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drawing, mechanics, art and like studies." It further provides that all penalties for the neglect to provide instruction in other branches of study prescribed by law shall apply to this branch.

By this enactment Massachusetts became one of the first States of the nation to require by law what is known as scientific temperance instruction in the public schools. It has remained literally unchanged to the present time. Under it has been established instruction on the subject in all the towns and cities of the State. There are alleged, however, as the basis of the request in the petition for more stringent regulations, a lack of uniformity in the instruction given and a wide diversity as to its method and amount, reaching in some instances a serious if not total neglect.

The soundness of the charge of a wide-spread neglect of the instruction now demanded by law might be questioned on evidence offered to the committee in its hearing, but it is not essential to the committee's conclusions that the evidence on this point, somewhat contradictory as it was, should be discussed. Let it be conceded, as in some measure supported by the facts, that the present law fails of its full purpose; it still remains to consider whether legislation of the nature asked for would be an effective remedy, and if it is not open to serious objections as a part of the school laws.

Instruction in physiology and hygiene with a special purpose to inculcate temperance must be considered to have a fixed place in the work of the public schools. It is so established by the fact that for fourteen years it has been one of the required branches to be taught in schools supported by public money. It is further shown to be regarded as essential by the legislation of other States of the Union, nearly every one of which has placed it in the required list. There is fresh evidence of the purpose of the people of Massachusetts that it shall be retained there by the petitions to the present Legislature, which, however their value may be questioned as supporting particular provisions of a proposed law, as to which the petitioners were but partially informed, at least show that a strong public sentiment exists in support of thorough instruction in physiological and hygienic truths as to alcohol and other narcotics, with a view to the reduction of intemperance. This sentiment cannot be disregarded in dealing with the question of modifying the present law, which embodies in general terms the purpose represented by these petitioners.

In considering a proposition to define in exact terms the instruction to be given in any branch of study in the public schools, the general school policy of the State cannot be ignored. In no case, except as to this branch alone, has the State through its laws undertaken to establish standards of instruction in any study. The required studies,

other than this, are simply named in the statute as subjects to be taught in the public schools. No attempt is made as to any one of them to enumerate the lessons to be given in a certain period, or to say that each shall be taught in every grade of school. They do not depend for their security in the course of study upon express provisions of law. They are fortified in their place by a well-settled public sentiment, which is permitted a wide freedom of operation through the local school officials. It may well be asked if the study now being considered might not safely be left, at least as to the details of the method and amount of instruction, to local regulations, as are other required branches; or, at most, if the requirement peculiar to the law as to this study, that it should be taught to "all pupils in all schools," should not be held to be the utmost the Legislature can well demand as to its particular treatment. The criticism that this requirement is vague and capable of various interpretations would apply to the statute provisions as to any other branch with greater force, as there is no specification relating to them of equal definiteness. Every proposed requirement as to this branch would be novel to the laws of the State. None now exists as to the number of lessons to be given in any required study; none as to the number of weeks it shall be taught in a year. The use of text-books is left entirely to local committees; the State in no case requires the use of text-books by the pupil or even by the teacher, the text-book being only recognized in the State law by the rather recent legislation which requires towns to pay for such as may be prescribed by the school committee. The making of proficiency in any branch a test for promotion would be the first recognition of the existence of such tests in the school system; and when there is a difference of opinion as to the value of employing them in the public schools, the establishment of any one of them in State law would be of questionable policy.

There is evident danger in the departure by the State from a policy which has respected the bounds of local authority in the legislation of two hundred and fifty years. When, to enforce such specifications as to a particular study, it is proposed to make the failure to comply with the requirements a penal offence and to subject members of school committees to criminal processes, the General Court should, in the opinion of the committee, refuse to grant the request.

Of the few penalties that are now imposed upon school committees, or even of those falling upon towns because of the negligence of school committees, there is not one that relates to their duties as to instruction. The line of distinction is clear between duties neglect of which brings penalties, and those that are strictly within the educational field; and in no case as to the latter has it been found

wise or necessary to adopt the method which appears in all the successive bills of the petitioners and which has been insisted upon as a positive essential to their proposition. It cannot be held that the general responsibility of school committees to their own communities and to the State to provide suitable instruction in the required studies can be increased by provisions of law which tend to degrade the official. An unavoidable tendency of such legislation would be to add new difficulty to securing the best service on school committees. Another danger suggests itself when it is proposed to select one of the many duties of school committees as to instruction for special and penal treatment; would it not tend so far as it accomplished a greater sense of responsibility in one field, by the fear of penalties, to weaken the sense of responsibility in other fields where it rested upon a general respect for the law? The interpretation would be natural, once the State entered upon building a code of penalties as to instruction, that those duties which were omitted from its express provisions and left to the official's respect for the law were less imperative. The final draft of the bill of the petitioners which proposes a penalty for a "failure to co-operate" to secure as thorough instruction in this as in other studies illustrates the impossibility of reconciling legislation of the kind asked with the State's established school policy. The suggestion that the police court be made a tribunal to pass upon the relative thoroughness of instruction in two or more studies, in order to determine the liability of a member of the school committee to a fine, is to put the entire proposition of enforcing moral and scientific education by this means to a test which reveals the unwisdom of the attempt to change so radically our school laws.

If the Legislature should be inclined to abandon what the committee believes to be the only wise and safe relationship of the State to the towns, by undertaking further to specialize the treatment of this study, the difficulty would have to be faced of establishing standards which would be reasonable. Widely divergent views were presented to the committee in the hearings as to the sort of instruction to be given and as to the ages of childhood in which it should be taught. The committee does not undertake to pass upon them, and only suggests the practical impossibility of the Legislature establishing a wise balance in the course of study in the schools of cities and towns, by undertaking to define the place and amount of time to be given to any one branch.

Finally, the legislation is not necessary to interpret the present law on this subject as being compulsory. It is clearly mandatory. The school committee is held by it to be equally responsible for instruction in this and in the other required branches. To refuse to comply with

its provisions, to evade or ignore them, is a transgression of the law which, wherever it exists, calls for correction. The effort should be made, if local public sentiment fails to hold the officials to a discharge of their duty, to have the facts revealed by closer inquiry by the secretary of the State Board of Education. The secretary has already in preparation a set of inquiries as to the nature and extent of the compliance of the several towns and cities with the requirements of the present law. Any revelation of a failure to comply with the law as fairly interpreted can be so utilized, the committee believes, as to lead to correction thereof without legislation. It is true that the Board and its secretary have only advisory power as to the relation of the school committee to this subject; but their recommendations in connection with cases of inaction or negligence cannot but have great weight in the future, as in the past, in guiding school committees to the proper discharge of their duties. Believing that whatever neglect exists is due to unfamiliarity with the subject and a lack of clear views as to methods, the committee suggests that the State Board of Education, in any report it may make upon the results of its inquiry, may properly give suggestions that shall be of material service to school committees which stand in need of further aid in shaping their policies to meet the spirit of the law.

No necessity has been shown, the committee believes, as to this study, which would warrant so great a departure from a well-ordered school system as is proposed by the petitioners. It regards as unwise the attempt to drive members of the school committee to a discharge of their duties as to instruction by the imposition of fines. It believes that there is ample corrective power in the present educational machinery for such neglect as may exist in the administration of a law which is compulsory upon all school officials. The committee has elsewhere recommended the rejection of House Bill 817, and for reasons given it recommends that Charles L. Morgan and Mary H. Hunt, whose petition is the subject of this report, and the various petitioners in aid thereof, be given leave to withdraw.

HERB'T C. PARSONS,

LOYED E. CHAMBERLAIN,

JNO. A. KELIHER,

Of the Senate.

FRANCIS LELAND,

GEORGE E. FISHER,

LESTER L. BURRINGTON,

HERBERT J. HARWOOD,

THOMAS J. DILLON,

JOHN H. Lowe,

Of the House.

The Circular of Inquiries. In accordance with the opinion of the committee on education that the effort should be made, if local public sentiment fails to hold the officials to a discharge of their duty, to have the facts revealed by closer inquiry by the secretary of the State Board of Education," the following set of inquiries was sent out to each town and city in the Commonwealth. It was sent to the chairman of the school committee, in order to make it known to him, and presumably through him to the school committee, that such an inquiry was on foot, but was answered in large numbers of cases by the superintendent of schools.

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Your attention is called to the report on temperance legislation of the committee on education of the Massachusetts Legislature of 1899 (two members dissenting), a copy of which is enclosed. This report was accepted by the Legislature.

Of the three hundred and fifty-three towns and cities in the Commonwealth, three hundred and forty-five reported in their official returns to the State Board of Education in 1898 that they had complied with the provisions of chapter 332, Acts of 1885. Of the eight towns that made no report in these returns, five have since affirmed compliance. The law referred to requires that "physiology and hygiene, which, in both divisions of the subject, shall include special instruction as to the effects of alcoholic drinks, narcotics and stimulants on the human system, shall be taught as a regular branch of study to all pupils in all schools supported wholly or in part by public money, except special schools maintained solely for instruction in particular branches, such as drawing, mechanics, art and like studies."

It is believed that the school committees of the Commonwealth would be materially aided in their policies of interpreting and executing the law if each could have the benefit of the experience of the rest in dealing with the common problems involved. It is hoped, therefore, that the answers given to the questions of this circular may be sufficiently frank, definite and complete either to form a trustworthy basis for such service or at least to make intelligible the local situation, whatever it may be.

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