WORCESTER COUNTY. ASHBURNHAM, (1) Population, 1,652. Valuation, $414,235 20. Number of Public Schools, 11. (2) No. of Scholars of all ages in all the Schools-In Summer, 468-In Winter, 491. (3) Average attendance in the Schools-In Summer, 307-In Winter, 360. (4) No. of persons between 4 and 16 years of age in the town, 476.-No. of persons under 4 years of age who attend School, 25.—No. over 16 years of age who attend School, 76. (5) Aggregate length of the Schools, 58 mths. 14 days.-In Summer, 34 10—In Winter, 24 4. (6) No. of Teachers in Summer-M. -F. 11.-No. of Teachers in Winter-M. 8-F. 2. (7) Average wages paid per month, including board-To Males, $23 04-To Females, $11 26. (8) Average value of board per month-Of Males, $6 41-Of Females, $5 38. (9) Average wages per month, exclusive of board-Of Males, $16 63—Of Females, $5 88. (10) Amount of money raised by taxes for the support of Schools, including only the wages of Teachers, board and fuel, $900 00. (13) No. of unincorporated Academies, Private Schools, and Schools kept to prolong Common Schools, 5-Aggregate of months kept, 9.-Average No. of Scholars, 142.-Aggregate paid for tuition, $119 10. BOOKS USED.-Spelling-Lee's, Worcester's Primer. Reading-Intelligent and Porter's Rhetorical, Popular Lessons, First Class Book, Testament. Grammar-Smith's. Geography -Olney's, Smith's, Malte-Brun's, Parley's. Arithmetic-Adams', Smith's, Colburn's and Emerson's. All other's-Blake's Philosophy, Watts on the Mind, Geography of the Heavens, History of Commerce, &c. &c. SELECTIONS FROM REPORT. * * In one district, where the parents have interested themselves more, perhaps, than in any other, the progress has been most rapid. * * * Another evil is the practice of employing teachers who are too young, or are without that knowledge which can be acquired only by experience. * * * The committee of 1838 also recommended to the several districts an appropriation for the purchase of a Common School apparatus. One district followed their advice, and we presume that they would not now part with it for ten times its cost. * * If other districts would place in their school rooms the apparatus spoken of, it is believed that, in a short time, the scholars would be so interested that they could not be prevailed upon to dispense with its use. The committee of 1839 recommended the more general employment of female teachers during the winter. Would districts employ competent female teachers in the winter schools, it is believed that nearly or quite enough would be saved of the expenses of the school to support a high school six months of the year, for the benefit of all the scholars who have arrived at a certain age, or who possess a certain degree of education. Your committee have made a calculation, founded on the expenses of the schools of 1839, of how much might be saved by employing female teachers. The average wages of males, in 1839, was $16 90, and of females, the same year, $6 40. Now, allowing two dollars to be added to the price of females' wages per month, making $8 40, we have a saving of $8 50 per month, which, in the ten schools, would amount to $85 00;-this would give, for three months, $255 00. This sum would hire a competent man for six months, and pay him thirty dollars per month, pay his board at one dollar and seventy-five cents per week, and leave thirty-five dollars for fuel, and other incidental expenses. It is believed that the citizens of this town send from fifteen to twenty scholars to schools out of town, three months each year, at the expense, for tuition alone, of from forty-five to fifty dollars, besides their board and other expenses, which sum might be saved in the town, were a school of the character spoken of, established. * * * SCHOOL COMMITTEE. JEROME W. FOSTER, WM. P. STONE, NATHL. PIERCE. (2) No. of Scholars of all ages in all the Schools-In Summer, 408-In Winter, 485. (3) Average attendance in the Schools-In Summer, 298-In Winter, 370. (4) No. of persons between 4 and 16 years of age in the town, 444.-No. of persons under 4 years of age who attend School, 23.-No. over 16 years of age who attend School, 55. (5) Aggregate length of the Schools, 67 mths. 7 days.-In Summer, 36 14-In Winter, 30 21. (6) No. of Teachers in Summer-M. -F. 15.-No. of Teachers in Winter-M. 9—F. 4. (7) Average wages paid per month, including board—To Males, $23 79—To Females, $9 99. (8) Average value of board per month-Of Males, $5 56—Of Females, $4 67. (9) Average wages per month, exclusive of board-Of Males, $18 23—Of Females, $5 32. (10) Amount of money raised by taxes for the support of Schools, including only the wages of Teachers, board and fuel, $1,200 00. (13) No. of unincorporated Academies, Private Schools, and Schools kept to prolong Common Schools, 4.-Aggregate of months kept, 73-Average No. of Scholars, 106.—Aggregate paid for tuition, $132 50. Books UзED.- -Spelling-Leonard and Lee's. Reading-Village, Improved and Porter's Rhetorical, Pierpont's Series. Grammar-Smith's. Geography-Olney's and Smith's. Arithmetic Adains' and Smith's, Colburn's First Lessons, and Emerson's First Part. All others-Bailey's Algebra, Comstock's Chemistry and Philosophy, Watts on the Mind, &c. SELECTIONS FROM REPORT. * * The committee do not think it needful for them to revive, in any person, the unpleasant sensations which may have been excited by the representations of preceding committees, as to the construction, or rather misconstruction, and the location, or rather dislocation, and the accompaniments, or rather the unaccompaniments of many of the present schoolhouses. They would only venture the remark that money could, in no way, be made to subserve the cause of education among us more effectually than by applying it to make schoolhouses attractive instead of repulsive to scholars. How much repugnance to instruction and to knowledge itself is generated in the young mind by this circumstance, while it is attributed to perversity or other causes, no one can adequately conceive. We are happy to find more liberal and sounder opinions becoming prevalent on this subject, and trust that they will soon be, among us, reduced to practice. * * * The committee, with great respect for those who think differently, venture to complain of several school books, now in use in our schools. We have noticed that, in schools comparatively the least forward, books are read by backward scholars, which pre-suppose the art of reading to have been almost perfectly acquired. Books, like Pierpont's "First Class Book," the lessons of which treat, to a considerable extent, of abstract subjects, and are expressed in language, pure indeed and elevated, but utterly foreign to the common modes of speech familiar to children, are run over, by pupils, in a manner which necessarily shuts out thought and reasoning, and even precludes perception, mainly, except of sounds. Besides profaning, as it were, the noble sentiments of the best authors, this method of teaching reading infallibly turns reading into a drudgery, and fills the mind with words instead of ideas. It is quite as much as the learner can do to ascertain how to pronounce the words;-what they convey to those who are in advance of him in reading, he scarcely conjectures. If the design of reading was to teach children, merely as parrots are taught, we would not make this animadversion. We are not censuring the book abovementioned. It is valuable beyond our commendation, duly placed in proper hands. We just select it, as put into use among us, as furnishing an apposite illustration of a great evil,-books which are intended for minds advanced, made the class-books of minds in the outset of development; books suitable for practice, after reading has been in a good measure acquired, made the stumbling-blocks of children, who, whatever else they are, yet are only as infants in reading. This subject would not have been dwelt upon thus by your committee, great as its importance is in other respects, were it not for the connection it has with the nature of the knowledge acquired by pupils. Confessedly one of the most serious defects existing in the system of education, not only among us but generally, is the communication, to the minds of youth, of the signs of thought more than of thoughts themselves. The great thing to be sought in instruction is to accustom the mind to reflect,—to apply its own energies to the subjects presented to it,―to mingle with them the results of its previous experience,-to survey them in appropriate lights and relations; and thus either to bring them at once into just application to its own existing emergencies, or to coin and stamp them in its own mint and lay them up ready, as sound currency, for future occasions. The mind is to have an active, more than a passive existence ;-it always should be a collector and assayer, before it is made to serve as a receptacle and repository. We think that the sort of instruction and books, in regard to reading, which we have specified, is one cause of the fact,-which is, unhappily, a notorious one,-that the correct mental process and results are, in many youth, evidently reversed; so that they are acted on, when they should act; and gather words, when they should get knowledge of things. ers. * * * Your committee regard it as a drawback on the profitableness of our schools that they are kept only for fragments of the year. One of the evils attending it, may possibly be partially remedied,—we mean the change of teachIt may be thought, indeed, by some that change of teachers is an advantage rather than otherwise. It can be so, we reply, only in one of these two cases;-when a teacher has been employed who ought not to have been, or when one, for any reason, has become the object of so much aversion as to prevent all attendance on his instructions. These cases excepted, we believe that, if district committees would procure an acceptable teacher, not only well qualified in literary respects, but whose general character inspires and justifies high confidence in the community at large, if they would give him adequate remuneration and suitably coöperate with him, in school and out, and then engage him for successive seasons,—the advantages of that course would be apparent. * * * (2) No. of Scholars of all ages in all the Schools-In Summer, 163-In Winter, 198. (3) Average attendance in the Schools-In Summer, 130—In Winter, 163. (4) No. of persons between 4 and 16 years of age in the town, 180.-No. of persons under 4 years of age who attend School, 24.-No. over 16 years of age who attend School, 18. (5) Aggregate length of the Schools, 36 mths. 7 days.-In Summer, 20 14-In Winter, 15 21. (6) No. of Teachers in Summer-M. -F. 6.-No. of Teachers in Winter-M. 1—F. 4. (7) Average wages paid per month, including board—To Males, $22 00—To Females, $11 16. (8) Average value of board per month-Of Males, $6 00—Of Females, $4 50. (9) Average wages per month, exclusive of board-Of Males, $16 00-Of Females, $6 66. (10) Amount of money raised by taxes for the support of Schools, including only the wages of Teachers, board and fuel, $500 00. (13) No. of unincorporated Academies, Private Schools, and Schools kept to prolong Common Schools, 1.-Aggregate of months kept, 5.-Average No. of Scholars, 23.-Aggregate paid for tuition, $115 00. BOOKS USED.- -Spelling-Webster's. Reading-Improved, Intelligent and Rhetorical, American First Class Book. Grammar-Pond's Murray's. Geography-Parley's, Olney's and Smith's. Arithmetic-Adams' and Smith's. All others-Franklin Primer, Child's Assistant, Parley's First Book of History, Goodrich's History of the U. S., Watts on the Mind, Political Class Book. SELECTIONS FROM REPORT. * * Your committee would notice a great and perhaps growing evil existing in the community. We allude to the great variety of school books in common use. One person compiles a reading book, mainly for the purpose of arranging the reading lessons differently from any book which has yet appeared. Another compiler puts forth his book because he is satisfied nothing in the shape of rules for reading should encumber a school book; another, for the opposite reason, that he has noticed no reading book yet published that contained the necessary rules for reading. Another compiles a book consisting of selections of pieces from American authors only, because, it would seem, he is of opinion that American youths should read nothing but the productions of American writers; and still another stands forth with a volume of extracts from the British Classics, because he thinks nothing below this high standard of literature should be placed in the hands of the learner. * * * The importance of reading, as a fundamental branch of education, cannot be over-rated. Let a person possess a thorough knowledge of the spelling-book, and the ability to read fluently and understandingly, and he has at least one half of a good English education. * * * To return to the subject of school books. The greatest evil in the community in regard to them is the almost endless variety of new-fashioned text-books on geography, arithmetic and grammar. The strife amongst these book-makers seems to be, to see who shall compile or write a book that shall entirely relieve the learner from study, while it imposes upon the teacher the mechanical labor of asking such questions as another person, of a differently constituted mind, has seen fit to frame; and common sense teaches that which experience proves to be true, that scholars so learning, and so taught, must acquire and do acquire but a superficial knowledge of the subject pursued. Now, this school book making is a regular trade;-and the authors, or publishers, having one year sent an agent into every town in the Commonwealth with a new grammar and arithmetic which will almost perfect a child in the science, without study and without instruction, by simply purchasing it and laying it upon the shelf, the next year send another agent with a new edition of the same work,—with a different arrangement of the same questions, or printed in a different-sized type, (lest it should correspond with the last year's edition in its pages,) or perhaps some trifling addition of matter scattered throughout the book, for the express purpose, it would seem, of compelling parents to purchase new books for their children. Now, it must be apparent that, with the various editions of the different authors on the several subjects of geography, arithmetic and grammar, much time inust be consumed, in hearing the recitations of the various classes, which ought to be devoted to the instruction of youth; we mean that instruction which a well-qualified teacher will be able to draw from his own store-house to supply the deficiency which he sees to exist in his pupils. * * * SCHOOL COMMITTEE.-M. G. PRATT, JNO. MELLISH, ELBRIDGE G. WARREN. BARRE, { (1) Population, 2,751. Valuation, $961,947 28. Number of Public Schools, 15. (2) No. of Scholars of all ages in all the Schools-In Summer, 492-In Winter, 789. (3) Average attendance in the Schools-In Summer, 359-In Winter, 585. (4) No. of persons between 4 and 16 years of age in the town, 667.-No. of persons under 4 years of age who attend School, 63.-No. over 16 years of age who attend School, 123. (5) Aggregate length of the Schools, 75 mths. 7 days.-In Summer, 37-In Winter, 38 7. (6) No. of Teachers in Summer-M. -F. 14.-No. of Teachers in Winter-M. 13—F. 3. (7) Average wages paid per month, including board-To Males, $25 74-To Females, $12 29. (8) Average value of board per month-Of Males, $6 82-Of Females, $6 08. (9) Average wages per month, exclusive of board-Of Males, $18 92-Of Females, $6 21. (10) Amount of money raised by taxes for the support of Schools, including only the wages of Teachers, board and fuel, $1,300 00. (11) Amount of board and fuel, if any, contributed for Public Schools, $175 00. (13) No. of unincorporated Academies, Private Schools, and Schools kept to prolong Common Schools, 14.-Aggregate of months kept, 204.—Average No. of Scholars, 288.-Aggregate paid for tuition, $303 30. BOOKS USED.-Spelling-Introduction to National and National, Walker's and Webster's Dictionaries. Reading-Porter's Rhetorical, Introduction to National and National, Testament and American First Class Book. Grammar-Pond s Murray's and Smith's. Geography -Olney's. Arithmetic-Adams', Smith's and Colburn's First Lessons. All others-Goodrich's History of the U. S., Flint's Surveying, Bailey's Algebra. SELECTIONS FROM REPORT. * * In selecting teachers, proper regard should be paid to those young men and ladies in our own town who are exerting themselves to acquire the knowledge and information necessary to constitute good teachers. Such ought to be encouraged in preference to those who make no such efforts. Even if a person has taught repeatedly before, and sometimes with success, if, from year to year, he does nothing to revise and add to his stock of knowledge, makes no effort to inform himself of the various new and improved methods of teaching and managing schools, and cannot pass so good or a better examination, at the end of three or five years, than when he began to teach,-he, or she, ought not to be encouraged till all others are employed. A teacher ought at least to spend one quarter every year, previous to his engaging in a school, for the few first years of his teaching, in revising and adding to his qualifications, and thereby to keep up with the improvements of the age; nay, if possible, go ahead of the age, and originate new and improved methods of his own. Such teachers would command the highest prices, and would never be in want of employment. It is hoped that the liberality of the public will soon enable teachers to meet these requirements. Your committee have alluded to the duty, and a pleasurable one it would seem to be, of parents reading and reflecting much upon the subject of education. Will you ask, "where you shall get matter to read?" We answer, such reading is abundant. * * * As for particular merits and defects of the schools, the last year, your committee have but little to say. * * We mention, as among the few improvements we noticed, the particular and thorough manner of instruction of the first classes in the spelling book, in the Centre school, and some others;-the mode of teaching geography, by drawing on the black-board, or requiring the scholars to draw, an outline of the state or country in question, and then calling upon the class to locate, from their minds, the various towns, rivers, &c. &c., describing the peculiarities and distinctions of each as they proceeded, in No. 12;— the practice of some teachers of calling the attention of the reading class to the various portions read, and requiring them to point out merits and demerits, making free remarks and reading often themselves to set an example, and keeping the subject before the class till some one has read in a manner satisfactory to all. These are some of the improvements, among others, which your committee have been happy to notice. The employment of an assistant-teacher in school No. 12, to take charge of the small scholars, is also a decided improvement for that district. * * * SCHOOL COMMITTEE.—WM. L. RUSSELL, DAVID LEE, D. A. ROBINSON. BERLIN, { (1) Population, 763. Valuation, $192,179 44. (2) No. of Scholars of all ages in all the Schools-In Summer, 160-In Winter, 221. |