Washington's Birth-Day.

We called attention to this important event in the January JourNAL for 1885, and suggested the propriety of our public free school officials and teachers taking steps to celebrate the day, or at least a portion of it, by appropriate exercises in the several schools of the State.

The 22d of February falls this year on Monday, and we hope that school officers, and especially the teachers, will arrange to devote at least a portion of that day to celebrating, by appropriate exercises, the birth of Washington, Virginia's most illustrious son, who was one of the earliest advocates of public education. Superintendents are expected to give this matter their attention.

Report of Committee on Schools and Colleges

In response to a resolution agreed to by the House, instructing the committee to ascertain and report what appropriation would be necessary to furnish text books to the children of the Commonwealth.

To the Speaker of the House of Delegates:

In response to a resolution agreed to by your honorable body December 14, 1885, instructing the Committee on Schools and Colleges to ascertain and report what appropriation would be necessary to furnish free text-books to the children of the Commonwealth, your committee beg leave to submit the following report, prefacing it with the statement that in the absence of exact official data, they can only approximate the amount of appropriation necessary by calculation and by a comparison of the statistics of other States and communities on this subject :

The report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for 1885 will show that the total enrollment of school children for that year was 303.343. The total average cost of a complete outfit of textbooks for each pupil is estimated to be $2.70; so that, on this basis of calculation, the maximum appropriation necessary would be $819,016.10.

The report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for 1884 shows that 8,674 pupils were supplied with text-books, at public

expense, at a total cost of $7,199.83, or an average cost of eightythree cents per capita.

With the same total enrollment of 303,343, the appropriation necessary on this, which must be taken as a minimum basis of calculation, would be $251,774.69. That this latter sum would be approximately, if not actually, the annual appropriation necessary for this purpose is borne out by a comparison with the statistics of other States and cities in which books and stationery are furnished to children attending the public schools, at public expense.

The report of the Board of Education for the city of New York for 1884 gives the total enrollment of pupils of the schools at 298,293, and the total cost of books and stationery at $139,181.86, or an average cost per capita of forty-six cents. The city of Brooklyn, with an enrollment of 70,000, has appropriated $80,000 for text-books. (These figures are not official.)

The report of the City Superintendent of Schools of Kansas City, Missouri, for the years 1880-1881 (the Superintendent, Mr. Greenwood) estimates the cost of books to the State of Missouri, based on the cost of books to the pupils of Kansas City, at ten cents for each inhabitant, and the cost of books for the entire State of Missouri at $525,000 per annum, if the schools remain in session throughout ten months of the year. But as the average school year in Missouri does not exceed six months, the cost of books to the State would not be far from $300,000 per annum.

In proportion to the population of the two States, this estimate corresponds very well with the minimum estimate of cost made by your committee for this State.

The forty-eighth annual report of the Board of Education for Massachusetts contains a report by Mr. William Connell, Superintendent of Schools in Fall River, of the actual cost per capita to that city during a period of seven years. The report says: "The books and stationery, purchased by wholesale for the seven years included in the report, cost yearly on the average attendance but $1.18 per capita and sixty-four cents on the enrollment.

The above statements embody all the information in the possession of your committee bearing on this subject; but as the statistics have been gathered from books furnished by this State to the poorer classes, who have been unable to furnish their own books, and as a general rule, are taught in the lower classes, and therefore using fewer and cheaper books than pupils more advanced, and from States where the law providing free school books has been in operation

for several years, and where free school books have been constantly accumulating, we cannot think that they furnish any satisfactory information as to the probable cost of books for the first and few succeeding years under a law furnishing free school books, passed by the General Assembly. Your committee, therefore, after fully investigating this subject, is unable to state any exact amount or any amount approximating thereto, but think it would be much nearer the maximum of $819,016.10 than the minimum, $251,774.69.

School Superintendents.

The following resolution has been received from the Senate:

Resolved, That the Senate advise and confirm the nominations made by the Board of Education of the following superintendents of schools, viz.:

Bath county-George W. Simpson; Clarke county-W. F. Meade; Fluvanna county-James O. Shepherd; King and Queen countyJohn Temple; Montgomery county-R. B. Richardson; Norfolk county-J. Barron Hope; Rockingham county-George H. Hulvey. On motion it was ordered, That the injunction of secrecy be removed, and that the foregoing resolution, adopted in executive session, be spread on the Journal of the Senate, and that a copy thereof be forwarded to the Board of Education. Agreed to by the Senate, January 26, 1886.

J. D. PENDLETON, C. S.

As soon as these gentlemen are commissioned, qualify and file the oaths required with the Secretary of the Board of Education, they will assume the duties of the offices to which they have been appointed.

The present incumbents in the above counties are: Bath-Rev. S. S. Ryder; Clarke-L. N. Hoge; Fluvanna-J. R. Haden; King and Queen-John Temple; Montgomery-Rev. F. D. Surface; Norfolk city-Major. R. G. Banks; Rockingham-Rev. A. P. Funk. houser. These gentlemen were rejected by the Senate.

GEO. W. HAWXHURST,

Secretary Board of Education.

SCHOOL LAW OF VIRGINIA.

(Continued from November, 1885.)

Duties of board; president and professors of college; agents and servants; pay of

visitors.

251. The board shall be charged with the care and preservation of the property of the college. They shall appoint as many professors as they may deem proper, and with the assent of two-thirds of their number, may at any time remove any professor or other officer of the college. It shall be the duty of said board, at a special meeting thereof, to be held on the seventh day of June, eighteen hundred and eighty, or as soon thereafter as practicable, to remove from office such of the officers of the college as they may deem proper, said removals to take effect on the twelfth day of August, eighteen hundred and eighty, and said board shall proceed at once, or as soon as practicable, to reorganize the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College by filling the several and various vacancies so made, or as many of them as they may deem proper; said appointments to take effect on the twelfth day of August, eighteen hundred and eighty. They shall prescribe the duties of each professor, and the course and the mode of instruction; they shall appoint a president of the college, and may employ such agents or servants as may be necessary; shall regulate the government and discipline of the students, and generally, in respect to the government of the college, may make such regulations as they may deem expedient, not contrary to law. Such reasonable expenses as the visitors may incur in the discharge of their duties shall be paid out of the funds of the college.

PAY AND FEES OF PROFESSORS.

252. Each professor shall receive a stated salary, to be fixed by the boards of visitors; and the board shall fix the fees to be charged for tuition of students other than those allowed under this act to attend the college free of tuition, which shall be a credit to the fund of the college.

Property to be valued and transferred to visitors.

253. The trustees of said college shall transfer to the said board of visitors the real estate and buildings, and such other property as they design to be used under this act, with an estimated valuation thereof; and if, in the opinion of the visitors, such valuation should be unjust, appraisers shall be selected and agreed upon by the visitors and the trustees, who shall fix such valuation.

Lands for experimental farms.

254. A portion of said fund, not exceeding ten per centum of the proportion assigned to the Agricultural and Mechanical College, and the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, may be expended, in the discretion of the boards of visitors

of the said respective schools, for the purchase of lands for experimental farms for each of them; and a portion of the accruing interest may be, from time to time, expended by the respective boards of visitors in the purchase of laboratories suitable and appropriate for the said schools.

College incorporated; general powers.

255. The board of visitors of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College shall remain, and are hereby declared to be, a corporation, under the name and style of the board of visitors of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College; and they shall have the right to sue, and be liable to be sued, by that name. They may have a common seal, and shall at all times be under the control of the legislature.

Pay of rector; bond of treasurer.

256. The said board may allow and authorize such pay to the rector, or other offi cer of said college, as they deem reasonable; and they shall require the treasurer, or officer in whose hands the funds of the college may be placed, to give bond in double the amount of the annual income of said college, to the said board, conditioned for the faithful performance of the duties of his office.

Funds to be turned over to visitors by board of education; interest on state debt held by the college, to be paid.

257. The Board of Education are authorized, and hereby directed, to pay and turn over to the said board of visitors, or to their order, all funds received by them for the use and benefit of said college; and the second auditor is hereby authorized and directed to draw on the public treasury in favor of the said board, from time to time, until otherwise ordered, for the same rate of interest as may be paid by act of the legislature to other incorporated colleges or seminaries of learning in the State, on all bonds of the Commonwealth, or guaranteed by the Commonwealth, held by or for such Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College.

HAMPTON NORMAL AND AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTE.

258. The said appropriation to the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute shall be on the following conditions, namely: that the trustees of the same shall, out of the annual interest accruing, as soon as practicable, institute, support, and maintain therein one or more schools or departments, wherein the leading object shall be instruction in such branches of learning as relates especially to agriculture and the mechanic arts and military tactics; and the governor, as soon after the passage of this act as may be, and on the first day of January, eighteen hundred and seventythree, and on the same day in every fourth year thereafter, shall appoint six persons, three of whom shall be of African descent, citizens of the Commonwealth, to be curators of the fund hereby set apart for the use of the said institute, and without the personal presence of a majority of said curators, after a reasonable notice to all of them to be present, and without the sanction of a majority of such as are present, recorded in the minutes of the said board of trustees, no action of said board taken under and by virtue of this act shall be valid and lawful.