SHOWING THE COMPARATIVE POSITION OF VARIOUS POPULOUS PLACES IN THE STATE IN RELATION TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS, &C.

Column A Shows the number of thousands of inhabitants in the places

mentioned in the Table.

B, Number of millions of dollars of property, as per valuation.
C, Average wealth of each individual inhabitant.

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D, Number of thousands of dollars appropriated to schools annually.

66 E, Cost of Public Schools to each individual inhabitant, expressed in dollars and cents.

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F, Number of cents paid for public schools on every hundred dollars annually.

G, Amount appropriated for each child between five and fifteen years of age, expressed in dollars and cents.

H, Average monthly salary of male Teachers, in dollars.

I, Average monthly salary of female Teachers, in dollars.

J, Ratio of pupils attending school to the whole number of
children between five and fifteen years of age.

K, Average number of pupils in actual attendance under each
Teacher.

REMARKS.

The first important fact exhibited by the table above, the immense wealth of the cities of Massachusetts. If the property of these cities were equally distributed to the inhabitants, every man, woman or child would become the possessor of nearly $700, and every family consisting of parents and eight children. would enjoy the handsome competence of about $7000, which, well invested and bearing interest at 7 per cent., would secure an income of nearly $500 annually. If property should be thus distributed, why might not all the inhabitants of our cities live without work?

Next let the reader remark how little each individual, on the average, pays for schools, the amount being only $1.35,-a sum scarcely sufficient to pay one's board at a public house for a single day. How insignificant is this sum compared with the cost which multitudes incur for the most trifling luxuries of life. If our schools are the glory of our land, it is glory cheaply bought.

In comparing the annual amount expended on each child with the well known rates of tuition in private schools, all must admit that our public schools are economically arranged.

The table also reveals the fact that (especially in the wealthy cities of Salem and Newburyport,) the female teacher is rewarded for her toil in a very niggardly manner. How can it

be expected that young ladies of the best talents will consent to take the charge of 37 pupils in actual attendance for the pittance of $14 per month, more than half of which would be required in any respectable boarding house, for the single item of board!

We can but regret that, in some of our cities, nearly half of the children are not regularly found in the public schools.

The last column indicates some diversity in regard to the number of pupils placed under each teacher, but allowance must be made for the fact, that in some of our cities, there are rural districts in which it is impossible to secure all the advantages of division of labor.

A general inference will naturally be drawn from a study of the table. It is this: if the vast wealth of our cities is mainly due to the intelligence of our citizens, and if the future safeguard of this immense wealth is to be found in educating the rising generation, it is worse than folly to complain of the expense of our Public Schools. When our schools, which constitute our glory and our safety, shall cost half as much as our luxuries and our vicious indulgences, which are ruinous both to public character and public prosperity, then may our rich men complain of the school tax as an oppressive burden.

Were the whole advantages of educating the masses to be found in the pecuniary value of the labor of the educated above that of the uneducated, and could it be proved that there is a differ ence of one half cent per day, on an average, of all the individual inhabitants, in favor of the former class, then the introduction into our cities of our present school system would be a moneymaking speculation on the part of the public, for this system actually costs less than one half cent per day to each inhabitant. From calculations such as these, it is easy to explain the rapid accumulation of wealth in educated communities, as well as that degrading poverty which is the constant companion of popular ignorance.

"BE THOROUGH."

So true is it that thoroughness is the first and best element of all good teaching, and so often has the caution" be thorough been sounded in our ears, and so vast a majority of teachers fail in respect to this very point of being thorough, that it seems almost an unpardonable heresy for any one to "take the other side of the question" and dare to utter the unheard-of language, Don't be too thorough. And yet there are really some few cases in which this caution may be needed. Our good friend A., for instance, wishes to secure a good reputation as a thorough teacher, and on an exercise which might be well learned in three weeks, he has spent three months, and is still drilling. What if the pupils are listless and idle? What if the lesson is irksome and threadbare? They are, at least, familiar with it: they have it thoroughly committed. If they have not studied upon it for two months, they have heard it so often that they could repeat it in their sleep. And then, too, the lesson is long enough for a fine, popular exercise on examination day, and under the excitement they will really appear interested in it. They will then be repaid for the tediousness of the whole term, by the honeyed compliments of all their friends. Committee, parents, all exclaim, "How thorough, how very thorough!" and return home with renewed and unbounded confidence in the teacher of their school, while the children return to the tedious labor of another term, and the teacher to prepare for another examination.

Now, at the risk of being burned as a heretic, we will caution the friends of education to pay some little regard to the amount acquired as well as the thoroughness of the acquirement. And we beg of them, before they say too much in favor of thorough instruction, to stop to inquire whether this thoroughness has been

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acquired at the expense of the ambition and zeal and love of progress and of rapid acquirement on the part of the pupils. Nothing is more unsafe than to base our opinion of the merits of a teacher and the proficiency of his school, upon the results of a few recitations on examination day. The old Greek philosopher spoke true philosophy when he said that the way to educate a boy was not to make him wait for those behind him. The desire of rapid progress should never be trifled with. The true teacher does not curb the aspiring mind, and crush out the ethereal spark by dull routine and repetition.

The true end of our school system can only be attained when zeal and love for study receive that praise which thoroughness and correctness have so long and so justly claimed; when it shall be asked, not only how critical and exact a teacher may be, but with what life and interest he inspires his pupils in the pursuit of knowledge, and with what cheerful steps does he lead them up thehill of science."

MR. EDITOR,

I think there is no part of instruction or discipline so im portant, and yet so difficult, as that which relates to the little children in our primary schools. Let false notions or theories in relation to either prevail, and the teacher must of necessity try to regulate the motion of the living machinery of her school according to the controlling influences by which she is surrounded.

Learned men have written learned treatises on education, designed to improve and elevate the more advanced schools, but rarely do they descend to the every-day reality of the primary school. Many of the books now in use by this class of schools have been prepared upon the principles of a cold philosophy, which show an immensurable distance between the minds of their authors and those of little children. Theories, also, beautiful to dream of in an ideal world, have been advanced, and urged upon teachers, by well-meaning but visionary enthusiasts, which common-sense teachers can never find a realization in our present organization of society. But these authors and theorists, as practical teachers, have had little or nothing to do with the class of schools to which I refer. Yet both have had much to do in moulding public opinion. Hence it comes that false notions do prevail in relation to the management of these schools; and in no part is it more apparent, or perhaps injurious to children, than that which relates to discipline.

One class of educators would have every primary school a miniature high school, only more exact in its system of instruction, and more rigid in its discipline. Another class cries out, that we do not educate according to nature, that we do violence to her laws, that we bring upon many children disease and premature death. But somehow or other our order-loving people seem more inclined to agree with the former than with the latter class; for it is in vain to attempt to conceal the fact, that for a general rule the test of a good school is its order, and this, in too many cases, means-its stillness. Teachers, knowing this, have endeavored in various ways to effect the desired result. Is not this sometimes unwisely attained by an unnatural constraint and pressure upon the faculties of the child? That distinguished writer and educator, so well known in Massachusetts, the Hon. Horace Mann, has some remarks pertinent to this question, which I beg leave to introduce here. "Children," he says, "especially young children, if they have any vivacity or hopefulness in them, if they are at all elevated above the clods they tread upon, connot endure a long-enforced inactivity of all the muscular powers without serious injury to health, and even to character. The muscles of a healthy, vigorous child, during its waking hours, come nearer perpetual motion than anything ever yet invented. Sleep and food wind them up like a watch, and they must go or break. Its internal organs, its heart, its lungs, its blood vessels, its instruments of secretion and assimilation, are perpetual motion. They go from birth till death; indeed, their cessation is death. Even a rigid old man, with his half-inflexible, non-elastic arms and legs, cannot sit still for any great length of time. Confine him to one posture, whether standing or sitting, for any considerable period, and he will groan, or shriek, or howl, if need be. What, then, must be the sensations of a little child, when no play or motion is allowed to arms and legs which are, as it were, full of coiled steel springs. Yet some teachers plant a row of little children down upon a seat, make them stare into vacancy, hold their arms akimbo, square their knees, arrange their toes by a crack in the floor, and remain so for half an hour together." "If a teacher could stop the beating of the heart, and the rushing of the blood, and the shootings of electricity along the nerves, there would be some palliation for treating children like a file of statuary. But constituted as they are, such treatment is barbarous in the extreme. It is enough to make a row of bricks weep to see it. It is the stillness of death. It is the quiet of the tomb."

Now, though we all agree in condemning this course, yet we are frequently pained by seeing in many primary schools, not only a row, but rows of little children treated in this same