► OF EDUCATION 3 



nished one. There is no law that requires a teacher 

 to fill registers which the committee have never fur- 

 nished. May we not venture to express a hope that 

 our committee may hereafter have a chairman that 

 will both know and do his duty ? 



On the third page of Mr. Wadleigh's report the 

 following statement may be found : 



As to the "model classes " of small children in the high 

 school — it may be proper to state that your committee ob- 

 jected in the beginning to the formation of such classes, on 

 the ground that, however desirable they might be in some 

 respects, they would injure the cause of education by creat- 

 ing jealously and discord in the district. They finally 

 yielded, however, to the wishes of the principal and con- 

 sented to the establishment of one class with eight members. 

 Now there are in the high school three classes containing 

 twenty-four members. The main argument used by the 

 principal in their favor was, that they were necessary to 

 carry out a grand experiment which he was making here, 

 which would result in establishing a new method of teaching, 

 called by him the "normal" method, and in supplanting 

 and overthrowing all other existing systems of education. 



As to the weight of this argument, your committee will 

 give no opinion. 



It may be well for our committee to suspend the 

 expression of their opinion, at least until they have 

 seen our classes work for an hour or so, and it may 

 not be necessary for them to say a word about it at 

 all, since an opinion has been expressed so frequently 

 on this point by such men as Pestalozzi, Mayo and 



