lects of their children. It need not be matter of astonishment that the number of properly qualified teachers is annually diminishing, and the ranks filling up with the inexperienced, and otherwise incompetent. It will continue to be so, so long as the great law of cause and effect holds good, unless greater inducement is held out to those who are qualified, by nature and education, to engage in the calling, by a more generous compensation for their services. Teachers are not required, nor should it be expected of them, to make greater sacrifices in the cause of philanthropy, than other classes in society. Their time is money, as much as that of their employers, and they are as richly entitled to a fair and honorable compensation for their labors. Actuated by the same motives with other human beings, they will, as a general rule, seek for that employment which affords the largest pecuniary reward, or, at least, that which holds out the promise of an adequate reward. If they cannot find it in the school-house, they will seek it in the field, the forest, the workshop, the factory, or the counting-room. The necessary consequence of the policy which has hitherto prevailed, to a great extent, in the meagre appropriations for the support of schools, and the payment of teachers' wages, will be, that those best qualified to teach will find more eligible locations in our cities and thriving villages, or turn their whole attention to some other calling, leaving their places to be filled by those whose qualifications are graduated upon the same scale with the compensation. Trade, commerce, the learned professions and the mechanic arts, are inviting upon every side to their embrace, the energy and intellect of the state, and there is just reason to fear, that unless measures are

adopted to encourage and sustain the true teacher, our children must ere long go uneducated, in the true sense of the word, or seek for education from some other source than the public school. The first effectual step towards the attainment of an object so desirable, must be the abandonment of that suicidal policy, which recommends the employment of "cheap schoolmasters," for the sake of "long schools." The second, and without it the first will be of but temporary benefit, must be an advance in the compensation of those who are qualified and compeSuch a measure would operate as a powerful inducement to those who are already qualified, to continue in the calling, and as a stimulus to those who are not, to fit themselves for the faithful and efficient discharge of its duties.

tent.

Length of Schools.

The average number of weeks during which schools have been in operation during the school year last past, is as follows, viz. :

The whole number of children and youth between the ages of 4 and 21, residing in the towns and plantations from which returns have been received, according to

the returns of May 1, 1846, was

121,992

57,542

64,450

51,345

schools in summer,

Being less than the whole number,

The whole number of children attending academies and private schools during the whole, or a portion of the same year, in the towns and plantations from which returns have been received, was

From the whole number of children, subtract those in attendance at public

and those in attendance at academies

3,498 121,992

57,542

and we have as the result, that there were .

60,952

who were not in attendance at any school during the

past summer.

From the whole number of children, subtract those in attendance at public

121,992

70,617

3,498

74,145

and we have as the result, that there were 47,847 who were not in attendance at any school during the past winter.

But the

It is to be remembered, that in the foregoing calculations the tale is but half told;-that the returns upon which they are based, are but from about one half the towns and population in the state, and we have the astounding disclosure that there were, during the past summer, about one hundred and twenty-two thousand children, and during the past winter, about ninety-five thousand, who did not darken the door of a school-house. apologist, if any there can be found, for such apparent dereliction of duty on the part of parents and guardians, upon whom rests the obligation of seeing that their children avail themselves of the privileges afforded by the free school, may say that the evil is not so great as at first sight it appears to be ;-that a large portion of the absentees from school, consists of those who have arrived at the age of sixteen, at which period of life, especially with that class of the community which is denominated the poorer class, a school education usually terminates. Admitting that it is so-a lamentable fact if it be oneafter making a liberal allowance for those who come within this description, there are yet thousands who are unaccounted for; whose interest, future happiness and

welfare, demand their presence at the school-house, but who are sought for there in vain.

Where were they-the future men and women, fathers and mothers, citizens, jurors, voters, sovereigns of the state? Were they under the watchful eye of parents and guardians, engaged in useful occupations, training for usefulness and respectability, qualifying themselves for the discharge of those duties which are soon to devolve upon them in the varied relations of life? or were they not rather rambling about the fields and highways→→→ basking in the sunshine, loitering at the corners of the streets and in the purlieus of the dram-shop, studying the vocabulary of the profligate and the blasphemer, training themselves for scenes of riot and plunder, qualifying themselves for the prison and the poor-house? To those whose lot is cast in the peaceful quiet of the country town, these inquiries may seem the offspring of a diseased imagination;-but to those who have been eye witnesses of the progress of vice and crime in our cities and seaport villages, they are full of fearful import. Should the inquiries which have been thus far instituted, be productive of no other good than that which it is to be ardently hoped will follow from an accurate knowledge of the extent of this evil, I should feel that our labors had not been in vain. The existence of the evil established, its dangerous tendencies, not only to the individual, but to the peace and welfare of the community, will be admitted. Whether it is within the scope or power of legislation to apply a remedy, is a question which I submit to the law-making power. But be that as it may, let the philanthropist, the legislator, the patriot, look at the fearful picture here presented, and say, whether