The only changes of the year are the completion of the Franklin School House, on Waltham street, and the erection of a new school house at South Boston - for the Lincoln School - to complete the re-organization of the Hawes and Bigelow Districts. Wood-cuts, showing the elevation of the latter building and the arrangement of the interior, accompany this Report. The general arrangements of the building are those which our experience has approved, and with which most of us are familiar; but it is believed that the new school house will be more commodious even than that of the Dwight School. It is a fact honorable to Boston, that the most costly buildings for purposes of education, have been built in the outlying wards, not in the centres of wealth and fashion, and generally for the benefit of those citizens whose contributions to the public purse are smallest. South Boston is now better accommodated with school houses than any other section of the city; three new school houses (the Bigelow, Lawrence and Lincoln) having been erected on that peninsula ; and the Phillips School District-in the centre of that section of the city which pays the largest taxes, — is more imperfectly furnished than any other.

No other changes have taken place in our outward condition; no change in salaries; no new division of School Districts. The principle of classification has been introduced into many Primary Schools. This reform has had many and serious obstacles tó contend with, and has been advanced slowly and partially; so that we cannot yet look for the full effect of its operation. But the results, so far as the change has proceeded, are highly encouraging; and

your Committee have no doubt, either from thei observation of the facts, or from their knowledge of the principle on which the change proceeds, that its final success will be marked and important. A considerable change has also been made in the text-books for reading, arithmetic and geography. Several books were displaced which had been long in use; two of them, indeed, for nearly a quarter of a century; but your Committee believe that the new books are now admitted to be better books than the old; and they know that the children have a right to demand the very best. Such changes, however, should be gradually and carefully made; and the comfort of the Committee and the good of the schools will be consulted by the introduction of a meritorious work, as soon as its superiority is ascertained, rather than by periodical overturns, which are misunderstood by parents and inconvenient to teachers, and which bring around the Committee a numerous, importunate and unscrupulous class of persons, who have a pecuniary interest in the selection. To another and important improvement, during the past year-that in musical instruction-it is only neces sary here to allude, as the subject is fully considered in the appendix, by the gentleman to whom that department has been chiefly committed.

They would also call attention to the fact that the number of pupils in the Latin School is greater than ever before, which is partly to be attributed to the excellence of its instruction, but chiefly to the depression of mercantile business, which, by withdrawing the attractions which that mode of life holds out to the young, inclines them to the learned professions. The High

School, on the other hand, though its advantages were never greater, or its instruction more admirable, has an unusually small number of pupils. One great cause of this change is the advanced age of the pupils when they enter that school, which compels them to shorten their period of study there. It is worthy of consideration, whether some rule should not be adopted to limit the time which both boys and girls spend in the master's department of the Grammar Schools; as they often remain there a second year, which would have been better spent in the High or Normal School.

Having noted these novelties, and your Committee deem it an encouraging fact that they are so few, this Report must close, unless it offers a very few suggestions, and takes the unwelcome task of pointing out, at a time when others seem to be so content, what your Committee consider defects in the schools, or points in which they are open to improvement.

The first to which they call attention, is the 'over crowding of the rooms in some of the Grammar Schools; an evil to which we are constantly exposed, and which strikes at the life of our school system. It is natural that, after the large sums which from time to time are expended on new school houses, when all that was asked has been granted, and the accommodation is abundant, the City Council should look upon it as a finality, and should receive further demands of the School Committee with reluctance or suspicion. But they should remember that the increase of population has neither pause nor check; and the increase in the number of school houses can no more be limited than the increase of dwelling houses. Both measure the advance of our prosperity. Every few years it is found

that the ample buildings, which at first were nearly empty, have been filled and then crowded, and silently the great machine is obstructed, and begins to work imperfectly and slowly. Thus, in 1843, it was found that there were 934 more scholars than seats in the Grammar and Writing school houses. The difficulty was promptly met by the erection of new houses. It was then noticed, apparently for the first time, that the increase in the number of pupils is not in the ratio of the increase of population of corresponding ages, but in a much larger ratio. While the increase of population between the ages of 5 and 15, for the thirteen years then last past, had been 47 per cent., the increase in the number of pupils, in the same time, had been 114 per cent.

This increase in the number of pupils, though not so remarkable since 1843, has yet continued. Within the short period of sixteen years, the number of children in our schools has doubled. In the ten years from 1845 to 1855, while the number of children between the ages of 5 and 15 increased from 20,994 to 29,093, the number of pupils in the schools increased from 16,288 to 23,529; in the one case a gain of less than 39 per cent., and in the other of more than 44 per cent., so that there were 957 more pupils added to the schools than there would have been, if their ratio of increase had been the same with the increase of the population. Or, to place the same fact in a still more striking light, between the year 1845 (after the deficiency of accommodation in the school houses had been made the subject of special inquiry and attention, and was supposed to be remedied by new school houses,) and the year 1857, the number of pupils to be accommodated had increased 8000. Of this num

ber, 3,233 were added to the Grammar and High Schools, and 4,767 to the Primary Schools; the increase of the Grammar Schools alone being sufficient to fill at least five spacious buildings. This difference between the ratio of increase in population and that of pupils, is the cheering feature of our schools, as it proves that education is becoming more nearly universal. It is the large proportion of children in attendance at the Public Schools, which distinguishes education in Boston from that in all other great cities of the world.

Since 1843, fifteen school houses have been built and occupied ; and of the old school houses, only four-the Eliot, (now rebuilding,) Hawes, Phillips and Wells remain as they were at the date of the report of the Special Committee of that year. Seven new schools have been instituted, and seven additional school houses built for them, during the fifteen years. And as the new school houses have been from two to three times as large as the old, the school accommodation has been increased to a far greater extent than the number of buildings indicates.

So far as buildings and house room for the Grammar Schools are concerned, the City Government have not been unmindful of its increasing population; and upon comparing the number of seats with the number of scholars in 1857, there will be found to be 11,885 seats for 11,629 scholars.

This provision of seats, however, is very unequally distributed. In the thinly populated wards of East Boston and South Boston, the school houses are not full; while at the North End, the Hancock and Eliot schools will not seat the pupils. Still it is plain that