our varied modes of life and advanced industries. The child should see something that he wants. If he does he will ask for it.

The question we should be able to answer is: How many of this large number of children of school age not in the schools ought to be there? Another question should be asked, to be honest: Are any of these ab sentees driven from the school, after being enrolled therein, because of methods for obtaining high percentages? These questions can not be answered with our present facilities for knowing. I believe a less rigid enforcement of our rules for attendance, with our present possibilities for knowing the causes of absence or tardiness, would result in the encouragement of carelessness or indifference that would be hurtful. I am not prepared to believe, however, that we are doing all that ought to be done to bring into our schools all that should be there.

Several experiments have been made in county schools during the last two years. In several cases it was found that a large number of children of school age in the respective localities was not attending school. The reasons for this non-attendance were sought by the teachers, who visited the homes of the children, and were found to be

The indifference of children;

The indifference of parents;

The poverty of parents (inability to buy school-books or proper clothing).

In but few cases was it found that children were detained at home to assist in the support of the family. Many parents were induced by these visits to send to school, and in every case the schools whose teachers had thus canvassed were filled to overflowing by the efforts thus made. No force was employed; none was necessary. The schools were filled by a better method. Now, it must be remembered that these teachers did this canvassing or visiting as extra work, after school hours. I wish here to express my appreciation of their efforts.

If we could have a truancy agent, whose duty it should be, by direc tion of the superintendent or other specified authority, to seek out the absent or tardy, the cause of whose shortcomings can not be known by the teacher, I believe that most children who ought to be in school might be caused to attend without arbitrary compulsion. I am sure, at least, that many children who do not go to school at all might thus be induced to attend, and equally sure that many children who are dropped from our rolls because of our rules regulating attendance would return to school and thereby would the aggregate attendance be greatly increased and the number of those who would not be reached so reduced as to be well-nigh inconsiderable.

Until now, a suggestion to increase our school attendance would have been looked upon in the light of a jest, as we have not had room for those who presented themselves.

A

A truant law without a truancy agent would be inoperative. truancy agent, by skillful management under wise direction, would accomplish everything desired. I suggest this mode of dealing with tru

ancy and non-attendance as one that is economical and in harmony with the underlying principle of free schools.

It is your privilege and duty to know in what light the superintend ent and his assistants view the school and its several agencies-the house, its fitness and appointments; the teacher, his qualifications and methods; the appliances, their purposes and management; the child, its duties and possibilities.

It is further your duty and privilege to know how the superintendent and his associates understand and interpret the course of instruction you have prescribed for the schools. You are respectfully invited to examine the reports of the supervising principals and other principals and directors. I take especial satisfaction in calling your attention to these as showing just what you desire to know.

It will be seen by these that the health of the pupil is first attended to.

VENTILATION.

The school rooms that have been provided during the last ten or more years are cheerful, thoroughly ventilated, and healthful. I am glad to be able to say the system of ventilation employed, ventilates and ventilates in spite of the preoccupation of the teacher or of the janitor. In respect of heating, lighting, and ventilation, nothing more is to be desired in the new buildings. Some of our older buildings, however, although fine, imposing structures, are poorly ventilated or are not ventilated at all. The more prominent of the former are the Franklin and the Jeffersou; of the latter, the Wallach and the Cranch. Nothing, to my mind, should be urged more strongly, save only additional accommodations, than the improvement of the ventilating processes in the buildings named and in a few others. So easily may this be done, and at such a trifling expense comparatively, with the knowledge now possessed, that I should feel myself remiss did I fail to call your attention to this most urgent need and thus emphasize the suggestions of my co-laborers.

HEALTH EXERCISES.

The manual training now given to boys, together with their active. and varied sports, afford much exercise for them. The industrial work for girls and their sports are less beneficial, afford less of vigorous exercise. Neither the industries nor the sports insure that systematic physical training or cultivation that is desired.

Exercise is not cultivation. Exercise specifically directed and methodically taken results in cultivation.

Calisthenic exercises are now employed by some of our teachers but not by all and, I fear, not by many. The work done by these is apt to be spasmodic and, not being continued by the succeeding teacher of the school, is of little value comparatively.

Gratified with the healthfulness of well-ventilated school-rooms as also with the variation of activities secured by the industrial processes of our schools, I still believe that more should be done for the physical welfare of the girls attending school. I may mention here also that basement play-rooms crowded to excess are, I fear, not health giving, though they may for a time afford pleasure and recreation.

The good effects of the military drill given to the boys in the High School are apparent, whether the boys drill, march in military garb, walk across the school room, or sit in recitation. These results are obtained by methodical exercises, each of which is had for a definite purpose. The lack of corresponding training is noticeable in the movements, not only of girls in the High School but also in those below the High School, but the painful manifestation of the lack of physical cultivation is the absence of vigor and the presence of lassitude.

The exercises of the school should be an alternation of mental and physical effort, both of which to be most profitable must be specifically directed and methodically done. If during the physical exercises the perfect ventilation of the room is assured, the school would become a place to be sought and attended for health and physical cultivation, as well as for mental growth and improvement.

I suggest the employment of two or more teachers of health exercises. These teachers would occupy the same relative positions that are held by the teachers of drawing or of music, and would do their work in a corresponding way. Pupils might by this means be trained systematically in manual exercises as well as in vocal exercises by the special teachers visiting the schools at stated intervals to give the in. struction, the regular teacher repeating and supplementing the exercises for recreation and cultivation during the intervals of absence of the special teacher. Such exercises would help in the reading lessons, in the music lessons, in the drawing and writing lessons, and would give health and grace to all the children.

THE TEACHERS.

I wish to call your attention to the high estimate of the teachers and their work held by the supervising principals. The ability, faithfulness, energy, and success of the teachers are not more strongly set forth in these reports than they deserve to be.

APPLIANCES.

We need more reference books and reading books to enrich our course of study. These have been added to by various means alluded to by the supervising principals. The teachers have been indefatigable in their efforts to secure means of more and better information for the children on the different topics pursued in their respective schools.

Effort is constantly made to reduce the didactic, memoriter methods to the minimum and to employ investigating, laboratory, library meth

ods in all the teaching. With a single meager text-book in the hands of a child success in this direction is not possible. The highest tribute that I can give to our teachers, on the professional side, is to say that they realize and believe this, and are untiring in their efforts to secure working materials and appliances suited to the respective purposes of the school and capacities of the learner. Much of this material has been supplied from the contingent fund. Books have been bought for wider reading in history and biography, geography and travel, science and literature, and placed in the respective grades. Colored splints for laying forms, colored paper for folding and cutting, paper for modelmaking, clay, and other materials have been furnished to insure regular and uniform effort in the schools. The demands upon the contingent fund, however, are so great, requiring the seating of many school rooms inadequately provided for by the appropriation for new buildings, that it was impossible to do what we had desired and hoped to do in this direction last year.

A working library, as well as objects for investigation and illustra tion, must be provided for each school-room, suited to the purposes of the work in the room and graded to the capacities of the children who attend, before the kind of teaching can be done which our supervising principals ask done and the majority of the teachers desire to do, and that is demanded by the intelligence and advanced thought and processes of present life. To accomplish this most desirable condition has been the constant effort of the supervising corps aided by the efforts of the teachers, and by many parents and friends supplementing what has been done from the contingent fund. Gratifying ad vancement has been made in all divisions, in all the grades of the schools and in nearly every school-room. The public libraries and museums of the city have been drawn upon largely for books and for observation lessons by many of the more enterprising teachers. The inconvenience of these helps, however, is apparent. They can not be utilized except by teachers favorably situated, the result of which is that the children most needing them do not share them. It is the duty of the school to provide the necessary appliances.

THE COURSE OF STUDY.

For a knowledge of the interpretation and the use of the course of study and the several monograph manuals supplementing it, you are respectfully asked again to study the accompanying reports of my colleagues. The broad view there found of the purposes of this course of instruction in all the different branches of study and all grades of the same is most gratifying. So also should the processes therein commended, as well as the processes therein condemned, be most gratifying to every parent who sends to school and to every lover of true growth and cultivation.

MANUAL TRAINING.

The school year was marked by the formal introduction of manual training into the curriculum of the public schools of the District.

Everything done in this branch of education was done with the purpose, ultimately, of adding the different parts thereof to the course of instruction and introducing them into their respective grades of school throughout the District. The appropriation for manual training, $5,000 (for plant only), was such that this could be only partially accomplished the past year.

That the value and practicability of the work might be tested it was engrafted in its entirety on the schools of a portion of the District. For instance, carpentry work, cooking, and sewing were introduced into all the schools of the third division in which it is proposed to teach these subjects respectively.

A corresponding introduction of these studies was made in some schools of the second and fourth divisions and also in the high school. The estimate given to these manual training exercises by those whose schools were affected is found in the various reports of the supervising principals. The consensus of opinions there found, given as they were after a year's observation and practical experience, with all the disadvantages that such training can possibly offer to a school system, is to my mind the strongest argument in favor of manual training that I have ever heard or read, and my investigation of this subject has been wide. and thorough.

The character, divisions, and scope of the work in manual training, as now taught in our schools, is set forth under the following heads:

DRAWING.

The subject of drawing gives the initial work for developing manual skill. Through its entire course, from the first grade to the high school, inclusive, it is divided into two parts-construction and representation. In the constructive part, hand and eye are trained while, at the same time, ideas concerning the forms made are developed. The work of representation gives manual training by the drawing of the constructed forms. It does more-it correlates physical and mental processes. A scientifically constructed form induces systematic, scientific methods of thought. The thought logically and accurately expressed by oral and written composition complements, perfects, the physical culture secured by the construction and drawing. I mention constructive language because I believe that, as a means of the most complete training as well as a matter of school economy, the manual and mental processes should co-operate on the same subjects. Each is defective without the other, and without such complementary work the training is one-sided still. In the first three grades, modeling in clay, stick-laying, paper-folding, weaving and various other processes of the Kindergarten system unite hand and eye and mind in constructing and drawing geometric forms and natural forms based on these. Constructive language is taught in