INDIANAPOLIS.

The following information is taken from the report for 1869 of the superintendent of schools, Hon. A. C. Shortridge:

Number of persons between six and twenty-one years of age.

Number enrolled in schools..

Boys....

Girls..

Between six and fifteen....

Between fifteen and twenty-one..

Average per cent. of attendance...

Ratio of attendance to school population in the city, expressed decimally.

Number of cases of tardiness in all the schools was..

Number of teachers; males, 3; females, 75..

9,025

4,328

4,697

6,679

2,346

5, 160

2,545

2,615

3,549

3,375

94.9

.571

2,980

78

$44,470 07 $31 51

Total salaries of teachers, including evening schools.
Total cost per pupil, upon average number belonging..

For some years past promptness of attendance has been required of all who retain their membership in the schools. The per cent. of attendance has been advanced from 60 to about 95 per cent. within a period of six years. This regulation of the board, carried out with a good degree of discretion by the teachers, has been the principal agency in securing so desirable a result. The number suspended during the year for absence was 564; the number restored, upon assurance of amendment from parents or guardians, was 436.

EVENING SCHOOLS

Were opened November 7, 1868, and continued in session sixteen weeks. The total enrollment of different pupils was 215. The expense incurred for tuition alone was $659, an average of $3 06 on the total enrollment of pupils, and of $5 90 on the average number belonging.

INSTRUCTION IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE

Has been given to all pupils whose parents have desired it. The number who received instruction, exclusive of the high school, was 866. The average number who continued the study throughout the entire year was 642.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TRAINING SCHOOL

Was organized March 1, 1867. It is no longer considered an experiment, but a department of the public schools, established on a permanent basis. Its influence on the methods of teaching, especially on the primary grades of the schools, has been most salutary. In the early history of the school, doubts were entertained in regard to its usefulness, by persons who supposed that the children were to be used as a kind of passive material upon which unlettered and inexperienced young women were to practice and experiment. But this is by no means the case, for all the pupil-teachers who have been admitted to the school have passed the same examination that would follow an application to enter the schools as a regular teacher.

Rev. Dr. Mayo, a member of the committee, in an address delivered before the teachers of Hamilton County, Ohio, refers, in the following language, to the Indianapolis Training School:

"Last Monday it was my privilege to spend half a day in the examination of what is doubtless the most complete training school in the Western States.

"In the upper room of a well-constructed school-house I found a quiet, self-possessed young woman standing before a group of half a dozen girls, in familiar conversation upon their forenoon's work as teachers of the five hundred children in the rooms below. Their conversation ranged through the whole realm of the life of childhood, striving to analyze its faculties, comprehend its wants, and get into perfect sympathy with its mysterious inward life. Each of the girls told her experience with her class as earnestly as if she knelt at the confessional, under the eye of a criticism as decided as it was sympathetic and kind. Below I saw the working half of the class of pupil-teachers conducting the various exercises of instruction. Through these rooms moved three critic teachers, noting everything, advising, preparing to report in due time to the quiet little lady above.

"In one room a charming model school was permanently kept by an experienced

young woman.

One man, with the title of superintendent, was responsible for the order of the little community, and assisted in the teaching of the older classes. "I looked with delight, too deep for expression, upon that beautiful spectacle of a school where five hundred children are taught by these twenty girls, who themselves are learning the finest art of modern life. I marked the deep enthusiasm, the blended firmness, self-possession, and gentleness, the sweet spirit of co-operation, with which they went about their duty. I saw in their faces that they felt that they had chosen the better part, were living for a purpose, and not troubled overmuch about their position in American society.'

Lessons in music are given in all grades above the primary, by music teachers, two each week of half an hour duration. The first year pupils are taught to sing simple songs by rote; the second year, some of the principles of musical notation are taught; the third year, the tones of the scale and their names, notes and names, syllables, double measure, &c. It is believed that music can be more successfully taught in the primary grades by the teachers of the schools in one short lesson each day than by a lesson from a music teacher twice a week.

COLORED CHILDREN,

According to the provisions of the law, are to be taught in separate schools. The board has, therefore, set apart two school-houses for their use. Though they have been for some time out of use," says the report, "by reason of their unfitness, they can be made quite as comfortable as several of our other houses, and will accommodate 340 of the 621 who are of school age, provided those of the D primary grade, as in the other schools, attend but half a day."

PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

There are in the city thirteen private schools, employing 37 teachers, with an average number of 1,811 pupils-857 boys and 954 girls. Adding this number to the daily attendance in the public schools, we have 5,186, which, deducted from the school population of the city, gives, as the average number who did not from day to day attend any school, 3,838. Less than one-third of those children who have a right to attend the public schools are found in them, and less than one-half of the school population of the city attend any school.

Table of statistical details of schools in Indiana.

Hon. B. C. HOBBS, superintendent of public instruction, Indianapolis.

Each county, has a school examiner, who, to a certain extent, is a superintendent.