ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION, TOGETHER WITH THE ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE BOARD. Boston: DUTTON AND WENTWORTH, STATE PRINTERS, No. 37, Congress Street. 1848. ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT ОР ТИВ BOARD OF EDUCATION. THE Board of Education, in submitting to the Legislature their Eleventh Annual Report, are happy to have it in their power to represent that the Public Schools of Massachusetts continue to be in a thriving, and, in many respects, satisfactory condition. To justify this representation, they refer to the accompanying Report of the Secretary of the Board, and to the Abstract of School Returns appended thereto. These documents furnish all the statistical and other information, which can be officially obtained; and they may be relied on to show that the progress of improvement has been unabated, while they also indicate defects, that remain to be supplied. They may especially be referred to as proving, that there is a prevalent disposition to secure better teachers by granting higher salaries; that the people, by submitting, almost every where, to a gradual increase of municipal appropriations for the support of schools, must be considered as prepared and resolved, not only to sustain, but to advance, what is truly the most popular of all our institutions; that, in the erection of improved schoolhouses, the wise liberality of the towns, and the judgment and taste of Committees, continue to provide for a want which, within a few years, has been rapidly diminished; and that, in the increasing ratio of regular and continuous attendance in many of the schools, there is unquestionable and encouraging evidence of the practicable improvement and extension of the system. |