quently there can be no just comparison of the merit of attendance, estimated as it is upon a variable basis. The question is: Can a uniformity in this matter be attained? After a child has been registered as a member of a school, when, and for what causes, shall his connection be discontinued, and his name be stricken from the roll? How long shall he be considered a member while absent? —a day, a week, a month, or a quarter? Shall the reasons of his absence be taken into the account in determining this matter? In Boston there is one practical difficulty in the way of striking names from the roll immediately on the absence of a pupil; for if the absence happens to be caused by truancy, by discharging the pupil you cease to have any control over him; for, unless his name is recorded as an actual member, his absence is not deemed to be truancy. This difficulty would, of course, occur in all other places in the Commonwealth where the truant law has been adopted.

But notwithstanding the difficulties in the way of securing uniformity in the mode of determining the average whole number belonging, your Committee are of opinion that an attempt should be made to accomplish this desirable object.

We have, in St. Louis, an example which may serve, if not as a model for imitation, at least, as a basis for experiments elsewhere. The rules on the subject, in force in that city, are as follows: —

a. "A pupil may be suspended (not expelled) for a variety of causes, and while under suspension, his name is stricken from the roll.

b. If a pupil has deceased, or has positively left the city, without the intention of returning, his name is stricken from the roll immediately.

C. If his continued absence is caused by his own sickness, his name is retained on the roll for one week, and no longer.

d. For all other causes of absence, and when no cause is known to the teacher, the name is dropped from the record, after two days, if the pupil does not return."

These rules are strictly observed, and the number belonging, the number present, and the per cent. of attendance, are recorded every half day in every department.

These rules will probably be regarded as unnecessarily stringent. Your Committee do not propose to recommend them as the best

that might be devised. But they are presented as the only rules on the subject known to your Committee to be in operation.

If uniformity in this particular should be found to be impracticable, the next best thing would be a statement accompanying reports on per centage, stating the basis on which it is computed.

In the report of Mr. Pennell, above referred to, it is very judiciously suggested, that the meaning of the several headings in statistical reports should be made perfectly obvious, and also that the meaning of headings in different reports should be uniform.

As the article in the Mass. Teacher, above alluded to, has an important bearing on the mode of ascertaining the percentage provided in the State school registers, your committee adopt from it the following extract, as the conclusion of their report:

"It has always seemed very strange to us, that the registers furnished for the Public Schools of this State have been suffered to remain so long defective in one very important item, we mean what may be called the merit of attendance; or, speaking more definitely, the percentage of attendance for those actually belonging to the school.

The registers, as now prepared and kept by the teacher, furnish, in the statistics of attendance, two principal items, the whole number of different pupils, who have been connected with the school during the term, and the average attendance for the same time. From these two items it is, of course, easy to ascertain what per cent. this average attendance is of the whole number. Now, when all the pupils of a school are members of that school for the entire term for which the average is made, this per centage gives the true merit of attendance. But, if pupils enter the school after the term has commenced, or leave before its close, the rule does not give the true percentage of attendance. That is, the percentage of the whole number for the term, is different from that of the number actually belonging to the school.

The truth of this may readily be illustrated by an example, which, for the sake of brevity, shall be upon a small scale.

Let us take the case of a school of four pupils for a term of two weeks. During the first week there are no absences, and of course the attendance for this week is one hundred per cent. One pupil now leaves the school, and is no longer a member of it. For the

second week, while the school numbers three pupils, there are no absences, and the attendance for this week is likewise one hundred per cent. In other words, during the entire term, the attendance has been at the maximum of one hundred per cent. of the whole number actually belonging to the school.

But the per centage of attendance furnished by our State registers would, in this case, be quite different from the above. If the school is in session five days in a week, the aggregate attendance for the two weeks would be thirty-five; and the average attendance three and five-tenths, or only eighty-seven and a half per cent.

We will now apply the same principles to a school for twelve weeks, commencing with fifty pupils. During the first month there are forty absences; and, at the close of the month, four pupils leave and two new ones enter the school. In this month, there are thirty absences, and three pupils leave school. During the last month, there are fifty absences. In this case, the register will give the following statistics: - Whole number of pupils, fifty-two; average attendance, forty-five and two-thirds, or somewhat more than eighty-seven per cent. Calculated as in the first example, for the number actually belonging to the school, the attendance is more than ninety-five per cent.

Now, while the per centage of attendance upon the whole number, as given in our register, is all very well and desirable, why may not, also, the true merit of attendance be shown, as in the examples above? That percentage, for each town, carried into the tables accompanying the Report of the Secretary of the Board of Education, would form an interesting feature of those statistics. It may be calculated for the whole term at once, and the labor of computing it would be very light. Before dividing the aggregate of attendance by the number of days in the term for which the school has been kept, if there have been pupils connected with the school for only a part of the term, we have only to add to that aggregate the time for which such pupils did not belong to the school, or such a percentage of that time as their actual attendance has been of the time of their connection with the school. Will those who give the directions for making up the registers think of this?" Respectfully submitted,

For the Committee, by

JOHN D. PHILBRICK.

THE USES OF FORGETTING.

Few persons, probably, set a higher value upon a good memory than the faithful teacher, and none, surely, exercise it more for the pupil's advancement in the different studies which form what is technically called an education.

From the hour when the child stares with wonder and weariness upon the mysteries of the Cadmean hieroglyphics to the far distant one, when, in the hall of science, he receives his diploma from the imbodiment of learned dignity, this divine and elastic faculty has been in constant exercise. It has carried him across the waste of columns that beautify the pages of Webster, the stupendous arcana that lie concealed under the definitions and refinements of numberless grammarians, the long and useless array of geographical names "unnoticed and unknown," which have burdened, and still burden our school geographies. By its aid he has learned the "rules" of arithmetic, and the facts of the historical manual. Well may he exclaim at the last, "Well, I do n't see how I have ever fagged through it all;" and in mercy he does n't. He, however, sees one thing that he would n't do it again. He enters upon the activities of life. Much of what he has committed is invaluable to him, evermore; much is laid away to sleep the sleep from which there will be no awakening. In fact, the acquisitions of him who has exhausted the school and the university, remind one of those libraries upon whose shelves repose what has been read, is not now read, and never will be read, and the recent additions continually sought for and circulating. The experience of all students is that much is learned which were better unknown; much neglected afterward invaluable.

It is, then, a cheering thought that we can forget; that the useless or harmful acquirements of early years are not to be carried with us inevitably through the period of manhood or age; that the incorrect or crude notions of book-makers and instructors will drop off as we come to see more clearly the real world, and as objects, once scarcely visible, yet inevitable, rise in their true proportions before us, like clouds from the far horizon.

It is a favorite topic with theologians, that a day is coming, when, under some quickening and awfully impressive influence, we shall

all have flashed upon our memory the whole history of the past, including our actions, thoughts, emotions, desires. Whatever part these may play in some future stage of existence, it is certainly no slight evidence of the divine goodness at present, that the clogs of the past are no weightier than they are; and that a principle of action may be impressed from our past errors, without the distress of having always before us what we should gladly forget. In accordance with this thought, it seems wisely ordered that the reminiscences and enjoyments of childhood last longer than those of later years, as they are likewise more unselfish and

pure.

The view, then, which we wish to advance is, that there is not only no advantage in having a perfect recollection of what we have seen and learned in all the past, but, on the other hand, a positive inconvenience. Since the world was, the man great in the bonds of recollected precedents has been the most uncertain of men in emergencies. The farmer who remembers how his grandfather managed his farm, knows something; he who knows how it ought to be managed, knows more. The youth who has learned the list of Egyptian kings, from Menes to Cleopatra, certainly has less information about Egypt than he who has studied the history of Joseph. Thus, in every mind, the more valuable tends to be permanent, the useless to fade away.

Considerations of this character have an important significance to teachers. Nothing is more likely to disappoint expectation than the success, or rather, want of success, which is shown in recalling the results of diligent study and instruction. Often, after a lavish expenditure of time and attention, upon the geography and history, the pupil fails at examination upon the latitude and longitude of Tougataboo, and cannot tell the year when Marius sat amid the ruins of Carthage. The youth in preparation for college forgets, perhaps, the distinction between "non modo" and "modo non,” and in college, possibly pronounces "divido" with the accent upon the penultimate. As in the best trained army all the bullets fired do not kill, so in instruction much lead misses. In both cases some execution is done, and with this, whether generals or teachers, we must fain be content.

What is the general law guiding us in selecting what we forget and what we remember, and what modifications of that law are