APPENDIX W.-THE SCHOOLS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND NEW YORK STATES.

During the month of March last, Mr. G. K. Mills, B.A., Public School Inspector for North Simcoe, paid a visit to the schools in Massachusetts and New York. He has been good enough to allow the Education Department to publish in the Minister's Report for the present year a very interesting and valuable account of this visit. Mr. Mills is probably the first Ontario educationalist who has given special attention to the rural schools in Massachusetts and New York, and his observations and conclusions are especially seasonable and valuable at a time when the Education Department is taking the first step in the re-organization of our Public School System, by improving the salaries and qualifications, and the equipment and accommodations of the rural schools in particular.

Massachusetts is not an agricultural state in the sense in which the term is understood in Ontario. Throughout the western part the Berkshire Hills are every where from 500 to 800 feet high. After leaving them the railroad crosses the valley of the Connecticut River and continues through a succession of low hills until it reaches Boston. If one is to judge from the number of stone fences, the country must have been covered by small boulders brought down by glacial action, and when the forest was cleared the work of removing these stones must have been enormous. Even when cleared of these, the soil is thin and stony, only a few inches covering beds of coarse gravel or the solid rock. No wonder that the opening of the enormous fertile tracts of the central and western states brought about an exodus from the New England states which removed most of the agricultural population. To-day these hills are overgrown again with small timber and about the only indications that much of the state was once farmed are the stone fences running through the woods, the gnarled old apple trees, and the cellar holes which indicate the location of houses that have long since disappeared.

But Massachusetts has become a remarkably wealthy manufacturing state, and this has also contributed to the depopulation of the rural districts. It is true that around the towns and cities every attempt is made to win produce from the soil to supply the necessary market truck and milk, but even with the high prices received, the cost of artificial manures which must be liberally supplied to the soil so reduces the profit that to our Ontario farmers it would look as though these people were hardly making a living.

The division of the county in Massachusetts is called a "town" not a "township" as with us. This town is irregular in shape and size, but would probably average 4 by 5 miles. The term "town" includes not only the district but the village or town that is situated in it. Each "town" (or township) is a unit and is independent of every other town and to a great extent of the state, in matters of education and government. The people do not elect a council as we do and leave all expenditure in their hands. Every town holds an annual meeting in March, in the town house, and in the "warrant" calling the meeting, notice is given of all the business that will come before it. At this meeting the citizens vote all appropriations of money for roads, streets, lighting, schools, etc. Every ratepayer has a right to take part in the discussions and to vote on these appropriations. It is a veritable village-moot. At the same meeting, or at an adjourned meeting held in April. three (or more as the town may decide), "selectmen" are elected to superintendent the expenditure of the money voted for roads.