to provide convenient schooling for children but to enforce their schooling, whether it is convenient or not, fails in both, and a child entitled to the benefits of school misses what Massachusetts prides herself in regarding as his richest birthright. Parents in such cases not unfrequently apply to the State Board of Education for redress. Only one answer is possible, namely, that the Board has no authority whatever in the matter. The law has placed, and very properly, too, full control here in the hands of the school committee. Its decisions are final, unless the courts overrule them or the people reverse them by changing the committee. The Board, through its secretary and agents, does not hesitate, however, to point out rights on the one hand and duties on the other, and to urge the utmost of mutual consideration, to the end that the supreme purpose of the law, to wit, the schooling of the child, shall not fail of accomplishment. It becomes parents whose isolation makes it hard for a town to school their children to accept certain consequences of their isolation. Walking a little farther than others are required to walk, meeting the carriage on the neighboring highway or where the school used to be held, attending school over the border in an adjoining town, or otherwise waiving the full measure of accommodation accorded to others less inconveniently placed, these are samples of concession that smooth the way to a favorable outcome. They may not reduce very much the burden of the town, but they may win a disposition to bear it more gracefully. It becomes the school committee, on its side, to do its utmost, in spite of any exceptional cost involved, to make the schooling convenient for all, and, when it has done so, to insist, even to invoking the law, that children within the compulsory years shall avail themselves of it. Hardly a situation can occur so extraordinary or unique but that the committee can compass it, if it will. There was the problem of No Man's Land, an island some miles off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, with only two children of school age. So long as the town to which the island belonged sent a special teacher to the children, and the teacher could find board on the island, all went well, in spite of the cost. But when the teacher could no longer be boarded there, the problem of schooling the children took on a darker hue. Daily ocean voyages to and from school in town, to say nothing of long additional journeys on land, were hardly feasible. The dory was laborious and slow, the sail boat uncertain, a steamer out of question, and in a storm it mattered little whether the children were on No Man's Land or at the Bermudas. But even here a way at length appeared; a relative in a neighboring town took the children at a modest charge and sent them to school, their own town paying the bills, and happy that it was cheaper to do so than maintain a teacher in its island dependency or a transportation line across the sea between. It was the real or supposed failure of certain towns to make their schooling convenient through conveyance of pupils that recently called forth the following statements and resolutions from the grand jury of Franklin County: Whereas, the statutes of the Commonwealth (1898, chapter 496, section 7) provide that every child shall have the right to attend the public schools in the city or town in which his parents or guardians have a legal residence, or in which the child himself actually resides; And whereas, section 1 of the same statute provides that every town and city shall maintain, for at least thirty-two weeks in the year, a sufficient number of schools for the instruction of all the children who may legally attend the public schools therein; And whereas, the grand jury are of the opinion and have been advised that all children under the age of twenty-one years are reasonably and legally entitled to this privilege of attending school, and schools sufficient" are schools so located that pupils can safely walk to and from school, or can be safely carried by some conveyance so equipped as to protect pupils from inclement weather; And whereas, it has been brought to the attention of the grand jury of Franklin County at the November sitting, 1899, that in some towns the means of transportation are inadequate, the work sometimes entrusted to unsuitable persons, and in some instances children over fourteen years old needing such transportation have been refused; It is now Resolved, that this grand jury are unanimously of the opinion that in cases where pupils, by reason of the discontinuance of local schools or otherwise are obliged to attend distant schools, the facilities for transportation should be adequate for all children under twenty-one years of age who desire to attend school. To be adequate, the work of transportation should be entrusted to safe and discreet persons, who shall provide vehicles and robes or blankets which will insure protection to all the children so entitled to transportation, without danger to health. Resolved, that the clerk of the grand jury be requested to furnish this resolution to the public press of Franklin County. CHARLES F. ELMER, Foreman. Before resorting to the indictment of towns for failures to discharge in full their conveyance duties, - failures which might be due in some cases to misinterpretations of duty rather than to neglect of it, the grand jury of Franklin County evidently deemed it wise to make known what they conceive to be the law in relation to those duties. Every statement here made preliminary to the resolution expressing the grand jury's opinion has the amplest support in law, in decisions of the courts and in general practice. When people speak of the "legal school period," they give it one or the other of two meanings, according to the point of view taken. If the period is meant during which children must attend school, it is fixed by law as extending from seven to fourteen. If, however, the period is meant during which children may attend school, that is, have the right to attend school, then the grand jury's opinion is sound that it extends from such time as children have sufficient capacity to attend school up to the age of twenty-one. On this point the supreme court of Massachusetts, in the case of Needham v. Wellesley, 139 Mass. 372, ruled as follows: The Public Statutes, chapter 47, section 4, provide that all children within the Commonwealth may attend the public schools in the place in which they have their legal residence, subject to the regulations prescribed by law." Under this provision all the residents of the Commonwealth under the age of twenty-one years, as soon as they have sufficient capacity, are entitled to attend the public schools, subject to such lawful regulations as may be made; and, by its natural meaning, the expression "scholars of legal school age," includes all those who are entitled to attend the public schools. Should the question arise as to when the time or age of "sufficient capacity" begins, that is for the school committee to decide. This it does when it fixes a minimum age for admission to school. For a full discussion of the facts and problems of conveyance in Massachusetts, see the report of Mr. G. T. Fletcher, agent of the Board, entitled, "The consolidation of schools and the conveyance of children," and printed in the sixty-second report of the Board. SUPERVISION BY SUPERINTENDENTS OF SCHOOLS. - Expense of Supervision. The annual expenditure for supervision by school committees is made up largely of clerical expenses incident to the administration of systems of growing magnitude and complexity. Only a small part of it is due to payments to members of school committees for services. The majority of school committees practically all that have to do with large numbers of children and large expenditures of money -serve without pay. The expenditure of Boston, for example, for supervision by the school committee, was $43,765.28, not a cent of which was paid to its members for salaries. It is only in small towns, where pupils are few and expenditures small, that committees charge for their services, and even here many committees waive salaries which they might legally receive. The annual expenditure for superintendents of schools given in Table XXV. is made up wholly of their salaries, so far as they are paid by the towns and cities, contributions by the State being omitted. In the corresponding tables of preceding reports, the salaries of the Boston supervisors are included under the expense of school committees instead of under the expense of superintendents. The present table transfers their salaries from the former head to the latter, where they properly belong. With this transfer, the expense of the Boston school committee for 1898-99 becomes $43,765.28, instead of $66,445.28, as returned, and of supervision by superintendents (or supervisors) $26,888, instead of $4,200, as returned. XXV. Table showing the Expense of Supervision, both by School 1889-90, $89,969 15 $137,673 28 $227,642 43 $123 38* $13,668 38 It appears from the foregoing table that the first six years of the period were years of rapid growth for supervision by superintendents, while the last four show its extension, indeed, but at a rapidly diminishing pace. This is to be expected, of course, as the field for expansion grows smaller. It looks very much as if the limit of voluntary growth were nearly reached. The expenditure for supervision by superintendents was first separately given in the thirty-fifth annual report for the school year of 1870-71, although Massachusetts made a beginning in employing superintendents at least thirty years before, if not earlier. The increase in expenditure for such supervision, as shown by the following statement, measures the rapidity and degree of its extension : — |