ment. Mr. Mann at the next session of the Legislature was able to report the holding of four institutes during the fall of 1845, and to secure by an almost unanimous vote an appropriation of $2,500 for the coming year. George N. Briggs, then governor, was in hearty sympathy with the plan, and recommended it in his message; he with Mr. Mann lighted the fire and swept the room in Pittsfield where the first institute was held. The ninth annual report of the secretary speaks of the institute as if it originated or was invented in New York in 1843. Henry Barnard claims that honor for Connecticut, and in Vol. XV. of Barnard's "Journal of Education" sets forth the plan of a series of meetings held under his direction and at his own expense which were in their aims and general conduct of the nature of institutes. These meetings were first held in 1839 at Hartford; they were adopted in the State of Rhode Island in 1843, and in 1844 were first held in New York, - during the year, in nearly one-half of the counties of that State. Massachusetts and Ohio followed the next year. At first the institutes in Massachusetts were held for ten working days, and $2.00 was paid to each one of the first one hundred teachers applying for admission. They were held in Berkshire, at Pittsfield; in Worcester, at Fitchburg; in Plymouth, at Bridgewater; in Barnstable, at Chatham, — all in counties where normal schools are, or are to be located, two of them in the very towns, the other two in the immediate vicinity, where institutes were first held. These first institutes, were largely attended, the four by over 400 teachers, who had charge during the year which followed, of schools containing 20,000 pupils. The hostility to the first secretary coming from several sources, and especially animated by the repugnance felt by certain schoolmasters to Mr. Mann, on account of his views of methods of teaching and school discipline presented in the seventh annual report, was doubtless counteracted to a considerable extent by the meetings by day, held with this large body of teachers mostly from among the country people, and by evening meetings with citizens of the locality and of the neighboring towns. The general purpose of the institute, which distinguished it from a convention of teachers, was to give continuous instruc tion in a sort of protracted meeting, and to provide for the members instruction of a high order of merit, by supplying superior teachers to illustrate methods of teaching and school management which would be a model for the members in their own schools. The early institutes were intended to be in all respects model schools; the members were treated as pupils; brought with them a reading book, dictionary, atlas, note book and pencil. They were assigned lessons, required to recite, were drilled and tested in the common branches as they would be in an ordinary school. Among the persons who conducted the classes were the secretary of the Board, Wm. B. Fowle, Thomas Sherwin, Geo. S. Hilliard of Boston, Miss Caroline Tilden and Mr. Cyrus Pierce of Newton. Later S. S. Green the grammarian, Arnold Guyot the geographer, Herman Krusi the master of drawing, Louis Agassiz the naturalist, Wm. Russell the elocutionist, and Lowell Mason doctor of music, were employed. As these passed out from service, others, as Dana P. Colburn, Sanborn Tenney, Lewis B. Monroe, Miss Melvina Mitchell, J. W. Dickinson, Walter Smith art master for the State, Wm. H. Niles and others took their places and continued the work. The number of institutes reported by secretary Boutwell to have been held, up to 1860, was 126, an average of a little less than eight per year from the first. The institute came by degrees to be less and less like a school; otherwise, for the first sixteen years to the time of the secretaryship of Mr. Joseph White, there was no essential change from the original plan of work. The time, however, for which the institutes were held, had decreased to five days when Mr. White became secretary; during his secretaryship it decreased to three and finally to two days. In the meantime they were much more generally scattered over the State and more frequently held in the smaller towns. The advent of Mr. John W. Dickinson as secretary, was signalized by some important changes in the conduct of the institutes. Their length was soon reduced to one day, with one or two evening meetings. The plan of work was unified and extended. The principles of teaching were presented by the secretary as an introduction to the exercises which were to succeed, and which were intended to (1) give in the several branches presented a general outline of the branch with its topical arrangement, (2) to show the method of teaching it, and (3) to illustrate the method by applications. The institutes were taught in two grades and many of them in three, primary, grammar and high school. Under these changes in time and method, the number of institutes held during the year was increased to twenty-five or thirty. The exact average per year for the past seven years is 26.57. To adapt the work to the present standard of teaching and to the broader courses in the elementary schools, less stress is put upon elocutionary reading and more upon teaching beginners to read, and more upon showing how they may acquire a taste for good literature through what they read. Drawing has been more fully illustrated, as well as more systematically taught, than before; it has been correlated with other studies. Nature study, for its own sake and for the occasion it gives for the use of drawing and for written and spoken language, has recently had a prominent place in all the institutes. Otherwise than as above indicated, the instruction continues to embrace the common school branches taught in elementary schools, and adds for the high school grade algebra, geometry, English history, physics, and other studies of the grade. The annual attendance upon the institutes embraces from one fourth to one third of all the teachers employed in the common schools the present year, more than one third, the full attendance being 4,640. It is believed that the institutes exert a large influence in instructing and stimulating the teachers, and in familiarizing superintendents and school committees with the principles of teaching and with the advances which are constantly making in the devices pertaining to the art. The institute, though not indigenous to our soil, has reached the best phases of its development through our Board of Education and its secretaries, and has always had the sympathy and support of the school teachers, school officials, and, through the Legislature, of the people. So long as teaching continues to be a progressive science, which it is always likely to be, the occasion will exist for gathering teachers together to get instruction and inspiration. The objects which I desire in this report specially to commend to the consideration of the Board as necessary to the highest success of the schools may be recapitulated as follows: I. The system of school supervision by superintendents should be made to include all the schools of the State. II. The truant laws should be made more effective: (1) by employing a State officer to aid the local truant officers in enforcing the laws; (2) by transferring from the towns to the State the charge for the truants' board while in the truant school. III. Teachers of competent ability should be provided in sufficient numbers to supply every school in the State. As one means to secure this end, the taxation for the support of schools should be more equally levied upon the property of the State. My observations for the past year justify the confident hope that with the changes above suggested the schools may be expected uniformly to reach something like the high standard of excellence which many of them have already attained. Respectfully submitted, WEST NEWTON, Dec. 31, 1894. GEO. A. WALTON. |