EDUCATION. 177 



pufils, and parents would have a very salutary 

 effect. By them, the parents should be obliged to 

 make their weekly payments regularly, inclusive of 

 the time their children are kept from school without 

 reasonable cause. They should also be obliged to 

 provide such books and other requisites as the 

 teacher may direct; for they now furnish such as 

 they please, or as may be most convenient for them 

 to procure, causing such a diversity, that the teacher 

 is prevented properly classifying his pupils, thereby 

 greatly retarding their progress, and giving consider- 

 able additional trouble to the teacher. So badly do 

 the parents supply their children even with slate- 

 pencil, that frequently a class is called up for 

 exercise, and it is with much delay and difficulty 

 that a sufficiency can be found in the whole school 

 for that particular class. 



In the schools, with few exceptions, books and 

 other school requisites are much needed and required. 

 In every school there are orphans and other children 

 whose parents are too poor to provide them. The 

 XlVth Section of the Act relating to Public Schools 

 provides that orphan children may be sent by the 

 vestries to the several schools receiving aid from 

 the Treasury, and that the teacher to whom the 

 order is sent shall receive and educate the same. 



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