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the preceding year is required in order to a full perception of its real bearing and true significance.

But before taking such survey and collation, it will not be amiss to call to mind the extent to which our state in common with others has been disturbed and shaken by the tremendous convulsion of our nation that is threatening its very existence. Every one of the great interests of society, outside of the schools, has been jeopardized, and most have been seriously injured, by an almost total engrossment of the public mind in matters pertaining to an actual struggle for national unity certainly, and perhaps for national life. Hence, if a survey of the statistics should ascertain only a diminution of interest in the schools, and of attendance upon them, proportional to the very perceptible abatement of prosperity in every other direction, we have no special cause of discouragement with regard to the educational interests of the State. But if, on the other hand, the statistics should, upon careful examination, reveal a steady and progressive improvement in the most prominent and important directions, there would be manifest ground for encouragement and a rational hopefulness.

With this precaution, it may be well to examine the statistics, grouped in reference to the common and leading topics of general educational interest.

NUMBER OF CHILDREN BETWEEN 4 AND 18.

The number of children reported for the last year as between four and eighteen is 89,599, while for the preceding year, the number reported was 85,892. Here is a difference in favor of the last year of 3,707, which, if it could be relied on as indicating an actual increase in the number of our children, would be very gratifying. But there is reason to believe that this apparent difference is caused by a greater accuracy in taking the list for the last year. Too little care has been habitually given to the taking of an accurate annual census of the children of the commonwealth, for its importance has not been generally perceived. While it is a commonplace remark, that the multitudes of its healthy and happy children are the truest indicators of the general prosperity and capacity of a free State, it has not been equally evident that a reliable census of these children, in forcibly presenting the magnitude of the results involved, is a potent instrumentality in effecting progressive improvement of the schools that are to determine the culture, capacity and character of each successive generation.

DURATION OF THE SESSIONS OF THE SCHOOLS.

During the year last past, there have been sustained 14,500 weeks of school under male teachers and 51,065 weeks under female teachers, while during the previous year, were sustained 15,950 weeks of school by male and 48,798 weeks of school by female teachers.

The difference between the two years is well worthy of more than a mere passing notice. When we recall the prevalent alarm and distress

of the past year and the unusual demands that were inevitably and imperatively made upon the pecuniary means of every patriotic individual and every community, together with the general stagnation of most kinds. of business, we cannot avoid surprise at the above results. It not only would not have been unreasonable, in view of existing circumstances, to have expected evidence of a decided diminution of the duration of the schools, but it would scarcely have been reasonable to have anticipated any other result. And yet we find that while in 1860-61 there were 64,748 weeks of school sustained in the aggregate, there were 65,565 weeks of school in the aggregate sustained in the year 1861-62, leaving a difference in favor of the last year of 817 weeks. This is a result as gratifying as unexpected, and its significance is enhanced when taken in connection with the fact that many districts have discovered that the distribution of the public money upon the average instead of the aggregate attendance, does not conduce to the prolongation of the sessions of the schools, although it does directly and effectively promote regularity of attendance.

MALE AND FEMALE TEACHERS.

A change in the relative numbers of male and female teachers has been gradually occurring during the few years last past, and the number of female teachers has been steadily increasing, while that of male teachers has correspondingly diminished. A variety of causes have operated to make this change more marked during the last year. The unsettled condition of public affairs has closed many of the Western Schools that had been taught by female teachers from the East, and a large proportion of loyal female teachers have been driven from the Southern States, and thus the supply of female teachers has been unusually large, and has, of course, tended to increase the number of female teachers in our schools.

Another cause has contributed powerfully to this end, and it is one in the highest degree creditable to the male teachers of the State. No vocation in the State has given more reliable evidence of devoted and patriotic attachment to the country than have the Teachers of Vermont, and no class of men have been or are now more largely represented in the national army. The Second Vermont Regiment, as I have been informed by an intelligent teacher therein enrolled, had more than two hundred teachers in its ranks, and large numbers of our teachers have joined every regiment that has left the State. Truly this is a record of which every friend of Education may well be proud. A comparative scarcity of male teachers has resulted from this unusual draft, which has increased the proportion of female teachers.

This proportion has also been gradually increasing from a growing conviction that female teachers were better adapted to give instruction to all primary schools, from their greater aptitude to the management and control of young children.

There were 15,950 weeks of school by male teachers in 1860-61 · and only 14,500 weeks in 1861-62. In 1860-61 there were 48,798

weeks of school by female teachers, while in 1861-62 there were 51,065 weeks. In other words there were 1450 weeks less of school by male teachers, and 2267 more by female teachers in the school year last past than in the preceding year, making a proportionate increase of female schools of 3717 weeks.

WAGES OF TEACHERS.

This topic is intimately connected with the last, and needs attention in order to a full appreciation of the bearing of some of the facts already cited.

The amounts of money paid for the wages of teachers during the last school year were as follows: Wages of males $62,512, wages of females $101,400. For the preceding year the amounts were, for males $70,666 and for females $97,198. Thus it appears that the amount of wages paid male teachers during the last school year was less by $8,154 than it was during the year before, while the amount paid female teachers was greater by $4,202.

Thus the aggregate amounts paid for the wages of teachers in the two last years respectively were as follows: in 1860-61, $167,864 and in 1861-62, $163,912; showing that the aggregate amount paid for wages to teachers during the last year was less by $3,952 than the amount paid during the previous year.

The average wages of male teachers in 1860-61 was $17,72 per month; in the last year it has been $17,24, showing a diminution of 48 cents. The average wages of female teachers in 1860-61 was $7,96, and in 1861--62 it was $7,92, showing a diminution of four cents per month.

Hence, in the first place, the reduction of wages is very slight, and, in consideration of the injury worked by the war to every other leading interest may be called exceedingly small, much less than could reasonably have been anticipated.

In the second place, the wages of male teachers have diminished more than the wages of females. This is a hopeful indication, for the great disparity between the wages of male and female teachers has not been very creditable to the general sense of justice and right. It is very difficult to assign any good reason for permitting the sex of the teacher to affect in any way the wages which the teacher whether good or bad, should receive. A good school is of priceless value, who ever the teacher; and an inferior school is dear at any price, to which ever sex the teacher may happen to belong. It is pleasant to see evidence during the last year, as hitherto, that public sentiment is gradually, though slowly, discontinuing a distinction that is founded in injustice.

It also appears from the statistics, that while schools have been sustained during the past year for 817 weeks more than during the previous year, there has been paid for wages of teachers, an amount of money less by the sum of $3,952. Thus is furnished an argument in favor of the employment of female teachers to a greater proportional extent that deserves, and is quite likely to have, great weight with the public mind,

provided it can be shown that schools taught by females compare favorably with those taught by males.

An examination, in detail, of the reports of the Superintendents quoted in this Report, will show, that, by the uniform drift of reports from every section of the State, the schools of the past year have been uncommonly successful and useful. This fact is particularly noticed in very many of the reports, and at the same time it appears that a much larger proportion of female teachers has been employed than ever before in the history of our schools. Or in other words, it is shown that during the past year we have had much longer sessions of schools than have been usual; that a larger than common proportion of female teachers has been employed; that the schools as a whole have been unusually successful; and that these desirable results have been attained not only without any additional cost, but actually at a diminished expense.

SCHOOL HOUSES.

An expenditure for the erection of school houses of $44, 617 was reported for the year 1860-61; and it is a remarkable fact that during the year 1861-62, notwithstanding a pressure of public and individual embarrassment unknown for many years, the amount reported as expended in the erection of school houses is $54,019, being an excess over the expenditure of the previous year of $9,402. This reveals a state of facts entirely more hopeful than could have been anticipated.

From the organization of the Board the subject of school houses and the very important bearing which they have upon the condition of the schools, have been made the most prominent topics of attention and discussion and worthily so. And this was the case before the organization of the Board. In other states, whenever an organized effort has been inaugurated for the improvement of the schools, the one topic that has first arrested the attention of all concerned in the welfare of the schools, or officially required to suggest measures of improvement, has been that of school houses.

When in 1846 our excellent State Superintendent, the late Gov. Eaton, made his first Report to the Legislature, he finds this matter of school houses presenting itself and demanding immediate and thorough discussion; and he uses the following language.

"The condition of school houses has so extensive and important a bearing upon the condition of the schools themselves, not only in regard to the comfort and health of pupils, but in regard to their progress in learning and even the formation of their moral character, that it is deemed proper to advert to this topic here. It might occur to any one in traveling through the State, that our school houses are almost uniformly located in an uninteresting and unsuitable spot, and that the buildings themselves too generally exhibit an unfavorable, and even repulsive aspect. Yet by giving some license to the imagination it might be supposed that, notwithstanding their location and external aspect were so forbidding, the internal appearance would be more cheerful and pleasant, or at least that the arrangement and construction within would be comforta

bly adapted to the purposes which the school house was intended to fulfil. But an actual inspection of by far the greatest number of the school houses in the State, by County Superintendents, discloses the unpleasant fact that ordinarily the interior does not correspond with the exterior, or if possible is still worse. A very large proportion of these buildings throughout the State must be set down as in a miserable condition. The melancholy fact is established by the concurrent report of all our County Superintendents, that in every quarter of the State they are, as a class, altogether unsuited to their high purposes. Probably nine-tenths of them are located upon the line of the highway; and as the geographical center of the district usually determines their situation, aside from the relation with the road, it is a rare chance that one is not placed in an exposed, unpleasant and uncomfortable spot. In some cases, especially in villages, their location seems to be determined by the worth, or rather by the worthlessness of the ground on which they stand, that being selected which is of the least value for any other purpose. Seldom or never do we see our school houses surrounded by trees or shrubbery, to serve the purpose which they might serve so well, that of delighting the eye, gratifying the taste, and contributing to the physical comfort, by shielding from the scorching sun of summer, and breaking the bleak winds of winter. And from buildings thus situated and thus exposed, pupils are turned out into the streets for their sports, and for other purposes still more indispensable. What better results could be expected under such a system than that our "girls should become hoydens and our boys blackguards?" Indeed it would be a happy event, if in no case results still more melancholy and disastrous than this were realized.

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But this notice of ordinary deficiencies does not cover the whole ground of error in regard to the situation of school houses. In some cases they are brought into close connection with positive nuisances. In a case which has fallen under the Superintendent's own personal observation, one side of the school house forms part of the fence of a hog-yard, into which, during the summer the calves from an extensive dairy establishment have been thrown from time to time (disgusting and revolting spectacle!) to be rent and devoured before the eyes of teacher and pupils, except such portions of the mutilated and mangled carcasses as were left by the animals to go to decay, as they lay exposed to the sun and storm. It is true the windows on the side of the building adjoining the yard were generally observed to be closed, in order to shut out the almost insupportable stench which arose from the decomposing remains. But this closure of windows could in no great degree "abate the nuisance;" for not a breath of air could enter the house from any direction but it must come saturated with the disgusting and sickening odor that loaded the atmosphere around. It needs no professional learning to tell the deleterious influence upon health, which must be exerted by such an agency operating for continuous hours. Such cases, it is hoped and believed, are exceedingly rare. But it is much to be feared that the usual exemption enjoyed by teachers and pupils, from even such outrages upon their senses and sensibilities as have been detailed, is to be attributed to the fact that

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