J. W. Huckins, teacher of physics in the Malden high school, who says that there should be three such courses in physics; one in the grammar school, treating chiefly with the observation of facts, and the other two in the high school, something as described above. It may also be said that the report of the Conference of Ten in the report of the Committee of Ten, practically recognizes this same principle in the treatment of history. Nothing that has ever yet been suggested meets the wants of the smallest or third class high schools, of which there are more than one hundred in the State. Indeed, these high schools present the most difficult educational problem we have. As they are, they are doing a great amount of good in opening to the youth of their respective towns a glimpse and a possibility of a higher intellectual life; but it is too often at the expense of overworked and underpaid teachers. It seems to me, however, that they would accomplish more if they aimed to accomplish less; that is, if they ceased to imitate the courses of larger and more favored schools, and recognized their own limitations and possibilities. J. W. MACDONALD. DECEMBER 31, 1894. REPORT. To the Board of Education. During the past year I have travelled about ten thousand miles in Massachusetts to accomplish the following: The mileage is unusually large, owing to frequent trips from one end of the State to the other, made necessary by the sojourn of Mr. Sargent in Europe, upon leave of the Board. The work in the western counties has been sustained so far as possible under the conditions, but his absence has been felt and regretted by scores of faithful teachers among the hills. The new year will find him at work again with his usual healthful enthusiasm and with increased power for good. My work has been largely along the usual lines, but with an emphasis upon the utilization of drawing as a language. There has been an increasing demand for this. Throughout the State drawing is coming to be recognized as an invaluable means of expression in other subjects; hence my work in the State institutes has been modified to meet the present requirements so far as seemed wise. Drawing is a language, - older than any written speech, still universally intelligible. Almost any one can make himself understood by means of it in a crude, unsatisfactory way; but it has its spelling and its grammar and its rhetoric, like any other language. Such drawings as are made without technical instruction are like the cramped, disconnected sentences |