School, are taken from the recent report of the School Visitors of New Haven: "The Normal School of this State has tended, more than any other single cause, to advance the standard of common school education in Connecticut, and your Board therefore take pleasure in recommending it to the continued confidence and support of our own community. It is a school for the instruction of teachers; and its influence in giving correct views on this whole subject, as well as in furnishing the best of instructors, is of incalculable benefit to the State. Many teachers, of considerable experience and pretension, who have gone to that school reluctantly, or in the belief that it could afford them but little benefit, have come away convinced that, without the knowledge there obtained of the art of teaching, they would have forever labored under extreme disadvantage. Your Board generally prefer to engage teachers who have been disciplined in such institutions." WHAT IS DOING FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF SCHOOLS Higher wages are paid to teachers. "As is the teacher so is the school." In the improvement of schools the first and principal thing to be attended to is the improvement of teachers. Every movement, therefore, which tends to draw into the business of teaching, a better class of teachers, and to retain them in the field, is calculated to improve the condition of schools. All other means will prove ineffectual and produce no beneficial results unless good teachers are secured. We regard with great satisfaction, the evident progress of these fundamental principles with reference to the elevation of our schools. In the numerous applications for teachers which we are constantly receiving, as a general thing, the compensation offered has been fair, in some instances, quite liberal, and in a few cases, high. Young men without any experience in teaching, have been offered from eighteen to thirty dollars per month, with board at a "steady place." The gentlemen who graduated at the Normal School in October last, were at once engaged at fifty dollars per month, in permanent situations, with the prospect of an advance when they demonstrated sucThe ladies who have completed the course, are receiving from cess. 1 five to eight dollars per week, without board. In one of the cities in this state, a salary of six hundred dollars has been offered for a female teacher to occupy a place in a public or common school. These facts are to our view, substantial proofs of progress. NEW HAVEN. The annual report of the Board of Visitors is before us. It is from the pen of the Chairman of the Board, James F. Babcock, Esq., whose judicious and persevering efforts for the reformation of the public schools of New Haven, are well known. We are highly pleased with this document, and can not but wish that it might be circulated in all the cities of the state. The Webster School was established on a liberal scale as a model school, to show the people of New Haven what the term good public school meant. That important lesson has been learned by the citizens of New Haven. The committee find themselves in embarrassing circumstances, not from the failure of their plans, but from their great and unexpected success. Applications for admission to the new school are so numerous, that the committee are put to their wits' end to know what to do. The foundation of a similar school on a still more liberal plan, has been laid, but parents who had before thought the public school unfit for their children, are now hastening to withdraw their children from the private schools and place them in the people's school-the common school. In respect to punctuality of attendance, we find the following statement: "The means taken to secure prompt and punctual attendance at the schools have been more thorough than heretofore, by a system of discipline which has had the desired effect, though it has given offense in some instances. In the graded schools, the proverbially tardy and absent have been sent to lower departments during the remainder of the term. In other schools, some of this class of scholars, after due admonition, and proper discipline, have been expelled until the beginning of a new term, in accordance with that provision of the law which requires the Board to prescribe 'Rules and Regulations for the Management and Discipline of the Schools."" Irregularity of Attendance. On this topic the report says: "A great and serious injury to the schools has been the late and irregular attendance of the pupils. The Board have sought, by the exercise of all the powers they possessed, to break up this most rep rehensible practice. The scholars have been encouraged by marks of approbation, to be prompt and constantly at school, and fully warned of the consequences of irregularity. These consequences have been, in some cases, expulsion for a time. We do not claim the right to expel beyond an existing term, and such an act is always one of a most painful character, but exercised from a sense of duty to the greatest number as well as to the individuals who are subjected to this discipline. This course of action is preferred to corporeal punishment, because it reaches the parent, who is mostly in fault, and who can have his child restored on giving the proper assurances that he will no longer permit the school to be treated with contempt by himself or the pupil." Let this prompt and energetic action on the part of the New Haven committee be imitated by other committees, and we shall have less complaint on account of tardiness and irregularity of attendance. We regret the want of room for other extracts from this valuable report, but hope to draw from it hereafter. We must postpone for the present what we should be glad to state in this number, of the improvements in Hartford, where a new schoolhouse has recently been dedicated, in Bristol, where a splendid building has been erected for a union school, in Norwich, in Norwalk, in Southport, and in Bloomfield. WEST HARtford. It would be agreeable to us to have more to say about improvements in the "rural districts." Very many of the district schools are in a low condition. The school-houses are poor, the teachers in many of them incompetent, the attendance irregular, the text-books without uniformity, and all apparatus a minus quantity. We have, however, just heard from one which deserves special notice. It is located in West Hartford. At a meeting of the district last autumn, the digging of a well was suggested. It was objected by the stand-still party, that the water would not be good, as it would be used but a part of the year. "Then let it be used all the year," replied the progressives, and forthwith proceeded to vote a well, to vote an annual school to be kept by a female teacher at thirty dollars per month, to vote to abolish rate-bills, and to lay a tax on property to defray all expenses. What a system of schools would old Connecticut have to boast of, if every district in the state should at once imitate the example of the district in West Hartford! CITY OF MIDDLETOWN. Report of Society's Committee. We are glad to find this document in print. We hope the time is not distant when the practice of printing School Reports will become general. It will prove a powerful means of improving the schools. This report is highly laudatory of the schools It does not breathe a syllable of dissatisfaction or complaint. It begins by stating that the "Schools of the Society, as will appear from the report of attendance for the past year, have been in a highly prosperous condition." In the final paragraph, it says, "In conclusion the Committee would congratulate the society, on the prosperous condition and prospects of the schools." The committee are evidently disposed to look on the bright side of their charge. We like the happy disposition which prompts to such a view of things, and it is precisely that which we are cultivating while preparing the materials for the summary under this head, ("What is doing," &c.,) but we have some fears that this committee have allowed it a little too much indulgence. We do not propose at this time to turn to them the dark side of the picture, but rather rejoice with them in the good we can find, at the same time begging leave to suggest that it would be well to compare the statistics of their society with those of some other places in New England of the same size, and amount of taxable property. But to the Improvements. 66 During the past year it became necessary, either to make extensive repairs or to replace the furniture of the senior department of the high school, which has been in service some fourteen years. With proper consideration to convenience and comfort of pupils, the committee provided improved seats and desks, a very considerable part of the expenses of which, was raised by private subscription." This is the only improvemeut mentioned in the report as being made at the expense of the society. But this is a good beginning, so far as it goes. We have seen the desks. They are the best Boston article. "The committee have secured for the use of the society, two free scholarships in the Wesleyan University, one from Mrs. Grace J. Starr, and one from Samuel Russell, Esq., to be given as prizes to the most meritorious. It is hoped more will soon be added." Certainly. Will not this example be imitated in other societies? "By a law, framed by the last Legislature, the towns are required to appropriate the avails of a tax of one per cent. on the grand levy for the support of schools. With the assistance derived from this source, the society, without increasing their tax, will be enabled to lessen their capitation tax, which now falls heavily upon men of large family and limited means, and soon abolish it entirely. This has been done in several of the larger towns and cities of this state, rendering the schools as they should be, entirely free." And we would add that as a general fact, the best and most successful schools are found precisely in those places where the capitation tax has been abolished and the schools are free. If the capitation tax is large it must fall heavily upon those least able to bear it ; if it is small, it is of little assistance in supporting the schools. ATTENDANCE OF HIGH AND GRAMMAR SCHOOLS IN NEW HIGH SCHOOL-Average number belonging to the School, 94. .95 .006 88. .89 .008 VACATIONS. SEVERAL letters have already (Jan. 1,) been received, cordially seconding the attempt to secure uniformity of vacations. The schools in some of the cities are waiting for a time to be recommended by the State Teachers' Association to fix their vacations. Let us have a letter from every teacher before the first of March. The information desired is as follows: Name of town-name of school society and district-post-office address of the writer, and the number, length and time of the usual vacations. Perfect accuracy is not to be expected-only let it be as definite as possible. F. C. BROWNell, Hartford, Conn. Please direct to |