a manifest improvement in their language and social intercourse. And finally, small scholars have been treated in our schools with more tenderness, more in accordance with their moral and physical natures. For the accomplishment of these improvements, I have had the hearty co-operation of most of the teachers under my supervision, for which I tender them my sincere thanks.

Common Schools-common schools! What a name, what an institution! For the want of these in one portion of our country, our national existence is this moment imperiled; blood and treasure are being poured out without stint and without measure; hearts all over our land are throbbing with anguish, and the sensibilities of the whole nation are surging with hope and fear. Ye fathers and mothers, ye Christian parents, in this day of darkness and agony, fail not to take the Common School to your bosoms and bear it onward and upward as the palladium of our Liberties.

G. W. RANSLOW, Milton.

I have but little to say as regards our school system, having, in former reports, expressed my opinion rather freely. But there is one fact for which I am not able to account, viz., the very poor attendance at school of the children of foreign parents. I have made repeated inquiries, and the invariable answer has been that they cannot afford to pay the tax for wood and board, which, in this town, is generally raised upon the scholar. But knowing several instances where the tax was raised upon the Grand List, and also where, by vote of the districts and by private generosity, the offer of schooling free of charge to poor children has been offered, and having seen no difference in the attendance, I am at a loss for a reason.

ROBT. J. WHITE, Shelburne.

Having recently come into Vermont, I am unable to compare our schools during the present with previous years. Of our twelve schoolhouses, seven were good before, one has been thoroughly rebuilt during this year, two are poor, and two shameful.

The most serious practical difficulty I have met during the year, beyond those which grow out of the general indifference of the people to the claims of the common schools, has been to secure a general compliance with the law requiring teachers to obtain certificates before the commencement of their schools. In accordance with your advice, I have in some cases examined teachers whose term of service was nearly completed. It still seems to me that a strict construction of the law not only does not require, but rather forbids, the examination of teachers after their schools have commenced. The law says, "No examination of teachers shall be held at any other time or in any other manner, except in the discretion of the Superintendent and for the accommodation of teachers prevented by sickness or other unavoidable circumstances from attending at the regular public examination." While providing a private examination for those who are positively unable to be present at the public examination, this does not seem to me to contemplate that in any case the examination should be after the school has commenced. It is expressly provided that a contract made without certificate obtained before the school commenced, shall be null and void-and made the express duty of the Selectmen to recover from prudential committees all monies paid without certificate so obtained. Does not then the Superintendent who examines a teacher when his school is nearly finished, contravene the plain intent of the law? Why should he assist the teacher to obtain a certificate in an illegal manner-a certificate which no Court will recognize as enabling the teacher to collect his wages? The decision of the Supreme Court referred to in your note to me, as implying that examinations were admissible after school was commenced, in the fact that a teacher could collect wages for the portion of the time remaining after a certificate was given, I suppose to be the decision reported in Sect. 5, appendix of your 4th Annual Report, in which case the failure to obtain a certificate before the school was opened occurred by request of the Superintendent and not through neglect on the part of the teacher. There was a virtual compliance with the law. In the case of the teacher who applies for an examination when his school is nearly completed, there is no virtual nor actual compliance with the law, but an entire and very injurious disregard of it. Ignorance of the law is often pleaded for the neglect, but then the Prudential Committee is at fault in not informing the teacher of the fact that a certificate is a pre-requisite, and the consequences should fall upon him. I find in this town a very considerable ignorance on the part both of teachers and Prudential Committees, of the fact that a certificate is pre-requisite to the existence of a legal school, and from

this cause I ventured, in my note to you, the suggestion that this fact be given a prominent place upon the Register.

Is there any remedy in case the Selectmen decline to perform the duty enjoined upon them in Sect. 61, appendix of your 3d Annual Report?

The lessons of the times have suggested to me the fact which will have come to you from many sources, that our schools, whether of the primary or higher grades, fail to impart to those who are soon to be citizens, a knowledge of the principles which underlie our national government, or of the various machinery through which it acts and to which every citizen bears a relation. No child should pass out from our common schools without having been taught the duties and powers belonging to each department of the government, the relation of the Federal to the State authorities, and especially the nature and importance of the duties devolved on each private citizen.

J. W. HOUGH, Williston.

The schools in this town the past year, have been tolerably successful, perhaps an improvement upon those of the preceding year. More care has been exercised in the selection of teachers, consequently the mode and measure of instruction and the government of the schools have improved.

Manner of Instruction.-This, in my opinion, is generally too mechanical. Too many teachers seem to think that if pupils can recite by rule, can give the answer as found in the book, can do a problem by rule, this is sufficient, whether they can make an application of the rule to any practical problem out of the book or not. But is it enough? Is it not the teacher's duty to teach the scholars to think for themselves, not only with the book but without it? Not mere words, but a thorough understanding of principles should be taught. It is not the amount which the pupil goes over that makes the scholar, but that which he acquires.

Tardiness and Irregularities.-These continue to be most grievous evils, though there is a perceptible improvement on the past, in some of the districts. In one district the instances of tardiness were 433, and of dismissals 140! But worse still is the irregularity of attendance. It is impossible to estimate the injurious consequences of this pernicious practice, not only upon the scholar himself, but upon the class and the school-the loss of interest, the discouragement, the disorder and perplexity thus arising. Parents are the ones to blame in this matter, as they are for a good share of the shortcomings of the schools; and with them is the remedy, Will they apply it? Judging the future by the past, we can scarcely hope that they will very speedily.

Among other evils may be mentioned the apathy, indifference and neglect of parents in visiting the schools, in encouraging and sustaining the teachers, and in resisting that carping and complaining spirit which sometimes prostrates the success of the school and the reputation of the teacher-the decrease of parental authority and the increase of the spirit of "Young America," which render good government next to impossible; the selection for Prudential Committees of those whose chief anxiety about the school is that their own pockets may be touched as lightly as possible.

If we have many incompetent teachers, whose is the fault? I unhesitatingly assert that the whole beginning and chief share of the blame for not having such schools as we ought, lies at the door of parents; that they can have good schools if they will; and until they do their own duty in the premises, I would say to them, "Physician, heal thyself."

GEO. W. HARTSHORN, Canaan.

The following is a brief synopsis of a few of the leading particulars relative to our schools the past year. During the year we have employed twenty-seven different teachers-eleven male and sixteen female teachers. The former have taught twentyfive and one-fourth, and the latter sixty-four and a half months. The average wages paid teachers of summer schools, was $6.10 per month. The female teachers of the winter schools received, on an average, $8.42 cents per month, and the male teachers $15.44. The medium length of both summer and winter schools was 10 weeks. The number of pupils attending summer schools was 270, (the same as last year,) with an average attendance of 86 per cent. There were 334 scholars attending the winter schools, (last year the number was 360,) with an average daily attendance of 296, or 88 per cent. The aggregate expenses for teachers wages, board, fuel and incidentals, has been a little rising of $1400, or $5.50 to each scholar attending school in town during the year, estimated according to the average attendance.

Two commodious, pleasantly located and well-finished schoolhouses have been erected in town during the past year; one in a district with a Grand List of some $100, the other in a new district whose Grand List is only about $75, showing what may be accomplished by energy and determination in a good cause.

One of the most decided and substantial evidences of our educative progress as a town, is seen in the more general and increasing interest in relation to our common schools which is yearly developing itself. Your Institutes, together with the lesser instrumentalities of county and town Teachers' Associations are exerting a salutary influence, in awakening public sentiment to the importance of our schools; and by promoting a more cordial feeling and co-operation between teachers, parents and pupils, lead to a union of effort for their advancement.

One of the greatest, if not the very greatest "helps" that we as a State demand most emphatically, are active, thorough, energetic, wide-awake, practical teachers of our common district schools. Not alone those who possess a fair degree of book knowledge, but much more, those whose minds are so disciplined, and their capacity for teaching such, that the training they may give their pupils will fit them for the active duties of coming life.

We believe that the State should establish in every County an Institution for teachers, in which they could be specially trained and educated for teaching the common district school; the teachers for these institutions to be selected from the very best common school teachers of the State, subject to rigid examination as to their real, practical qualifications for teaching children and youth, and these institutions to be holden for a term of weeks both spring and fall. And the law should make it obligatory upon every teacher, before they could engage in teaching, that they should attend this school for a sufficient length of time to receive a license from the Principal, which license should be good for a term of years, and entitle the receiver to teach in any common school of the State;-any one desiring to become a teacher who was too poor to defray the entire expenses, to have his (or her) tuition paid by the County, by his (or her) giving a sufficient guaranty to teach at least one year in the County.

We already have a goodly number of Academies and select schools, but they do not fill the place designed by such an institution as we are speaking of, their business being to teach young men and women for almost any other sphere; else why is it that so many who are there known as the first scholars, have so little practical knowledge of that which they need most to know to become successful common school teachers. What the necessities of our common schools demand, are living, active, practical teachers of the rudiments of knowledge, so that the boys and girls of Vermont may "graduate" at the district school as thorough practical scholars in all the branches there taught, as do the members of the learned professions from their respective Alma Maters.

J. E. WOODBURY, Concord.

Our schools have been more prosperous this year than ever before since I have known anything about them. Thoroughness has been a marked characteristic of them. Our teachers-all but two-have had a long experience in teaching,-were wide-awake, energetic and practical. Most of our recitations have been conducted without the aid of text books, and many of our "young heads" are as practical and well acquainted with the fundamental principles as our teachers were a few years ago. Certificates have been withheld from several that I considered incompetent, which has had a good effect. We never shall have competent teachers until Superintendents determinedly insist upon it.

You will see that there is a large number of scholars who do not go to school at all. I suppose it is so throughout the State. Can we not have a law to compel them to go? I place such a value upon statistics that I cannot make a decent report to the town without the registers, and take the trouble to collect them for that purpose, and I report everything to the town that I do to you. Some who were the most inveterate haters of the Registers two years ago, are now thinking that they are indispensable. Our schools are always done before March meeting. Can we not have our Registers returned sooner, and thus do away with the returns under the old law? I reported at Town Meeting 2412 tardinesses, and that, if a stranger should go to the Clerk's office, he would find every man's name enrolled that was always behind his business engagements, tardy, slack and lazy, and was bound to chain the same curse upon his children, for against their names, every morning, was put a mark that branded them as certain as the spot does the leopard. And by statistics gathered from our merchants, reported that our tobacco tax is a hundred dollars higher than the whole cost of our schools, and the expense of tea more than doubles yearly, and if our drug tax could be used for one

year only, in building nice, neat, comfortable schoolhouses, every old, time-cursed hovel would be swept from the land.

The Institutes and Associations (both Town and County,) that spring up in their wake, are doing much to awaken and enlighten the public mind.

Can't there be something done to procure some apparatus for our schools, if nothing but a Globe and Outline Maps? A little legislation in this way might help the matter.

People are beginning to think that if there is a failure in school, in most cases, the Committee or Superintendent is responsible for it, and pretty correctly too. CHARLES W. KING, Lunenburg.

There has been one schoolhouse completed in town during the present year, and it is decidedly an improvement upon the schoolhouses in this vicinity. Some of our schools have not been all that was desirable; others have been truly commendable, such, I believe, as would do honor to almost any town in the State. And as a whole, I consider them an improvement upon any previous year.

All of our teachers but one, have had some previous experience, and have generally manifested an earnest desire for an improvement of their pupils, and have been quite successful in imparting a living active earnestness, to those under their care.

You will see by my returns that there has been a lamentable indifference on the part of Prudential Committees. With one solitary exception, no one of them has been near the schools they have put in operation, to judge for themselves of their merits. As our Committees are generally parents, having children attending school, it is very difficult for me to find a sufficient apology for such neglect. If this class of indi. viduals are not interested enough to visit our schools, we can hardly expect others to be. Another point I will mention, not so much for the purpose of censuring the past, but hoping that it will encourage improvement in the future, and that is, but one of our teachers, for the past year, has ever attended a Teachers' Institute. I believe that those teachers who have never availed themselves of this privilege, are not sufficiently aware how much they are losing, or in other words, how much practical information may be obtained by so doing.

GEO. A. APPLETON, Victory.

I herewith send you my report of the state of schools in Fairfield for the past year. I am aware that my answers to your questions are not perfectly accurate; but they are as nearly so as I have been able to make them. It has cost me a great deal of labor to bring my statements to such a measure of correctness as I hope I have reached.

Two days were appointed for the public examination of teachers, at the time prescribed by law. Few, however, attended on those occasions, and consequently most of the certificates were granted after an examination in private. The citizens, if I may judge from their non-attendance, felt but little interest in the matter. It is much to be regretted that a greater proportion of the teachers cannot be brought to submit to the ordeal of a public examination, and that parents and committees are not more careful to ascertain whether the teachers, whom they employ, are fitted for their work. The qualifications of those whom I have examined, have been, as was to be expected, considerably diversified. Some exhibited attainments of a very respectable order, while others were not so well prepared to instruct the young as they should have been. Probably, however, they were the best that could be obtained by the districts in which they were to teach. Committees that can offer but a small compensation to their teachers, must generally take such as they can find, without being very particular respecting their qualifications; and it is to be feared that, in some instances, one of the strongest recommendations which a teacher can present, is that he is willing to accept of small wages.

My relation to the schools of this town has given me the opportunity of forming an opinion of the manner in which they are conducted, and of noticing many things in respect to which an improvement is necessary. I am well aware, however, that to point out defects, is much easier than to tell how they may be remedied. I find that the condition of the schoolhouses, throughout the State, is a very general subject of complaint among the Superintendents of the different towns; and I am sorry to say that Fairfield can claim no superiority in this respect. Many, perhaps I might say most of the schoolhouses are not in a proper state of repair, and are but poorly furn

ished with such conveniences as are necessary to render them inviting, or even moderately comfortable. As for anything like taste or ornament, that is wholly out of the question. Some of our schoolhouses are in such a state of dilapidation as to be quite unfit for the purpose to which they are appropriated; and it seems surprising that parents should be willing to have their children shut up in such places during the cold months of winter, when, as in many instances is the case, the districts are so well able to provide suitable accommodations for them. There is not, I believe, a set of Outline Maps. a Globe, a Thermometer, or a Clock belonging to any district in the town. In most of them there is a black-board, of greater or smaller size; but my impression is, that in some of the schools not much use is made of it; I may, however, be mistaken,

A grand and very general defect in the mode of teaching, as it has struck my mind, is the want of thoroughness and accuracy. The teachers do not, with sufficient decision, require that the scholars shall prepare themselves fully and carefully for their recitations. In reading, for instance, I have heard a class of children go over quite a number of pages in a single lesson, but in such a manner that it was somewhat diffi cult to tell whether it was the teacher or the pupil that was reciting. If a tenth part of what was read at once, had been assigned as a lesson, and the scholars had been required to prepare it thoroughly, their real improvement would have been immeasurably greater. Similar remarks might be made in regard to other branches of study.

Most of our teachers have had but little experience in their work;-they have no design to make teaching a profession for life; their compensation does not, except very indirectly, depend on their success in promoting the improvement of their pupils; they have their pay whether their scholars have been many or few, and whether they have been faithful or remiss in their efforts for the good of those under their care. can easily be seen that these circumstances must have their influence in preventing the efficiency of our schools, and that, until they are in some way obviated, all legisla tion for the advancement of the interests of education among us will be but partially successful,

It

It has appeared to me that one very important means of securing the efficiency of our common schools, has been, in a great measure, overlooked in this State, and that is a liberal and generous support of our higher seminaries of learning. It is, I believe, a firm persuasion among those who are most competent to form a correct judgment on the subject, that the influence which is necessary to advance the interests of education among the masses of the people, must emanate from the College. But Vermont, in her educational policy, seems to be acting out the fable of the Stomach and the members of the Body; she starves the former, and wonders why the latter, notwithstanding all her care of them, and all the money expended on them, are still weak and languishing. Let her be persuaded to try the other plan, and see whether it will not be more successful than that which she is now pursuing;-let her foster her Colleges, and see whether they will not, in return, prove Alma Maters to her common schools.

JAMES BUCKHAM, Fairfield.

The schoolhouses of this town will compare favorably with other towns. They have not much pretension to elegance, but are substantial and convenient. There seems to be an increased and laudable interest manifested by parents and committees in schools; and with few exceptions, the teachers have been persons of intelligence, who have done their duty with a zeal and faithfulness which has given general satisfaction.

My decided opinion is, that the whole school expense should be defrayed by a tax on the Grand List.

S. L. WILSON, Fletcher.

A decided progress has been made in the schools in this town the past year. There has been better order maintained, and a good degree of regularity in attendance. In some of the districts a large proportion of the parents have visited their schools. Teachers and Clerks have been more faithful in keeping the Registers. But while our schools have made good progress, it seems to me there are yet a few defects in the present law, which, if remedied, would increase its utility.

The manner in which our schools are supported is a serious drawback. If a bridge is to be built or a road opened in any of the districts, the town does it. When a schoolhouse is needed why should not the town build it, and, as in other cases, tax the inhabitants therefor? I believe it would be sound economy to defray the expenses of