ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

BOARD OF EDUCATION,

TOGETHER WITH THE

EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

SECRETARY OF THE BOARD.

Boston:

DUTTON AND WENTWORTH, STATE PRINTERS.

........

1845.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

[Added by the editor. NOT in the original.]

Board of Education Report to the Legislature

Westfield Normal School

Bridgewater Normal School

Lexington Normal School

Treasurer's Report

Eighth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board of Education

Employment of Female Teachers

Town Appropriations

Libraries

Teachers, and the Breaking up of Schools

Teachers' Institutes

School Registers

Use of the Bible in Schools

Removal of the Lexington Normal School to West Newton

The Distribution of School Moneys Among Districts

Suffolk

Essex

Middlesex

Worcester

Hampshire

Hampden

Franklin

Berkshire

Norfolk

Bristol

Plymouth

Barnstable

Dukes County

Nantucket

Power of Towns To Raise Money for Schools

Paisley in 1800-1844 [A Footnote]

Vocal Music in Schools

EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

BOARD OF EDUCATION.

THE Board of Education submit to the Legislature this, their EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT.

By a law of the Commonwealth, passed on the 20th April, A.D. 1837, and entitled "An act relating to Common Schools," it was provided, that the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Council, should appoint eight persons, who, together with the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor, ex officiis, should constitute a Board of Education, the individual members of which Board should hold their offices for the term of eight years. The said act, however, contained a provision, that, for the first eight years, the commissions of the members of the Board should expire, in the order of their appointment, annually, till the whole Board should be changed, the vacancies to be filled by the appointment of other persons, by the Governor and Council.

As the period of eight years, from the organization of the Board, is about to expire, a period during which, of necessity, the members of the Board must have changed; and as, in fact, there is, at present, no one of the original members of the Board, now participating in its duties, it would seem to be not inappropriate, upon the present occasion, 'to refer to the contemplated objects of its organization, and to inquire how far it has answered the purposes of its establishment.

The very title of the act would seem to indicate, with sufficient distinctness, the objects of the Legislature; but the 2d

section of it enumerates them, so as to leave no room for cavil. Its general provisions are, that the Board shall lay before the Legislature, annually, in a printed form, such parts of the returns made by the school committces of the respective towns, to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, as they shall consider useful; that they shall cause to be collected, by means of their Secretary, information of the actual condition and efficiency of the Common Schools, and other means of popular education; that they shall cause to be diffused, as widely as possible, throughout every part of the Commonwealth, information of the most approved, and successful methods of conducting and promoting the education of the young, "to the end, that all the children of the Commonwealth, who depend on the Common Schools for instruction, may have the best education, which those schools can be made to impart."

The 3d section provides, that the Board shall annually make a detailed report to the Legislature, of all its doings, with such observations as their experience and reflection may suggest, upon the condition and efficiency of our system of popular education, and the most practicable means of improving and extending it.

The passage of a statute, containing these provisions, of itself raises the implication, that there was some defect, either in our system of popular education, or in the efficiency with which it was carried forward. No measure of a similar character had been adopted before that time, or, as is believed, had been agitated in the Legislature of this Commonwealth; and the extraordinary unanimity with which the law was enacted, and the cordial reception which was extended to it, by all classes of our citizens, notwithstanding the novelty of its character, are evidences of the deep-seated desire of the Legislature and of the people, to seck out and to remedy any existing deficiencies in the great subject of Common School education.

We are not, however, compelled to resort to implication, in establishing the fact, that there was a necessity for the improvement of our Common Schools. If we give credence to the popular voice, which, at that time spoke loudly on the subject; if we believe in the correctness of the reports of the friends

of education, whether made by them as individuals, or as associated for the purpose of lending their combined aid in the furtherance of this great cause, we shall be compelled to admit, that, at no period in the history of our time-honored State, had the Common School fallen so far short of its original destination, as at the very period of the establishment of the Board of Education.

Various causes have been assigned by different individuals, for this deterioration. It is the opinion of many persons, that the law of 1789,-leaving it optional with towns, either to carry on the public schools in their corporate capacity, or to divide their territory into districts,-by taking away the feeling of competition between different parts of the same town, by weakening the benevolent tendencies of many of the friends of educational improvement, and by destroying the necessity of an enlarged and general supervision, by the municipal authorities, of all the schools in the town, as well remote as central,laid deep the foundation of an evil, which has been going onward, with increasing influence, for the last half century.

It has been said by others, that the greatest cause of this deterioration, is to be found in the numerous private schools, which had sprung up throughout the Commonwealth. And, again, it has been speciously replied, to this assumption, that the establishment of private schools is not the cause, but the effect of bad Common Schools; inasmuch as parents will not, ordinarily, remove their children from schools established and maintained by the public, to those which are sustained at private expense, unless the public schools have become unsuitable for the purposes for which they were designed.

But whatever may have been the cause of the establishment of private schools, the effect of their establishment has been most disastrous upon the interests of Common School education. By increasing the expenses of education, without out proportionally improving its quality; by drawing off to the private schools the best of the teachers; by depriving the Common Schools of their best scholars, and thus robbing them of a bright example, the best incentive to diligence; by withdrawing from them the care and sympathy of the most intelligent part