attendance. A successor is employed, and in a month or two these good habits are almost entirely broken up, and a tardy and irregular attendance characterizes the school.

The reverse of this, also, often takes place. A faithful teacher has labored for several years in a particular school, and has complained and fretted a great deal about the general tardiness and irregular attendance of her pupils. She really believes, and perhaps has led her Committee to believe that the parents in the vicinity of her school are unusually remiss in sending their children. But in the course of events this teacher voluntarily withdraws from the public service, with the respect. of the Committee, who sincerely regret her leaving. A young woman of little or no experience in school-keeping takes her place, and complaints of the indifference of the parents and the children in regard to school attendance are no longer heard in the school-room. The spirit of the teacher's character is gradually infused into the children. Tardiness and absence begin to diminish, and before three months have elapsed the new teacher has introduced habits of early and habitual attendance in the place of tardiness and irregularity. So many instances, more or less like one or the other of these cases, occur in a single year of our school history, that no one who is acquainted with the facts can doubt that teachers who are well qualified-and the power of exercising a controlling and a winning influence over children, is an essential qualification-can generally secure a prompt and regular attendance, if they will strive continually to obtain it.

It may indeed be necessary for the best of teachers to report a few absentees to the truant officer, for the purpose of gathering in some stragglers. But as a general rule, those teachers who call most frequently on the truant officers, are not keeping the best schools. Those who are doing the most good to their pupils, and whose services are most highly prized by the Committee and the community, call upon outside. influences for sustaining and improving their schools much less than some others whose schools never rise into the highest rank though they may be situated in the best neighborhoods, The condition of each Primary School is a very fair gauge for measuring the tact and talent of the teacher for this particular employment.

In the schools for the older pupils, much depends upon the master, whose influence should be felt throughout the school. If he is a man of energy and dicision of character, he will imperceptibly impart these qualities in some degree to the pupils in his school, and they will have force of character enough to attend school and to do a good day's work, both the day before and the day after a holiday. Though some military parade or other exhibition may occasionally divert their minds from their tasks, they are taught to bring them back by the force of

their own wills, for they are made to understand that the power to and comprehend trains of thought cannot be acquired by irresolute and fitful application to study.

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Superintendent.-NATHAN BISHOP.

CHELSEA.

Your Committee would respectfully request parents to be exceedingly particular in sending notes of absence, or permission of absence, for their children. We know that absence is sometimes indispensable; but we are convinced that if cases of absence were limited by that one qualification, they would be much fewer than at present. Parents are probably unaware of the number of times a year the repeated absences of their children amount to. They are also unaware of the combined effect of numerous cases of absence from school. This evil of repeated and numerous absences, though somewhat diminished, is still excessive and afflicting. It is afflicting in a way that parents little consider. The teacher and the Committee are presumed to have, as they should have, the good of each child in view; but the repeated absence of a child from school not merely deranges, to a certain degree, the class of which he is a member, but specially interferes with his own progress in study and habits of application. The evil here is enormous. And when the occasion arrives, as it always will, when the attainments of the child are scanned, all parties, parents, teacher, scholar, and Committee, are mortified at the result, and the more so because it was unnecessary-the effect of thoughtless indulgence. Will not our fellow-citizens listen to well-meant counsel, and unite to purge this evil from our schools? We cannot refrain from pointing here to the interesting fact that in the first division of the Girls' Grammar School, the average percentage of attendance for the year past is the uncommon amount of .99. And we venture to say that the progress and habits of the girls of that division have been uncommonly gratifying to their parents. When shall a like pleasing record be made of every division, and of every school?

In the Primary Schools such constant attendance cannot be expected, for obvious reasons; but in the higher schools the Committee think that the considerate attention of parents should secure such a result. While great delinquency in this respect has affected other schools, its chief ill effects have been discoverable in the High School, as might naturally be expected. So ruinous has the evil of absence been in this school, that in one case, at least, the regular study of the class was dispensed with entirely, owing to the inability of the girls to go on with their lessons in consequence of repeated absence. Hours are wasted, both for pupil

and teacher, in making up or hearing back lessons, in order that the pupil may maintain his or her standing in the class. Such a course is utterly at variance with wholesome study and discipline; and yet the difficulty in this case is more with the parents than the pupils. Children may sometimes plead for indulgence, but the parent who has the good of his child at heart, will postpone indulgence for duty. Parents are apt to suppose that if their children only maintain their class standing, it matters little whether or not they are regular and constant in their attendance at school. Not to insist here on the fact that the teacher, who spends time out of school hours in hearing the lessons of a scholar heedlessly absent, is performing a gratuitous service, the effect of this irregular and hurried sort of recitation and study, is exceedingly injurious to all healthful mental action, and detrimental to wholesome habit. Especially is this the result when we take into the account the dissipation of earnest thought and interest occasioned by the last evening's pleasure party, or assembly's ball, breaking the quiet of the small hours, or other rare sport at night equally enervating to body and mind. The summer, too, is not without its attraction to the inconsiderate youth, in the pleasure of viewing the fashions and faces on Washington Street, on a beautiful afternoon. Your Committee are persuaded that parents are not aware how much the gratification of their children, even in ways that may be innocent of themselves, detracts from the serious preparation which they should be making in school, for the stern and responsible duties and relations of maturer years. They refer to this subject thus plainly with no desire to inflict pain or reproach, but to invite the attention of parents, and to respectfully request their co-operation in securing to their children the full benefit of school instruction and discipline. Children really belong to the school while members of it, and their parents should feel that the whole advantage of such connection is none too great for them, when it is considered that youth never returns— once gone, it is gone forever, with all its opportunities of preparatory training.

School Committee.-EDWARD OTHEMAN, GEO. W. OTIS, JR., WM. G. WHEELER, Wм. C. BROWN, CHARLES CHASE.

NORTH CHELSEA.

No faithfulness of teachers can dispense with punctual attendance, and personal effort on the part of pupils.

School Committee.-CARPENTER STANIELS, DAVID W. STOWERS.

ESSEX COUNTY.

AMESBURY.

It is obvious, from the preceding observations, that one of the greatest obstacles to the progress of our schools is the want of punctuality in attendance. The Committee would therefore call the attention of all to the figures at the commencement of the report of each school, and ask them to compare the average attendance with the whole number of scholars.

School Committee.-BENJ. EVANS, G. W. NICHOLS, O. S. BALEY.

DANVERS.

It is to be regretted, that notwithstanding the efforts made to secure a better attendance upon the schools, there is still great need of improvement in this respect.

While there are few towns in the State that contribute more liberally for purposes of education, than Danvers, there are nearly one hundred whose average attendance is better than ours. By reference to the last report of the Secretary of the Board of Education, it will be seen that the average number enjoying the advantages of common school instruction in the town, reaches only seventy-eight per cent. While this indicates an improvement over former years, it yet shows a loss or waste of twenty-two per cent. Of every hundred dollars appropriated, twenty-two are expended upon vacant seats. This tax is paid to truancy, indifference or neglect. Your children can suffer any privation with less injury to themselves, than they can sacrifice so large a per cent. of their educational privilege.

The town acknowledges the debt due to every child between the ages of five and fifteen years, by its annual appropriation, while only the fraction named is received; and the remainder is wasted, or worse than thrown away upon unnecessary absence. It would be better to allow this annual discount on every other interest you may hold in trust for your children, than curtail the annuity so invaluable to them. Better deduct

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this large per cent. from every dollar of personal, and every foot of real estate, with which you are intrusted in their behalf, than sacrifice what neither time nor money can redeem.

But this is only one view of the evil, as all will allow, who have considered the subject, or been at all conversant with our schools. All suffer more or less from the derangement of classes, and the inability of different members of the same class to proceed with the same rapidity and thoroughness, occasioned by inconstancy of attendance. The more ready and advanced pupils are necessarily detained to give others an opportunity to review what has been passed over in their absence. The advance lesson must be shortened, while the review, by the delinquent members, must be superficial; and thus the evils seriously felt by the whole school. The seeds of future incapacity and dullness are scattered in a soil, rich in natural resources it may be, and the mind active and susceptible by nature begins to betray symptoms of a forming habit, which subsequently makes learning so difficult and irksome a task.

If parents, who sometimes wonder that their children do not learn so readily as others, or do not evince the same interest in the school would consider this matter thoughtfully, no doubt the true cause in many instances, would be found to consist in this evil, from which our schools suffer more than can be readily estimated.

School Committee.-J. W. PUTNAM, A. W. CHAFFIN, JAMES FLETCHER, I. H. PUTNAM, B. F. HUTCHINSON, F. H. PUTNAM, C. P. PRESTON.

GLOUCESTER.

In reviewing the history of the schools for the year just closed, I find much cause for congratulation, from the facts, that a deeper interest in the progress of the schools and a more earnest co-operation with the teachers and Committee have been manifested by parents generally, throughout the town, than was formerly felt; that there has been an increased and more regular attendance of scholars on most of the schools; that, in most instances, good order has been preserved and a sufficiently strict discipline enforced, with very little resort to punishments of any species, on the part of the teachers; that the teachers have generally shown an unusual degree of zeal, energy and faithfulness, in the discharge of their duties, and that quiet, industry and obedience, on the part of the scholars, have, with few exceptions, been perfectly apparent to those who have visited the schools. The fact should not be concealed, however, that there are some parents among us, who appear to be entirely indifferent, whether their children receive an education or not, and a