ing system, and is furnishing much valuable experience for the students, especially for those whose earlier school experiences have been obtained in city schools.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

Along these lines much advance has been made. Mr. Weed has extended the gardening work in both the normal and the training schools. New gardens have been planted on the grounds back of the school, each student having been allotted a certain area for cultivation. Inside gardening is being carried on extensively in both the normal and training schools. The Bartlett school boasts of a very good "nursery," and the children are preparing, during the winter months, for extensive home gardens in the spring and summer. A "cold frame" is one of the possibilities of the near future.

Much attention is being given to working in brass by Miss Chute, and the results are both artistic and practical.

In the training schools, manual and industrial training are being taught from the third to the seventh grade, and it is hoped to increase the extent of this work by the introduction of sewing into the seventh, and cooking into the eighth and ninth grades, with bench work for the boys of those grades. All of this work is under the direction of Miss Nancy Bragg.

LECTURES.

Lectures have been given during the year by Mr. Henry T. Bailey and Mr. Frederic L. Burnham.

The graduating address was given by Rev. Thomas I. Gasson, S. J., President of Boston College.

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION.

The alumni association continues to grow in numbers and enthusiasm. In fact, the attendance was so large last May as to necessitate the use of the main study hall, in order that all might be seated. The annual meeting has become one of the "red-letter" events of the year.

GIFTS.

The graduating class presented the school with a large photoenlargement of the late principal, Mr. Frank F. Coburn.

IMPERATIVE NEEDS.

Under this heading it seems proper to quote from last year's report:

With the beginning of the eleventh year it is hoped that a special appropriation will be made for the interior of the building. The walls and ceilings have never been colored, and as time has gone on, the ravages of wear and tear have left their marks upon every room."

This is still true,

to be added.

with one more year's wear and tear

The woodwork on the outside of the building is in very bad condition, where "wind and weather" have done their work only too well. It should be painted at once.

The school has never possessed a flag pole. One should be purchased, and erected upon the grounds early in the spring.

STATISTICS.

1. Number of students for year, 144.

2. Number in entering class: junior, 79. 3. Number of graduates for the year, 65.

4. Total number of graduates, 603.

5. Whole number of students admitted since the opening of school, 941.

6. Average age of pupils admitted, 17 years, 7 months.

7. Of the entering class, Middlesex County is represented by 8 towns, Essex County by 3 towns, Lowell furnishes 23 pupils; Lawrence, 29; Chelmsford, 5; Woburn, 4; Methuen, 4; Somerville, 3; Groveland, 3; Billerica, 2; Reading, Bradford, Westford, Manchester, N. H., Salem, N. H., Concord, N. H., 1 each.

8. Occupation of pupils' fathers: merchants, 12; farmers, 6; operatives, 6; foremen, 5; clerks, 4; carpenters, 4; machinists, 4; firemen, 3; agents, 2; bakers, 2; forester, janitor, florist, motorman, mason, conductor, currier, gunsmith, millwright, editor, detective, paymaster, painter, iron moulder, granite cutter, watchman, horseshoer, each 1; deceased, 14; total, 79.

THOMAS B. FITZPATRICK,
KATE GANNETT WELLS,

Board of Visitors.

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, NORTH ADAMS.

FRANK FULLER MURDOCK, PRINCIPAL.

TEACHERS.

From the opening of the school, Feb. 1, 1907, to Dec. 1, 1908, 94 different persons have been members of the faculty. Forty-three teachers who gave instruction to normal students withdrew, 12 marrying, 22 accepting positions as instructors in other normal schools as supervisors, as principals of training or large elementary schools, or other positions of larger opportunities, and 9 resigning on account of health conditions of self or family. Nineteen teachers who had charge of classes of children only in the training schools withdrew, 5 marrying and 14 securing positions of more responsibility and remuneration.

Of 94 members of the faculty from the beginning, 35 are graduates and 3 hold certificates of this school; 14 were assistants to other teachers, 10 had independent charge of classes of children and 14 advanced to the professional instruction of students in practice teaching.

The faculty at present numbers 32, of whom 10 are responsible for professional theory of subjects, 16 for professional practice with children and 6 for classes of children only. Ten graduates of the school are members of the faculty, 6 of them having come, after ample experience in other schools, to full charge of classes at the training school. The use of the training schools to prepare graduate teachers rapidly and thoroughly for positions of larger responsibility and higher remuneration is no small factor in the success of the institution.

INDUSTRIAL COURSES.

Educational officials and the general public have made very numerous and hearty commendations of the industrial training given the students and children. Every student receives definite practical instruction in sanitation, cooking, sewing and the various other forms of manual training. Special courses are offered to prepare teachers of these industrial arts in elementary schools. In the training schools the work of the children in sewing, cooking, sanitation, wood and metal working, basketry, printing, etc., is opportunely used by the students. To them result more lifelike acquaintance with children's interests and

abilities, truer valuation of the relative worth of hand and book work, keener insight into present-day problems of home life, more practical ideals and greater facility in personal adaptation.

During the past season the planting of the school and home gardens was under the general direction of Mr. R. W. Guss, in charge of the science department. The individual gardens, 5 by 15 feet, of the normal students were made and cared for in the usual way. They were highly productive of experience and knowledge; they furnished summer food, fall flowers, products for exhibition, plants for fall and winter use, and a never-failing source of delight to every passer-by.

At the Mark Hopkins training school the children of grade 4 made sixteen grass gardens, each 10 by 20 feet, planting wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, blue grass, buckwheat, timothy, red top, orchard grass, alfalfa, red clover, white clover, alsike clover and field corn, Dent and Flint. Autumn lessons included the field study of the standing crops, of harvesting, of individual grains; the uses of seed and stalk; the annual or perennial duration of life. In the schoolroom, processes were measured by arithmetic, extended by geography and appropriately expressed by the language arts. Grades 5 and 6 conducted individual gardens, growing vegetables and flowers. Harvesting and the selection of seed were emphasized in the autumn lessons. The kindergarten children planted as usual, and their early lessons in reading as members of grade 1 were based on their spring and fall experience in the gardens.

At the Broad Brook training school the grammar class (fourth, fifth, and sixth grades), with slight assistance, made ready and planted two bulb beds and induced the purchase of nearly five hundred bulbs by the people of the district. They also made and fenced in a flower garden, 6 by 20 feet, the sod being turned by a neighbor. The grounds at this school are now being graded. The active, living interest of the teachers in the pupils and parents, by means of the industrial work, has brought about the social result desired, and made very clear the duties of a normal school as to preparing teachers to meet the communal needs.

At the Briggsville training school, situated in a small mill