joy, J. W. MacDonald, J. T. Prince, J. G. Thompson, Geo A. Walton. Color and Drawing.— Henry T. Bailey, Miss Martha Ross. English Language and Literature.— Geo. I. Aldrich, Miss Alice S. Clement, Miss Emma C. Fisher, G. T. Fletcher, J. W. MacDonald, Robert C. Metcalf, J. T. Prince, Miss Anna B. Thompson, J. G. Thompson, Samuel Thurber, Geo. A. Walton. Geography.-William W. Abbott, Miss Elvira Carver, A. W. Edson, Miss Isabel King, Frank F. Murdock, L. P. Nash. Grammar.- Miss Emma C. Fisher, Robert C. Metcalf, Miss Lelia E. Partridge. History.-A. C. Boyden, Miss Caroline Close, Miss Julia N. Cole, Mrs. Mary R. Davis, A. W. Edson, Asher J. Jacoby, Geo. H. Martin, A. B. Morrill, Walter S. Parker, Miss Anna B. Thompson. Illustrative Sketching, with Nature Studies.- Henry T. Bailey, Miss W. Bertha Hintz. Kindergarten.- Miss Lucy Wheelock. Methods in French.- Miss Mary Stone Bruce. Methods in Latin.-J. W. MacDonald, F. W. Smith. Nature Studies.— A. C. Boyden, Henry T. Bailey, Miss Sarah E. Brassill, Miss S. E. Hart. Penmanship.-W. H. Burnham, Miss Anna C. Hill, Geo. A. Walton. Physiology and Hygiene.-G. T. Fletcher, Mrs. Ella B. Hallock, Mrs. Mary R. Davis. Principles and Methods, including Psychology and School Management.-A. W. Edson, G. T. Fletcher, Frank A. Hill, J. W. MacDonald, A. B. Morrill, J. T. Prince, Geo. A. Walton. Reading.-Geo. I. Aldrich, Miss Nellie E. Boyd, A. W. Edson, Miss Flora E. Kendall, Miss Isabel King, Miss M. I. Lovejoy, Miss Arabella Roach, Miss Anna B. Thompson, J. G. Thompson, J. T. Prince, Geo. A. Walton. Science Teaching in High Schools, including Physics, Chemistry and Botanical Biology.-Chas. H. Clark, J. W. Hutchins, Wm. D. Jackson, J. C. Packard, A. B. Morrill, Chas. F. Warner. SCHOOL COMMITTEE AND SUPERINTENDENT MEETINGS. Meetings of school committees and superintendents for the consideration of subjects pertaining especially to the work of supervision were held during the year as follows: XXII. Table showing the Location of School Committee and Superintendent Meetings, the Date of holding and the Number of Towns Represented, 1894. The subjects treated at these meetings were the following: 1. Legal and moral duties of school committees. 2. The grading and consolidation of schools. 3. The transportation of pupils. 4. The special work of a school committee:- 5. What constitutes a good school? 6. (a) A properly constructed school building. High school attendance of out-of-town pupils. 7. Other kindred topics. The conduct of these meetings was entrusted to the agents of the Board. Representatives were in attendance from all the towns invited. SPECIAL SCHOOLS. ["Every institution for the instruction of the deaf, dumb and blind, when aided by a grant of money from the State treasury, shall annually make to the Board such a report as is required, by sections sixteen and seventeen of chapter seventy-nine, of other private institutions so aided." (Public Statutes, chapter 41, section 15.)] (Education of the Deaf.) Deaf pupils are now sent to the Horace Mann School in Boston, to the Clarke Institution at Northampton and to the American Asylum at Hartford, Conn. Little children who cannot hear are sent to the Sarah Fuller Home, West Medford, Mass. AMERICAN ASYLUM (HARTFORD, CONN). JOB WILLIAMS, M.A., Principal. Number of Massachusetts pupils during the school year 1893-94, The year 1892-93, though without novel features, was one of general prosperity and satisfactory progress in all departments of the school, the attendance slightly exceeding that of the previous year. The whole number in school during the year was 155, of whom 89 were boys and 66 girls; of these, 24 boys and 26 girls were from Massachusetts. Twenty-three boys received instruction in shoemaking and eighteen in cabinet-making. The general health of the pupils has been good, but two have been taken away by death. The first, a boy of seventeen years of age, died of peritonitis after an illness of only four days. The other, a boy of twelve years of age, had suffered much from hip disease for eight years. Two years ago, with the consent of his parents, he was taken to the Hartford hospital, where a difficult surgical operation was performed, which it was hoped would stay the progress of the disease, but only temporary relief was secured. Slowly but steadily it advanced, until the patient little sufferer was released by death a few days after being sent to his home. The age at which pupils are admitted to the school has steadily diminished of late years. The average age of the new class in 1874 was ten years and one month, and in 1894 it was eight years and six months. This decrease in age obviously implies less power to concentrate the mind, less power of prolonged application, and consequently less progress in the first years of the school course. As a result, methods of instruction have had to be modified to meet the changed conditions, and the allowance of school time should be increased. The State is generous in the matter of time allowed, but too many parents are impatient to put their children at work. Especially is this the case where the parents are foreigners. Many of them seem to think that, as soon as their children can write in what seems to them fairly good English, they have education enough, and should be put to work to assist in replenishing the family treasury. The good of the child is scarcely con sidered. Some way should be devised by which the child should be allowed to continue in the enjoyment of the privileges so freely provided by the State, so as to receive their full benefit. Of the pupils who have finished their school course at the American Asylum within the last ten years (leaving out of the account those who have entered it from other schools and those who have gone from it to continue their studies in other schools), the average length of schooling has been seven years two and one third months, -three years less than the State has fixed as the expected limit of time. When one considers their mental condition on entering school and the great obstacles in the way of their progress, one sees that that time is far too short to provide the mental training to fit them to discharge properly life's duties. Moreover, a very important part of a deaf boy's education is the manual training received in learning a trade. Upon that he must depend largely to earn a livelihood, and maintain his independence after leaving school; and the boy who closes his school course at the age of fifteen or sixteen years can have availed himself but partially of the advantages that he might have enjoyed in that line had he been old enough and strong enough to improve them. While other means of instruction have been freely used, increased attention has been given to speech and lip reading. Seventy per cent. of the pupils receive a daily drill of one hour in these branches, and in some of the advanced classes speech and lip-reading are brought into practical use during the rest of the school day. Not all show like aptness and attain like proficiency in these branches, any more than they do in others; but the general progress has been encouraging, and in cases where the speech is indistinct the habit of pronouncing words and considering them as units intead of a combination of so many letters, as is the case when words are manually spelled or written, helps practically and psychologically in the acquisition of language. An endeavor is made to give every child an opportunity to gain so much of speech and lip-reading as his aptness in that line allows him to acquire; but it is not intended to allow any child either to miss the English language or to be hindered in his acquisition of it, or to be checked in his general mental development, by his slowness in acquiring speech and lip-reading. To secure the attainment of these essentials, use is made not only of the means employed in the public schools, speech, writing, pictures and natural actions,- but also of those means specially adapted to aid in the instruction of the deaf,— manual spelling and the sign language to such extent as may be necessary to attain the end had in view. In a word, the system of instruction is thoroughly eclectic. CLARKE INSTITUTION (NORTHAMPTON). MISS CAROLINE A. YALE, Principal. Number of Massachusetts beneficiaries during the school year 1893-94, . 107 . 18 . 107 The year ending Aug. 31, 1894, brought increased prosperity to the Clarke Institution. It had more pupils than ever before, and was obliged to refuse several applicants from lack of capacity to receive them. A new building will soon be completed, which will admit of an addition of at least twenty-five pupils to its primary department. A single case of pneumonia and several cases of whoopingcough, all ending in recovery, constituted the only exceptions to general good health. The number of pupils instructed was 134; boys, 72; girls, 62; in the primary department, 83; in the grammar department, 51; boarding pupils, 132; day pupils, 2. The number present at the close of the school year was 131. Of the whole number instructed, 107 were from Massachusetts, 8 from New Hampshire, 7 from Vermont, 2 each from Pennsylvania and Alabama and 1 each from Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, District of Columbia, Georgia and Minnesota. The number instructed in drawing was 51; in wood carving, 40; in cabinet work, 28. The older girls received practical instruction in household duties. At the end of the school year a single pupil only was regularly graduated, no public exercises being held. In the class under training for teaching the oral system, of which an account was given in the last annual report, there were six members, of whom two have taken the places, in the school, of teachers withdrawn, two are employed in the Wis |