ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION.

THE TWELFTH ANNUAL MEETING of this Association was held in the City Hall, at Charlestown, on Monday and Tuesday, the 24th and 25th of November. The attendance was unusually large. Mr. H. E. Rockwell was engaged as reporter, and we shall therefore be able to present our readers with all the valuable discussions and lectures which took place during the two days' session. At present we give only an abstract of the proceedings.

MONDAY AFTERNOON.

The Association was called to order at 2 o'clock, P. M., by the President, D. B. Hagar, Esq., of Jamaica Plain, and the exercises were opened with prayer, by Rev. O. C. Everett, of Charlestown. Hon. T. T. Sawyer, Mayor of the City, then welcomed the Association as follows:

WELCOME BY MAYOR SAWYER.

The agreeable duty devolves upon me, of welcoming you and the Massachusetts State Teachers' Association, to our city, and to the hospitalities of its citizens. We have been pleased with your determination to visit us in this way, and we are gratified now to see you here in such goodly numbers. We welcome you as friends of education, as friends of our children, and as members of a noble profession. We g: cet you all, and heartily, as Teachers. And we cannot but feel that the result of your meeting here, will be profitable, honorable, and beneficial to our community. We must do what we can for your comfort, and let us hope, sir, that your best expectations may be realized in the successful result of your meetings, and of the exercises which have been arranged for the occasion. And may I add, sir, deeply impressed with the great value of our institutions of instruction, and with the belief that your Association was founded and has been kept alive for their advantage and improvement, may I add, sir, an humble, but earnest wish for permanence and prosperity to your society, and the full reward of faithfulness to each one of its members. Again, sir, and ladies and gentlemen all, I bid you welcome to the City of Charlestown. [Applause.]

RESPONSE BY THE PRESIDENT.

The President, in behalf of the Association, responded as follows:

SIR: For this cordial welcome and this kind offer of generous hospitalities, we tender you our grateful acknowledgments. We thank you, sir, and the gentlemen of your School Committee, for the invitation which has brought us hither. In years past, we have gathered, from time to time, on the banks of the Connecticut, in the heart of the Commonwealth, in the city of looms and spindles, by the waters of the South Shore, and in the great metropolis; and now, for the first time, we have turned our steps to your honored city; and surely, sir, on no spot more appropriately than at the foot of Bunker Hill, could the representatives of the free schools of Massachusetts hold their annual convention. Wherever virtue, knowledge, and intelligence are found, in their highest and broadest development, there exists the truest moral, social, and political freedom. Here, then, where was fought our country's first great battle for political liberty, it is peculiarly fitting that they should assemble, whose special province it is to cultivate public virtue, to enlighten the understanding, and to prepare the rising generation for the manifold duties and responsibilities of Christian men.

Impressed with a deep sense of the magnitude of the cause in which we are engaged, and mindful of the sacred associations by which we are encompassed, we trust that the character of our deliberations and the spirit of all our acts at this time, will be such as shall meet your approval, and shall tend, in a high degree, to promote the best interests of education.

Thanking you again, sir, for your kind words, we beg you to believe that our grateful emotions are commensurate with your hearty welcome and your liberal hospitalities. [Applause.]

The Annual Reports of the Secretary and Treasurer were then made. From the latter it appeared that there was a balance in the Treasury of $330.11. Messrs. Charles Hammond of Groton, and John Kneeland of Roxbury, were appointed to audit the Treasurer's account.

The following gentlemen were appointed a Committee for nominating officers for the ensuing year, viz:

Messrs. Page of Boston, Kneeland of Roxbury, Saunders of Charlestown, Todd of Newburyport, Sheldon of Abington,

Harvey of New Bedford, Sherwin of Boston, Willson of Charlestown, Parish of Springfield, Bunker of Nantucket, Stone of Plymouth, Hammond of Groton, Russell of Lancaster, and Wetherell of Ware.

The President appointed the following gentlemen a Committee on Reception: Messrs. Saunders, Gay, and Cartée of Charlestown. The usual invitation was extended to all persons present to participate in the discussions of the Association.

ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT.

The President then addressed the Association as follows:

Fellow Teachers of Massachusetts :- Once more, in the kind providence of God, we have assembled. We have come from noisy city and quiet village, from valley and hill-side and ocean shore, and for what? To mingle our sympathies; to encourage each others' hearts; to strengthen each others' hands; to profit by each others' counsels; to gather wisdom from each others' successes or failures; to impress new ideas and revive old ones; to shed and receive new light on the path of duty; to keep in mind the great fact that we are fellow laborers in one common cause; to accumulate, by associated action, power to sway public opinion; to show to the Commonwealth that her teachers appreciate the dignity, the responsibilities, and the duties of their calling. For these and like purposes have we assembled on this classic ground. It is pleasant thus to meet. It is a happy thing, thus "dextrae jungere dextram,' to join right hand to right hand in brotherly welcome, and "to listen to and return true words." It is joyful to look upon each others' beaming faces, and to know that, for a brief moment, the cares and trials of the teacher's life are banished from thought. Who has a heart so dead to all human emotions-a soul so insensible to mutual inspirations, that he can move amid the influences which now environ us, and then return to his daily toil, unencouraged, unquickened, unimproved? No! fellow-teachers! throwing out of consideration the intellectual advantages to be derived from a gathering like this, we believe that its social advantages richly compensate us for the cost, time, and trouble of coming hither. No one who possesses the best elements of the truc teacher

can commune thus with his fellow-teachers and not return to his work, feeling that he can labor better, with a more lively zeal and hope; in short, that he is a better teacher. While, then, we gather what we can to add to our intellectual stores, let us at the same time invigorate our souls with reciprocal outpourings of kindly words and fraternal regard. Fellow Teachers :-Eleven years have rolled by since this Association was organized. During this period thousands of teachers have been brought together under its auspices. Its influence upon the educational prosperity of Massachusetts has not been unimportant. Gathered as its members have been from all parts of the Commonwealth, they have brought with them the peculiar opinions of each part. Those which were sound, have been strengthened; those which were unsound, have been combated. Thus through its representatives has each portion of the State received from the general storehouse its measure of new ideas and fresh impulses. With justice, then, may this Association claim to have contributed largely to that educational progress which is manifest to every observer, and is in some respects clearly set forth in the official records of the State.

Through the kindness of the Assistant Secretary of the Board of Education, I have been enabled to compare the school statistics of the present year, (which are not yet published,) with those of 1845, the year in which our Association had its birth. The results of this comparison are encouraging. A few of them I will enumerate.

The number of public schools in Massachusetts has increased, since 1845, from 3,475 to 4,300, notwithstanding the consolidation of schools in many of the towns.

The number of children in the State, between the ages of 5 and 15, was, in 1845, about 183,000; in 1856, it is 222,853. The average attendance during the summer was, in 1845, 110,108; in 1856, 151,621: during the winter of 1845, 128,084; of 1856, 162,580. The average attendance is a little more than 70 per cent. of all the children between 5 and 15.

The whole amount raised by tax and the income of surplus revenue for the public schools, has increased from $620,045, in 1845, to $1,222,596, in 1856,—an increase of 97 per cent. To these sums add the amounts paid for tuition in academics and private schools, and it appears that in 1845 Massachusetts paid for the education of her children, $936,697; and in 1856, $1,640,489. The sum raised during the last year for the erection and improvement of school-houses, is $588,213.55.

The number of incorporated academies has increased since 1845, from 69 to 78; the number of pupils in the same, from 3,726 to 4,708; and the tuition bills, from $53,672 to $83,763.

The number of private schools of all kinds has diminished from 1,091 to 701; the number of pupils in the same has diminished from 24,318 to 18,909, a decrease of 22 per cent.; while the amount paid for tuition has advanced from $224,022 to $295,601, an increase of 32 per cent., and giving a net increase, in the rates of tuition, of 69 per cent. ; which shows that, while the teachers of private schools are fewer in number, and have fewer pupils now than formerly, their pay is greatly improved.

The amount raised in 1845, for the support of the public schools, gave an average of about $3.38 to each child between 5 and 15; in 1856, the average is $5.486,- an increase of about 62 per cent. The several counties in the State hold now the following rank in reference to the sum raised for each scholar, viz.: Suffolk, Nantucket, Middlesex, Norfolk, Bristol, Essex, Dukes, Hampden, Plymouth, Worcester, Hampshire, Barnstable, Franklin, Berkshire; the first raising $8.43; the last, $2.70. The percentage of increase, since 1845, of the sum raised for each scholar, is as follows: in Dukes, 863 per cent. ; Barnstable, 85; Bristol, 80; Essex, 74; Norfolk, 69; Hampden, 67; Middlesex, 64; Worcester, 55; Franklin, 491; Berkshire, 47; Suffolk, 46; Plymouth, 433; Hampshire; 28; Nantucket, 25.

I come now to speak briefly of a topic which can hardly fail to interest teachers, that is, teachers' wages. It appears that, in 1845, the average pay of male teachers was $31.76 per month; in 1856, it is found to be $43.05,- an advance of 35 per cent., showing, for our encouragement, that a schoolmaster's services are rapidly approaching, in public estimation, to those of a respectable mechanic. In 1845, the pay of female teachers was $13.15; in 1856, it is $18.52,-being an increase of 41 per cent., and demonstrating that the brain of a schoolmistress is worth, to the public, about three-fourths as much as the fingers of an ordinary dressmaker.

The highest wages, both of male and female teachers, are paid in Suffolk, Nantucket, and Norfolk Counties; the lowest, in Hampshire, Hampden, Berkshire, and Franklin Counties. The largest per cent. of increase, in the pay of male teachers, is seen in Middlesex, Norfolk, and Essex; the smallest, in Franklin and Suffolk. The largest per cent. of increase in the pay of female teachers, is shown in Worcester, Essex, Norfolk,