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Description and Holding Information
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Board of Educaton. Abstract of school returns, <1832>-
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**Abstracts for 1832 and 1833 supplied by the Secretary of the Commonwealth. Subsequently, the abstracts are provided by the Board of Education
(<1838-39>- ) in far greater detail.
**House No. 5 Abstract of school returns, reported by order of the House of Representatives. [compiled by] the
Secretary of the Commonwealth. With no preamble, the tables began: Abstract of school returns for 1832. It was arranged by county, then town with
columns for Amount paid, Number of school districts, days in school taught by a male teacher, days in school taught by a female teacher, number of
students, number of private schools, number of private school students, pay for private school teachers, number of young person over 14 who were illiterate,
Remarks. Quite often, remarks indicated that parents paid extra for extended instruction. Only 99 towns returned the form.
**In 1833, the same
data categories were listed. Only 85 towns responded, and the Secretary provided a list of those who failed to comply.
**Abstract of the
Massachusetts school returns, 1838-9. Boston : Dutton & Wentworth, 1839. At the request of the Board of Education, Horace Mann [famous educator] prepared the
abstract which he dated December 25, 1839. First he discussed the task. Returns came in from 298 towns and full reports from 170 towns. Some
submissions were only statistics, but others had many pages of thoughtful discussion, so he chose five headings to reflect the data: 1. Formal introduction and
statistics 2. Comparisons 3. Evidence of condition of schools 4. Mature views of school committees 5. Testimonials from parents who were grateful for
their children's opportunity. He decided to include more material from categories 3-5 rather than 1-2. He observed a sad situation in which many
schools had to close because of the incompetence of the teacher; this was a problem that could be corrected by better training for teachers. There was
an interesting paragraph that pussyfooted around some sort of sexual topic--perhaps the lack of toilet facilities at most schools. At this point, he
included two pages of local reports as examples of what had been turned in. From Page 1-326, the data was set up first with Boston and then by county
and town. The data points were population, valuation, number of schools, number of students, average attendance, number of children in town, number of
school days each year, number of teachers, average salary with and without board, tax money available to the schools, contributions to the schools,
such as firewood, number of local academies or private schools, list of textbooks, remarks, and members of the school committee. Some entries included
selections from reports of school committees. Pages 327-340 was a recapitulation by county; on page 341 were the aggregate numbers for the
state.(Digitized from a microfilm copy of title originally held by the Massachusetts State Library).
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Title:
Abstract of school returns : reported by order of the House of Representatives.
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OCLC Number:
847833534
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Available Volumes
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