year, but in towns having a specified low valuation the term may be reduced to twenty-eight weeks. High schools must be provided with courses at least four years in length and must be continued at least forty weeks in each year. Graded schools throughout the State are organized generally on a basis of a thirteen years' course, with annual promotions. Frequently the first three grades are organized by themselves into primary schools in separate buildings. The next six grades form the, grammar schools and the last four the high schools, Selection and pay of teachers.-The local school committees have full power to appoint and discharge teachers. Annual election of teachers is the prevailing custom, but committees are authorized to elect "to serve during the pleasure of the committee," and in Boston and some other cities teachers are so elected after serving a prescribed number of years, and enjoy permanence of tenure. Support of the schools.-Schools are supported mainly under the general law"Towns shall raise by taxation money necessary for the support of public schools." The amount raised by local taxation is supplemented by State aid in some towns. A few small local funds are also available. In Boston the amount to be raised for school purposes is limited by law to a fixed ratio of the valuation; elsewhere it is unlimited. Conveyance of children.-In some towns neighboring small schools have been consolidated; in some others all the children are brought to one central building. Local supervision.—In each town and city the schools are in charge of an elective body called the school committee. Women may vote for members of this body, and women may also serve on it. The members are chosen for three years, one-third retiring annually. Every town and city, either alone or in a union district with other towns, is required to employ through its school committee a superintendent of schools to have the care and supervision of the schools, under the direction and control of the committee. In order that all the towns may enjoy the benefits of professional supervision, small towns are required to unite in districts and employ a superintendent. III. SCHOOL ATTENDANCE AND TRUANCY. The period of required school attendance is between the ages of 7 and 14. Children between these ages must attend all the time the schools are in session. For the care of habitual truants the counties are required either separately or jointly to maintain county truant schools, to which boys may be committed after conviction, on complaint of a truant officer. Truant girls are sent to the State Industrial School for Girls. IV. EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN. No child under the age of 14 years may be employed in any factory, workshop, or mercantile establishment. No such child may be employed for wages during the hours when the schools are in session, nor before 6 o'clock in the morning, nor after 7 o'clock in the evening. No child under 16 may be employed without an age and schooling certificate approved by the superintendent of schools. THE EXHIBIT. An educational exhibit may serve several purposes. It may show the best written work of the best pupils, as an agricultural exhibit shows the best corn and wheat. It may show an educational plant, schoolhouses, grounds, apparatus, etc. It may show courses of study and methods of instruction. It mav show statistics of work done, of growth and development. It may show methods of school organization and administration. In general, it may show what the people of a community or State believe to be worth doing for school children and what they believe it to be worth while for children to do in school; for we have come to understand that children can do many different things well and with some advantage to themselves and the community, and that the crucial question in public education is, On what things and for how long time shall school children be employed during the hours that they are in school? The Massachusetts exhibit served all these purposes, but its emphasis was laid upon school organization, courses of study, and means and methods of instruction. It was not primarily an exhibit of fine penmanship, though penmanship was treated as an important school exercise. It was not specifically an exhibit of drawing, though drawing was represented as holding a high position among the several studies taught in the schools of Massachusetts. It was not an exhibit of manual training, though several excellent courses of study in this department were shown. It was not a collection of pretty exercises made by pupils and teachers for exhibition at the World's Fair; happily, their day has passed. In a general way the things represented by the exhibit may be classified and described as follows: 1. School organization, shown by reports, charts, and printed pamphlets. 2. School architecture, shown by photographs of school buildings. 3. Courses of study, shown by printed pamphlets, descriptive charts, and illustrative exercises selected from the written work of school children. These were shown in the wall cabinets, 114 in number, which lined the walls and filled the alcoves of the exhibit booth, and formed the most prominent feature of the exhibit. 4. Illustrative school apparatus, designed and made by school children. This was placed in show cases and on exhibit tables. 5. Manual and industrial training models, including sewing, made by pupils, arranged in logical order and numbered serially. These were placed on the walls of the booth above the cabinets, in show cases, and in drawers beneath the exhibit tables. 6. Bound volumes of class exercises prepared and copied as special World's Fair work. 7. Bound volumes and pamphlet cases of class exercises, original drafts, prepared as regular exercises without the knowledge of anyone that they were to be used for exhibition. 8. Bound volumes and pamphlet cases of class exercises prepared as in No. 7, with corrections by the teacher, followed by revised copies made by pupils. 9. The exhibit of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. 10. The exhibit of the ten State normal schools. 11. Exhibits of the Lowell Textile School and of the Massachusetts Nautical Training School. 12. The exhibit of free public libraries in Massachusetts. The special circulars sent out to superintendents and principals called for exhibits as follows: 1. School architecture, buildings, laboratories, equipment, heating, ventilation, etc., shown by photographs, plans, etc. 2. School organization, rules, regulations, etc. 3. Courses of study, in brief and in full, illustrated by the written work of pupils. 4. First drafts of written papers, regular daily work. 5. Corrected written work, regular daily work. 6. Special exercises prepared for special occasions. 7. Hand work of pupils, made to illustrate subjects of study. 8. Portfolios of drawings. 9. Portfolios of photographs. 10. Manual training models, numbered in series and attached to screens. 11. School exercises of any kind that show orderly development, theories of instruction, and principles of method. 12. Original investigation of educational problems. 13. Office equipment. 11. Homemade apparatus. 15. Administrative blanks. The response to circulars was not general, and most of the material exhibited was obtained by the personal solicitation of the director. The following cities and towns contributed to the exhibit: Athol, Auburn, Becket, Boston, Brookline, Chester, Clinton, Everett, Fall River, Fitchburg, Gardner, Georgetown, Groveland, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, Malden, New Bedford, Newton, North Adams, Northampton, Orange, Pepperell, Pittsfield, Revere, Somerville, Springfield, Sutton, West Brookfield, Weston, Winthrop, and Worcester. Among the most prominent and valuable features of the exhibit were those representing the Massachusetts Agricultural College and the State normal schools. The agricultural college occupied a large space in the educational exhibit and was also the most prominent donor to the State exhibit in the Palace of Agriculture, while it contributed generously to the general exhibit of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations collected and arranged by the United States Government. The normal schools, under the advice of the director, took, in general, a single branch of study each, and showed the method in which the study is pursued. In this way no duplications were made, and the collective exhibit gave a satisfactory view of normal school work in the State. Of the cities and towns the following deserve especial mention: BOSTON. The exhibit of the city of Boston formed a part of the Massachusetts exhibit. It was limited in space and therefore had no room for ornamentation beyond that which was furnished by the work itself. While it was in harmony with the rest of the State exhibit, which was simple, but effective and beautiful, it was filled to every inch of space with charts-graphic and statistical-and with work direct from the schools, and every part generously illustrated and aided by photographs. The wall space allotted to Boston admitted of the close placing of 24 cabinets, and 6 more were placed in the center. Though apparently restricted in space as compared with other large cities, yet every subject of school work, of both day and evening schools, was shown in detail, from the kindergarten through the normal school. The work of the evening drawing schools was vividly and systematically arranged on the outside of the booth. The work was exhibited by subjects. The first cabinet contained the kindergarten work; the next 11 cabinets the elementary nature study, geography, arithmetic, history, music, physical training, drawing, language, cooking, and manual training; the next 10 the high school work in English, literature, history, commercial branches, botany, zoology, physiology, drawing, mathematics, physics, chemistry, foreign languages, and the work of the Mechanic Arts High School; then one cabinet showing administration and public lectures; one cabinet for normal school work; one for work of the Horace Mann School for the ED 1904 M-58 methods of school organization The Massachusetts exh In a genera' described as f 1. School freeing elementary, evening al about 4.000 square feet. Below containing note books and timewa shere; and beneath these were shelves for 18nd ladiestrial work of the vacation and evening nets were panels containing the shop work of the day. wed the entire space. On the wall above the panels were €* ex löst was designed for the convenience of educators who ******e it and the number who spent hours with notebooks in hand dla February each master was requested to send in work in whatve wom of the arrangement. Every school in the city was Je should choose. Most of the work had been done in the regular putine and was simply copied on the proper paper for uniformity. Pr the work thus sent in a committee of teachers selected that which would "feature of the exhibit was that it represented the regular work of the schools cover the course of study and arranged it in proper order. The most important The papers and photographs in the wall cabinets exemplified the course of study and the 200 volumes showed the quality of the work by classes. Equipment, methods, and material that could not be shown otherwise were shown by photographs. Two methods of teaching reading in the first grade were shown by series of photographs. The glass door of each cabinet held a large photograph appropriate to the work contained in the cabinet. The aim of the photographs was in every case to make clearer the work of the schools and not for ornamentation. The graphic charts in the administration cabinet showed plainly the school organization, the growth of the schools, the relative number of male and female teachers, the course of study and relative amount of time given to each subject, and, in fact, nearly everything that the student of education would 2. School 3. Cours illustrativ were sho the alco exhibit. 4. II' was pl 5. A arran walls exhi 6. Fai pa be W 7 of the city. desire to know. graphs representing school architecture. Springfield gave a complete repre Somerville Worcester had a full representation of elementary and high school work, full exhibit of school work in all departments, with a large number of photofilling six "units" and covering a large wall space. New Bedford presented a sentation of her work in the evening school of trades, a fine exhibit of high careful and complete representation of her courses of study in language, drawing, sent a masterly representation of the work of her English high school, with school work, and a fully illustrated course of study in arithmetic. and penmanship. Brookline showed a complete course of study in manual and her kindergartens. Lynn sent a full exhibit of work in arithmetic and a training. Lowell showed the work of her evening schools, her training school, representation of her work in manual training in her English high school. The features of the Massachusetts exhibit which attracted most attention tion of the highest standard of exhibition work, the exhibit of nature study by from visitors were the Boston high school exhibit in language, a fine representawork shown by the training school of the Hyannis normal, the exhibit of the the practice school of the Bridgewater normal, the correlated school and home State library commission, and the exhibit of the evening school of trades, Unique features were the exhibits of the Lowell textile school, the nautical training school, the educational centers of Boston, the work of vacation schools in Boston, the high school organization from New Bedford, the designs from the Springfield. erville high school, the sloyd training school, and modern methods in ergarten. .n general, it may be said of the Massachusetts educational exhibit that it Jowed fully the present attainments of a State school system which gives the largest possible local freedom in the management of schools, attainments which, in the minds of her citizens, justify the confidence which has been given to them from the founding of this ancient Commonwealth. MISSISSIPPI. BY T. L. TRAWICK. THE EXHIBIT. This exhibit was collected by Prof. T. L. Trawick, then residing at Crystalsprings, Miss., and though hurriedly gotten together was a very fair representation of the Mississippi educational system. The State department was represented by six very elaborately prepared charts, five showing the statistical side of educational matters. The colleges were very meagerly represented, the agricultural and mechanical being the best. The colored colleges of Alcorn and Tougaloo were exceedingly well represented. The following high schools were represented: Crystalsprings, Greenville, Corinth, Jackson, McComb, Hattiesburg, Wesson, Grenada, Canton, Meridian, Columbus, Brookhaven, Learned, Utica. The high school exhibits were excellent, especially the one from Crystalsprings. The work of this school was arranged according to a plan adopted by the Washington, D. C., schools at Paris in 1900, and was composed of photographs of pupils at work in school. Jackson also had a fine exhibit of manuscript work. Among the private schools the work displayed from French Camp and Blue Mountain College was excellent. Mississippi's booth was well arranged and her exhibits were tastily displayed. MISSOURI. BY G. V. BUCHANAN, SUPERINTENDENT. THE EXHIBIT. The space allotted to Missouri for her educational exhibit consisted of a strip of floor space 30 feet wide and 140 feet long, lying near the main entrance to the building. This space fronted on the main aisle and extended back between 15-foot aisles. Immediately across one of these aisles was the exhibit of the city of St. Louis, occupying an equal area, and just beyond the St. Louis exhibit was that of the State university. Thus the Missouri educational exhibits presented a continuous front on the main aisle of the building of 105 feet, with an extreme depth of 140 feet. For the purpose of collecting and arranging this educational exhibit the State |