At a meeting of the School Committee, held this day, Messrs. F. E. Parker, Stockbridge, Lyman, Upham, Burroughs, Kimball and Dean, were appointed the Committee to prepare the Annual Report required by the Rules of the Board. Attest: BARNARD CAPEN, Secretary. REPORT. The gentlemen who prepared the Report of the School Committee for the year 1856-7, commenced that interesting and valuable document by stating that the object of the Annual Report is not so much to discuss theories or general principles of education, as to present facts, and give information to the citizens of Boston; and they collected these facts with so much success, and presented them with so much method and detail, and drew from them so many instructive lessons, and added to them so many valuable suggestions, that little is left to the Committee of the present year, either in the way of history or speculation; and an extended report, they are well aware, is not expected by their fellow-citizens, and would not be welcomed by them. Referring their readers, therefore, for detailed information, to the tables annexed, and to the excellent Quarterly Reports of the Superintendent, which now, for the first time, are printed in full with the report of the Committee, and which no parent or citizen should fail to examine, they will present, very briefly, such facts as are noteworthy in the history of the last school year, and such remarks as these facts and the present condition of the schools seem to demand. The Annual Reports of the Sub-Committees of the eighteen Grammar School Districts, so far as teachers and pupils and the business of instruction are concerned, express little else than satisfaction. The uniform level of this feeling may be inferred from the fact, that the highest commendation in any report is, that the pupils were "industrious, happy, enthusiastic;" and the lowest, that the Sub-Committee were "gratified, if not quite satisfied." With the exception of complaints of insufficient accommodation, from some Primary Schools, and statements of the need of a new Grammar School house for the Eliot District, and of an additional school house in Ward Eleven, to relieve the new but crowded Dwight School, (both which wants steps have since been taken to supply,) and with the further exception of a "formidable difficulty" suggested at East Boston, in the fact that, though the number of scholars in a school is too small, the distance they come to school is too great - which difficulty your Committee think rather the necessity of a sparse population than the fault of this Board and excepting, also, the energetic protest of the same section of the city, against the " oppression " of their fellow citizens, in not paying the ferry-fares of the East Boston children to and from the High, Latin and Normal Schools, these reports sound one note of contentment and congratulation. The Committee can hardly conform to the terms of the Rule, by adding to this general summary "selections from the District Reports important for public information." The reports are summed up in the single sentence, that 12,834 children in the Primary Schools, and 12,160 children in the Grammar Schools and three High Schools have been, for the past year, instructed in a manner creditable to their teachers, and have profited by this instruction to a degree very honorable to themselves. |