PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF MASSACHUSETTS.

[We present to our readers the following Act at full length; as it is not only a subject of present and uncommon interest to the community, but has a prospective aspect towards the improvement of education for the generations which shall succeed us.

This subject is one of peculiar importance to School-committees, throughout the State; and we shall feel gratified, if our pages can be rendered serviceable to the purposes of this Act, by aiding in a more extensive dissemination of its requisitions.

Our readers, we have no doubt, remember that, at the close of the Report of the Commissioners appointed by the Legislature to inquire into the expediency of establishing a practical seminary in Massachusetts, it is explicitly stated, that every rational endeavor to improve the condition of instruction, must be based upon a thorough investigation of the present state of the public schools in this commonwealth.]

AN ACT further to provide for the instruction of Youth, (passed March, 1826.)

SEC. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That each town in this Commonwealth, shall, at the annual March or April meeting, choose a School Committee, consisting of not less than five persons, who shall have the general charge and superintendence of all the public schools in said town; and it shall be the duty of said committee, to visit the schools in said town, which are kept through the year, at least once a quarter, for the purpose of making a careful examination of the same, and to see that the scholars are properly supplied with books: also, to inquire into the regulation and discipline of such schools, and the proficiency of the scholars therein; and it shall also be the duty of said committee, to visit each of the district schools in said town, for the purposes aforesaid, on some day during the first week of the commencement thereof, and also on some day during the last two weeks of the same;-and it shall, further, be the duty of one or more of said committee to visit all the schools in the town at least once a month, for the purposes afore mentioned, without giving previous notice thereof to the instructers. And it is hereby further made the duty of said committee, to require full and satisfactory evidence of the good character and qualifications of said instructers, conformably to the laws now in force relating to the subject; or to require them to furnish such other evidence of character and qualifications, as shall

be equally satisfactory to said committee; and no instructer shall be entitled to receive any compensation for his service, who shall teach any of the schools aforesaid, without first obtaining from said committee a certificate of his fitness to instruct.

SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, That the school committee of each town shall direct and determine the class-books to be used in the respective classes, in the public district and town schools of the town: and the scholars sent to such schools shall be supplied by their parents, masters, or guardians, with the books prescribed for their classes; and the school committee of each town shall procure, at the expense of the town, and to be paid for out of the town treasury, a sufficient supply of such class-books for the public district and town schools, and give notice of the place or places where such books may be obtained: and such books shall be supplied to scholars at such prices as merely to reimburse to the town the expense of procuring the same; and in case any scholars shall not have been furnished by his or her parent, master, or guardian, with the requisite books, every such scholar shall be supplied therewith by the school committee, at the expense of the town, and the school committee shall give notice, in writing, to the assessors of the town, of the names of the scholars so supplied by them with books, of the books so furnished, the prices of the same, and the names of the parents, masters, or guardians, who ought to have supplied the same; and said assessors shall add the amount of the books so supplied, to the next annual tax of the parents, masters, or guardians, who ought to have supplied the same: and the amount so added shall be levied, collected, and paid into the town treasury, in the same manner as the public taxes: Provided, however, That in case such assessors shall be of opinion that any of such parents, masters, or guardians, are not able, and cannot afford to pay the whole expense of the books so supplied on their accounts respectively, such parents, masters, or guardians, shall be exonerated from the payment of the whole or a part of such expense, and the said assessors shall omit to add the amount of such books, or shall add only a part thereof, to the annual tax of any such parent, master, or guardian, according to the proportion of such expense which such parent, master, or guardian, shall in their opinion, be able and can afford to pay.

SEC. 3. Be it further enacted, That all questions arising in any district respecting the removal or the changing of the site of the district school-house, and also, where any district shall be divided by any town, all questions arising respecting the division of the district property or funds, except the property or funds accruing from donations or voluntary grants, and also, all questions arising as to

the contribution or compensation to be made by the party retaining any of the estates or property of the district so divided, shall be determined in the same manner, and by the same proceedings, as are provided to determine the site of a district school-house, by an act passed on the twenty-eighth day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred, in addition to the act to which this act is in addition.

SEC. 4. Be it further enacted, That this act shall be in force, on and after the first Monday of April next; and all provisions of former acts, inconsistent with the provisions of this act, are hereby repealed.

SEC. 5. Be it further enacted, That the school committee in the city of Boston, and in the several towns in this Commonwealth, be, and they hereby are, required to report to the Secretary of this Commonwealth, on the first day of June, of each year, for three years next ensuing, the amount of money paid in their respective city or towns, each preceding year, for the instruction of youth, designating, as far as is convenient or practicable, the amount paid for the instructers of public schools, the number of academies and private schools, the estimated amount of compensation for the instructers of academies and private schools, the number of school districts into which said city or town is divided, and the length of time in said year during which the several schools were kept in said town, the number of pupils, male and female; designating those of each sex under seven years of age, between seven and fourteen, and over fourteen; and also, what number of children, living in said city or towns respectively, over seven years of age, and under fourteen, do not attend school, and whether there are any, and what number of persons over fourteen years of age, and under twenty-one years of age, who have had a right to education in the public schools in this Commonwealth, who are unable to read or write;-and that they further report, what is the average annual expense for school-books for each pupil in the public schools of their said city or town, and whether there are any, and what number of children prevented from attending school by reason of such expense.

SEC. 6. Be it further enacted, That the Secretary of this Commonwealth furnish to each town and city in this Commonwealth a blank form of return in manner following.

Number of persons over 14 years, unable to read and

write.

Number of persons prevented by expense of school books.

Number of children from 7 to 16, not attending school.

Expense of school books for each pupil in Town
Schools.

Estimated amount of private tuition fees.

Estimated number of pupils in private schools.

Number of Academies and private Schools.

From 14 and upwards.

From 7 to 14.

Under 7.

From 14 and upwards.

From 7 to 14.

Under 7 years.

Time of keeping school in the year.

Number of public school districts.

Amount paid for public instruction.

REVIEWS.

Medical Gymnastics; or Exercise applied to the Organs of Man, according to the laws of Physiology, of Hygiene, and Therapeutics. By Charles Londe, M. D. Facult. de Paris &c. &c. Paris, 1821: 8vo. pp. 351.

THE Importance of exercise and diet was perhaps never more fully acknowledged than by the physicians of the present day. Experience has proved these means to be the best preventive against disease, as well as a powerful auxiliary, if not a substitute for medicines, in many obstinate cases. One disorder in particular, which is very prevalent, has been found to yield to no other measures. Hence a regular system of exercise has lately been introduced or rather revived-under the name of physical education. Several treatises have been written on this subject; and amongst those which are most worthy of note is that whose title stands at the head of this article.

M. Londe seems to have paid much attention to the subject of gymnastics, and particularly those of the ancients. The origin of these exercises, he tells us, is of the highest antiquity, being ascribed by the Greeks to Esculapius, who lived nearly 1400 years before the Christian era: some centuries later they were reduced to an art, and made a branch of medicinal science, by Iccus and Herodicus. Hippocrates, Galen, and Celsus, wrote on the subject, and have left invaluable precepts as to the application of exercise in health and disease. The ancient legislators, persuaded that the happiness of man consisted as much in the harmony of his physical, as in the developement of his intellectual faculties, made gymnastic exercises an essential part of education. From their time little attention was paid to the subject, till the 17th century, when an elaborate work, on the 'Gymnastic Art,' was published by Mercurialis in Italy. About the end of the last century, several elementary works appeared in England, France, and Germany; and shortly afterwards several schools of exercise, or Gymnasia, were established in Prussia, and other parts of the continent.

The work before us differs from most others on the subject, in being less elementary, and more scientific. It does not illustrate the particular games of the schools, but considers generally the utility of exercise in a medical point of view; showing under what circumstances it ought to be taken, and the effect produced on the animal economy by any series of movements. It is divided into