8. The system of frequent transfer does not affect the individual pupil any oftener, on an average, than the system of transfer once a year. The bright pupils, it is true, have frequent opportunity to advance. The system is elastic for them. The slow pupils advance only when ready. The system discards one general epoch of transfer and re-classification at the close of the year, and adopts instead four or more partial transfers so arranged as to accommodate the two-fold demand: first, that the ablest pupils shall not be kept back; second, that the ablest and highest paid teachers shall, at all times, have their full quota of pupils. In the lowest grade, where several rooms in the same building are filled with pupils not advanced beyond the first year of their course, the bright pupil will change teachers perhaps three or four times in the year. In the higher grades the pupil will remain a year or more under each teacher.

66

9. How to provide for the necessary process of re-classification and transfer from room to room with the minimum of discouragement and consequent injury to that half of the pupils who fall below the average of attainment, is the serious question. If the sifting of each class for the advantage of the best ones is accompanied with " dropping" the few poorest ones into the class below, we have the maximum of injury. The class, as a whole, is not stimulated but only frightened at the degradation of the few hindmost. Those actually dropped" are really disheartened. Besides, such sifting down tends to create a movement toward the lower departments instead of toward the higher departments where the vacancies are. When the opposite policy is followed, of promoting the few best instead of degrading the few poorest, the maximum of encouragement is attained. Sift up and not sift down. The school should be a living process, continually readjusting and adapting itself to the wants of the organization as well as to the capacities of the pupils.

10. How if the upper classes are quite small and yet the intervals are very large in regard to advancement—in other words, what if the more advanced pupils are very few? Central schools should absorb all the pupils of higher grade, leaving to the other schools only such grades as they find it possible

to provide with good classification. Without such combination with central schools, economy and perfect classification are impossible. Small classes and small provision for differences in capacity among pupils naturally result.

11. When promotion is made only once a year into the High School, the District Schools are compelled to adapt their upper classes to this condition of things and accordingly make the work of the first grade begin at the beginning of the year and end with its close. The second grade likewise must fall into the same trammels. If a class should finish the work of the second grade before the close of the year it must not take up first grade work until the beginning of the next, and if at the commencement of the scholastic year a class of the second grade has not quite finished its work, it is generally put at once into the work of the first grade although unprepared. The only alternative would be to let it work a year longer on second grade studies. The utter want of elasticity in the classification of the upper grades of the District Schools, arising from the lack of frequent promotions to the High School, works violence continually to the interests of one-third of the pupils. All those delayed through sickness, the necessities of poverty, or inactive temperaments, either fall back a whole year or else in a vain endeavor to make up their deficiency overwork themselves or get discouraged.

.

12. The advantages of frequent re-classification are in brief:

(a) Economy.-Filling up the classes of the ablest and best paid teachers, and making room in the lower grades for new pupils constantly applying.

(b) Rapid Progress. The pupils that learn readily are allowed to move forward as fast as their abilities permit, the slower pupils and those irregular in attendance neither allowed to hold back the more fortunate ones nor obliged to overwork and cram in order to keep up.

The disadvantages alleged are confined to the practice of changing teachers too frequently. To these it is sufficient to reply by a question: Is it desirable to keep a pupil back in his

studies simply in order that he may recite for a long time to the same teacher? Every superintendent knows that a change of teachers brings the pupil in contact with a new individuality, prevents the danger of warping the development of character in the pupil, and is desirable oftener than once a year in the lower grades, and at least once a year in the higher grades-where the teachers are maturer and more highly cultured-until the pupil reaches the High School, where he recites daily to three or more teachers.*

TABLE VIII. (PAGE CLXXIV, APPENDIX.)
German-English Instruction.

*For an explanation of the technical terms used in the foregoing remarks, the

reader is referred to the Appendix, page lxxxviii.

Year.

Boys.

WHOLE NUMBER

ENROLLED.

TABLE VI.—(PAGE clxx APPENDIX.)

Enrollment, Attendance, and Cost of Instruction.

A comparison of these items in the day schools for the past sixteen years, may be seen in the following table:

38 $19.74 $2.18 $21.92 $740.65 67 534 46 18.53 2.28 20.82 763.88 67 487 46 18.33 2.49 20.82| 748.51 67 411 48 16.85 2.05 18.90 67 340 49 15.86 2.03 17.89 64 278 46 15:51 2.13 17.64 66 200 47 14.85 61 204 47 15.15 58 184 48 13.31 57 162 48 11.17 58 111 50 58 76 61 167 56 158 45 12.16 57 140 45 13.29 55 123 47 11.65

704.98

711.84

713.00

1.99 16.84

725.77

3.98 19.13|

712.77

3.86 17.17
2.49 13.66

657.04

532.35

11.19

465.65

1.40 14.00
1.83 11.48

605 64

409.52

2.35 14.57

583.20

3.87 17.16

583.51

2.95 14.60

550.75

The tuition, based on the whole number enrolled-the average attendance of the same being 124 days-is as follows for the

The average tuition per pupil, on the average number of pupils belonging, was somewhat higher than the previous year, on account of the irregularity in attendance occasioned by the prevalence of epidemics during a greater portion of the year.

The usual average of "number belonging" has been 67 per cent. for years. The past year it fell to 62 per cent., making the cost 1.50 higher than it would otherwise have been.

THE NORMAL SCHOOL,

The record of the Normal School for the past year has been one of great prosperity. Its total enrollment was 177, against 139 of the previous year, and 151 of 1870-71. The change in the course of study, requiring an addition of one year to the age of admission, and also the addition of extra studies to the requirements for admission, caused the enrollment to fall off from 151 in 1871 to 139 in 1872. The past year's record indicates a complete recovery from the effects of the changes so far as numbers are concerned. The benefits of the changes are demonstrated in the elevated standard of scholarship and personnel of the school. The new arrangements alluded to last year, by which special inducements were held out to the pupils of the High School, in the way of advanced standing and admission without examination, have also proved beneficial in attracting to the Normal School large numbers of promising pupils. The examinations at the middle and close of the year, as well as the success of the graduates in our schools, attest the excellent general management, very careful discipline, and accurate instruction of the school-reflecting the highest credit on the plans and labors of the principal and his assistants.

The new course of study, as shown in my last report, places the culture studies mainly in the first year of the course, and makes the second year a review of the common branches taught in the District Schools, with special reference to the methods of teaching the same. Thus Algebra and Geometry are studied the first year, and Arithmetic the second, preparing in the first instance a basis of generalization in the mind of the pupil, to be used in obtaining a clear theoretical insight into the necessity of arithmetical rules and methods. General History, Natural Philosophy, Zoology, Physiology and Physical Geography are pursued the first year, preparing the way for a more intelligent