1862-1863 School Committee Report

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8 the high standard which is there set before them. The con- stantly increasing attendance at the examinations shows that this interest of the pupils is reflected in the minds of their friends. We trust the people will cherish an institution which brings the benefits of a high culture within the reach of all classes, and not suffer it long tolabor under the disad- vantages of a kind of tenancy at will. DIPLOMAS. It has been the aim of the Committee, for several years, to bring the studies of all the schools into a settled and defi- nite course. It is now three years since we began the work by marking out a scheme of studies for the class then entering the High School. The members of the class which has just left, though not taking up the course in the precise order in which it has been arranged for the succeeding classes, have attended to all the required branches ; and so may be regarded as the first that have gone through the full course of studies prescribed in our schools. To give to such pupils, on com- pleting their course, some formal certificate which will be to them in after -years a pleasant reminder of their school -life, as well as an evidence of scholarship and character, is a custom certainly not unreasonable in itself, and yearly becoming actu- ally more general. It falls in with our wish to make the edu- cational course of our children a complete thing, which they and their parents will be unwilling to break in upon by need- less interruptions, or premature quitting of the schools. With this view, we procured a suitable form of " diploma," and presented to the eight members of the class who left the school at the end of the year just past. COURSE OF STUDIES. For the information of the people, we adjoin a statement of the studies prescribed in the several grades of our schools ; remarking, that all the studies under the head of Primary and 9 Grammar Schools are of course included in the work of those schools where there is no such subdivision. PRIMARY. — Reading : Primer, Sargent's First and Second Readers. Spelling. Writing. Primary Geography : Colton and Fitch's. Greealeaf's or Eaton's Primary -school Arith- metic ; Colburn's First Lessons, as far as section sixth. GRAMMAR. -- Reading : Sargent's Third and Fourth Readers. Spelling : Worcester's Elementary. Writing : Pay- son, Dunton, and Scribner's series. Geography : Colton and Fitch's Common -school. Arithmetic : Colburn finished ; Ea- ton's Written Arithmetic to Involution. Grammar : Tower's Elements and Parsing. HIGH ScHool.. — First Year. — Reading : Fifth -class Reader. Analysis and Parsing. Spelling and Definition by written exercises. Eaton's Arithmetic finished. Botany : Gray's How Plants Grow." Smith's . Astronomy begun. Hill's Geometry. Second Year. -- Reading and Analysis. Astronomy finished. Tenney's Geology, Davies's Elementary Algebra. Latin, or Review of Arithmetic and Supplement. Exercises in writing abstracts. Third Year. — Natural Philosophy, Geometry and Tri- gonometry. Latin. Book-keeping allowed as a substitute for Latin. Reading. Exercises in writing abstracts and compo- sitions. Fourth Year. — Chemistry. Worcester's Elements of His- tory ; select portions. Latin : Virgil. French. Compositions. Declamations. Trench's Study of Words." One day each week is usually allotted to general exercises, in which the whole school take part, which are of various kinds, adapted to draw out the faculties, to stimulate inquiry and investigation, and to promote general intellectual vitality. We do not regard this course as perfect or permanently set- tl ed, but, on the contrary, hope to make improvements from time to time, especially by adding to the extent of the course pursued in the lower schools. As remarked last year, we consider it desirable that the Grammar Schools should afford to 2 1