months. In 166 districts, the public schools were open but nine weeks in the year. Upwards of 6,000 scholars attended public school less than three months; while less than two thousand children, excluding the scholars

in the public schools of Providence, and of those districts where the public schools were kept through the year, attended school eight months in the year. The general standard of attainment with scholars over eight years old, in most of the schools which I have visited, was at least three years below what it should have been, and what it would have been, if the same scholars had commenced going to school when they were five years of age. There are certain school habits, of order, attention, and application, which can be more readily acquired,—certain elementary steps in language, which can be taken more easily by a child before than after they are seven or eight years old. The standard of scholarship in the schools, fell far short, both in quantity and quality, of what it might have been, if the older children of the neighborhood were continued in the winter schools for a few years longer. They leave school just at that period of life when they would see the practical bearings of their studies, and have acquired the vigor of mind requisite to grapple with the real difficulties of science.

4. Many scholars in public schools attended so irregularly from day to day, and with such want of punctuality at the opening of each term, and of each half day's session, and withdrew prematurely before the close of the term, or of the daily session, that they derived but little benefit from the schools, and greatly impaired the usefulness, and lowered the scholarship of the public schools.

The magnitude and diversified forms and relations of the evil here stated-its deep-seatedness in the school habits of society, and the irreparable nature of the injury which it inflicts, cannot be overstated, and can with difficulty be appreciated, except by those who have devoted particular attention to the subject.

Except in districts where there is a stated period for each school term to commence, much time is lost to individuals, and the whole school, before a sufficient number of scholars have come together for the purposes of classification. In ninety-six districts, comprising in the aggregate 3,800 pupils, less than 1,000 were present during the first week, and more than that number did not join until after the close of the third week of the term. In the same districts, 460 left school three weeks before the term closed. The average length of the school term in these districts, was thirteen weeks. But not only was the nominal length of the school term curtailed in this way, but a portion was clipped, both from the opening and close of every day's session.

In fifty schools, in which these facts were carefully noted, until proper measures were taken to expose and remedy the evil, less than one-tenth of the scholars were in the school