supply to these boys that softening and refining influence so essential to their healthful education.

Another question will soon press upon the representatives of the people in regard to this school. Its rooms will soon be crowded to their utmost capacity and a demand will arise for larger accommodations. Will it not be wiser, instead of enlarging this institution, whose numbers are already too great for the reformatory work, to provide another school of another grade to which the pupils of this school may be transferred when their reformation has so far progressed that a less narrow confinement and more free employments may be allowed them, In Europe, where the subject of reformatory education has occupied the attention of philanthropists for many years, there have been established agricultural reform schools in which the pupils, while laboring daily and earning their own support, are instructed in the art and, to some extent, in the science of agriculture. It is found that when these pupils have completed their course, their services are eagerly sought for by the farmers, and thus they enter at once upon remunerative and honorable labors. It is the opinion of those now connected with our State Reform School that, could a suitable farm and buildings be provided, many of the boys now in the school might be profitably transferred to it. This would both relieve the school from the danger of becoming too crowded, and would enable the Board of Control to. retain the boys under their care till they should be fully confirmed in their reformed habits and good principles.

EDUCATIONAL FUNDS.

Of the primary school lands, there were sold during the year ending Nov. 30th, 3,614.19 acres, for $14,456 76. The total amount of the primary school fund at that date, was $1,698,851 14. The receipts on account of this fund, were $21,278 22. The receipts on account of primary school interest fund, from the holders of part paid lands, were.. Receipts of interest due from State,...

.$64,574 01 49,451 96

Total income from int. for year ending Nov. 30,..$114,025 97

Apportioned to the schools, May 15,.....

....

..$103,457 30 The income of University fund for the year ending Nov. 30, was $37,048 42. Of the University lands there were sold during the year, 360 acres, for the sum of $4,320.

Of the Normal School lands there were sold during the year, 80 acres for $320. The income of the Normal School fund for the year, was $4,207 10.

SCHOOL LAWS.

A considerable number of the sections of the school law were amended by the Legislature at its last annual session. These amendments were published in the volume ́of session laws for 1861, and also in the Journal of Education, then sent to the districts. In order to give them to the district officers in a more permanent form, the amended sections are re published in the appendix of this report. There is included also, section 140, which was, through a mistake, omitted from the volume of school laws, published in 1859, it having been supposed that this section was repealed by the Legislature. The repealing section having never been engrossed and presented for the Governor's approval, did not, of course, take effect, and accordingly section 140 remains still in full force as law.

GENERAL REMARKS.

In closing this annual review of the progress and condition of our school interests, and in casting a glance, once more, upon that vast mass of childhood, crowding to these schools for discipline and instruction-an army of children already more than two hundred and fifty thousand strong-embracing onethird of all the souls in the State-there arises before me two grand departments of our school work whose neglected importance demands more than a passing notice. I refer to the physical training and moral culture of our children. As was remarked under a previous head, the main question concerning our school system is not as to its beauty or grandeur as a system, but as to the actual work it accomplishes-the amount

of true education it gives to the children, and the numbers of educated men, and good and intelligent citizens it contributes to society. But it is evident that no mere training of the intellect, and clearer still, that no mere instruction in a few branches of learning, will fulfill these aims and make the system worthy the great labor and expense bestowed upon it. And especially will it fail in its work, if through any defect in its methods of organization it shall impair the physical vigor or moral uprightness of its pupils. What the State asks from its schools is not merely able arithmeticians, but able bodied people-not only splendid scholars, but also virtuous and high minded men, modest and noble hearted women, citizens whose honesty of purpose shall make them better than the laws, and whose love of country shall made them its strongest defences.

I. The physical education of the pupils of our public schools is too important a matter to be longer neglected. It has often been asserted by intelligent physicians, that our entire school arrangements are unnatural aid, therefore, by necessity unhealthy. The confinement of children six hours a day in school is certainly in broad contrast with the ordinary life of childhood. Watch but an hour the unresting activity of a child at play. Racing, leaping, rolling, chasing butterflies, trundling hoops, tossing his ball, flying his kite, constructing mimic houses, digging miniatnre caverns, fishing with a crooked pin, flinging stones at the birds with harmless aim and guileless heart, driving tandem teams of his harnessed playmates, playing soldier with a wooden musket, and mimicking with a most tireless industry all the employments of men if not all the motions of beasts, birds and fishes. And in all this he does but obey the great law of his physical system. Under nature's teaching, he is getting that education of the body, that trained use, and healthful development of every muscle and nerve and tendon, that are needed for his seventy years of happy living and successful toil. Now follow this same child to the school room, and see him seated in constrained stillness on his hard bench, his eyes fixed in silence upon his book, and almost the slighest

noise or motion checked by a reproof or threat from the teacher. Who shall measure the torture that must come from this sudden repression of all the natural instincts, or tell the terrible and blighting diseases that will take root in this abrupt suspension of the natural activity, and gushing energies of childhood, unless some relief be found in a well devised system of physical exercise for schools?

The necessities of education compel, it is true, the noiseless confinement of children in the school room. No other practicable method presents itself for their instruction in large classes. But this necessity, however imperative it may be, cannot change the laws of physical health and growth, nor defend the children from the penalties incurred by their violation. Whatever remedial provisions religion may make for the souls of men, there has been, as said Horace Mann, "no atonement made for the stomach." The health ruined and lost in a schoolroom is as fatally gone as if wasted in a grog shop.

Although the evil effects of the confinement of the schoolroom, often exhibit themselves in the frequent headaches, and the diminished bloom and vigor of the children, it is probable that their most fatal results do not generally appear till late in life. The dyspeptic stomachs, the nervous disorders, the curved spines, the neuralgic torments and carly decay of the bodily powers, are only the ripened growth of the seeds sown in childhood.

It would be sad indeed, if all this evil was an inevitable result of our system of education; if we were shut up to the terrible alternative of either remaining in comparative ignorance, or of sacrificing the health of our bodies to the culture of our minds. But happily no such necessity exists. The remedies are easy and always accessible.

1st. Let the school-room be well ventilated. This is to be secured, not as some seem to think, by an opening, or ventiduct, for the escape of vitiated air; but also by some contrivance to introduce fresh air. However ready bad boys may be to escape from school and leave their places vacant, bad air

has never developed any such disposition, and we can only crowd it out by bringing in fresh air to supply its place. A small opening made under the stove, and connected with the open air, by a pipe leading under the floor, would not only furnish a supply of fresh air by the draft created by the stove, but would introduce it where its chill would be removed and the comfort of the room not be destroyed.

2d. Let the recesses be made longer, and more active. The five or ten minutes allowed to each sex, might, with a decent arrangement and separation of the two yards, be increased to twenty minutes, to be given to both sexes at once; and the teacher, being thus left free to seek the play-ground, also, might direct to more healthful sports, while his presence would restrain from the evil words and quarrelsome tempers that now go unrepressed.

3d. Let the exercises of the school-room be interrupted, as often as once at least, each hour, by some physical drill: clapping and whirling of the hands; extension and retraction of the arms vigorously and in various directions; tossing around the school, from one to another, small bags of beans; and in small schools, marches, accompanied with school songs. u some cases also, where the schools are not too large, an occasional adjournment to the fields or groves, or a short excursion to some object of interest and instruction, will both add a new charm to the school life, and afford a healthful relief from the confinement.

But whatever the means adopted, the health, and even the progress in study, of the pupils, demand that the teacher shall exercise a constant and unslumbering care for the physical well-being of his pupils; and he should be as solicitous to present, on examination days, healthful bodies as to exhibit cultivated minds, or great acquisitions of learning, in proof of his faithfulness and skill.

II. The subject of Moral Education demands even more urgently, the attention of all friends of our public schools. The great ends of education, whether to the individual or the