Of school houses I can say, that a few of them are in good condition, but most of them are capable of improvement, and the schools would immediately reap the results of such acts. Then add a few dollars in useful apparatus, a standard dictionary, a globe, and outline maps, (and there are none of these in town) and it would pay well. Improvements in education have been numerous. No teacher can produce good results in his school, with poor and clumsy tools. Text books, globes and maps, and all the improved apparatus of the school-room, for the purpose of explaining the power of thought, and facilitating the path of knowledge, are his tools, his instruments to work with. How important, then, that they should have them and that they should be the best. Surely, the farmer would not think of sending his hired man into the field to work with the implements of agriculture of a century ago. Teachers should be used as well. We have had some cheap teachers, and consequently, some cheap schools. One teacher was engaged for 75 cents per week, but, provided she taught a good school, she was to have 8 cents more. The idea of only 8 cts. difference between a good and a poor school! Though some poor teachers have got into our schools, yet, some of them have been experienced in the work. and have manifested a commendable zeal. We have had a few model teachers; they have been practical; they have taught many things not in the school-books, but things necessary for the school of life. May their numbers increase!

I think very much of the Teachers' Institutes, and Annual Reports. They are exerting a good influence on our common schools. It is a truth, that our most successful teachers are those who have attended Teachers' Institutes. Our School Registers are kept better each succeeding year, which, of itself, is encouraging. I think the manner in which a Register is kept is a pretty sure indication of what the teacher is. I would sooner abandon anything else in our present school law, than our School Registers. Our best teachers would hardly know how to dispense with them.

W. L. PEARL, Sheffield.

Our schools in St. Johnsbury under the influence of the recent modifications of the school laws are generally improving. In some of the smaller districts the progress is slow, while in others the change has been very marked and gratifying to all familiar with their former condition. In District No. 1, in which the schools were graded several years since, the improvement has been most conspicuous. The High School and several of the lower grades under the care of teachers employed through several consecutive terms, and some of them through several years, are doing their work admirably, and will, in due time, I am confident, by the exhibition of what they can accomplish, procure a better quality of schools throughout the entire town. A model school that may be visited and frequently seen by teachers and parents in its vicinity, is one of the most effective agencies that can be employed for the improvement of every other school or state. Hence the establishment of graded schools in our larger villages is gradually accomplishing good results, not only for their immediate neighborhoods, but for the entire State. Much more, obviously, might be done in Vermont in this direction. A large number of small villages which have hitherto done nothing in this way, might substitute the graded schools for what they now have, and, without any burdensome expenditure, greatly improve the means for educating the children committed to their

care.

One of the chief hindrances to the improvement of most of our schools is the introduction of a new teacher at the commencement of almost every term. How a change in this practice can be effected, with the limited means possessed by many districts for retaining a permanent and successful teacher, is not readily seen; and yet something can, manifestly, be done in that direction.

Only three male teachers have been employed in the schools of this town the past year, and the schools taught by two of them have been the least satisfactory of any. My observation leads me to the conclusion that our female teachers, as a class,

are much better qualified for their work, have more maturity and experience, than those of the other sex. I think all of our common schools in Vermont may be entrusted to the instruction and government of female teachers without diminishing the efficiency of their discipline or their usefulness in any particular.

J. K. COLBY, St. Johnsbury.

As respects the schools for the past year in this town they have done well; we might have wished them better in one or two instances. But in all branches of business there are some failures. If they sometimes occur in schools it is no more than is to be expected. But failures have occurred less frequently of late than in former years. The process of visiting and reporting schools and teachers, has kept out many poor teachers whom we might otherwise have had in our schools. School committees and parents evince too little interest in the visiting of schools. Scholars, faces too seldom brighten in anticipation of company; yet there seems to be a good degree of interest manifested by our scholars generally. Since the introduction of new school laws and a better classification of school books, much progress has been made. Many common school scholars will compare favorably with those who formerly attended High Schools. The older class of teachers, unless they have studied to keep pace with the times, find themselves unfitted to keep school now. While they have slept the world has moved; they have remained stationary while the schools have greatly advanced.

J. M. PILLSBURY, Sutton.

The past year has been one of great success in the schools of this town. Teachers seem to understand their duty better than ever before, therefore Registers have been better kept-fewer mistakes. The district clerks also begin to understand their duty, and most of them seem disposed to do it. I find the teachers who attend the Institutes better qualified for teaching than those who do not. But we need something to awaken an interest among parents and the people generally. I am happy to say that there is an improvement in the common schools from year to year. There seems to be a waking up to the importance of schools, and that the rising generation should be well educated.

CHARLES A. STEVENS, Walden.

Decided progress has been made in our schools the past year. Better order has been maintained and a good degree of regularity in attendance. In some of the districts a large proportion of the parents and others interested in schools have visited the schools. The 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. I think, as I have stated before in former reports, that the entire expense of the schools should be supported on the Grand List. I can see no good reason why the property of our state should not be made to support the schools.

R. J. MORSE, Bolton.

I think there has been, in many respects a very gratifying advance in our schools during the past year. One very encouraging fact, is, the people are begining to take a deeper interest in the education of their children. Parents have visited the schools more frequently, and greater solicitude has been manifested in regard to the employment of competent and experienced teachers, and in other respects there have been cheering indications. I think there has been also a very marked improvement on the part of teachers in their mode of imparting instruction. Teachers have been less confined to the text-book-the blackboard has been more freely used, and

on the part of some of our teachers, an effort has been made to break away from what may be termed the old stereotyped method of instructing classes. As a result new life has been imparted to the scholars, and both schools and parents have been interested. Still there is abundant room for further improvement which we hope to witness in the years to conie.

C. M. SEATON, Charlotte.

We have had no marked failures of teachers during the year, and only one or two right poor schools. Neither have we had a model school. The pressure from tax payers to make the expenses low, is heavy, and teachers of moderate qualifications and small experience have been mostly employed. Teachers who have incurred expense in fitting themselves to teach, have not been employed. A result is. we have lost in scholarly interest and ambition in the schools, and among the people too. For no means is more effective in exciting such ambition in school and out of it, than the presence, work, and habits of ambitious, scholarly, and studious teachWhen such are not employed the interests of education decline. I think ours have declined within a year past.

ers.

The Registers are doing a good work, by compelling some of our people to see the facts in relation to our schools, at least once in a year.

It has been so long since we have seen, or heard of, except at a long distance, a Teachers' Institute, that we are not qualified to express an opinion upon them. If our good friend, the Secretary, will have one in our town this year, we will tell what we think of it next year.

The report contains a great amount of matter and argument, useful for consultation and reference. I have thought that if it were intended for general instruction and incitement, it might be more read, if it were condensed. For myself, however, I like it as it is. C. E. FERRIN, Hinesburgh.

The benefits of a good common school education are being appreciated in our town. I find a growing interest manifested in the cause of our common schools. We are beginning to see, that in this age of the world, if we lack for an education to fit us for the common duties of life, it is not chargeable to our want of privilege, but to our own slackness and want of interest in our own behalf. We have a school law, the working of which extends its blessings to the children of the poor as well as to those of the rich. The condition of the schools is very good. Still, an improvement must be made, and it must be the result of earnest endeavors by the people, scholars, teachers, and superintendent. Is not the cause of education worth more than a passing notice? We must give more thought to this subject, and action is the result of sober reflection. We cannot over-estimate the value of the School Register, when properly kept. It records the true state of the school, and is an index of its prosperity. Superintendents should make an annual report to the town. It would be well received. They should set forth the facts as they are, that the people may know the true condition of schools in town.

GEORGE W. SAYLES, Huntington.

The public sentiment of this town, with regard to educational matters has improved in the course of the last three or four years, and as a consequence, the common schools have also improved. Our schools cannot well be better than what the people would have them, and any course that might be taken to enlist popular feeling in their behalf, would tend directly to their improvement. As a means of bringing about such a result, I think the instrumentalities provided by the school law are doing their work well. At least, a respectable minority of our citizens are becoming interested in Teachers' Institutes, Teachers' Associations, Educational Lectures, &c. The Annual Reports of the Board of Education are perused by many of our thinkng men and women, and the facts therein elicited have brought some to their senses,

to see how such and such errors can be remedied. The school Registers are also doing their work, and I think are rather pioneers in the cause, as without the facts that are brought to light through them, we would hardly know how to shun many of the errors that exist. My best teachers would not do without them, as they say they are their "Day Books "in their business. I have no trouble in having them properly filled, so far as teachers are concerned. A part of the district clerks, however, fail. I would suggest that the question "How many scholars have lacked necessary books?" be inserted for teachers to answer. Personally, it would please me, as I have always taken pains to ascertain the fact, in order to lay it before the town in my annual reports. At the same time it would expose to the public, an enormous evil in our schools.

D. H. MACOMBER, Essex.

We are troubled with short sessions of schools, just long enough to draw public money, thereby doing injustice to districts which sustain eight or nine months' school. For as long sessions show a smaller average, the law really allows a premium to short sessions. Otherwise, everything works well.

ROBERT J. WHITE, Shelburne.

During the past year our schools have been favored with the instruction of many excellent teachers and but few poor ones. The Teachers' Institute held in this town, December last, did much towards awakening an interest in our district schools, both among parents and teachers. The teachers and people generally appreciate the worth of the Institutes, and I notice a general desire among the teachers of this town to become better qualified for the performance of their duties.

A. C. ROBINSON, Underhill.

The common schools of this town have not yet arrived at a state of perfection; nor have they quite attained that position, which, under the new law, it is their privilege to enjoy. Yet, some of them are making rapid strides that way. The present law, in the main, works well. People are becoming accustomed to it, and there is decidedly, a more general interest manifest in schools. But some are still croaking and complaining of the oppression of some of the features of the law, prominent among which, is a monopoly in the sale of school-books. And I would respectfully suggest for your consideration, the importance of allowing each county or town to recommend, introduce, and govern the sale of their own school-books.

Parents do not take that interest in schools which they ought. If a teacher is successful in creating an exciting interest in school, then parents' visits are very frequent. But if there is nothing new, exciting or interesting in the management of the school, visits by parents are seldom, if ever made, which leads us to believe that their visits are made more for their own entertainment than for the benefit of the school.

J. H. MACOMBER, Westford.

The School Registers are gradually demonstrating their own importance, and in consequence, becoming more reliable. The teachers perform the labor of keeping them, cheerfully, and, in general, with much more accuracy than the District Clerks. It seems to me not only just, but very much to be desired, that the clerks should be paid for their services. A fair compensation to the clerk for his labor, would, perhaps, do something to prevent the incessant change in the clerkship, which is the grand hindrance to the successful working of that part of the school machinery.

The Institutes are very highly valued by teachers, and also by those of our citizens who appreciate the work of the common school. Some of our best teachers, atter attending the Institute held at Underhill, last winter, declared themselves almost

unwilling to resume their schools, so greatly had the earnest words to which they had listened, magnified their conception of the noble and solemn work given them to do. I was not surprised, in subsequent visits to their school rooms, to find many of the suggestions made at the Institute, already embodied in their daily practice. The time devoted to the Institutes seems too short; the exercises are necessarily too brief and hurried; and consequently, teachers are able to carry away but a small portion of the many valuable hints there given, as to improved modes of teaching.

The Annual Reports, issuing from your office, are most valuable documents, and should be made of far greater service to the schools, than is generally the case. Could the facts, carefully gathered from the schools of the entire State, and therein presented, be brought to the attention of the people at large, they could not fail to awaken the popular mind to the importance of the common school work. But the great mass of the people derive no more benefit from the Report, than though it were printed in Sanscrit. Very few teachers read it, and still fewer of their patrons. Its startling facts never reach those, who most need to be startled. The same difficulty attends the operation of the Institutes, and County Teachers' Associations. Were an Institute to be held in this town each month in the year, there would be whole districts unrepresented, at its sessions, and those the districts where it is most essential the truth should go. It is a difficult problem to bring the facts, which are being developed by the workings of the present school system, to bear upon that large mass of the people, that will not read printed Reports, and will not attend educational meetings. In the endeavor to supply in a measure, this "missing link," I have held meetings, during the winter, in several of the school houses of the town, at which I have discussed, so far as could be done in a single evening, the grosser forms of that neglect, with which the common school is so generally treated. The experiment, though but partially tried, has not been without success. The meetings were most fully attended in the more remote districts, and some good results are already visible. People were naturally surprised to learn that there were over 12,000 absences, and nearly 5,000 tardinesses, in this town alone, within the last year, of which less than 28 weeks were occupied by the sessions of school; and that in consequence, more than one quarter of their entire expenditures for schools was a total loss. Some districts have even been induced to “consider the question" of making a small annual appropriation for the purchase of apparatus and school furniture. One of the two school-houses heretofore reported as "shameful," is to be replaced by a new one the present summer. Teachers' wages are slowly advancing. The length of the school term is being gradually increased. The tardinesses are fewer than last year by 298, and the idea is gaining ground in the minds of the people that good schools are the cheapest at whatever cost.

J. W. HOUGH, Williston.

Our schools, taken as a whole, have never been more prosperous than during the school year just closing. More good teachers have been employed; more ambition and energy have been exhibited by the pupils, and, as a consequence, greater advancement in their studies has been made, than in any previous year. To secure these advantages, and others still better, I have urged in lectures and in my annual reports to the town meeting, two prominent considerations, to wit: that the best teachers should be procured, and that parents should zealously co-operate with the teachers. On these two points "hang all the law and the prophets" in relation to having successful schools.

Teachers whose literary, moral and governmental qualifications are of a high order and who possess the requisite aptness in imparting instruction, in a word, teachers who are what teachers always ought to be, will make their schools tolerably interesting and useful, even when parents are indifferent and neglectful. How much more so when parents give them their sympathies, their active and zealous co-operation. To the teacher they have committed their most precious treasures. His aim and theirs is one and the game-the advancement of their children in learning, knowledge and