REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. To the People of St. Louis : The Annual Report of the Board of President and Directors of the St. Louis Public Schools for the year ending July 31st, 1873, is herewith presented. In accordance with the custom of my predecessors in office, I will take a hasty survey of the condition and prospects of the schools, as exhibited in the reports of the Superintendent and Secretary, hereto appended. On reference to the report of the Secretary, it will be seen that the receipts and expenditures for the year were, substantially, as follows: "general expenses (rent accts., library, interest, taxes etc.) 62,204 76 "" real estate and improvements.. 138,106 27 $803,707 00 The excess of expenditures over receipts is made up, as usual, by discounting short loans, maturing in December, when it is expected that the income from taxes will be sufficient to cancel these obligations. On looking over the balance sheets of the Secretary, for the past few years, I notice that the amounts obtained by short loans vary much from year to year. Inasmuch as the policy of the Board in regard to new buildings leads to great expenditure for this purpose in one year, and to a very slight one in the next, it is desirable to have some means of equalizing the burdens of different years without increasing our bonded debt. The bulk of our income from taxation is received in the months of November, December and January, but our financial year ends July 31st. The large floating debt that appears in our liabilities July 31st would not appear at all if our financial year closed December 31st. Board anticipates the income of December by short loans made in June and September, as the exigencies demand. To some extent this has been the practice for twenty years; but since the purchase of the Polytechnic building for school purposes, the amounts anticipated by temporary loans have been much larger than before. The following tabular statement will show the status of the Board in this respect for the past six years: Expenses The No. of Pupils enrolled in Public Schools Day. Ev'ng 1869. 1870. 1871 .... 544,751 ... 537,843 1868....$351,922 $ 27,508 $263,739 $403,000 $207,000 18,460 2134 21,186 2528 304,407 24,347 2464 373,674 27,587 3615 30,294 4137 1873. 34,063 4015 1872. 514,094 705,973 221,827 338,249 594,000 466,462 Our bonded debt at present is as follows, (secured on real estate owned by the Board): Loan due September 2, 1877.... $200,000 150,000 It thus appears that of the $705,973 debt on July 31, $355,973 was in short loans, payable on receipt of the taxes. From sales of real estate, on the other hand, bills receivable to the amount of $221,827 had accumulated. If we strike a balance, we find the actual liability on short loans to be $134,146. While I am in favor of building school houses as fast as needed, I think the floating debt is too large, and that it ought to be diminished during the current year by funding it in a loan of sufficient amount to render it unnecessary to make short loans until the month of September. It is, perhaps, better to anticipate a portion of our revenue from taxes than to allow the whole bulk to remain in the hands of the Treasurer until used by the regular expenses. Our average deposit in a given year would exceed $300,000, unless we anticipated a large portion of the revenue in the manner described. I think that a permanent loan of $150,000 would answer the ends I propose. The expenses of the schools from their commencement in September up to January 1st is now about $300,000 for the item of teachers' wages alone. This will absorb fully one-half of the taxes. The permanent loan proposed will enable us to build at least one building in some locality where there is urgent need for school accommodations, besides curtailing the amount of short loans in the manner suggested. I think that it is generally conceded that the district west of the Jefferson School and north of the Franklin School, should have a new twelve-room building. School Number Three, for colored pupils, should be enlarged by the addition of another story, if its walls will allow it, so that room may be made for the proper education of classes desiring to continue beyond the ordinary course of the district schools. The construction of temporary one-story brick structures in the yards of those large schools that are over-crowded, in the manner proposed by the chairman of the committee on Ways and Means, Mr. Wilson, is recommended as worthy of trial. The ordinary cost per room of a twelve-room building is $3,000, while that of the proposed structures would be less than one-third of that amount. Besides this there would be no extra yard room required, nor any extra expense for janitor or supervision of principal teacher. Moreover, it is well known that parents generally prefer to send their younger children with the older brothers and sisters to the same building. Under the financial pressure which the rapid growth of our schools and the desire to retain their high degree of efficiency will cause for many years to come, I am decidedly of the opinion that we must adopt some more economical plan of adding school accommodations than the one hitherto followed. The architectural effect of the standard twelve-room building should not be lost. Its influence on the pupils and on the community, and consequently on the tone of our schools, is so great that we cannot afford to lose it. But a cluster of smaller, cheaper buildings around each large school will only serve to heighten its effect and improve the opportunities for good classification of pupils. Care must be taken to secure the same advantages of light and ventilation as in the large buildings. The expense for additional school buildings ought to be reduced to $60,000 per annum by this plan. On reference to the report of the Superintendent, it will be seen that the enrollment of pupils and the number of teachers employed has been as follows for the past two years: The large increase above shown is not unusual, but incident tc the steady growth of our city and the gradual adoption of the public school system, as the best means of educating their children, by all classes of our citizens. The past six years' growth shows an increase from 15,291 to 34,063 pupils in the day schools, and from 1,553 to 4,015 in the evening schools, proving that our school enrollment doubles once in five years : look upon it as As regards the first cause of the growth of our schools the increase of the city in population we may likely to prove a source of greater growth in the future than in the past. Our fortunate location in the center of the valley at the point where the upper and lower river productions must be collected for mutual exchange - where the necessities of distribution as well as navigation occasion the breaking of bulk in freight insure us this steady advance in population, without any great outlay of energy on our part. But quite recently our facilities have been improved by the extension of trunk railroads to the west, southwest, and south, and an immense territory becomes tributary to our commerce. Even greater vigor is displayed in the extension of cur manufactures, and St. Louis ranks third among the great manufacturing cities of the United States New York and Philadelphia having, in 1870, an annual production respectively of $332,951,520 and $322,004,517, while St. Louis had $158,761,013. The rate of increase in manufacturing industry in our midst may be seen by comparing the census returns for the whole State for the past three decades. Missouri's manufactures amounted in 1850 to $24,324,418; in 1860 to $41,782,731; in 1870 to $206,213,429. These figures bear out the estimate of our statisticians that our city manufactures double in amount every three years. In view of our immense mineral resources, just beginning to be developed, there is quite likely to be the same ratio of increase for several years. As regards the second cause of the growth of our schoolstheir increasing popularity with all classes of citizens; for this we may thank the entire exclusion of all questions of partisan or sectarian nature from their management. Partisan politics have never developed in the Board to such a degree as to influence, even slightly, the direction of the schools. Sectarian or denominational influences have never been organized in the Board. It may be mentioned that St. Louis is an exception among cities in the fact that here the reading of the Sacred Scriptures has not been practised in our schools during the whole period (as near as I can learn) since their establishment-thirty-seven years; nor has it been the practice to introduce any other religious exercises. The effect of this is seen in the general patronage of our schools by all denominations, including those that usually oppose public |