are reported the present, while the loss of teachers in the same towns is only 3 and the loss of pupils only 85, it follows that the discontinuance of these high schools did not involve the dismissal of all their teachers or the withdrawal of all their pupils from the public schools or the saving of all the high school salaries. Some of this discontinuance was simply a change of classification and nomenclature, the school continuing, while the name high school was dropped. Those pupils that desired full high school instruction went to the high schools of other towns. As for the rest, most of them kept on as grammar school pupils, or as unclassified pupils taking in an irregular and special way one or two high school subjects to supplement their grammar school course.

It will be noticed, further, that these high schools were kept less time than the law requires, half of them falling conspicuously short of the statutory ten months. The salaries paid were generally inadequate to command the order of service needed. Moreover, in the case of a full high school course with but a single teacher there is always the insuperable difficulty of that teacher's doing justice to the subjects, to the pupils or to himself. While, therefore, the spirit shown and the sacrifices made in endeavors to maintain high schools where neither the law requires them nor the conditions favor them are often admirable, such questions as the following should be seriously considered: Are such schools in the interests of true scholarship? Do they connect properly with the normal school, the scientific school, the college? Can pupils go from such schools to high schools of good standing elsewhere without loss in time? Is it not better to pay tuition for good instruction outside than a salary and the other expenses of a school for inferior instruction at home? Is it not cheaper as well as better to do so? Especially, is it not cheaper and better, in those cases in which the State cheerfully offers to bear the tuition expense?

The Montgomery school was discontinued after a brief existence. It was a high school in an exceedingly humble and narrow way. The so-called high schools of Shelburne and Marion are incorporated academies. Shelburne pays for the tuition of her high school pupils in Arms Academy, under chapter 94, Acts of 1895. In Marion the advantages of Tabor Academy are free to the children of the town. In years past it has been customary to count certain academies and schools as high schools if they have practically served as such, that is, if tuition has been free to the children of their respective towns. Of the institutions in the State thus counted there are 27, which may be distributed among the following classes:

1. Those not in any way under the superintendence of the school committee nor in any way aided by taxation.

2. Those not under the superintendence of the school committee, but to which the towns may pay tuition under chapter 94, Acts of 1895.

3. Those under a certain superintendence by the school committee and aided in part by taxation.

4. Those under full superintendence by the school committee, but wholly supported from private sources.

X.

Table showing the Distribution of the High Schools among the
Several Counties of the State; also what Ratio of the Whole
Population has Access to High Schools at Home.

Since the passage of the law that makes free high school tuition the legal right of every properly qualified child in the State, the foregoing table has been losing a part of its significance. The ratio of population having access to high schools, either at home or in outside towns, is really 100 per cent. The table simply shows the extent to which towns are maintaining high schools of their own. Of the entire population of the State, 2,238,943 in 1890, 2,122,116 are in high school towns. The apparent losses exhibited by the table - 230 towns having high schools this year as against 234 last year, 252 high schools this year as against 255 last year, a ratio of 94.7 per cent. of population having access to home high schools this year as against 95.4 last year-should be interpreted as real gains. That is, a few feeble and merely nominal high schools have been closed, and the children have either resumed their true classification as grammar school

pupils, or, in case they have been qualified to do so, they have entered outside and better high schools.

EVENING SCHOOLS.

XI. Table giving for a Period of Ten Years, from 1886 to 1895, the number of Towns that have maintained Evening Schools; also the Number of Such Schools, with the Attendance and the Expense of supporting them.

It looks upon the surface as if there had been a remarkable increase in the number of schools, -462 in a single year. The increase is not a real one, however. It is due simply to an attempt to count the schools in terms of the single class room as the unit of comparison. The same sort of count that gives us 8,874 public day schools gives us 747 public evening schools (see pages 55, 56). That this count cannot be far from correct appears from the fact that, if the whole number attending evening schools is divided by the number of schools reported, that is, if 28,968 is divided by 747, the quotient is 39, or about the number that one would expect to find in a single class room. The number in actual attendance for any one

evening is much less.

The attendance upon evening schools is, in the nature of the case, somewhat irregular. It is difficult to plan closely in ad

vance for such schools, and not unfrequently an increased outlay for teachers and departments is made for a reduced number of pupils. The returns this year show a less number of pupils than last year by 3,931, but an increase over the expenditures for last year of $4,643.57. Basing the cost per pupil on the total membership, we find it to be $6.08, as against $5.21 for last year, - an increase of 87 cents. If the cost were based on the average number in attendance, it would be nearly double for each year. It is a number approaching the total membership that determines the organization and cost of the evening school; it is a number not far from the average attendance that measures the utilization of its facilities. While it is unfortunate that a scale of expenditure believed to be adequate for a given number of pupils should, in practice, be limited to half that number, there is some compensation to be found in the high spirit and sturdy persistence of those who, in spite of weariness from the day's task, push regularly through to the end. Such self-denial and pluck mean good material, of the kind that it pays to educate.

XII.

LENGTH OF TIME THE SCHOOLS HAVE BEEN KEPT.

Table showing the Length of Time the Schools have been kept during Each Year from 1886 to 1895, a Period of Ten Years.

If this table is compared with the corresponding table in the fifty-eighth report, it will be seen that the statements of the average number of months the schools have been kept during