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public interest. The poor man who only pays a poll tax gives his share as truly as does the millionaire. The system has manifestly dignified the school in the esteem of both parents and pupils, and quickened the educational spirit of the whole people. Every tax-payer, having contributed his part to the support of the schools, feels that he has a right to look after his investment. The details of our public schools are better known to parents than are the plans of private schools to their patrons. As a result of free schools, the great majority of the town reports concur in saying: "There has been a decided advance in the number at school, in regularity of attendance, and in the manifest interest of the people." More than ever it is felt that the schools belong to the people. In patronizing them the poorest parent is proudly conscious he has no leave to ask, no patron to conciliate, and no alms to beg. Every body pays something and feels that it is a good investment, and one which justly entitles him to its advantages.

In the past ten years the increase in enumeration has been 14,757, while the increase in the number registered in public schools has been 20,438. The number in private schools was first reported nine years ago, and the increase in that time has been 1,526. If it be assumed that the number ten years since was the same as nine years ago, which is very nearly correct,then the increase in attendance in both public and private schools in the last ten years is 21,964, which exceeds the increase in enumeration by 7,207.

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NEGLECTED CHILDREN.

This subject continues to claim attention. As the trend of the tide is here against us, to stem it requires constant watchfulness. Without effort, a backset would cover ground well nigh reclaimed. For, however well done, this is a work like that of a physician, that never stays done. Old cures will not stop the breaking out of new cases. In dealing with negligent parents our main reliance has still been kindness and persuasion, appeals to their parental love and pride, their sense of duty and their personal interest in view of the great importance of education to their children, and the rich privileges freely proffered them in the public schools. The same arguments have often reached the children, and thus they have gained a higher appreciation of the influence of the school upon their happiness, thrift and prosperity through life. Teachers as well as school officers may greatly help in this good work. It is the teacher's duty, or rather his privilege, to visit the parents of truant or neglected children, learn the causes of delinquency and secure parental coöperation. As I have urged this duty, a few teachers have asked substantially-"Is that in the bond," "what does the law demand?" as if the one ruling thought waswhat is the minimum work I must do; but fortunately there are but few teachers whose theory and practice limit their duties and sympathies to the school house and school hours. On the other hand, a large proportion of our teachers, bent on doing the utmost good to their pupils, inquire into causes of absence from school, visit pupils in sickness, and thus often win the confidence and coöperation of parents otherwise captious or indifferent.

Among the causes of absenteeism is the want of proper clothing. In these hard times, while many willing hands are unable to find employment, this plea is by no means limited to the huts or haunts: cf. indolence, intemperence and profligacy. Where parents are really too poor to provide comfortable clothing, the pressing needs of their children should enlist the sympathies of the benevolent. Here true charity may do as

truly Christian work as by any gifts for missions in pagan lands. That charity which really begins at home is at once most comprehensive and diffusive. Poor children have often been thus provided that they might attend the Sabbath school, and this effort is worthy of all praise, but even for morality. and piety, thirty hours a week in the public school is worth far more than one hour in the Sabbath school. In some towns the Selectmen have met this exigency. While great caution should be used not to encourage indolence and improvidence, there are cases of destitution where town aid may be used as wisely to prevent starving the mind as famishing the body.

The fact that nearly ninety-five per cent. of our children are reported as in schools of all kinds, shows that the law for the prevention of illiteracy has worked beneficently and opened to hundreds the door of the school house otherwise closed to them forever. The influx of the foreign element suggests the leading cause of absenteeism. Those who need the most watching are of alien parentage, as yet novices in the English language, speaking chiefly a foreign tongue. There is also a large class of native children, whose parents, being illiterate immigrants, do not yet appreciate the advantages of education.

But four parents have been prosecuted and fined during the year. Instead of brandishing the penalties of the law, we have kept them in the background, and urged mainly the great advantages of education. These persuasions are, however, sometimes enforced by the delicate hint that we desire to avoid the painful duty of prosecution which must follow any and every case of willful and open defiance of the law. As will be seen by the following report, the prosecution of the employer and three parents in one town, resulted in promptly bringing seventy children to school.

It was a very gratifying fact that the superintendent of one of the largest factories in the State, after being prosecuted for the employment of children who had not received the required schooling, and being bound over to the Superior Court, should have the manliness to write to the Agent of the Board: "The legal measures you took were right and proper, as you used every other means in your power, and the law as the last resort. From this time, you may be assured, I shall use my

best efforts to comply with the law-and without the law, I think the parents would have defeated me in getting their children to school, but they now find that they are liable as well as myself, and I shall have their coöperation in bringing about the desired result. I shall be pleased to see you at any time, and have your advice and suggestions in regard to educating the children." The sincerity of this declaration was evinced by the order promptly given to the overseers, “enforce the law for the schooling of children, even if its observance should stop the mill." If this superintendent was the greatest sinner, he now bids fair to be the best saint in our "canon" of employers of children.

Whatever may be true in monarchical governments, in our country there is every motive to kindness and conciliation in the execution of this law. Our plan is truly democratic, for its entire management is by the people and for the people, through school officers chosen by the people and responsible to the people, and hence commands popular sympathy. It is not pressed upon the people by some higher power, but is their own work, embodying their judgment and preferences. The old form of compulsory education which existed in Connecticut for more than a hundred and fifty years was not forced upon the people as "subjects." It was rather a living organism, of which they as "sovereigns" proudly claimed the paternity, growing up with their growth and recognized as the source of their strength and prosperity. After the utmost use of kindness, tact, and persuasion, and every effort to awaken a dormant parental pride, and showing that education will promote their children's thrift and happiness through life, we find that such persuasions are the more effective when it is understood that the sanctions of the law might be employed. We have used the right to enforce mainly as an argument to persuade. As thus used, we know in Connecticut that our law has been a moral force. It is itself an effective advocate of education to the very class who need it most. It has already accomplished great good and brought into the schools many children who would otherwise have been absentees.

FRENCH VIEWS OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS.

In 1876, the French Government appointed F. Buisson with six assistants, to examine and report upon the American school system. The Commissioners were all educational experts, connected with the Department of Public Instruction. They made a careful inspection of the school exhibits at our Centennial Exposition, and visited schools in various states from Massachusetts to Missouri. Repeated interviews with Monsieur Buisson led me to expect a most valuable Report from an observer of such culture, breadth and judgment, aided as he was by such eminent associates. This expectation has been amply met. Professor Swinton, who has translated a summary of this Report, fitly says: "We owe to a Frenchman the best statement of the philosophy of American politics. And now we shall have to credit to another Frenchman the best statement of the philosophy of American education. If this Report has not the monumental character of De Tocque ville's Democracy, it is by far the most comprehensive and the most valuable analysis thus far made of public instruction in the United States. It is our whole free school system, its organization, working, methods and results, set forth in its glories and in its faults, in its strength and in its weakness, by a critic as sympathetic as he is acute. By those who personally met the Commissioners, the Report of what they saw and what they thought of what they saw, has been awaited with lively interest. Well, we have at last after two years the Compte rendu of their mission embodied in a great octavo of some 700 pages, published in Paris under the auspices of the French Ministry of Public Instruction. The mere outlay that must have attended the mission and the publication of so costly a volume, enriched with plates, plans, etc., is a marked compliment to American education."

In condensing the following statements so as to read freely, I have modified the language of the writer for the sake of brevity. If the rhetoric has suffered, the thought is retained.

A republican government needs the whole power of education, said Montesquieu. This sentiment never found a fitter

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