MASSACHUSETTS. 



517 



to naturalize foreigners be not restricted to the 

 Supreme and Superior Courts. He also re- 

 marks : 



1. There are very many more officers and salaried 

 agents and employe's in the Commonwealth than are 

 necessary to do its business. 



2. They are paid, on an average, quite one half 

 more than the salaries for which competent persons 

 could be obtained to do the same work, or which are 

 paid in other like business by employers in the 

 State. 



After reviewing the subject of education, he 

 says: 

 The deductions which I make from these facts are : 



1. That we have schools for special classes which 

 draw from our general school funds, which should be 

 for the use of all alike, by far too much. 



2. That the salaries of the principals in most of the 

 higher schools, teachers, and supervisors are very 

 much more than they ought to be. Or, to use other 

 words to express my meaning, higher than other like 

 business pays, and higher than the sum for which 

 equally good services could be, and are, obtained. 

 As a rule, salaries do rise, but rarely or never lower ; 

 and the larger the salaries the more surely this rule 

 works. 



But this is not true of the teachers in the lower 

 grades, of whom more than 84 per cent are women, 

 whose salaries, in comparison, are by far too low, be- 

 ing, as we have seen, only 44 per cent of the salaries 

 of men. 1 believe that the best teachers are wanted 

 for the lower grade schools, and that a woman who 

 can teach successfully such schools does the most ser- 

 vice to the State, and ought to be correspondingly 

 paid therefor. 



Not till after the children of the whole people are 

 furnished with opportunities to have the rudiments at 

 least of an education, such as will best fit them for 

 the positions they must occupy and the statistics 

 show that 91 + per cent of them have gone from school 

 to their avocations in life at the age of fifteen should 

 the higher branches of education be given to any, and 

 -when given, equally to all, only so far as they can 

 "be afforded within the limits of proper, nay, gener- 

 ous taxation. 



To state my views in another phrase : as a preven- 

 tion of pauperism and crime, to fit our people for suf- 

 frage, use all the educational force of the State, edu- 

 cate the masses up to a certain necessary point. The 

 classes above will and ought to educate themselves 

 up to a still higher point. 



Do not take the common fund and give it to the 

 few, or have it expended in such a manner that all 

 can not equally enjoy its advantages, and, above all, 

 have that expenditure an economical one, and not pav 

 low salaries to the teachers of the many, and high 

 salaries to the teachers of the few. 



Eestrict the branches taught in the primary schools 

 by law specifically to spelling, reading, writing, gram- 

 mar, arithmetic, geography, history preferably of the 

 United States and require that those shall be taught 

 upon the same system, to the same grade of scholars, 

 in every common sohool in the Commonwealth. 

 When the scholar can show by an examination that 

 he is well grounded in the elementary English branch- 

 es, then let him be admitted to a school of higher 

 grade, where line-drawing for industrial purposes 

 shall be taught, book-keeping, algebra, geometry, the 

 rudiments of the Latin and French languages, chem- 

 istry, physics, with natural philosophy in a rudi- 

 mental degree ; and there a common-school education 

 should stop. 



PAETT CONVENTIONS. Early in August the 

 Prohibition State Convention was held in Bos- 

 ton, thirty -nine cities and towns being rep- 

 resented by one hundred and fifty-five dele- 

 gates. The following nominations were made : 



For Governor, Charles Almy, of New Bed- 

 ford ; Lieutenant-Governor, John Blackmer, 

 of Springfield; Secretary of State, Solomon 

 F. Boot, of Douglas; Treasurer and Receiver- 

 General, T. J. Lothrop, of Taunton ; Auditor, 

 Jonathan Buck, of Harwich ; Attorney- Gen- 

 eral, Samuel M. Fairfield, of Maiden. 

 The platform adopted is as follows : 



Resolved, 'That at no time hi the history of prohibi- 

 tion has there been more genuine cause for rejoicing 

 at the awakening of the public conscience respecting 

 the enormous evils of the liquor-traffic, as indicated 

 by the multiplicity of expedients resorted to in efforts 

 to render the business less desreputable. 



Resolved, That any party, however honored in the 

 past, if it have no longer a leading issue to present 

 and have done its work, has no longer a claim upon 

 the suffrages of the people, and has no right to live ; 

 according to precedent it ought to be superseded. 



Resolved, That every party ought to be judged by 

 the soundness, the magnitude, and the moral weight 

 of its principles, and its honest purpose to apply them 

 faithfully to the wants of society. 



Resolved, That we challenge the naming of any issue 

 so grand in its moral significance, or so demonstrably 

 practical in its relation to the deepest wants of our 

 Commonwealth and our nation, as that which consti- 

 tutes the central principle of our party platform. 



Resolved, That the royal right of suffrage, the sa- 

 cred ballot, ought not upon futile pretext any longer 

 to be directed to channels where no issue is and no 

 moral principle pertaining to our cause holds sway, 

 but should, in the hands of men and women, by di- 

 rect methods give expression to solemn protest against 

 the wrong and advocacy of the right. 



Resolved, That an intelligent review of the past fif- 

 teen years should satisfy every lover of the cause of 

 prohibition that State officers, however excellent in 

 reputation and professed principle (though they serve 

 as a decoy for the votes of temperance men), can not 

 be relied upon for securing temperance legislation in a 

 party that handles our cause as a matter of policy. 



Later in the same month the Greenback State 

 Convention met in the same city, and nominated 

 Benjamin F. Butler for Governor, with a full 

 State ticket. 



The Democratic State Convention met like- 

 wise in Boston on the 19th of September, and 

 nominated the following ticket : For Governor, 

 Benjamin F. Butler, of Lowell; Lieutenant- 

 Governor, Samuel W. Bowerman, of Pittsfield ; 

 Secretary of State, David K. Skillings, of Win- 

 chester ; Treasurer, William A. Hodges, of 

 Quincy ; Auditor, John B. Sweeney, of Law- 

 rence ; Attorney-General, George F. Verry, of 

 Worcester. 



It put forth the following platform : 



The Democrats of Massachusetts, in convention as- 

 sembled, believing that the time has fully come when 

 many needed reforms of government should be boldly 

 undertaken, invite the co-operation of all liberal and 

 progressive citizens in the good work of initiating a 

 new political departure, alike in the State and in the 

 nation, that shall resolutely discard dead issues and 

 courageously grapple with the live issues that have 

 too long been postponed, and we offer to them, as a 

 platform worthy of their acceptance and support, the 

 following declaration of principles. We assert 



1 The supremacy of the nation, within constitu- 

 tional limits, and the integrity of the State an indis- 

 soluble Union of indestructible States. The Constitu- 

 tion and all its amendments strictly construed and 

 loyally obeyed form the basis and safeguard alike and 

 equally of the just authority of the Federal Govern- 



