and the average attendance of the Boston evening schools as 5,995, instead of 4,002. The corrections were made too late for the Appendix. The totals in the Appendix should be changed, therefore, to agree with those of the foregoing table.

It appears that the number of evening schools has increased by 27, the number of different pupils by 3,986, the average attendance by 1,531, the expense by $9,072.42, while the number of teachers has fallen off by 35. The cost for each pupil in the total membership was $5.71, as against $6.11 a year ago, and $6.24 two years ago.

The percentage of attendance has fallen off a little. It is not fair to compare it with that of the public schools, since it is based on total membership, while that of the public schools is based on average membership. Moreover, the conditions vary so widely for the two sorts of schools that if due regard is paid to them, the low percentages of the evening schools might in some cases be more gratifying than the high percentages of the day schools. Were the attendance percentage of the day schools based on total membership rather than on average membership it would be 76 per cent. instead of 92.

The evening schools are distributed as follows:

The number of cities required to maintain evening elementary schools is 32. All of them complied with the law last year, except Gloucester. The number of towns required to maintain such schools is 7, of which Brookline, Clinton, Hyde Park and Westfield complied with the law last year, and Melrose, Peabody and Weymouth did not.

The number of cities required to maintain evening high schools if petitioned to do so is 10. Of these cities, Boston, Cambridge, Fall River, Lawrence, Lowell, Springfield and Worcester maintain such schools, and Lynn, New Bedford and Somerville do not. The presumption in the case of these latter cities is that they have not received the requisite petition

from fifty or more residents, fourteen years of age or over, who desire, and, in the opinion of the school committee, are competent to pursue high school studies."

LENGTH OF TIME THE SCHOOLS HAVE BEEN KEPT.

XV. Table showing the Length of Time the Schools have been kept during Each Year from 1890 to 1899, a Period of Ten

Years.

Comments on Table XV. -For many years the average length of schooling has been 9.3 months, or 9 months and 6 days, 20 days being regarded as a school month. The extension of the minimum length from 6 months to 8 months by the legislation of 1898 has doubtless begun to make itself perceptible in the State's average.

In the sixty-second report, pages 125-127, is given a complete list of the towns required to lengthen their schooling by the new legislation, with sundry facts relating to the valuation, the rate of taxation, the proportion of that rate expended on schools, the number and average size of the schools, and the kinds and amounts of State aid received in the case of each town of the 47 given. In the same report, pages 128-132, certain hardships in keeping up with the State school requirements are considered, the duty of the State to reduce the inequalities of school burdens so far as may be feasible was enforced, and a suggestion offered as to a promising method of attacking the numerous and somewhat intricate problems involved.