REPORT FOR 1837.

TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION.

GENTLEMEN :- The act of the Legislature, under which you were constituted, authorized the appointment of a Secretary, and specifically prescribed his duties in the following words: -the Secretary "shall, under the di rection of the Board, collect information of the actual condition and efficiency of the Common Schools and other means of popular education; and diffuse, as widely as possible, throughout every part of the Commonwealth, information of the most approved and successful methods of arranging the studies and conducting the education of the young, to the end that all children in this Commonwealth, who depend upon the Common Schools for instruc tion, may have the best education which those schools can be made to impart." Having accepted the office of Secretary of the Board, I entered upon the public discharge of its duties, about the close of the month of August last. But before devoting even the brief period of three months to a beginning of the work of "collecting information of the actual condition and efficiency" of about three thousand different public schools, and several hundred perma nent private schools and academies, I was obliged to return to this city, in order to prepare the "Annual Abstract of the

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School Returns," which, by a law of the Commonwealth, was to be prepared and laid before the Legislature, in a printed form, on or before the second Wednesday in January inst.: — the labor of that preparation having, by a vote of the Board, been devolved upon me. This last work has supplied me with almost incessant occupation ever since my return. It soon became a question, therefore, in my own mind, whether I ought not to consider myself debarred, by the briefness of the time, and the magnitude of the labor, from attempting, at this early period, to submit to the Board any report, relative to the "condition and efficiency of our Common Schools and other means of popular education." But as I was perfectly satisfied that there were a few classes of facts, and some important views, pertaining to this subject, in regard to which a more thorough examination would only supply additional facts of the same kind, and corroborate the same views by additional arguments, I thought it clearly to be my duty not to delay their communications for the sake of presenting them in a less imperfect form, or of fortifying obvious conclusions with cumulative evidence and argument.

I proceed, therefore, to state the principal sources of information consulted, together with some of the facts learned and of the conclusions formed.

Between the 28th of August and the 15th of November last, I met conventions of the friends of education. in every county in the State except Suffolk. With the exception of two counties, these conventions were very fully attended, almost all the towns in the respective counties being represented. The character of the conventions for intelligence and moral worth has probably never been surpassed. Selfish and illaudable motives do not tempt men to abandon business, and incur expense,

to attend distant meetings, when no emolument is to be secured, nor offices apportioned. A desire to promote a philanthropic object, whose full beneficence will not be realized until its authors shall have left the stage, must have been the honorable impulse which assembled them together.

Statements, uncontradicted and unquestioned, publicly made at these conventions, by gentlemen worthy of entire confidence, respecting facts alleged to be within their own personal knowledge, I have considered as worthy of full reliance.

Some weeks before commencing this tour of explora tion, I addressed to the school committee of every town. a circular letter, specifying a number of topics upon. which information was sought. A copy of that circular, together with the Address of the Board of Education, referred to therein, is appended to this report. Direct written answers have been received from nearly half the towns in the State, together containing more than half its population. This information I regard as of an authentic and official character.

Having, fortunately for this purpose, been so situated as to form a personal acquaintance with very many of those gentlemen, who, for the last ten years, have been members of one or the other branch of our State Legislature, I determined to avail myself, as far as practicable, of this advantage, to extend into details, and render more minute and particular, my information upon the great subject intrusted to me. I think it not unworthy to be mentioned, that, for this purpose, I adopted a mode of travelling which made me perfect master of my own movements, and rendered it always convenient for me to stop and make inquiries, and to turn off my nearest course, whenever valuable information was supposed to lie on

either side of my direct route. In this way I have travelled between five and six hundred miles, besides going to Dukes County and Nantucket. I have been able, by this means, to inspect the condition of many schoolhouses; and I have personally examined, or obtained exact and specific information regarding the relative size, construction, and condition of about eight hundred of those buildings, and general information concerning, at least, a thousand more. These, together with the school-returns, which have been received this year from two hundred and ninety-four out of the three hundred and five towns in the Commonwealth, and such limited correspondence as I have been able to conduct, have been the principal sources of information consulted.

It would be depriving many persons of a most honorable tribute to which they are completely entitled, and it would withhold from the friends of the sacred cause of education one of the highest satisfactions, did I omit to declare, that neither at the conventions which have been held in the several counties, nor in my intercourse or correspondence with any one, has there been infused into this. cause the slightest ingredient of partisan politics. In regard to this great subject, all have reverted to their natural relations as fellow-men; discarding strifes about objects which are temporary, for interests which are enduring. In a spirit of harmony and unity, having brought the facts of individual experience and observation into common stock, they have regarded them as a fund, from which the wisest results were to be wrought out by the aid of common counsels.

(The object of the Common-School system of Massachusetts was to give to every child in the Commonwealth a free, straight, solid pathway, by which he could walk directly up from the ignorance of an infant to a knowl

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edge of the primary duties of a man; and would acquire a power and an invincible will to discharge them. Have our children such a way? Are they walking in it? Why do so many, who enter it, falter therein? Are there not many who miss it altogether? What can be done to reclaim them? What can be done to rescue faculties, powers, divine endowments, graciously designed for individual and social good, from being perverted to individual and social calamity? These are the questions of deep and intense interest, which I have proposed to myself, and upon which I have sought for information and counsel.)

Our institutions for the education of our children depend for their success not more upon the perfection of their individual parts than upon their just adaptation and concurrent working. The co-operation of many dif ferent agents is essential to their prosperity. In examining the causes of failure, therefore, in a system so extensive and complex, not only ought its several parts to be scrutinized and their details mastered, but the relation and fitness of each wheel to the whole machinery should be scanned; because parts, individually perfect, may counterwork each other from mal-adjustment, and thus impair or even wholly destroy the desired results. I shall make no apology, therefore, for discarding all speculation and theory, and for descending at once to more useful, though perhaps less interesting particulars; because nothing, however minute, can be unimportant, which will ultimately affect the value of the product.

I am bound, here, to make a preliminary remark, to be steadily kept in view as a qualification of this entire report. In pointing out errors in our system, that they may be rectified, I wish at the same time to aver my belief in the vast preponderance of its excellences over its defects. A specification of the latter, therefore, how