REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. To the State Board of Education and the General Court. The secretary of the State Board of Education is required. by law to report annually to both your honorable bodies such information as he may gather about the condition of the schools of the Commonwealth, as well as such suggestions as he may deem it expedient to make for their welfare. In accordance with this requirement, the sixty-third report of the secretary is herewith respectfully submitted. · SUMMARY OF STATISTICS FOR 1898-99. I. Number of Public Day Schools. 1. Number of towns, 321; cities, 32. Total, 353. All have made the annual returns required by law. 2. Number of public schools, the unit of comparison being a single school which has one head or principal, whether the school has one teacher or several, 4,628 18 10,121 3. Number of public schools based on the single class room as the unit of comparison, Increase for the year, II. Enrolment, Membership and Attendance. 1. Number of persons in the State between the ages of five and fifteen years May 1, 1898, . Increase for the year, 2. Number of persons of all ages in the public schools during 449,099 7,747 390,900 12,130 3. Average membership of pupils in all the public schools 4. Average attendance in all the public schools during the 5. Percentage of attendance based on the average membership, . 6. Number of children under five years of age attending the public schools, . 1,252 7. Number of persons over fifteen years of age attending the public schools, 360,317 92 8,954 1. Number of men employed as teachers in the public schools 2. Number of women employed as teachers in the public 4. Number of teachers required by the public schools, Increase for the year, 176 5. Number of teachers who have attended normal schools, 6. Number of teachers who have graduated from normal schools, 7. Average wages of male teachers per month in the public Decrease for the year, 8. Average wages of female teachers per month in the public 4,687 262 $136 23 1. Aggregate of months (twenty school days each) all the public schools have been kept during the year, 2. Average number of months the public schools have been kept during the year, 95,25018 99% 262 1,440 56 3. Number of pupils in the high schools, 40,003 Increase for the year, 1,870 $369,641 30 . $1,423 92 4. Amount of salaries paid to principals of high schools, Increase for the year, VI. Evening Schools. 1. Number of cities and towns having evening schools, . 2. Number of evening schools, 3. Number of teachers, 4. Number of pupils: male, 24,154; female, 12,250; total, 5. Average attendance, 7. Increase in the number of pupils for the year, 8. Increase in the expense for the year, . VII. Cost of Schools (Taxation). 1. Amount raised by taxation and expended for the support of public schools, including only wages and board of teachers, transportation of pupils, fuel for the schools and care of fires and schoolrooms, 2. Expense for transportation of pupils (included in the foregoing amount raised by taxation), Increase for the year (included in the foregoing 3. Expense of supervision for the year, Increase for the year, 50 767 1,227 36,404 * 18,245 † $207,738 85 3,968 $19,072 42 $8,763,716 03 5. Expense of books, stationery and school supplies, 6. Sundries (school reports, school census, and such items as * On page lxxiv of the Abstract the average attendance of the Boston evening schools is given as 4,002. This return was subsequently corrected by Boston so as to read 5,995. The average attendance for the State is, therefore, 18,245 instead of 16,262, as given in the Abstract. The expense of the Cambridge evening schools should have been recorded on page lxxiv of the Abstract as $4,854 instead of $14,854, as there given, making the total expense $207,738.85 instead of $217,738.85, as there given. $291,408 51 $259,595 97 . $569,284 58 $26,130 77 1. VIII. Cost of Schools (Voluntary Contributions, etc.). Amount of voluntary contributions for the public schools, $84,876 03 Decrease for the year, $7,079 17 2. Amount of local school funds the income of which can be appropriated to schools and academies, $3,103,047 59 $103,945 33 3. Income of local funds appropriated to schools and academies, . Decrease for the year, $137,609 39 $65 28 4. Income of funds appropriated for public schools at the option of the town, as surplus revenue, tax on dogs, etc., $85,626 99 Decrease for the year, 5. Income of State school fund paid to towns in aid of public 2. Whole number of pupils in academies for the year, 56 5,523 3. Amount of tuition paid in the academies during the year,. $423,87654 4. Number of private schools, . 5. Whole number of pupils in private schools during the year, 6. Amount of tuition (largely estimated), 368 65,937 $683,477 65 1. Expenditure from the State school fund for apparatus and books of reference for the year 1898-99, . 2. Aggregate returned as raised by taxation and expended upon the public schools alone, exclusive of repairing, altering and erecting schoolhouses (see VII., 1, 3, 5 3. Average based on the above (X., 2) for each child in the State between five and fifteen years of age, 4. Average based on the above (X., 2) for each child in the average membership of the public schools, . 5. Aggregate returned as received from all sources, public taxation and private funds or contributions, and expended, upon the public schools alone, exclusive of repairing, altering and erecting schoolhouses (see VII., 1, 3, 5, 6, and VIII., 1, 4, 5), 6. Average based on the above (X., 5) for each child in the State between five and fifteen years of age, 7. Average based on the above (X., 5) for each child in the average membership of the public schools, 8. Aggregate returned as raised (or to be raised *) by taxation and expended upon the public schools, inclusive of repairing, altering and erecting schoolhouses (see VII., 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), $26 31 $13,624,814 07 9. Average based on the above (X., 8) for each child in the State between five and fifteen years of age, 10. Average based on the above (X., 8) for each child in the $30 33 $34 85 $13,889,838 21 12. Average based on the above (X., 11) for each child in the 14. Percentage of the total State valuation raised by taxation and expended on the public schools for the purposes stated under VII., 1, . 15. Percentage of the total State valuation raised by taxation and expended on the public schools for the purposes stated under X., 2, . 16. Percentage of the total State valuation raised (or to be raised *) by taxation and expended on the public schools for the purposes stated under X., 8, * Most of the money expended in erecting new buildings is borrowed on notes or bonds. Its payment by taxation, therefore, is usually distributed, through the agency of sinking funds or in other ways, over a series of years. Such money is reported for the year when it is actually expended on the buildings, not for the year or years when it is raised by taxation for purposes of repayment. |