education, not by any public school fund or state tax, but, as in Prussia and Holland still, by the requirements of law in regard to each township and neighbourhood. No provision was made for a school fund in Massachusetts until 1834; as late as 1863 the annual amount of that fund was only $49,044 and the amount apportioned in aid of schools in 1865-6 was $62,649.

2.-PRESENT SYSTEM IN MASSACHUSETTS.

The fundamental principles of the Massachusetts school system remain as established more than two hundred years ago: but in 1837 it was organized into a state system, and, as such with sundry legal and practical improvements it is now administered. At the head of it stands

The Board of Education, which was first established in 1837, and which is composed of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and eight persons appointed by the executive for the term of eight years, one member retiring annually, and his place supplied by executive appointment. The duty of the Board is to prescribe the forms of returns, appoint a Secretary; appoint the officers of the Normal Schools; collect and diffuse information as to the best methods of rearing and extending education. The expenses of the Board are paid out of the public treasury. The Board presents an annual report of about 60 pages on the state of the Normal Schools and of Schools generally-to which is appended the Secretary's Report and abstracts of local reports of school committees. These abstracts (many of them admirable essays on school education and management) occupy upwards of 300 pages. To these are added tabular and statistical returns filling upwards of 100 pages. The Report of the Secretary of the Board, occupying between 100 and 200 pages, is a document of great value, on his own proceedings, the state of education, and the best means of improving and extending it. Besides the Secretary, the Board appoints Agents to visit, lecture, &c. Spending a day or more in each town, examining schools in the afternoon and lecturing in the evening-also attending associations and institutes of teachers.

Institutes, first organized in 1846, may be established where 50 or more teachers express a desire to unite and sustain one. The sessions are limited to five days. Three thousand dollars are appropriated from the school fund to aid in defraying the expenses of Institutes; but the apportionment to each is limited to $350. The Secretary of the Board usually attends them.

County Associations of teachers are also encouraged by an allowance to each of $25, provided its session be held two days and a half in the interest of public schools.

Normal Schcols.-The first State Normal School was opened in 1839; two others were opened in 1840; another was opened in 1853. The towns where these four Normal Schools are established, provided the premises and buildings, for the sake of the local advantages of the schools. Two of these Normal Schools are for females; and two for both sexes. The teachers of the Normal Schools are appointed by the State Board of Education. Tuition is free.

Males are admitted at seventeen; females at sixteen; every candidate admitted must give an assurance of his or her purpose to teach in the public schools of the state. The course of study extends through two years; there are four classes of pupils in each school; a six months term of study for each class.

High Schools are authorized in all towns, and are required in all towns of 500 families. They are to be kept open ten months of the year, and of course include instruction in the higher branches of English education, together with Latin and Greek, so far as is necessary to prepare pupils for the University. Adjoining towns, each with less than 500 families, may unite to sustain a High School. The number of towns required to keep high schools in 1866 was 131: the number of high schools maintained in these towns was 116; the number of High Schools kept in towns not required by law to maintain them, was 25; the whole number of High Schools was 141. Number of incorporated Academies returned, 52. Average number of scholars, 3,564. Amount paid for tuition, $118,815. Number of Private Schools and Academies returned, 596; decrease, 86. Estimated average attendance, 16,387; decrease, 4,947. Estimated amount of tuition paid, $226,447; decrease, $144,618.

The law requires that each high school shall be kept open to all the inhabitants for ten months of the year; that provision shall be made for instruction not only in higher branches of English, but also in general History, Book-keeping, Surveying, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Botany, the Civil Polity of the United States, and the Latin Language; and that in a town of 4,000 inhabitants, there shall be a first grade high school in which Greek and French as well as Latin are to be taught, if required, and also Astronomy, Rhetoric, Logic, Intellectual and Moral Science and Political Economy.

It is worthy of remark that the high schools in Massachusetts (corresponding to our grammar schools) are supported by public taxes as well as the common sehools, and are managed by the same Boards of Trustees or Committees.

Cities, Towns, School Districts and Schools.-The number of cities and towns (our townships and incorporated villages correspond to their towns) are 335, and the number of school districts (our sections) are 2,258-2,127 less than there are school sections in Ontario, (their districts being larger according to population than our school sections); but the number of their schools is 4,759, 456 more than in Ontario-they counting each story of a large school-house in a city as a school, and having graded schools, and therefore more than one school in many of their districts.

Population-School Attendance.-The population of Massachusetts according to the last census, taken in 1860, was 1,231,066, about 200,000 less than was that of Ontario taken the same year., The school population in 1865, between the ages of 5 and 15 years, was 255,328. The population of Ontario the same year, between the ages of 5 and 16 years was 426,757. The number of pupils of all ages in Massachusetts attending the schools in winter was 231,685; in summer, 230,894. The number of pupils of all ages in Ontario attending the schools, was 383,652.

66

Teachers, and their "Wages," &c.-The number of male teachers employed in the public schools was 1,086; of female teachers, 4,695; total, 7,598. Average wages" of male teachers (including high school teachers) per month was $59.53; "average wages" of female teachers per month was $24.36. Average length of time the schools were kept open was 7 months and 19 days. The average time of keeping open the schools in Ontario (including one month's legal holidays and vacations) was 11 months and 3 days.

School Fund.-The amount of State School Fund distributed to the several cities and towns in 1865-6 was $62,649. The amount of Public School Fund and Legislative Grant distributed in Upper Canada was $165,972. The amount raised by taxes for the support of public schools in Massachusetts, including only wages, board, fuel, care of fires and school rooms, was $1,993,177. The total expenditure for all Common and Grammar School purposes in Upper Canada was $1,450,119-very far short of that of Massachusetts.

School Committees.-What we call Trustee Corporations are called Committees in Massachusetts. Formerly these Committees were elected annually; but the school law in this respect was amended in 1857, and provided that the School Committee of each town should consist of three, or (in case of large towns) of a multiple of three; "one-third thereof to be elected annually, and to continue in office three years." This Committee is invested with plenary powers to arrange, classify and grade the schools of the town (township); to examine and employ teachers who are furnished with proper certificates of qualification; to visit the schools during the first and last week of every month of each session. The law fixes a compensation for the members of the Committee. Authorized by a popular vote, the Committee may select a superintendent of schools, to act as their agent, and report to them.

School Books are selected by the Committee,--are furnished to the pupils at cost; cannot be changed without the unanimous consent of the Committee, and without supplying at public expense the new books substituted for the old ones. Poor children are furnished gratuitously with school books. Much regret has been expressed in successive reports that the State Board of Education has not been empowered to select and prescribe Text Books for all the schools of the State.

School Houses and School Sites.-The law requires that the several townships provide school houses sufficient in number and capacity to accomodate all who have a right to be taught in them. By a recent law the school Committee may take a piece of land for each school site, not exceeding 80 square rods, exclusive of buildings, by paying the owner a fair equivalent, just the same as a piece of land may be taken for a public road by paying the owner the fairly estimated value of it. Such a law exists now in Lower Canada and greatly facilitates the proper selection of school sites.

Attendance and Truancy. The law requires that all children between eight and fourteen years of age should attend some public school in the city or town where they reside for at least twelve weeks of the year, six of which to be con

secutive, except in cases of extreme poverty, or where the child has equal advantages in a private or home school, or is physically or mentally incapacitated from attending school. There are also stringent laws which the towns are required to enforce in order to secure attendance of all children at schools, and prevent youthful vagrancy.

Distribution of the School Fund-Abolition of School districts.-The law provides for the distribution of one half the school fund to the public schools, and the other half to "other educational purposes"-such as superintendence of schools, printing reports, &c. The distribution of the fund to the cities and towns in aid of public schools has been made on two conditions:

1. That schools in such city or town shall have been kept open six months of the year. 2. That such city or town shall have raised by tax, a sum equal to three dollars for each resident child between five and fifteen years of age. The distribution amounted to from twenty to twenty-five cents per child. But in 1866, an act was passed containing the following important provision.

"In the distribution of the income of the school fund, for the benefit of the public schools of the state, every city and town complying with all the laws in force relating to the distribution of the same, shall annually receive seventy-five dollars; and the residue of said moiety shall annually be apportioned among the several cities and towns in proportion to the number of children in each, between the ages of five and fifteen years: provided, that after the distribution of the said moiety of income in the year eighteen hundred and sixty nine, no city or town in which the district system [our school section system] exists, shall receive the seventy-five dollars herein specifically appropriated.”

By the law as heretofore existing, the town (our township) could be divided into as many school districts or sections, as the selectmen or elected Council, might determine, and a Committee of three Trustees be elected for each district. The same provision existed in regard to cities, the wards of which might constitute so many separate school divisions. A law was passed many years since authorizing the uuion of these districts in both towns and cities into one school corporation. The City of Boston and many townships availed themselves of this provision, and thus centralized their township, and city school operations; but in many cases they adhered to the idea and practice of little local independent school divisions. The law of 1866 provides, that no city or township retaining the sub-divisions of school districts or sections, shall receive the seventy-five dollars from the income of the school fund after 1869. This is the strongest practical testimony of the longest experience in America, against school sections and in favour of township school organizations. The Secretary of the State Board of Education, referring to this provision of the law and to the evil of the subdivision of township and cities into small school sections, remarks:

"This new provision is alike just and wise, and liberal in its policy. It will do something towards alleviating the burdens which the support of their Public Schools imposes upon the town of limited population but extended territory, and will doubtless encourage still nobler efforts. In not a few the territory is so

large and the population so sparse, that the endeavour to bring the schools within easy reach of all, has tended to increase their number beyond what a just economy or wise management of the schools themselves would allow. This process of sub-division has been carried to such an extent as not only to reduce the schools themselves to a very low grade, but also to impose a heavy burden of taxation in order to maintain them for the period required by law. In a majority of the towns of this class the per centage of taxation for the support of their schools ranges from two to three or four mills in the dollar, while the munificent, not to say magnificent, system of schools of the City of Boston is maintained by a rate of taxation but little exceeding one mill in the dollar."

3.-THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN EMPLOYED IN MANUFACTORIES.

The last Act of the Massachusetts Legislature on this subject, passed in 1866, is so brief, comprehensive and benevolent that I give it entire, as follows -the counterpart of similar humane Factory Acts in the British Isles:

"An Act in relation to the Employment of Children in Manufacturing Establishments.

"Sec. 1. No child under the age of ten years shall be employed in any Manufacturing Establishment within this Commonwealth, and no child between the age of ten and fourteen years shall be so employed, unless he has attended some public or private day school under teachers approved by the School Committee of the place in which such school is kept, at least six months during the year next preceding such employment; nor shall such employment continue unless such child shall attend school at least six months in each and every year.

"2. The owner, agent or superintendent of any manufacturing establishment, who knowingly employs a child in violation of the preceding section, shall forfeit a sum not exceeding fifty dollars for each offence.

"3. No child under the age of fourteen years shall be employed in any manufacturing establishment within this Commonwealth more than eight hours in any day.

"4. Any parent or guardian who allows or consents to the employment of a child in violation of the first section of this Act, shall forfeit a sum not exceeding fifty dollars for each offence.

"5. The Governor, with the advice and consent of the Council, may, at his discretion, instruct the constable of the Commonwealth and his deputies to enforce the provisions of chapter forty-two of the General Statutes, and all other laws regulating the employment of children in manufacturing establishments, and to prosecute all violaters of the same."

(Approved May 28, 1866.)