same proportion to common toils and efforts, that logarithms do to the cumbrous processes which they superseded. Their labors are certainly a great encouragement to all the bees, and a severe rebuke to all the drones, in the world's great hive.

The results of the examination are unquestionably not creditable to the Boston schools, and are not commensurate with the high reputation which they have enjoyed. Our limits will not permit us to go into details, or to cull from the appendix any of the many startling and ludicrous errors which it presents, in the answers therein recorded. We earnestly commend the whole document alike to the friends of education everywhere, and to the people of Boston in particular, who have a right to a faithful account of the large sums devoted to the support of those schools which have so long been their pride and boast. The following general results, which we copy from the Report, are sufficiently significant; but they make but a faint impression, compared with the actual answers set down in the appendix.

"The whole number of pupils present in the Schools on the days when we examined, was 7,526; the whole number offered for examination, a number comprising the flower of the Boston Public Schools, was 530; their average age is about thirteen years, six months.* The whole number of questions put to them

In Geography,

Definitions,
Grammar,

History,

was

Natural Philosophy,

Astronomy,

Making a total of 154 questions.

31

28

14

30

20

31

154

To these there should have been 57,873 answers, if each scholar had been able to answer; but there were only 31,159, of which only 17,216 were correct in sense, leaving unanswered 26,714. The 31,159 answers contained 2,801 errors in grammar; 3,733 errors in spelling; and 35,947 errors in punctuation." - pp. 7, 8.

In order to obtain a comparative view of the Boston schools, the committee extended their examination into some of the schools in the neighbouring towns; but they include only the Dudley school in Roxbury among their returns, feeling a conviction, that, in that school, neither master nor scholars knew any thing beforehand of their questions, while in the others there was room for doubt. As if by way of special rebuke to the pride which Boston feels in her public schools, it appears, that, in the general summing up of the relative merits of all the schools examined,

*In the Girls' Schools, the average age of the scholars examined is about 14 years.

the Dudley school takes precedence of all the Boston schools, and that all of the latter, with one exception, fall very considerably short of it.

Upon the condition of the Boston schools, as revealed by this examination, the committee have much to say in their Report, and many improvements to suggest. Here, too, we cannot fol low them minutely or in detail, without expanding a short notice into a long article, but must content ourselves with remarking upon one or two points.

The committee recommend a change in the organization of the schools. They would have them under the charge of one head master instead of two, and would increase the number of female teachers, advancing the standard of qualifications by enlarging their salaries. They recommend, also, the appointment of a school commissioner or superintendent, who shall be a permanent officer, with a competent salary. Here, too, we are emphatically with them. The arguments which they employ in favor of the appointment of this officer are unanswerable, and commend themselves to the good sense of every one who knows any thing about the operation of bodies constituted like the Boston school committee. The vigilant combination of a body of teachers is ever an overmatch for the sleepy wisdom of a board, which meets regularly but once a quarter, and is composed of persons, most of whom have their time and thoughts engrossed by their own affairs. The essential weight of these arguments is also enforced by the good results which have followed the appointment of such an officer in other places.

We have been pleased with the remarks on corporal punishment contained in the Report. They are well conceived and well expressed, and put the whole subject upon its true ground. They flow from an enlightened and humane spirit, restrained by knowledge and experience from running into visionary extremes. We commend them to the careful consideration of all teachers, especially those in the Boston schools, where (we speak advisedly) the rod has been heretofore far too much used, as a moving and restraining power. We give, too, our hearty and admiring assent to the observations upon the moral requisites and duties of the teacher.

A bold and uncompromising Report of this kind, as might be expected, has met with some opposition. Its conclusions have been assailed with vehemence, and even the motives of the committee have been impugned. Forming our judgment from a considerable knowledge of the schools and from an examination of the Report itself, we do not hesitate to say that nothing can be more unwarrantable than such charges. We do not find a line

flowing from a previous prejudice against the schools, but, on the contrary, everywhere the evidence of a deep interest in them, a just appreciation of what is praiseworthy in them, and an earnest desire to make them better. We think, too, that no candid person, who is well acquainted with the schools, will dissent from its conclusions. We honor the members of the committee for the thoroughness and fidelity with which they have discharged their trust. We thank them for the valuable contribution which they have made to the cause of education. We hope that their Report, and the discussions it has provoked, will lead the people of Boston to look more carefully after their schools than they have heretofore done, and bring a more powerful public opinion to bear upon their management. If they fall upon evil tongues, they must console themselves with the reflection, that the abuse which a reformer encounters is exactly in proportion to the need of a reformation.

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