Since the enactment of the law in 1891, which authorizes the payment of tuition out of town for pupils residing in towns not required to keep high schools, there has been an increase in the ratio of high schools established in towns of this class. All the towns reporting high schools as newly established during the past two years are exempt under the general high school law from keeping high schools. The intent of the provision for schooling children in out-of-town high schools was to secure to them the advantages of superior instruction. If it should result in bringing the advantages of good high schools within free reach of the children of towns that cannot maintain high schools, the purpose of its enactment will have been attained. If, on the other hand, it should result in increasing the number of schools that are high schools chiefly in name, — feeblyequipped schools, with but few pupils, pursuing a narrow range of high school studies for brief periods of time under teachers of limited ability, then, indeed, would the law prove to be of little service to the children for whose good it was passed. Should it tend to such a result, it would be practicable to restrict the application of the name high school to what is the evident intent of the term as used in our laws. There is but little evidence, however, that the law is likely to fail of its beneficent intent.

The general high school law contemplates a continued course of instruction of ten months in every high school,- this, whether the school is in a town required to keep a high school or not. Among our high schools there are many that are kept for a shorter period. The law requires that the lowest grade of high schools shall be kept by a master of competent ability to give instruction in general history, bookkeeping, surveying, geometry, natural philosophy, chemistry, botany, the civil polity of this Commonwealth and of the United States, and the Latin language."

The high school law of 1894, repealing the high school law of 1891, is designed to make compulsory upon towns what was dependent, under the former law, upon the will of school committees; also to give increased facility for attendance upon out-of-town high schools by allowing towns to pay for the pupils' transportation to and from such high schools. This enactment will be found in the supplement to this report.

At the present time, the only bar to secondary instruction at public expense for all children qualified to enter upon it, aside from conditions of a personal nature, is found in the inability to obtain admission to a good high school in a town other than the one in which the applicant resides. It is not legally incumbent upon any town to admit to its high school pupils from abroad. As has already been shown, our children in large and increasing numbers readily accept the privileges so munificently provided for their advanced training.

Chapter 471 of the Acts of 1894 provides that after Sept. 1, 1895, cities of twenty thousand and more inhabitants shall provide for manual training as a part of their high school system. In the supplement to this report will be found this enactment.

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.

The above table gives the number of towns in the several counties required to keep high schools, the number of such schools, also the ratio in the several counties of the population

that provide secondary instruction for their pupils. It appears that 95.4 per cent. of the whole population are directly provided with this instruction in their own towns. A few towns provide high school instruction in other towns than their own. Nantucket and Suffolk counties make full provision at home for all their children. Dukes county provides for only 26 per cent. of hers. Of the remaining twelve counties, Middlesex, Essex, Norfolk and Worcester range above the average of the State. The other eight counties range below that average.

EVENING SCHOOLS.

XI. Table giving the number of Towns that have maintained Evening Schools for a Period of Ten Years, from 1885 to 1894; also the Number of Such Schools, with the Attendance and the Expense of supporting them.

As will be seen by the above table, there is year by year up to the present year an increase in the number of towns that keep evening schools. This year the number is 55 against 58 last year. There is, however, an increase in the number of schools kept, from 244 to 285. The addition of 41 schools is accounted for by a change made in two or three large towns in defining what is called a school. There are in attendance 32,919 pupils, which is an increase of 5,135 for the year.

The ratio of males to females attending the evening schools is about 7 to 2. The average attendance on the evening schools is comparatively low, reaching only 52 per cent. of the whole number enrolled. This attendance, it must be remembered, is wholly voluntary, and the persons attending evening schools are generally occupied during the day in pursuits of an engrossing kind; so that, while it is very desirable that the full benefit of the large expenditure should be reaped, such a result is hardly to be expected. The expense of maintaining the evening schools increases with each year; it advances the present year from $152,269 to $171,544. Even with the large expenditure for their support and the low per cent. of attendance, there is a hearty sympathy with their aims, and a general satisfaction with the results of the evening schools.

TIME THE SCHOOLS ARE KEPT.

XII. Table showing the Length of Time in Months the Schools were kept during Each Year from 1885 to 1894, a Period of

The average time all the public schools were kept during the year was 8 months and 15 days. This is an increase of two days upon the time of the previous year. To an individual pupil this is small in amount; but an increase of two days for each of 328,455 children, the average membership in all the schools, means 3,654.5 years of 36 weeks each. With the lengthening of the summer vacation both at the beginning and at the end, it follows that, if the schools are to do the work they ought to do, there must be more economy of time in class work, and

increased skill must be employed in the art of teaching; otherwise, the school year should be materially lengthened. The class of schools which bring down the average time the schools are kept is in towns of low valuation; these towns make far greater pecuniary sacrifice to keep their schools for the six months required by law than do the wealthier towns and cities to keep theirs thirty-six or forty weeks. The evident way of relieving these towns of a tax unequally burdensome, and giving to all the children school privileges equal to those now enjoyed by the wealthy centres of population, is to distribute among these towns for school purposes moneys raised by the State considerably in excess of anything contemplated by the increase, liberal though it is, provided for in the school fund.

XIII. Table showing the Towns that have not kept their Schools Six Months during the Year, the Number of Schools not kept Six Months, and the Average Time of keeping the Schools as a Whole in These Several Towns.